While Linux is certainly a fantastic operating system, it's had a tough time trying to find its way onto tablets. Android may be considered Linux, but Google does enough modification to the kernel that we just call Android, Android. Anyway, Linux is starting to become a more touch-friendly operating system. We've seen Ubuntu on phones and some tablets, but most of them came with Android preinstalled and either use an emulator or a ROM to run it.
The KDE team wants to change that, though, with its Vivaldi Linux tablet. It's been a pretty intriguing tablet so far; it runs a full-blown version of Linux that's completely open, meaning that you can do whatever you want to it.
Today, a developer from the team released a video showing the tablet's built-in app store. It's called Make.Play.Live, and you can download content and add-ons to enhance your tablet experience. The store looks like it'll be easy to navigate and use, which is a good thing considering that not a lot of people have experience with all that Linux can offer.
The Vivaldi is almost ready to ship out to preorderers, but before it does, it got a slight bump in RAM size from 512MB to 1GB so you can run more of your add-ons at once.
Are any of you excited for a truly open Linux tablet? Let us know in the comments!
Sounds good to me…..
Excited? I’ve been anxiously awaiting it for ages! There’s more to the app store though – users can easily set up their own stores and their own repositories. This can be used, for example, in schools – a school can have its own repository filled with software the students need to use and even award students “points” that could be redeemed for other software.
The Android kernel isn’t really heavily modified – in fact they’ve been apart for awhile but just recently they merged again. The main difference is that Android is running all of its software in a custom Java virtual machine.
Lots of major Linux distros are hard at work on their own ARM ports right now (some already have them) and it won’t be long before we see people running them on repurposed smart phones and tablets (or integrated with the phone a la Ubuntu For Android). WebOS should be completely released to open source by September and then that will be another open Linux-based (the goal is to have WebOS running on the same kernel Android does so it can use all of the same drivers, and of course Android can now use the standard Linux kernel again) mobile OS but one that is developed in the open unlike Android. Linux users will be able to run their desktop apps on their mobile devices well before Windows or OS X users.
In addition, ARM-based laptops will ship this year (sadly MS is insisting they be locked “for security” which will prevent Linux running on them). However, we will have the refreshed Transformer Prime coming as well and if the Android OS is replaced with a standard Linux distro (no bootlocks on these) again Linux users will have an ARM-based laptop that runs their standard desktop apps, something MS should have aimed for with Windows RT (their ARM port) but failed to do. Instead they’re trying to force a touch UI and non-multitasking, full-screen HTML5/Javascript apps onto the desktop in order to get cross-platform compatibility. I feel between these other developments and Ubuntu on Android eventually being able to put a full Linux desktop in millions of users’ pockets, things are going to get very interesting in the mobile arena.