Tony's Cabin

Canonical has unveiled the first fruits of a project that could put applications for Google's Android on a netbook sooner than the search giant can deliver itself.

Ubuntu's chief sponsor has demonstrated an execution environment that lets applications built to fit the screen, power, and hardware of an Android smartphone on an Ubuntu-powered PC.

The execution environment potentially lets these applications take advantage of features common to a PC such as support for mouse-based input instead of touch, multiple windows open simultaneously, and have an application run while the CPU is idle.

Demonstrated at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Barcelona, Spain, the environment lets Android applications work with the PC by harnessing Ubuntu. It puts patches in place that fool applications into thinking they are on the phone, Canonical told The Reg. You can see some screen shots here.

Canonical unveiled the project against a backdrop of growing expectation that we'll soon see the Android operating system for the G1 phone running on a netbook.

Cupcake, the update to Android that began US roll-out this week, is expected to power such machines. Dell last week showed off a Mini 10v netbook running Cupcake on a video blog but gave no commitment to product.

It's unclear how Google would feel about somebody else providing the operating-system layer for Android applications on a PC.

But Canonical believes Ubuntu can provide a quick solution because it's already done the hard work of getting Linux running on a PC. "People have thought of Android or Ubuntu on netbooks - we are convinced the way forward will be Android applications on Ubuntu netbooks," a Canonical source told us.

"You get the full operating system underneath. For all its faults, desktop Linux has solved lots of complicated problems and Android hasn't even started to address them."

The Ubuntu execution environment compiles the Android code to its own version of libc instead of Google's libc. Android libraries are mapped to Ubuntu libraries where appropriate with others masked and fooled into thinking they are running on a phone.

Long term, the project wants to tackle USB keys, printing, and sound. The Barcelona unveiling was designed to see where people want to go. "It's definitely running with our blessing. We will see where people want to take it this week, and we will go from there," our source said.

Bootnote

The Canonical project comes as Microsoft and Intel have reportedly taken steps to carve up the netbook market to suit their product roadmaps and business-unit plans.

DigiTimes said the companies had "reached a consensus" to limit the size of a screen for netbooks running Windows to 10.2 inches. The move means OEMs that go over this size would not qualify for the low-priced versions of Windows 7 - Starter Edition - for netbooks.

OEMs that do go large would see their margins damaged, meaning they'd be forced to fall into line rater than incur losses and Microsoft and Intel would have shaped the form factors for this nascent market to their desire. Intel refused to comment on what it called rumors and speculation, while Microsoft was unable to comment at the time of going to press.

If true, the move fits what's emerging as a strategy by Microsoft to use netbooks as a way to up sell people into more expensive, full-featured notebooks and PCs that run Windows. Pricing for Windows 7 has not been announced, but Windows 7 Starter Edition is an entry level option that will only let you run three applications simultaneously.

The Microsoft and Intel news, combined with the Ubuntu execution environment, would potentially play to Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth's belief that netbooks should combine local computer processing with offline services and applications. ®

By Gavin Clarke in San Francisco 26th May 2009 23:55 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/26/ubuntu_android_applications_netbook/

Add Canonical to the roster of companies offering technology to help enterprise customers build their own cloud-computing setups. But unlike most of the better-known players in this nascent market, the twist here is that the technology will be supplied by an open-source shop.

Canonical is best known as being the commercial sponsor of the Ubuntu operating system, a computer operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux. With 8 million to 10 million users, Ubuntu has enjoyed success in no small part because of its ease of use.

Next month the company will offer the first details on plans to roll out cloud-computing services to its customers. At this point, details remain scarce but management isn't planning to reinvent the wheel. Instead, the company is going to adopt the same approach it used to promote Ubuntu as an open-source operating system.

The basic idea will be to supply the technology on an open source basis and then let users alter it to fit their individual company needs. At the same time, Canonical hopes to benefit from a developer feedback loop, which presumably would contribute any bug fixes or suggestions on how to advance the offerings. Any profits would roll in through the later sale of ancillary support and add-on services to customers.

This is just the latest announcement in what's fast becoming a crowded and super-hyped field. The umbrella terms refers to the concept of allowing access to computing power and storage space by connecting over the Internet. Most recently, Sun Microsystems last week offered details on a plan to enable developers, start-ups, and even students access a cloud-computing infrastructure.


by Charles Cooper
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10787_3-10203590-60.html

据国外媒体报道， 即将在本月30号发布的 Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) 将不会集成 OpenOffice 3.0 而是采用 OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 。 OpenOffice 3.0 在功能和特性上相对于 OpenOffice 2.0 有很大的提升。支持 Office 2007/2008 import filters，支持读取Office 2007/2008文件，支持 .docx， .xlsx及.pptx格式文件存储等等，并且在软件的执行效率上 OpenOffice 3.0 较 OpenOffice 2 都有很大的提升。当然也有很多网友称现在终于有一款办公软件能够和 MS Office 抗衡了，那就是 OpenOffice 3.0 。


