Samsung is preparing a version of the Galaxy S III on Tizen?

Organization of Wi-Fi Alliance has certified the model based on the operating system Tizen. However, about her little is known - the documentation only mentions the name GT-I9300 TIZEN and support wireless standard Wi-Fi technology with Wi-Fi Direct and Miracast. It is not clear how the device looks and what are its characteristics, but the index smartphone (GT-I9300) is the same as the flagship Samsung Galaxy S III.

It is quite possible that the new product is an analog of the smartphone, only on the basis of the software platform Tizen. Recall, Tizen - it's open source operating system based on Linux, designed for a wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, computers, and so on. It is supported by Samsung, Intel, Acer and Asus, the OS is the successor to MeeGo and LiMo. It is possible of course, that the Samsung Galaxy S III just tested Tizen, but in this case it is not clear why it took Certification Wi-Fi Alliance.

Spirits Game Trailer - PC, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

Buy it now at http://www.humblebundle.com

Autumn is coming. Leaves fall, and spirits rise from the fallen leaves to begin their journey home. Guide them by changing how the wind blows or by rebuilding the ground. Each spirit can be sacrificed to perform one of four actions -- build a bridge of leaves, create a blowing cloud, dig tunnels, or block wind currents in an area. Use your actions wisely or you will run out of spirits. In each level it's up to you to find your own creative solution on how to get the spirits to the goal.

http://www.spacesofplay.com/spirits

Lexand LT-127 and LT-227: Readers with a color touchscreen

The company "Laboratory" Leksand "(trade mark Lexand) today announced two new models of readers. Lexand LT-127 is a color reader with the ability to play music and videos. Lexand LT-227, in turn, is a multimedia card reader running Android with the possibility of applications. Both models are made in the 7-inch form factor and equipped with color touch-sensitive LCD display with 800 x 480 pixels.

Lexand LT-127 is built on RockChip RK2738 processor with a clock frequency of 560 MHz and on Linux. In addition to displaying electronic documents, the model can play video in HD 720p, display photos in color and play music. In addition, Lexand LT-127 has a number of additional features: a dictionary, calculator, games. Lexand LT-227 - a multimedia card reader, a tablet running Android 2.2 with support for Google services and a set of preinstalled applications, including services "Yandex" and Mail. Ru, as well as anti-virus program Dr. Web. Lexand LT-227 is based on the processor RockChip RK2818 with a frequency of 700 MHz, equipped with 256 MB RAM module and Wi-Fi. Both new products are equipped with 4 GB of internal memory, slot for microSD cards up to 16GB, speaker, microphone, 3.5-mm jack for headphones and a lithium-polymer battery capacity of 2500 mAh.

By design Lexand LT-127 and LT-227 is almost identical: the case of devices made of rubberized plastic, such as "soft touch" black readers is the thickness of 9.5 mm. The front panel is the hardware buttons to scroll through pages. Sales Lexand LT-127 and LT-227 in Russia have already started their suggested retail price is 3499 rubles and 3999 rubles, respectively.

Tizen Developer Smartphone Device Spotted (updated)

Several companies doing demos at the 2012 Tizen Developer Conference are using Samsung provided developer smartphones. Specs are still a bit sketchy but from from what I have been told, they are dual-cores, 1.2GHz, and ARM-based. Check out the photos I took from the Samsung’s booth:

Update: Samsung’s Executive Vice President, J-D Choi revealed some details with regards to the specs of the device:

Dual-core
4.65″ Super AMOLED screen
Cortex A9 1.2GHz processor
1GB RAM
16GB hard drive
8MP back camera
2MP front camera
micro USB
WiFi
GPS
running Tizen 1.0
Audio/Video Decoder (MP3, AAC, AAC+, Mpeg4, .h263, .h264)

A Detailed Look At Tizen on Samsung’s First Prototype Device

Tizen just hit the 1.0 release last week (codenamed Larkspur), and at the Tizen Conference I’ve had the chance to play with the prototype device that Samsung has been handing out to developers to test their applications. Its basically a super large screen device, (4.65 inch my guess is about 4.3-4.7″ inches, 1280 x 720p HD Super AMOLED) that’s running on an 1.2 Ghz dual core A9 chip, with 1 GB of RAM. There’s also an 8 MP camera. In some cases it contains a cellular radio, while some device are WIFI only. There’s no word on what clock speed are they running at, or the the size of battery that’s inside.

source

Tizen on Samsung's First Prototype Device

http://thehandheldblog.com/2012/05/08/tizen-phone-demo/ - I look at Tizen on Samsung's prototype reference device. We go over the UI, and some preloaded applications.

