Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

As many observers have pointed out, the phone handsets that many of us carry now exceed the power of the laptops we were carrying not all that long ago. The much-hyped Galaxy Nexus, for example, includes a 1280x720 display, 32GB of flash storage, 1GB of RAM, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, and a number of interesting peripherals never found on that old laptop. And, of course, there is a Linux kernel running the whole thing. Given that, one might well wonder why one should still bother carrying a laptop around. Canonical, it seems, believes a number of people are wondering that; thus the announcement of Ubuntu for Android, an interesting attempt to move laptop-based activities onto the handset.

Ubuntu for Android is intended for handsets that can be docked and will, thus, have a keyboard, mouse, and display available. In that setting, it will provide the usual, Unity-based Ubuntu experience on that external display; the Ubuntu system essentially runs inside its own container on top of the Android kernel. The interface on the handset itself, meanwhile, remains pure Android. So Ubuntu for Android can be thought of as providing two distinct personalities for the device. There is some data sharing between the two - the contacts database, for example - but they remain mostly separate from each other. Rather than create a single integrated interface to the handset, Canonical has made something closer to a dual-boot system - except that the two can run simultaneously on their respective displays.

According to Canonical, the split system is the best solution:

Even a well-equipped phone does not have vast amounts of storage by contemporary standards. But even with more storage, it seems likely that users of Ubuntu for Android would want to have their files available outside the handset as well. So it is not surprising that this system is cloud-heavy. So there is no LibreOffice by default; instead, the system expects to use the Google Docs service. It does provide Thunderbird, though one might imagine that its storage-intensive indexing has been disabled by default. For good measure, Ubuntu TV has also been built into the system.

The hardware requirements (found on the features page) rule out a lot of devices, but are certainly not out of line for a current high-end device. Ubuntu for Android wants a dual-core CPU (clocked at 1GHz or higher), video acceleration and the ability to produce HDMI output from a secondary frame buffer device, and 512MB of RAM. The need for a dock for the phone to provide HDMI and USB ports is implied; few devices have the requisite connectors without a dock. As Canonical points out, the hardware requirements are easily satisfied by devices that are in development now.

So Ubuntu for Android seems like a useful and feasible development. The unfortunate part is that it is not available for users or developers to play with. Canonical is clearly hoping to sell this offering to device manufacturers and carriers; as this page makes clear, shipping it will involve per-unit royalties. Canonical clearly believes that vendors may find those royalties worthwhile, though, as a way to sell more high-end devices:

Canonical also pitches the idea that a bundled Ubuntu desktop will drive demand for fast broadband offerings (LTE, for example) from the carriers. And they claim that it could be especially attractive in parts of the developing world where high-end handsets are being sold to customers who have never owned a computer before. Such people, Canonical says, have "no legacy attachment to the desktop" and will find a combined offering compelling.

This reasoning may make some sense; it is possible that hybrid, handheld Linux-based systems will bring about the year of the Linux desktop after all. But there are a couple of concerns worthy of note. One is that users may quickly tire of having two different interfaces to the same system, leaving Ubuntu for Android vulnerable to a competing system with a more integrated experience. One can imagine, after all, that, if this idea goes anywhere at all, there will be Windows- and Mac OS-based variants available in short order - and, perhaps, other Linux-based implementations as well. Some of these systems may look like less of a hybrid and, as a result, be more successful.

The other concern is that Canonical appears to be taking a step toward proprietary systems. If there are plans to offer this functionality directly to users, or to enable it to be bundled with a distribution like CyanogenMod, Canonical has not disclosed them yet. Instead, we have a system that, by all appearances, will only be available in binary form from manufacturers or carriers. Source for GPL-licensed components will naturally be available, but it is far from clear that Ubuntu for Android will be all free software; vendors like Citrix and Adobe feature prominently on the product's page. It is also not clear that device owners will be able to modify the distribution to their own liking and run the result on their devices. A handset or tablet that can run a full Ubuntu system has some appeal; one running a locked-down Ubuntu system would be rather less exciting.

Ubuntu for Android is clearly an important step in the evolution of the "desktop" away from traditional personal computer systems. It has a lot of potential as a practical replacement for bulkier systems. But, to be commercially successful, Canonical will have to convince a lot of people that the Unity-based desktop is what customers want. And to be successful as free software, it will have to result in free systems under the control of their owners. It will be a sad day if the Ubuntu community of the future is focused on the creation and propagation of tools to jailbreak their Ubuntu systems.

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Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 21, 2012 23:30 UTC (Tue) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link] (17 responses)

Per-unit royalties? Really?

I'm certainly all for developing new business models around open source. But, seriously, they're definitely not going to benefit from any sort of grass-roots support here.

I'll want my phone to repeat the same hack, but I'll likely wipe their partition out and put my own.

As for handset manufacturers, I'm not sure their customers are chasing them down asking for "Ubuntu" or any sort of "Linux Desktop". We know where that route leads ...

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 0:38 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (guest, #74652) [Link]

As for handset manufacturers, I'm not sure their customers are chasing them down asking for "Ubuntu" or any sort of "Linux Desktop". We know where that route leads ...

Sad but I think you have a good point. I personally would like to have my Fedora, and Ubuntu fans probably do not like a crippled version either. The only customers who would be satisfied with the locked down OS are those you mention here.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 7:00 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link] (13 responses)

I think the article is mixing the trademark usage license fees (commercial usage using the Ubuntu trademark has always been subject to permission from Canonical) and customization/integration service fees to actual code. Or it at least makes it easy to jump to wrong conclusions (and jumps into "expect the worst" conclusions itself).

I find it a bit unfortunate that both in case of TV and Android announcements the first reactions have been "but there is no code!!", "now Canonical finally became that proprietary monster!!", and the only reason for this is because their press release and marketing talks about business, not code. The features and business value sells (to most parties), not the fact that the code is or very soon is free software.

It would be a welcome change if people would actually expect the best instead for a change and be happy about new business prospects for free software.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 11:31 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (10 responses)

It seems most people rather have proprietary software on phones than open-but-not-perfect stuff. I can't explain the hostility to things like this in any other way.

I might be an openSUSE guy in many ways but I am very happy with this, applaud Canonicals move and hope they are successful. If we get a proper, reasonably open linux desktop on millions of systems, WTF are we doing if we go and bash on the company doing it just because they're not doing it EXACTLY how we want it?!?

