Ubuntu Mobile Edition: first look on a UMPC
Steve at UMPC Portal jumped on the Ubuntu Mobile image that was released earlier this week and first impressions show that it’s a fine mobile computing environment. The actual image was developed specifically for the Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC, so you’ll see that all of the device hardware is well supported: WiFi, the touchscreen, screen brightness, etc…Canonical has been working on Ubuntu for Mobile Internet Devices for some time and they’re now splitting their efforts: one team will focus on devices with displays in the 4- to 7-inch range, while another team will work on Ubuntu Mobile for 7- to 10-inch devices. Probably a wise move as the smaller devices will rely heavily on touch and therefore need to be optimized with finger-friendly icons and menus. I’m hoping to take a deeper look at Ubuntu mobile on my Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC in the near future as I’m curious how the working environment and interface compares with that of Windows XP and Vista. Is it better suited to a slate-style unit than its Windows counterparts? With just a short first look from Steve, it’s difficult to say, so stay tuned as I’m sure he’ll be sharing many more thoughts on the topic.Folks that want to give this a go: you can run the Ubuntu Mobile image right from a USB or flash drive, so there’s no need to wipe your current environment to try this. Just hop over to the project page to grab your image and get help.
I would like to try this with the first Q1, any idea if it is supported, and how to create the image file. “DD” does not seem to work for me last time lost my system because of a mistake in entering the command “DD if=/” must be an easier way to make the image file?
Which linux kernel are they using? there’s been bad news on the 2.6.27 damaging intel netowrk cards.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/26/ubuntu-alpha-apparently-breaking-hardware-shattering-dreams/
i ran it on my 1000h, it runs quite nicely… no wifi though.
I’d love to try this out, but I don’t have another Linux install handy. Is there any way to make the image file in Windows? I tried rawrite, bbie, dd for Windows and ExtractNow, no luck.
It’s not 8.1 it’s 8.10. The numbering scheme is based on the month and year of release. For instance, 8.04 was released in the fourth month of 2008 and 8.10 will be out in October.
I am sure whether my question is correct.. in front of android and iphone… will these devices have a good market share??
He misread the memory. About half of the memory that’s “taken” is taken by the disk cache. Around 300MB with Firefox seems decent.
Well, I was able to use MagicISO to extract the image, however all I get while booting is an invalid system disk message.
I’ll have access to an Ubuntu box on Monday, hopefully I’ll be able to install it then and post impressions on UMPC Portal.
If anyone could post a link to a bootable ISO, I’d greatly appreciate it.
Not sure if anyone’s still reading this, but I got the image to work. Liliputing has a short read on how to create a bootable USB using Windows at http://www.liliputing.com/2008/09/first-ubuntu-mobile-image-released-kinda-runs-on-netbooks.html
Just be CAREFUL with the dd command, as essentially it means “destroy disk,” so it will wipe any data that was previously on the drive you’re copying to.
Thanks TomD. Those instructions worked well. I just needed to download dd.exe and save that to the same directory where I had my .img file. After opening a CMD window and running the dd line as per the link, all seems to have worked. I’ll now try it on my Kohji SH8. I’ll come back with a report later.
It boots up way to slow. It’s supposed to be a gadget, not a server.