Tizen 1.0 Larkspur SDK and Source Code Release

Today we are excited to announce Tizen 1.0 Larkspur, including the addition of new complimentary components, as well as source code that focuses on enhancing stability and performance. We believe that these updates and new offerings improve the experience for developers. We are also continuing to work on improvements and additions, and we will be doing frequent updates to the SDK and source code. There are a few additional components that we plan to add in the coming weeks, and we will continue to fix bugs and add additional features.

We encourage you to download the new SDK and let us know what you think! You can learn more about where to ask questions or submit bugs by visiting our community page.

This release provides new features and other improvements, including the following updates to the SDK:

Simulator: A new browser-based tool that supports the Tizen APIs and allows you to run and debug your web applications, and simulate running applications with various device profiles.
IDE: Enhancements include more flexibility around templates and debugging tools.
Emulator: Significantly improved emulator performance through Intel's Hardware Acceleration Manager for Windows and OpenGL acceleration for Linux.
Updates to the platform source code include:

Web: Support for additional features of W3C/HTML5 specification
Location: Support for POI (Point of Interest) and route search
Connectivity: Wi-Fi Direct key features added
This is just a summary of the many changes, but you can see the full list by visiting the release notes pages for the SDK and the source code.

We have also made a number of improvements to the community infrastructure. We have also added a bug tracker and wiki for the community. There are also a number of back-end changes, designed to improve stability and scalability of the infrastructure. We hope you enjoy all of these new improvements for the Tizen project.

The Tizen Technical Steering Group

Multi-touch Support Lands in Maverick

Canonical is pleased to announce the release of uTouch 1.0, Ubuntu’s multi-touch and gesture stack. With Ubuntu 10.10 (the Maverick Meerkat), users and developers will have an end-to-end touch-screen framework — from the kernel all the way through to applications. Our multi-touch team has worked closely with the Linux kernel and X.org communities to improve drivers, add support for missing features, and participate in the touch advances being made in open source world. To complete the stack, we’ve created an open source gesture recognition engine and defined a gesture API that provides a means for applications to obtain and use gesture events from the uTouch gesture engine.

Our multi-touch work began in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, when we worked to get additional touch hardware supported in the Linux kernel, particularly the Dell XT2, HP tx2 tablets and the Lenovo T410s laptops. With that in place, and active development in X well under way, we reviewed our options for gesture recognition in Linux. The Maverick cycle has seen us produce several prototypes for gesture recognition software and the Ubuntu archives now include the results of that effort.

The world’s expectations of software experience are being raised by advances in mobile computing. We are bringing that revolution to the Linux desktop: for window management and applications. Though our work at the application level has only just started, we are certain that multi-touch and gestures will be central to the way we use Linux applications in future.

The success of touch in applications depends on several key factors:

* toolkit integration of gesture APIs
* touch support for legacy applications
* designing new applications for finger-based interactions

Work has begun on all three fronts in Ubuntu, and we expect it to remain an area of active interest over the next few releases up to 12.04 LTS.

Ubuntu is the fruit of collaboration across the huge Ubuntu community, and also the amazing work of many other communities that form around individual projects and initiatives like Debian. The uTouch framework enables work to begin across many of those communities to make touch a first-class interaction model in open source desktop and mobile software.

Existing contributions in other projects have provided fertile ground for uTouch. To name just a few:

* Stéphane Chatty at ENAC has lead much multi-touch hardware support in the kernel
* Peter Hutterer at Red Hat defined multi-pointer X and proposed a multi-touch protocol for a future version of X
* Carlos Garnacho of the GNOME community has done multi-touch work in X and GTK

We’re look forward to continued collaboration, ensuring that Linux remains the preferred platform for people building cutting-edge devices and software.

Canonical is working with manufacturers of touch-enabled products and those of their underlying technology in order to bring innovations in user experience to a broader audience. Our aim is to bring the natural, tactile experience of the world to the desktop, window manager, and applications you value — all the software that you depend upon to get things done and have fun. Touch will be part of the Ubuntu Netbook, Desktop and Light products from 10.10 and beyond.

Maverick Meerkat Alpha 3

Introduction:

The Ubuntu developers are moving quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source community has to offer. The Maverick Meerkat Alpha 3 is the third alpha release of Ubuntu 10.10, bringing with it new features for the next version of Ubuntu.

This is an alpha release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released on October 10, 2010.
Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release '10.10' is available. Click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions.