Hostility?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 14:25 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (9 responses)

Interesting, Jos...where have you seen hostility? Hopefully not in my article; I just dedicated a feature slot to this on a moment's notice because I thought it was interesting. I did raise some concerns - this wasn't meant to be free advertising for Canonical - and I still think there is some validity to those concerns. But I wasn't hostile.

Looking around, I've not seen a whole lot of others being hostile either. What unhappiness exists is mostly of the "I wish I could actually try this," which is a very different thing.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 17:43 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (guest, #33164) [Link] (8 responses)

Karim seems rather unhappy with the idea of per-unit royalties, at least... And Canonical has taken quite a beating over a number of other things. Indeed, on LWN the tone is usual civil (unlike on many other forums or compared to what you hear from people in person) but it still feels to me that people often bang harder on those who try but aren't 'perfect enough' than on those not even bothering... Did android not get a severe verbal beating?

And no, it's surely not LWN.net which is unfriendly - your reporting is usually very balanced.

... maybe I just read more negativity in Karmi's comment than there was :D

Hostility?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 18:48 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link] (7 responses)

FWIW:
1) I'm not LWN (nor represent them in any way).
2) there's no reason we all have to agree.

I'm surprised by the per-unit royalties and my first gut reaction is to say that they won't get any grass-roots support because of that.

I think it's a very cool technical hack for sure.

However, I still don't see where the demand is coming for this. Maybe as a white-label desktop for handset manufacturers. But, unless I'm missing somethning, the "Ubuntu" branding has ZERO value in the mainstream market. If it were "windows" or "macos" it would've been an entirely different story.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 2:08 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link] (6 responses)

I doubt that there is a demand for "Ubuntu". Clearly though, Canonical thinks there might be some excitement about the ability to have a "portable desktop" embedded in their phone.

Why not beat the Windows and Mac teams to satisfying that demand if you think it is there?

At the very least, they might raise their profile and history as a credible supplier to the kinds of companies that might enable Ubuntu TV or whatever consumer vision they pursue next.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 2:48 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (4 responses)

well, since Android is running a linux kernel, it's a lot easier to add in a linux-based userspace like Ubuntu than it would be to add Windows or Mac userspaces.

now, nothing stops Apple from doing a similar thing with their idevices, or Microsoft doing something similar with their windows phone offering.

but Android has a much broader manufacturing base to do this sort of thing with.

So no, I don't think there is a demand for "Ubuntu", but I don't think it matters.

RedHat is no longer interested in the desktop (at least on a commercial basis) and there really aren't that many companies competing with Canonical for this sort of thing, so who else is going to put the effort in to this sort of OS market?

Hostility?

Posted Feb 25, 2012 20:40 UTC (Sat) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (3 responses)

Who else?
Google that's who else.

Any cloud heavy desktop experience is fully inside of Google's long term plan. ChromeOS is not the last best hope for Google. They will keep plugging away at cracking open the cloud heavy desktop concept and turning it into a real market. If an Ubuntu branded dock accessible desktop experience layered over an Android kernel ends up gaining traction, Google would be incredibly stupid not to followup with a competing technology as part of Android itself. And Google is not stupid.

If Canonical gets any traction with that it at all in the short term with any OEM shipping an Android phone, its just going to lead to Google rolling competing functionality into a future Android version. Given a choice between Canonical and Google to provide feature enhancements to Android phones... who is going to win OEM mindshare a year out from now?
Any environment UI layered over an Android kernel is pretty much well inside any forecastable functionality vector for Android itself. I'd actually a little shocked if Google and OEMs weren't already talking about something similar to this for the next gen of stupidly powerful phone hardware. I'm pretty sure Google could get a more traditional linux desktop up and running if their was a market interest in it. Canonical just needs to prove to them there is interest, and then Google will steal the OEMs back. Canonical's parasitic desktop offering is in a very precarious situation. Betting that Google can't out compete you on their own phone seems a pretty risky bet to me. Maybe Canonical is at the point in the gambling addiction where they need to take bigger risks because they need to score big to win back their mounting losses.

And let's be honest about the timescales here. This is going to take a year+ to really see traction as a deliverable. Is any OEM going to stand by Canonical for the year+ to gain traction without also badgering Google and encourging them to field a competing offering? OEMs are pretty shrewd when it comes to cost control, they have to be to make any money selling devices.

And we haven't even seen developer models for hardware with this feature yet. Well other than last year's Motorola Atrix concept and its weird lapdock idea and man even I totally missed that thing when it was first announced. Oh yes that was Ubuntu powered OEM dockable desktop interface offering. And it went mostly unnoticed. The fact that we are here nearly a year later talking about what looks like the same underlying integration that we didn't find interesting last year says some remarkable things, about the market and probably about the contractual relationship between Motorola and Canonical concerning the Atrix. Are we ready for this concept this year? Or is this still more visionary than what the market is ready to actually put on retail shelves at a pricepoint people will pay for?

-jef

Hostility?

Posted Feb 25, 2012 20:53 UTC (Sat) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

ChromeOS side-by-side with Android? I can see that. Interesting idea. And yes, that might actually have some legs.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 26, 2012 0:56 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

I think that Google is far more interested in the capability existing then in writing/controlling it themselves.

They started Chrome because Firefox wasn't doing a good job, the competition has caused Firefox to shape up significantly

they started Chrome OS because nobody else was working on an OS that would fit a similar niche, If Canonical does a good job with something like this, I don't see any reason for Google to try to crush it, I think it would be more likely that Google would instead try to support it. Google gets almost the same the benefit without having to do all the engineering, and more importantly, the support work.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 28, 2012 21:05 UTC (Tue) by ceplm (subscriber, #41334) [Link]

No, Google started Chrome project to have a platform they can control and improve upon.

Hostility?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:55 UTC (Thu) by daglwn (guest, #65432) [Link]

> Canonical thinks there might be some excitement about the ability to have
> a "portable desktop" embedded in their phone.

I have wanted this for a couple of years, simply for the portability factor. I love my netbook but it is something I need a bag to carry. A phone I can just put in my pocket and dock it when I need to.

