Ubuntu Touch On a Nexus 7: "Almost Awesome" 116
colinneagle writes "I installed Ubuntu Touch "1.0" on my first-generation Nexus 7 tablet and have been using it as my main tablet system for the last four days. Here's how it went. First off, the installation was surprisingly painless. I followed the official instructions and didn't encounter a single problem. That being said, the installation is really geared toward software developers, power users or people already comfortable on a Linux command line. If you're not in one of those categories, I recommend holding off for the time being. Once installed, Ubuntu Touch booted up rather quickly — in only just a few seconds (a fair bit faster than Android 4.x on the same tablet). And, immediately, I was presented with a short tutorial that appears the first time the system is booted, which, I might add, has got to be one of the slickest, least annoying tutorials I've seen. But... there were problems. The battery life was, to put it mildly, terrible. Performance has been mixed, and the OS was prone to what I call 'The Pulsating Seizure Feature' a few dozen times over the weekend. In a nutshell: launching apps (and, occasionally, moving between apps) can cause the device to freeze and begin flashing the screen rapidly."
Re:No Generic OS for Mobile devices yet. (Score:5, Informative)
Cyanogenmod is doing a good job getting a more unified version of Android on many vendor's devices. I have several devices using it and it works well. (http://www.cyanogenmod.org/)
Re:This is not almost awesome... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Great (Score:5, Informative)
How much freer could Android be? The entire platform is open source.
The only thing proprietary are the video drivers and that's because GPU vendors are douche bags.
It could be a lot more free. At least it's already clear it's heading in the opposite direction when it comes to improvements from Google based on the article over at Ars Technica [slashdot.org].
Tablet yes, phone no. (Score:4, Informative)
I had it installed on my Nexus 4 and it was a heaping steaming pile of crap. Kept dropping data connections and phone calls were full of bugs like not being able to hang up, or the phone app crashing when you press dial.
My favorite was the notification of incoming call just failing to appear until the carrier sent it to voicemail.
CyanogenMod what is going on? (Score:4, Informative)
Except don't expect CyanogenMod to be in the future https://plus.google.com/106978520009932034644/posts/L8FJkrcahPs [google.com] .Ironically because open source is the reason for their assistance they seem to be trying hard to wreck a great model fro them.
https://plus.google.com/106978520009932034644/posts/L8FJkrcahPs [google.com] This is Guillaume Lesniak Google+ post about CyanogenMod's Focal camera app. He doesn't like that licensing changes accompanying the new venture would limit his control. Accordingly, he has removed Focal from CyanogenMod