To upgrade from Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on a server system: install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed; edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=normal; launch the upgrade tool with the command sudo do-release-upgrade -d; and follow the on-screen instructions.
New features in Maverick

Feature development for Maverick has started. Please see the Maverick blueprint list for details.

Please test and report any bugs you find:

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http://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

Updated Packages

As with every new release, packages--applications and software of all kinds--are being updated at a rapid pace. Many of these packages came from an automatic sync from Debian's Unstable branch. The period of automatic syncs has stopped now, so from now on there will be fewer changes.

For a list of all packages being accepted for 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, please subscribe to maverick-changes:

*

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/maverick-changes

Ubuntu

The GNOME base platform has been updated to the current 2.31 versions. This particularly includes the new dconf and gsettings API. Evolution was updated to the 2.30 version, which operates much faster compared to the version in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
Ubuntu Netbook Edition

The new Unity interface is now the default in Ubuntu Netbook Edition. This includes the global menu bar as part of the default interface. The date/time indicator now has a real calendar widget.

The standard photo management application has been switched to Shotwell.
Kubuntu

KDE Platform was updated to the 4.5 release candidate. The standard web browser is now Rekonq, a KDE browser based on Webkit.

Qt was updated to the current 4.7 beta release.
Xubuntu

Xfce4 was updated to the current 4.6.2 release. This fixes many of the bugs and updates the programs used in Xubuntu.

New default applications: Parole (Xfce4 Media Player) replaced Totem Movie Player, Xfburn (Xfce4 CD/DVD burning tool) replaced Brassero, and xfce4-taskmanager (Xfce4 process manager) replaced Gnome-Task-Manager.
Edubuntu

Edubuntu changes include the changes from Ubuntu. The edubuntu-artwork package has been split into smaller packages to improve future updates and reduce download sizes.
Software-Center

The software-center got a "Featured" and "Whats New" carousel in the Frontpage. It is faster and more responsive and contains a "History" feature that keeps track of what was installed/removed/upgraded. Plugin support is added and technical items will not be shown by default
Linux kernel 2.6.35

Alpha 3 includes the 2.6.35-14.19 kernel based on 2.6.35 final.

This kernel includes new security enhancements. Of major note is the change the default behavior of PTRACE which is used by gdb, strace, ltrace, etc. The behavior for 10.10 is that only child processes can be PTRACEd, due to the default value of "1" in /proc/sys/kernel/ptrace_scope. This value may be inappropriate for some development systems and servers with only admin accounts. If using "sudo" for PTRACE is not desired, please change this value to "0".
Ubuntu Server Cloud images

cloud-init, the configurable initialization process for Ubuntu Server cloud images, has gained new features in Maverick Alpha 2, including pluggable hooks, ebsmount, ext4 support, and new stanzas in the cloud-config format.

Starting with Alpha3, cloud images instances can now manage their own kernel, and can upgrade kernels with apt. This is done by utilizing pv-grub provided by Amazon.
Installation

The new btrfs file system may now be used during installation via manual partitioning, as long as /boot is on some other file system.
Download Alpha 3

Get it while it's hot. ISOs and torrents are available at:

*

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/maverick/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Desktop, Server, and Netbook)
http://uec-images.ubuntu.com/releases/maverick/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Server for UEC and EC2)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/maverick/alpha-3/ (Kubuntu Desktop and Netbook)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/maverick/alpha-3/ (Xubuntu)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/maverick/alpha-3 (Edubuntu DVD)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/maverick/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu Studio)
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-netbook/ports/releases/maverick/alpha-3/ (Ubuntu ARM)

Known issues

As is to be expected at this stage of the release process, there are several known bugs that users are likely to run into with Maverick Alpha 3. We have documented them here for your convenience along with any known workarounds, so that you don't need to spend time reporting these bugs again:

*

OEM mode installation fails when you do not have an internet connection, due to a failure to install the oem-config package from the installation image. If you need this for testing, please ensure you have a network connection all the time. (613008)
*

The Wubi Windows installer was reported to fail. Investigation of the problems are ongoing (600578, 613288)
*

Ubuntu Netbook Edition with Unity does not currently provide a fallback for systems without a 3D capable video driver, such as NVidia cards. (600567)
*

On systems with very little memory (256 MB and below), ureadahead causes out-of-memory conditions, which may break booting. (600359)
*

Applications using sqlite3 encounters a lot of performance issues and query accuracy, like in banshee. (612370)
*

A pre-release version of Eucalyptus 2.0 was included for alpha3, and it still has rough edges. In particular, registration after installation is currently unreliable (609112), and complex topologies (separating the CLC from the Walrus, for example) are not supported yet (613033). When Installing a 'node' system, expect 2 x grub issues that can be safely ignored. (613463).
*

KDM times out when starting from the Kubuntu live image, following the prompts from failsafe X should start the session (613574)

Reporting bugs

It should come as no surprise that this alpha release of Maverick Meerkat contains other bugs. Your comments, bug reports, patches and suggestions will help fix bugs and improve future releases. Please report bugs using the tools provided.