Now, this doesn't help me when I want to work on the bus, but this plus a pico projector and roll-up keyboard just might. :)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 12:00 UTC (Wed) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, firstly, that's not true - the openness of Android is one of the big selling points for Android handset manufacturers because they know the code can't be taken away from them, and they're able to hack their own stuff into and onto it however they wish, so even looking at this as a business pitch to OEMs, not to us, openness is something of value to the intended audience.

Secondly, even if that weren't the case, it would cost nothing to add a sentence to the end of the press release saying that the code would be open - it doesn't have to be the focus, it doesn't have to be a problem, but if you choose to leave it out entirely people are going to wonder why. In the case of Canonical, they know this, so it looks all the more strongly as though that omission must have been deliberate, and with a reason behind it.

Product deliveries and free software contributions

Posted Feb 22, 2012 16:36 UTC (Wed) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

I think you're right, but the target audience is what probably still explains the delta to expectations. I'd say the existing brand image of Ubuntu comes bundled with enough of freedom and openness so that it's enough to emphasize the other values in the press release. Ie. openness is something that is a pre-condition for making it possible to do some stuff, but it in itself is of no value to the target audience (or anyone) if there not something else of value as well. The word 'free' is mentioned in the the About Canonical section, though.

In the web material on the other hand it's clearly said the code is GPLv2/GPLv3, although with the doubt-causing "generally" word, unless the per-device fees mentioned earlier already made people to run away since they didn't realize it's related to using the trademark, not a software license fee.

But also in the more general case that there would be some proprietary parts somewhere, I welcome all products that bring more of the free software infrastructure to the new sectors like mobile area, to power us to create 100% free products as well like Spark.

This is related to the other discussions in the past like Jon is probably referring to as well. There seems to be a subgroup of people who are vocal about something not being 100% free software, while they are not actually that interested in free as in freedom software but getting companies to serve just them gratis. Likewise here, I don't think we can require Canonical to serve us CyanogenMod images to various devices unless there is a business case there, but if we get code that enables us to integrate Ubuntu to CyanogenMod or Replicant ourselves, then that's a huge service. What I applauded before (https://lwn.net/Articles/467725/) was Corbet's Android 4.0 release article (https://lwn.net/Articles/467464/). It highlighted both the good and the bad of Android. We should more often concentrate on the good and not only the bad that comes from our need to be ever vigilant. And actually mostly now the reaction to Ubuntu for Android has been exactly that, "cool stuff" reaction.

And yes the discussion has digressed pretty far, I wonder if that's good or bad. It's bad in the sense that it gets confusing to understand what's related directly to the article at hand, but good in the sense that wider issues get discussed.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 18:13 UTC (Thu) by kiko (subscriber, #69905) [Link] (1 responses)

Canonical's OEM engagements are almost always based around a per-unit royalty. That doesn't mean that the software won't be made open source -- in fact, Jane says so in the article Daniel linked to in the next thread.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 18:20 UTC (Thu) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

Looking forward to peeking at that code. Any idea where that'll be posted?

Thanks,

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 21, 2012 23:32 UTC (Tue) by dholbach (guest, #53300) [Link]

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/373024/canonical-puts-ubuntu-...

"Silber said Ubuntu for Android would be released under an open source license, but that Canonical expects it to mostly be pre-installed on specific hardware."

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 21, 2012 23:56 UTC (Tue) by smadu2 (guest, #54943) [Link] (7 responses)

I wonder if using an Android tablet/phone connected to a monitor with a mouse and keyboard would give user much better experience than using a desktop OS running under 512 MB RAM (Ubuntu min requirement which IIRC requires atleast 1GB of RAM). Mobile applications are already tweaked to be resource friendly.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 0:28 UTC (Wed) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (1 responses)

There are already quite a few “solutions“ that do this. They are all rather poor. As was stated in the article, Android is designed around a touch interface which doesn't easily translate to keyboard and mouse input

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 16:00 UTC (Wed) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

Combining a physical keyboard and monitor (but no mouse) with a tablet is feasible (Bluetooth or USB work, even on an iPad, via the Camera Kit) and in fact quite a few iPad users do this, mostly when they want to actually write something significant.

I'm looking at this for someone who is finding even a locked down PC too complex (multiple tabs and windows create great confusion), and needs more of a kiosk/tablet type experience.

For a smartphone, Ubuntu for Android may make sense, but for tablets you might as well use the native tablet apps on the tablet screen, and just add a keyboard as needed.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 3:29 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (3 responses)

This is just the beginning. For a first start, it's ahead of the curve and probably of little practical use yet, but it won't be long before this will be the standard. Throw in a pocket projector for display and keyboard, or a HUD, or anything similar, and it will be the future. I for one will jump on this as fast as I can ... as soon as it can run standard Linux with utilities of my choice. Why carry around a laptop when my phone can do it all? Might need a bigger battery, but it still won't be near the size of a laptop.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 10:47 UTC (Wed) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link] (1 responses)

Actually, I want pool-able compute power, so that I can carry round my phone, plug it into a dock and use the same session and programs across a larger computer system. I think it's feasible at the moment with a VM solution where your hypervisor migrates the running VM from one host onto a larger host. Perhaps the tools to do this will flow down from the cloud computing setting.

K3n.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 21:59 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

You can use NUMA for CPU/memory hotplug, no need for a VM.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:57 UTC (Thu) by daglwn (guest, #65432) [Link]

This is exactly what I've been thinking for a few years now. But I want Debian and no Android. :)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 4:33 UTC (Wed) by anthonywong (guest, #75023) [Link]

At this moment I can tell you that the answer is 'no', I have a dock with my Asus transformer prime and find that many android apps are just not designed to work with keyboard and mouse. Simple things like select text/copy and paste or various usual hotkeys are not implemented or don't work well.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 0:10 UTC (Wed) by pataphysician (guest, #73773) [Link] (3 responses)

Isn't this is just a chroot linux distro, which has existed for Maemo, Meego, WebOS, and Android for awhile?

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 9:20 UTC (Wed) by misc (subscriber, #73730) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, there is also a android emulator ( the one demoed 2 years ago ), and likely some hack around SurfaceFlinger and X/Wayland/whatever to share the display ( and I wonder how it does work), as well as proper symlink or mount -o bind ( to access data outside of the chroot ), maybe some interface for the sound too ( ie, pulseaudio speaking to the audio daemon of android ), and various integration with android dbus services.