不过，由于 OpenOffice 3.0 在 Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) 正式版发布日期前不久才发布的， Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) 的开发人员并不没有大量的时间来对 OpenOffice 3.0 的做稳定性兼容性方面的大量测试，而且初出娘胎的 OpenOffice 3.0 还不是太成熟还存在着一些 Bug。因此，Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) 的开发人员最后将会决定 Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) 将不预装 OpenOffice 3.0 办公套件。

如果你想在 Ubuntu 8.10 ( Intrepid Ibex ) 的正式版中体验 OpenOffice 3.0 的话也是相当容易的，你只需要将 OpenOffice 3.0 的 ppa 软件源加入到你的软件源列表中然后升级即可。

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main

http://www.ownlinux.cn/2008/10/26/ubuntu-810-intrepid-ibex-didnt-pre-install-openoffice-30/

Canonical, the leading backer of the Ubuntu version of Linux, is hiring a team to help make open-source software on the desktop more appealing and easier to use.

The company plans to sign up designers and specialists in user experience and interaction to lead Canonical's work on usability and to contribute to other free and open-source desktop-environment projects, including Gnome and KDE, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical chief executive and founder of the Ubuntu project, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

He wrote: "We are hiring a team who will work on X, OpenGL, GTK, Qt, Gnome and KDE, with a view to doing some of the heavy lifting required to turn those desktop-experience ideas into reality."

Shuttleworth has said recently that usability is the top priority for open-source software. Free Linux desktops should have "a user experience that can compete with Apple in two years", he said at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention last week. Some open-source promoters have backed Shuttleworth but said businesses have a different priority to the consumers Ubuntu is aimed at.

Mark Taylor, founder of the Open Source Consortium, said: "He's bang on the money. Linux absolutely needs more usability. Having said that, it's not that hard to find," pointing to the strides made by the Gnome and KDE user interfaces.

However, Taylor cautioned against the open-source movement taking too rigid a line with developers on usability requirements. "I don't believe we need one desktop to rule them all," he said.

Consumers need a great user experience more than businesses do, Taylor said. IT managers are more likely to use Linux on servers than on desktops. Any desktop implementations they do work with are designed to lock the system down and keep the user within set applications and policies. "Even when they use a Linux desktop, delivering a user experience is not high on the agenda," Taylor said.

Shuttleworth said that the freedom of open-source software, where developers are free to develop as they wish, can lead to user interfaces that are "patchy and inconsistent" between applications and operating systems, he said.

Paul Adams, a member of KDE e.V., the 'board' of the KDE project, said: "One of the biggest problems in the free-software world is that so many objects are different, depending on the different desktops."

For instance, Ubuntu itself is normally available with the Gnome desktop interface, but one version ships with KDE. Both Ubuntu versions include OpenOffice, which is based on the GTK graphics library. GTK is also used by Gnome, so OpenOffice in KDE would have a different 'open' dialogue to that on the desktop. "In KDE, we are looking at producing a cross-desktop, human-interface guideline set, so that, as people move between Gnome and KDE, they won't be shocked to see that the dialogues are different," said Adams, who is also projects director at UK open-source company Sirius. That cross-desktop project, led by Celeste Lyn Paul of User-Centered Design, could create guidelines for common UI features.

Adams said: "We already have a very usable experience. Are we up there with the Mac desktop? Probably not. But we have achieved something which is very mature and usable."

By Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk
Posted on ZDNet News: Sep 12, 2008 6:28:56 AM

http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-221128.html

Sure, Windows is expected to run on 1 billion devices by 2010. But a loud minority is making its voice heard by moving to Ubuntu Linux. In fact, Canonical’s marketing materials state that Ubuntu now has more than 8 million users.

Alas, measuring Ubuntu’s active installed base can be tricky since a single copy o the operating system can be freely installed over and over again on multiple systems. And in mid-2007 during the Ubuntu Live conference, Ubuntu/Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth estimated the operating system’s installed base at 6 million to 12 million users.

But apparently, Canonical has narrowed down that figure. A marketing handout from the company, focused on training, states that:

“Ubuntu is used by over 8 million people worldwide.”

So far, so good. And that figure will surely rise as Ubuntu is preinstalled on a growing number of Netbooks and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs).

But Canonical can’t rest on its laurels. After all, Novell is leveraging desktop Linux relationships to land on more servers — including a forthcoming server deal with Lenovo, which will be announced in September. And Red Hat seems to be gaining momentum in the channel.

Still, a growing list of small, midsize and large organizations are running Ubuntu. (Take a look at the Works With U 1000, a fast-growing list of organizations running Ubuntu.)

Things are certainly getting interesting in the Linux market.

Sep. 4th, 2008 by The VAR Guy

http://www.thevarguy.com/2008/09/04/canonicals-ubuntu-linux-tops-8-million-users/