Ubuntu Developer Preview: Nexus 4, Galaxy Nexus February 21st

By techbeck
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Grand Master

techbeck

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As was promised, enthusiasts and developers will be able to flash Ubuntu onto their Galaxy Nexus' before the end of the month. Canonical has announced that the Developer Preview of the new operating system will be released on February 21st. The surprise, however, is that the company has added support for the Nexus 4, and users with the latest Nexus phone will be able to download and flash Ubuntu onto their devices on the 21st as well. Additionally, the source code for the operating system and the tools needed to flash phones will come out on that date.

We used the mobile version of Ubuntu on a Galaxy Nexus last month when it was first announced, and we found the gesture-heavy operating system attractive and unique ? if a bit sluggish. The first phone designed for Ubuntu will come out this October, but Canonical is making sure to get the operating system into developers' hands early to secure as many apps as possible before that date.

Xv01-02_18-00-0720_large_verge_medium_landscape.jpg

http://www.theverge....ate-february-21

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Grand Master

theyarecomingforyou

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I think it looks quite promising, based on this video:

They just need to make sure it's responsive, as it's been noted in a few previews that performance is a bit sluggish. It's nice to have another alternative to Android, WP and iOS.

Grand Master

AJerman

Posted
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Still an immediate failure to me for using side edge gestures. That would require me to take my case off, and I'm not doing that. I wish all these developers would use their brains and stop trying to use side edge gestures. Top and bottom are fine, but sides are almost always difficult to use with a case.

This is why Android rarely uses actual side edge gestures. They have side swipe gestures, but they are able to be executed from anywhere, not just from the actual edge.

Grand Master

LaP

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If Ubuntu PC is anything to go by, I wouldn't want a mobile OS version on any device. Ubuntu is slow as molasses.

You surely meant your PC is slow as molasses. I'll admit the last time i used Ubuntu was a long time ago but my Athlon 64 X2 sure had no trouble running Ubuntu and i doubt things have changed so much lately that a Core I5 or I3 have trouble doing the job. I guess there's still people running Pentium MMX and 486 DX2 around ...

Grand Master

Max Norris

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I'll admit the last time i used Ubuntu was a long time ago but my Athlon 64 sure had no trouble running Ubuntu and i doubt things have changed so much lately that a Core I5 or I3 have trouble doing the job.

If you haven't used Ubuntu in a long time then yes it has changed quite a bit; Unity's performance is rather poor at the moment. (It's just the desktop environment.. the core OS is more or less on par with other distros.) Plenty of benchmarks on Phoronix, etc talking about it.

Grand Master

Xilo

Posted
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If you haven't used Ubuntu in a long time then yes it has changed quite a bit; Unity's performance is rather poor at the moment. (It's just the desktop environment.. the core OS is more or less on par with other distros.) Plenty of benchmarks on Phoronix, etc talking about it.

This is what I'm talking about. Unity gets slow. God forbid you have a ton of documents and such in your home folder. Just opening the "Dash Home" seems to take ages when you do.

Grand Master

LaP

Posted
Posted

If you haven't used Ubuntu in a long time then yes it has changed quite a bit; Unity's performance is rather poor at the moment. (It's just the desktop environment.. the core OS is more or less on par with other distros.) Plenty of benchmarks on Phoronix, etc talking about it.

Well that might be the case. I think the last version i installed was between 7 and 9 can't really recall. Still we constantly hear stories here of people having trouble (slow) running flash, java, Steam, iTune, this and that. Yet my slightly overcloked 3 yo Core I5 750 with only 4GB of ram has no trouble running everything i throw at it. I build and optimise my own computer myself though so no part is being bottlenecked by another one.

If it is really slow on a well configured core I3 or I5 machine then my apologies for my first reply.

Proficient

srbeen

Posted
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Hope that developers can merge some of the edge-screen code to android. Android is seriously lacking gestures.

Well that might be the case. I think the last version i installed was between 7 and 9 can't really recall. Still we constantly hear stories here of people having trouble (slow) running flash, java, Steam, iTune, this and that. Yet my slightly overcloked 3 yo Core I5 750 with only 4GB of ram has no trouble running everything i throw at it. I build and optimise my own computer myself though so no part is being bottlenecked by another one.

If it is really slow on a well configured core I3 or I5 machine then my apologies for my first reply.

If you know how to run ubuntu and get your hardware properly setup, then you compare windows 8 to ubuntu via geekbench, ubuntu is the faster OS. Ubuntu is either all or nothing. If you can't get the liveCD up than don't bother.

Grand Master

AJerman

Posted
Posted

Hope that developers can merge some of the edge-screen code to android. Android is seriously lacking gestures.

See my post above as to why I seriously hope not, or I'll be leaving Android.

Also, Android has no lack of gestures, you're just making the mistake of relying on the base Android install to provide you everything you want. There are a large number of replacement home screen apps with gestures, keyboards with gestures, browsers with gestures, etc. Android isn't lacking in gestures, you just have to download the right apps for it.

Grand Master

LaP

Posted
Posted

If you can't get the liveCD up than don't bother.

Well i will not bother anyway since i'm perfectly fine with Windows 8 XD Specially since today a lot of open source softwares are avalaible for Windows and run great for the most part.

The mobile Ubuntu OS looks interesting. More competition is never a bad thing. It forces big guys to innovate.

Grand Master

Max Norris

Posted
Posted
If it is really slow on a well configured core I3 or I5 machine then my apologies for my first reply.

Depends on what it's doing.. for my particular test rig (3GHz quad, 8GB, 1GB nVidia) it mostly falls down on the aforementioned Dash (which is painfully slow as all hell) and general video performance (suspect it's due to Compiz.. I hear it's improved in 13.04). Other desktop environments that I've thrown on this hardware running on the Ubuntu core distro run significantly better overall.. it's just Unity. Same distro, slap on KDE or whatever and it flies.. my initial comment was about the "out of the box" experience.

If you know how to run ubuntu and get your hardware properly setup, then you compare windows 8 to ubuntu via geekbench, ubuntu is the faster OS.

Subjective; I can run other programs on Windows that run a fair bit faster than on Linux. Synthetic benchmarks aren't the beat-all thing to pick the better OS. Some things will be faster, some slower.

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+KibosJ Subscriber²

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Just tried this out, I think it has huge potential, given time. It looks good :)

Not really usable 100% at the moment, but I can't wait until it is finished :D

Grand Master

Growled Member

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Just tried this out, I think it has huge potential, given time. It looks good :)

Not really usable 100% at the moment, but I can't wait until it is finished :D

That's really good to know. Keep us updated. :)

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