So there was some work done for integration, even if the whole idea was already demoed and done by hobbyists.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 14:41 UTC (Wed) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]

"Shared kernel driver with associated X driver; Open GL ES/EGL"

Sharing kernel driver with android/X would seem a rather complex solution. And depends on the goodwill of the proprietary code vendors. Would seemingly make more sense to create xorg-server-android which exposes whatever 2d-acceleration/opengl-es/video codecs the android phone already supports.

As bonus point you could then sell the xserver as an independent Android app in the market for the small group of users who want to run X11 apps remotely on android.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 11:08 UTC (Wed) by mgedmin (guest, #34497) [Link]

"Isn't Ubuntu just a Linux distro, which has existed before, e.g. Debian?"

Integration and polish have value, and there's a difference between a chroot that can be set up by power users and getting a working system out of the box. Although it isn't clear to me yet that this is what will happen here.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 0:16 UTC (Wed) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203) [Link] (14 responses)

And I notice one feature that is notable for being missing. No ability to access Android applications on the Ubuntu desktop. SInce it is already running the Android kernel it really should be possible to make it work. Yes, the whole point of this exercise is taking advantage of the fact most Android apps do not work well on a large screen with a mouse and keyboard but not all apps have a desktop replacement and thus no easy way to access the information within other than fiddling with the phone in it's dock.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 0:42 UTC (Wed) by aryonoco (guest, #55563) [Link] (9 responses)

Have a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&...

The ability to run Android apps in Ubuntu mode is well supported. Also sharing of data (pictures, movies, contacts) seems very seamless as well. It even integrates with the telephony stack of the phone, allowing the user to use SMS, make calls, or use the phones' data connection in Ubuntu mode.

I would actually say that for an alpha product that has been just announced, it seems very well done.

By the end of the year, we will have dual core ARM Cortex-A15 processors in high-end phones, far more powerful than the current generation of Cortex-A9s. Such a massive jump in performance will unlock many new usage scenarios and running a full desktop environment on a phone a might become a reasonable possibility. Motorola's Webtop has shown that there is great interest in such a concept, but Moto's implementation suffers greatly from limited functionality and lacklustre performance. A full Ubuntu desktop running on a high end Cortex A-15 smartphone might indeed prove an interesting concept, and provide a useful differentiating factor for an OEM.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 1:50 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link] (8 responses)

Wait, pause that, yeah right there. That part of running Android apps in Ubuntu ... how the heck are they pulling that off? Any dox anywhere on that?

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 3:31 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (1 responses)

Android apps are just java. There should be no problem running them outside of Android, given the right libraries. I believe the Android SDK includes all that.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 4:13 UTC (Wed) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link]

> Android apps are just java.

Not quite. They're written (mostly) in Java, but they're not Java apps per se, as they compile to different bytecode and run on a different VM (Dalvik, not a JVM.)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 6:28 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

Probably they run them on the Android side and just use rendered surfaces.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 15:14 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link] (2 responses)

I'd love to see the code for that.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 22:07 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link] (1 responses)

Well you have only one graphics driver, and it's on Android's side, so that implies SurfaceFlinger is the ultimate compositor and Ubuntu is just one object (albeit using the full second screen), correct? Having the Android app display on top of the Ubuntu desktop is then just a compositing issue: "blit that window on top of that framebuffer at that position".

Please let me know if I'm talking BS :-)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 22:14 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

Your guess is as probably better than mine. I'd just like to see how that code does it.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 11:10 UTC (Wed) by mgedmin (guest, #34497) [Link] (1 responses)

I assumed it was a VNC-like solution of some kind when I looked at that video earlier today.

Now all I can see is "This video has been removed by the user. Sorry about that."

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 15:15 UTC (Wed) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

Hmm. Yeah, VNC might be it. But it's hard to tell.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 10:24 UTC (Wed) by zyga (subscriber, #81533) [Link] (3 responses)

This feature is not missing. Look at OMG Ubuntu video demo. You can access all android apps from the docked Ubuntu, running on your big screen (in a window of the same size as your android screen is)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 22:50 UTC (Thu) by jmorris42 (guest, #2203) [Link] (2 responses)

> in a window of the same size as your android screen is

Ok, so half credit for that then. At least you can get at info locked away in an App even if it can't take advantage of the larger screen like a tablet could.

Still not sure what I think about this whole notion though. If you have to be docked to run the Ubuntu apps why not just have a real desktop CPU and let it get access to the phone info and/or connectivity when it is connected via USB or even WiFi? You lose the slow flash drive and the pokey low power ARM chip and gain a big 'ol x86_64 with a fast HDD or SSD and a smoking (bottom end integrated Intel graphics competes well with most SoC phone graphics) video card.

I mean, lots of points for cool factor, just not sure how many points for utility. If the dock can be really inexpensive and phones get a little more capable (which of course they will) it might work for some basic infoworker level desktop tasks but what workplace is going to give those people a state of the second smartphone with an LTE contract? Really? Just not seeing the labor demographic being targeted. Cheap Dell desktops and either basic smartphones... or better just call their existing phones and don't hand out phones at all vs state of the art smartphones and wireless data contracts with enough transfer to think about desktop replacement use?

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 23:35 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

> I mean, lots of points for cool factor, just not sure how many points for utility. If the dock can be really inexpensive and phones get a little more capable

I think it's a given that phones are going to get a lot more capable

as for the dock being inexpensive, for my tablet, all I need is a HDMI cable and a keyboard (either USB or bluetooth), how much cheaper do you need to be?

the other advantage is that if you use your android device as your computer, you can use a public dock without any real worries about malware stealing or destroying your data (yes, someone can make a malicious keyboard or mouse, but that's a targeted attack on a particular physical location, not something in the same class as what can happen to a public use desktop machine)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 24, 2012 6:26 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link]

How about the convenience of buying one $600 dual or quad core machine that doubles as your phone and your desktop?

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 1:18 UTC (Wed) by jiu (guest, #57673) [Link] (7 responses)

The whole idea seems too complicated for the average Joe. I'm ready to bet it won't appeal to any but the geekiest 0.1% of the population.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 5:32 UTC (Wed) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (6 responses)

The IDEA hardly seems complicated. Plug your phone into monitor/keyboard/mouse and use it like a normal computer.

The difficulty lies in the implementation and making it a seamless experience whilst providing the benefits of the monitor/keyboard/mouse setup

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 7:23 UTC (Wed) by timoph (subscriber, #71883) [Link]

Yep. this is something that I want to see happen. The ideal setup for me would be that one for example just puts the phone on a wireless charging pad and the monitor, keyboard, etc. are automagically configured for you and the UX for bigger screens pops up on your screen.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 11:28 UTC (Wed) by jiu (guest, #57673) [Link] (4 responses)

I didn't explain myself well, what I meant is that most people who have the sort of phone that will be able to run this already have a computer or 3, they don't need this. And their current computer setups are probably more capable than half a phone. It seems to me like a case of wanting to extend the range of uses of a phone beyond its natural bounds, a bit like a coffee-making swiss knife if you will.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 12:19 UTC (Wed) by danieldk (guest, #27876) [Link] (2 responses)

That analogy goes a bit too far. A smartphone is just a small computer with better connectivity. Outside calling, people use smartphones/tablets for very similar tasks: playing games/music/movies, sending messages, typing documents, giving presentations, etc.

Vise versa, people have started to use computers to call (Skype, Facetime, et al.).

There's a lot to say for creating one device that properly handles all tasks. I for sure know many people who would love to replace their phone/laptop/PC/mediacenter with one device and some docks.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 13:30 UTC (Wed) by bats999 (guest, #70285) [Link] (1 responses)

A smartphone *should be* a small computer with better connectivity. Right now there are too many compromises; hopefully that changes soon. My biggest concern would be a deluge of proprietary hardware solutions, docks, etc. that will fragment the "platform" for the next few years.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 17:11 UTC (Wed) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]

I think the most important thing here is the 'docking' and peripheral standards/protocols.

I'm envisioning:

* wireless charging - just set the phone on the right surface

* wireless keyboard and mouse (bluetooth is sufficient, I guess)

* wireless display (isn't Intel working on this?)

* wireless networking

This way I only have to walk up and set my phone down, the screen comes alive, I grab the mouse and I'm online before I can click anything.

I perhaps should explain "wireless networking" - I'm wanting a wifi connection, or even shorter-range connection, that gets me from my phone to a wired link. A mini-WAP that perhaps integrates into the monitor and has a cat5 cable heading to the LAN.

I definitely don't want to be plugging in and unplugging a million wires, prefereably zero! And I don't want cell-data speeds or charges to apply when I'm "docked" - it's got to be dead simple.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 13:08 UTC (Wed) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link]

Yeah, they have one now. But in the future I can certainly conceive of quite a large class of users that would be happy just purchasing a phone/monitor/dock combination. It is extending the range of the phone and it is very forward thinking. These are good things in my opinion. There are a growing number of people happy enough with tablets for daily computing and this product targets that market. Those people certainly aren't the geeky minority.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 9:32 UTC (Wed) by Aissen (subscriber, #59976) [Link] (3 responses)

I'm suprised to see absolutely zero mention of the Motorola Atrix. A year and a month ago Motorola demoed exactly this concept at CES and shipped it two months later. It's commercial success wasn't as high as expected (understatement), but it shipped. Atrix 2 shipped 7 months later.
What Motorola was pitching back then was the "full" webbrowser experience on a phone. With a custom-built Firefox, you could access all your bookmarks, and maybe a bit more. How is it implemented ? A chroot, with a small linux distro running a never-updatable Firefox and the Android equivalent of Xephyr. No plans whatsoever for other apps.

What Canonical is doing is basically using Atrix hardware, and replacing Motorola's own (very) limited chroot linux distribution with an Ubuntu based one. I'm surprised it took so long. I'm surprised it wasn't Motorola's idea to go see disto vendors like Canonical.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 11:12 UTC (Wed) by mgedmin (guest, #34497) [Link] (1 responses)

> I'm suprised to see absolutely zero mention of the Motorola Atrix.

Motorola's Webtop was mentioned in the comments, pretty early on. Is that the same thing as what you're talking about here?

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 16:02 UTC (Wed) by Aissen (subscriber, #59976) [Link]

Yes, that's what I was talking about. It seems the "webtop" feature is now available on various Motorola handset.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 16:36 UTC (Wed) by andrewsomething (guest, #53527) [Link]

That "limited chroot linux distribution" of Motorola was Ubuntu.

Is the Linux kernel still limited by Android?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 15:39 UTC (Wed) by southey (guest, #9466) [Link] (3 responses)

If you say something like a dual-boot system then that implies that Ubuntu for Android would have it's own kernel. But given that Ubuntu for Android runs on top of the Android kernel implies a virtual machine situation (or some emulation) that is limited by what the underlying Android kernel supports. If the latter is true then the importance of this seems rather overhyped. This seems especially true if the presence of keyboard and external monitor make the phone like an Android tablet.

Is the Linux kernel still limited by Android?

Posted Feb 22, 2012 19:33 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (guest, #74652) [Link]

It seems it is the android kernel, but as long as some modules are supported (HDMI, external keyboard, ...) no virtual machine should be necessary to run non-android Linux software.
To run android apps side-by-side on the big screen a virtual machine might be necessary.
If the video driver supports it, the latter can be some version of a dual-monitor setup with no virtual machine at all, that can be activated when switching to a special terminal.

Is the Linux kernel still limited by Android?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 2:11 UTC (Thu) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link] (1 responses)

Why a virtual machine? I would assume that they are just running Unity (the Ubuntu UI) directly on the Android (just Linux really) kernel.

Is the Linux kernel still limited by Android?

Posted Feb 23, 2012 14:54 UTC (Thu) by southey (guest, #9466) [Link]

Because the article refers to dual-boot experience not something like a remote display or dual display manager (like one for the device screen and another for the display) as may be the case here.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 23:23 UTC (Wed) by mikov (guest, #33179) [Link] (20 responses)

Just wanted to remind everybody that a 1.2GHz ARM is nowhere close the performance of a 1.2GHz P3. Granted, it is dual-core, but let's not get carried away with the laptop comparisons :-)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 22, 2012 23:45 UTC (Wed) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link] (17 responses)

Doesn't matter. One, mobile computers will get better. Two, 1.2 Ghz laptops are overkill for most applications.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 23:02 UTC (Thu) by daglwn (guest, #65432) [Link] (16 responses)

Tell that to my Atom netbook. It crawls compiling any moderately complex program.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 24, 2012 6:28 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (15 responses)

Come on...

"Compiling" is hardly the use case for this product.

Next you'll tell me that it isn't good for video editing

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 25, 2012 22:38 UTC (Sat) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (14 responses)

Begs the question. What will be the preferred usage scenario for a desktop run off of high end smart phones? We've established its not a replacement for a workstation. What will it be good for? And more important how much extra crap do you have to buy in terms of peripherals to actually have a good experience. Once you invest in external storage, keyboard mouse display etc...etc... does the price point actually going to make sense for the capability? Compared to just buying a middle of the road laptop and a phone? All completely valid questions that the market will have to answer once we get devices out in the wild.

The CPUs have to be good enough to carry some sort of workload that needs the desktop experience to compete in the marketplace at a premium pricepoint. If all the workloads of interest require more muscle then this offering might be a little too ahead of its time to catch fire and build a business on.

I say all of that like its doomed, but in reality I still think this is pretty innovative and its really the right way to move computing forward. OEMs just have to get behind this idea. And I think I could make it work for a lot of my day to day home computing. Work would be tougher. My problem for work is that i travel so much(to low bandwidth locations) that i need a pretty beefy laptop to carry my full workload with me. I won't be able to rely on a cloud-centric based desktop..ever. But for home I could make a desktop dockable phone work probably. The lapdock concept into a larger display however is just braindead.

Case in point. This comment entry (and all the other blog comments I write) Do I need anything more than Ubuntu on Android offers as an experience to be able to write comments pointing out the business risks to the Ubuntu on Android strategy? Nope. Canonical may have come up with the perfect technology which makes it possible for me to more efficiently and perhaps more cost effectively continue to write critical comments about them. And I for one really appreciate how they are finally focusing on my particular needs instead of going after the median consumer market. When I'm in the market again for a new phone, I'll actually take a serious look at this sort of feature offering. and see if I can make it work. However if the cost of the dock and peripherals ends up doubling the price of the phone..that's going to be hard to justify to the household financial officer. We'll have to see where the pricepoints comes out.

-jef

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 25, 2012 22:45 UTC (Sat) by karim (subscriber, #114) [Link]

The issue I believe is storage. With quad-core ARMs almost standard on next-gen high-end gizmos, fire-power might not be the biggest issue; to the exception of workstation-replacement laptops. But not having my typical laptop-like storage (i.e. > 150GB) to run around with is an issue. And I mean built into the phone, not some USB-connected addon.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 26, 2012 0:53 UTC (Sun) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (11 responses)

one thing that you (and many others) seem to be missing a little bit is that the most expensive external component is the screen, and in many cases that does not need to be a dedicated device, instead it can be a HDTV, i.e. anything with an HDMI input

I also disagree with you on the amount of storage needed. You don't need hundreds of gigs of storage, tens of gigs can do very nicely, and that is available today on phones (and will be even easier/cheaper going forward)

Ubuntu can be pretty comfortable in single-digit Gigs of space for a fairly complete installation, it's media files that eat up so much space for most people

At that point, external storage becomes a performance option, not a requirement, and the only 'dedicated' peripheral that is needed is a keyboard/mouse set, and those are pretty cheap, even if you want a wireless set, and dirt cheap if you get a Android device that will let you use UDB versions.

I fully expect that there will be more expensive dock sets out there, but the question will be what is it that you are looking for? if what you want is a laptop/phone (like the Atrix), you will pay a premium for it.

but if you want the ability to work the same way both at home and at the office, it should be pretty cheap.

I expect that the first round of manufacturers will be pushing this capability with proprietary docking stations and the associated prices, but I don't think it will be long for some of the other manufacturers to make cut-rate versions that just use standard peripherals

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:01 UTC (Mon) by oak (guest, #2786) [Link] (10 responses)

You can also extend your storage space with a fairly large SD cards nowadays.

I think the main issues will be RAM and display size.

1GB of RAM is very little nowadays for typical desktop/office use-cases. I was using a laptop with 2GB of RAM until recently and just having Thunderbird (with lots of mails) and Firefox (with lots tabs) open it gets really slow with swapping when I try to view (with OpenOffice) some docs I get in mails...

Phones are unlikely to get a lot of RAM soonish because with larger amounts of RAM, the RAM refresh eats too much battery and the phone SW itself works fine with 1GB (or even 0.5GB) of RAM.

If one uses just Browser, like was assumed in the Moto case, I guess 1GB is mostly enough (now that we've gotten mostly rid of Flash).

The display problem is that the embedded gfx chips in the phones are intended for smaller resolutions. If you connect them to a full HD display, either you got something running on non-native resolution which looks unusably crappy for day-to-day work, or the resolution may go over the phone GPU capabilities or what its 3D driver has been tested for.

I think on travels having just phone, a smallish wireless keyboard and larger display at hotel / remote work place may be fine as phone+netbook combo replacement, but for day-to-day work it's not enough.

Security is also an interesting question... Companies typically require laptop disks to be encrypted, but how well phones work with encrypted file systems? (giving password to mount the disk etc)

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:24 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Companies typically require laptop disks to be encrypted, but how well phones work with encrypted file systems? (giving password to mount the disk etc)

Even with full-disk encryption (ICS supports it at least on Galaxy Nexus) you only specify password once when you turn the device on after full power-off. It does happen often with phones.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 5, 2012 23:15 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (8 responses)

Android works fine with encryption (which is usually hardware accelerated).

However, mobile devices have problems with _passwords_. It's way too complicated to enter strong passwords using keyboards. And alternative methods like "draw a pattern on a grid" are too easy to brute-force (they barely have 30-40 bits of entropy).

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 7:50 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (7 responses)

“Draw a pattern on a grid” is used to unlock the device which was already turned on. It has nothing to do with the encryption password. You enter encryption password about once per day at most (as I've said: you only need to enter it when the juice runs out) thus it can be quite long and complex.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 11:00 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (6 responses)

It's still too much - for me it can take more than a minute to enter my 15-letter password. Especially if I have only one free hand at the moment.

I'm thinking about making a remotely-accessible 'password server' with weak PIN-like security.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 18:16 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (5 responses)

It's still too much - for me it can take more than a minute to enter my 15-letter password. Especially if I have only one free hand at the moment.

And this is a problem… exactly why?

I'm thinking about making a remotely-accessible 'password server' with weak PIN-like security.

If you want to design "pipe-in-a-sky" solutions then it's simpler to just reuse already existing SIM care to store password. Still will require quite a lot of code on uncrypted "startup" partition but will be usable, for example, when your magic server will not be available (because your service plan does not include data roaming, for example).

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 18:37 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (4 responses)

>And this is a problem… exactly why?

If something is too complex - it won't be used.

>If you want to design "pipe-in-a-sky" solutions then it's simpler to just reuse already existing SIM care to store password. Still will require quite a lot of code on uncrypted "startup" partition but will be usable, for example,
I don't want to store the decryption key in permanent storage on my phone (or its SIM-card which can be read easily).

>when your magic server will not be available (because your service plan does not include data roaming, for example).
That's why I'm going to add an SMS-based protocol. 130 characters are more than enough for secure key exchange.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 20:54 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (3 responses)

>And this is a problem… exactly why?

If something is too complex - it won't be used.

Well, thank you for explaining why your Goldberg-style solution will not be used. I wanted to see why single-password solution will not be used. Hint: it works and is actually used by real people on laptops, so why not on phone?

>If you want to design "pipe-in-a-sky" solutions then it's simpler to just reuse already existing SIM care to store password. Still will require quite a lot of code on uncrypted "startup" partition but will be usable, for example,

I don't want to store the decryption key in permanent storage on my phone (or its SIM-card which can be read easily).

Depends on the manufacturer. Cards used by banks to protect million-dollar transactions are not principally any different from SIM card.

>when your magic server will not be available (because your service plan does not include data roaming, for example).
That's why I'm going to add an SMS-based protocol. 130 characters are more than enough for secure key exchange.

130 characters are just 1040 bits. Not enough to organize robust asymmetric signature. And you'll need some payload, too. Feel free to invent some complex unreliable overengineered solution, but don't expect anyone to consider it seriously.

Actually... I take that back: if you'll handwave enthusiastically enough and will talk about advantages boisterously enough you can sell your snake oil to some phone companies.

I guess “anyone” should be replaced with “anyone who understands basic security principles”.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 21:21 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

>Well, thank you for explaining why your Goldberg-style solution will not be used. I wanted to see why single-password solution will not be used. Hint: it works and is actually used by real people on laptops, so why not on phone?

Encryption is barely used in real-life on laptops - people just _like_ it when they can pop open the laptop lid and start typing without bothering to enter a password. Or having to enter a strong password during the login process. And that's on PCs that have an easy-to-use keyboard.

>Depends on the manufacturer. Cards used by banks to protect million-dollar transactions are not principally any different from SIM card.

Banks use HSMs to protect transactions. And then they also use unsecured SMS for million-dollar transaction confirmations. So "what the banks use" is not a good indicator of security.

>130 characters are just 1040 bits. Not enough to organize robust asymmetric signature.
That's enough for elliptic-curve signatures. But you don't need them, anyway.

>And you'll need some payload, too. Feel free to invent some complex unreliable overengineered solution, but don't expect anyone to consider it seriously.

Nope. Your phone and the password server would have a shared secret (apart from the PIN) established during the initial setup procedure, no need for anything asymmetric.

So you only need to pack a nonce (128 bits), an unlock PIN (128 bits should be enough), encrypt it with your shared secret and send as an SMS. Even with base-64 or binhex encoding it'll take less than 80 symbols.

>I guess “anyone” should be replaced with “anyone who understands basic security principles”.

How about "if a security feature is hard to use then it won't be used"?

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 7, 2012 8:46 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

Encryption is barely used in real-life on laptops

All company-ensued laptops are encrypted here. Encryption of phones is “strongly encouraged” (required by people in some sensitive positions).

people just _like_ it when they can pop open the laptop lid and start typing without bothering to enter a password.

It's their choice. BTW you do understand that even if phone is protected by strong password when it click the “power” button you are presented with usual “draw a pattern on a grid” screen, right? You only need to enter password if you tried to “draw a pattern” three times incorrectly or if your phone run out of juice and was powered off totally (not just went to sleep, but was fully powered off).

Banks use HSMs to protect transactions.

Yup. I'm talking about these. As someone who participated in creation of HSMs (albeit few years ago) I can assure you: they are made using the same principles as SIM card. If you want to stuff HSM in SIM, it's easy to do. Or you can embed it in phone SOC.

So "what the banks use" is not a good indicator of security.

It is. Security is not binary, it's a continuous scale. If you need security higher then “what's the banks use” then you probably need military grade security and in this realm you can just order people to use password of certain quality.

So you only need to pack a nonce (128 bits), an unlock PIN (128 bits should be enough), encrypt it with your shared secret and send as an SMS.

This scheme is quite vulnerable to MITM attack. Just catch first request, allow the next one (user will just assume first request was lost), then play it when the phone is in your possession. This is essentially the same level of protecting as HSM in SIM but with much larger infrastructure.

How about "if a security feature is hard to use then it won't be used"?

It depends on how much people value their information. Security and convenience are always at odds: you can try to improve security without adding “hard to use” steps, but you can only do so much.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 7, 2012 9:24 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

>All company-ensued laptops are encrypted here. Encryption of phones is “strongly encouraged” (required by people in some sensitive positions).

Companies can force people to do quite a lot. How many end-users have their hard drives encrypted, though? Not much.

>It's their choice. BTW you do understand that even if phone is protected by strong password when it click the “power” button you are presented with usual “draw a pattern on a grid” screen, right? You only need to enter password if you tried to “draw a pattern” three times incorrectly or if your phone run out of juice and was powered off totally (not just went to sleep, but was fully powered off).

Of course, I understand that. But for me fully powering off my phone can happen several times a _day_ when I have to change batteries.

>Yup. I'm talking about these. As someone who participated in creation of HSMs (albeit few years ago) I can assure you: they are made using the same principles as SIM card. If you want to stuff HSM in SIM, it's easy to do. Or you can embed it in phone SOC.

Well, I had my SIM card's contents dumped without any troubles a couple of years ago when I was playing with software-defined radios. So I'm a bit skeptical about actual security, though of course one can fit almost anything on SIM cards these days.

>This scheme is quite vulnerable to MITM attack. Just catch first request, allow the next one (user will just assume first request was lost), then play it when the phone is in your possession.

No it isn't. I've specifically mentioned that nonces (numbers that are used only once) should be used, against this very attack.

>It depends on how much people value their information. Security and convenience are always at odds: you can try to improve security without adding “hard to use” steps, but you can only do so much.

And I intend to push limits a bit on some of the 'easy' ways to encrypt data.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 17:55 UTC (Tue) by steffen780 (guest, #68142) [Link]

The stuff that the average office worker (incl managers do): Facebook, Twitter, Word, Excel. 2 digit GB of storage are perfectly adequate for that.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:44 UTC (Mon) by hammersend (guest, #83339) [Link] (1 responses)

That's strange because my Motorola Xoom running Ubuntu in a chroot and vnc'd in overclocked at 1.4 GHz is roughly on par with my 1.6 GHz Atom based netbook on every real-world benchmark I have thrown at it. I don't think you're giving ARM enough credit.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 6, 2012 7:48 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

He compared 1.2GHz ARM and 1.2GHz P3.

P3 was much faster then [original] Pentium (which was adopted for Atom design) - this means that if your Xoom has reached parity with Atom (and indeed this is about where Cortex-A9 is) then it's still significantly slower then P3 (and P3 itself is significantly slower then contemporary AMD/Intel CPUs at the same frequency: it's quite old design, after all).

Cortex-A15 should be much closer to contemporary AMD/Intel CPUs but it's not yet readily available thus it's speed are mostly speculations at this point.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 23, 2012 4:20 UTC (Thu) by scientes (guest, #83068) [Link] (1 responses)

How about instead of using proprietary SaaS from a dominant vendor (Google) they use the unHosted project's ( http://unhosted.org/ ) Libre Docs?
http://libredocs.org/

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 5, 2012 22:45 UTC (Mon) by hammersend (guest, #83339) [Link]

Assuming it's "real" Linux, you can use whatever you want.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 28, 2012 20:16 UTC (Tue) by alkbyby (subscriber, #61687) [Link] (5 responses)

Does anybody have a rough idea how P6 (or more modern, but not Atom) x86 1Ghz compares to modern ARM 1Ghz? From my phone experience it looks like ARM is quite a bit slower than my Pentium III 1Ghz was. But that was long time aho.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Feb 28, 2012 21:04 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (4 responses)

ARM and Atom have more-or-less the same speed today (don't forget that Z2460 is 1.6Ghz while, for example, Galaxy Nexus is 1.2GHz). And there are plenty of benchmarks which show that modern CPUs are about 50-60% faster.

Note: this is if your phone uses latest-and-greatest out-of-order Cortex-A9. If it uses slower in-order Cortex-A8 then it's slower still.

It's quite possible, though, that Cortex-A15 will finally bring rough parity in this aspect. Of course some gap will probably remain but it'll not be 5-7 difference in speed at the same frequency (as it was just a few years ago).

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 1, 2012 15:48 UTC (Thu) by gughur (guest, #83256) [Link]

That AnandTech Medfield article is reporting on Intel's hand-picked marketing benchmarks, take with a lump of salt.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 1, 2012 20:18 UTC (Thu) by kevlar (guest, #83261) [Link] (2 responses)

Having used tools like coremark and geekbench to try and compare x86 to arm with obviously incorrect results I can tell you it is next to impossible. Simple job accomplishment time is the best gauge. Try rendering something large on your old 1ghz x86 then try it on your phone getting a rendered image of the same checksum. After a week stop the phone.

It is certainly true that many computer tasks use next to no x86 resources and are prime for the better os's mobiles now have. I'd certainly love a lean Open source OS on my phone with a repository for the daily updates Android lacks.

ARM uses Reduced instruction set cpus which is less work per mhz. ARM chips are impressive at what they do especially per joule of heat but think about it. If a 1.6 ghz atom gets red hot and a 1ghz arm is tiny and gets a little warm, do you really believe they are anywhere equivalent. Phones also have slow data write and buses. The Super IO chip alone in desktops is often 20% of the size of my phone and needs a large heat sink.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 1, 2012 20:54 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

If a 1.6 ghz atom gets red hot and a 1ghz arm is tiny and gets a little warm, do you really believe they are anywhere equivalent.

Sorry, but Z2460 has TDP of 4W and it's full SoC: CPU, video, etc. Everything. I doubt you can get it “red hot” without putting it in vacuum flask.

ARM chips are impressive at what they do especially per joule of heat.

Sure, ARM chips are impressive but so are Intel's. And Intel has advantage in the semiconductor process technology - enough to compensate for CISC/RISC difference. They just started from the opposite points: Intel had chips which were much faster (yes, even Atom), but also significantly more power-hungry. ARM increased speed over time - but this leads to increased power consumption, too: toys like ASUS Transformer Prime can become pretty hot under heavy load. Intel needed to decrease consumption instead: even three year old model is faster then CPU in aforementioned brand-sparkling-new ASUS Transformer Prime… but it needs few times more power, too.

That's why today they are roughly equivalent: they started from the opposite points on the speed/consumption spectrum, but in the last three years they moved toward the same point. I think when we'll see Cortex-A15 we'll find out it's roughly equivalent to what Intel will show then, too: Intel will need to further reduce consumption of it's “serious” chips (Core line, not Atom line) while ARM will need to increase speed yet again.

Handset cohabitation: Ubuntu for Android

Posted Mar 1, 2012 21:11 UTC (Thu) by alkbyby (subscriber, #61687) [Link]

Just to put a bit of context here. I wasn't meant to start that intel vs. arm debate.

I've raised this specifically because article made claim that ARM have grown and is "fast enough". And we definitely have enough evidence to doubt that.

So far my impressions is that ARM is not yet there. So it seems a bit early to claim that you don't need your PC. But maybe a couple of years from now we'll see. Ubuntu's idea looks neat.

So in this context I don't care if that's intel or arm chip as long as it gives or not gives us future where "normal" users don't need PC.