If you want to help out with bugs, the Bug Squad is always looking for help.
Participate in Ubuntu

If you would like to help shape Ubuntu, take a look at the list of ways you can participate at

*

http://www.ubuntu.com/community/participate/

More information

You can find out more about Ubuntu on the Ubuntu website and Ubuntu wiki.

To sign up for future Ubuntu development announcements, please subscribe to Ubuntu's development announcement list at:

http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-announce

Skeletons Hidden in the Linux Closet: r00ting your Linux Desktop for Fun and Profit

A couple of months ago, while working on Qubes GUI virtualization, Rafal has come up with an interesting privilege escalation attack on Linux (a user-to-root escalation), that exploits a bug in... well, actually it doesn't exploit any concrete bug, which makes it so much more interesting.

The attack allows a (unpriviliged) user process that has access to the X server (so, any GUI application) to unconditionally escalate to root (but again, it doesn't take advantage of any bug in the X server!). In other words: any GUI application (think e.g. sandboxed PDF viewer), if compromised (e.g. via malicious PDF document) can bypass all the Linux fancy security mechanisms, and escalate to root, and compromise the whole system. The attack allows even to escape from the SELinux's "sandbox -X" jail. To make it worse, the attack has been possible for at least several years, most likely since the introduction of kernel 2.6.

You can find the details of the attack, as well as the discussion of possible solutions, including the one that has eventually been implemented, in the Rafal's paper.

One important aspect the attack demonstrates, is how difficult it is to bring security to a desktop platform, where one of the biggest challenges is to let applications talk to the GUI layer (e.g. X server in case of Linux), which usually involves a very fat GUI protocol (think X protocol, or Win32 GUI API) and a very complex GUI server, but at the same time keep things secure. This was one of the key priories for us when designing Qubes OS architecture. (So, we believe Qubes is much more secure than other sandboxing mechanisms, such as BSD jails, or SELinux-based sandboxes, because it not only eliminates kernel-level exploits, but also dramatically slims down GUI-level attacks).

The kernel-level "patch" has been implemented last week by Linus Torvalds, and pushed upstream into recent stable kernels. RedHat has also released an advisory for this attack, where they rated its severity as "high".

ps. Congrats to Brad Spengler for some good guessing :)

source

LiMo frustrated, may have to merge with Linux Foundation, say Taiwan handset makers

As Vodafone has decided to forgo the planned launch of the LiMo-based 360 H2 and will not offer any LiMo handsets, the future development of LiMo has turned pessimistic and the best choice for the LiMo Foundation is to merge with the Linux Foundation, Taiwan-based handset makers have commented.

Vodafone launched two customized LiMo-based Samsung Electronics handset models, the 360H1 and 360M1, in the second half of 2009, and sales performance has been unsatisfactory, the sources said.

Of the LiMo Foundation's six founding members, Motorola has withdrawn, while Samsung and Vodafone no longer show much interest, the sources said, adding it remains to be seen how the other founding members, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic and NEC, as well as other partners, can promote the LiMo platform.

Make It Happen at OSCON

There is big change in technology and society, and open source is making it happen. Cloud computing is transforming our toolkit, from NoSQL to systems management. Mobile services are growing exponentially, set alight by Android and iPhone. New languages and APIs are flourishing. Developers must adapt to a rapidly evolving platform, which open source is the key to managing and steering.

openSUSE 11.3:

Top Features:

It has been a long time coming, but it's finally here! Don't let the version number fool you! The openSUSE 11.3 release features new improved versions of more than 1,000 open source desktop applications. openSUSE also includes a full suite of server software and a rich selection of open source development tools. And as with previous release openSUSE is offered as a retail box available in some shops or to be ordered here.


Netbook Support:

If you use a small, lightweight netbook 11.3 has a lot to offer for you. You will not only benefit from the improved hardware support but also from the two netbook desktop environments this version brings.

The KDE project brings you the Plasma Netbook Workspace that is made specifically for those kinds of devices. It brings a "Search and Launch" interface which provides convenient access to your applications in a beautiful way. Of course it is built on top of a rich internet experience with a lot of mail, micro blogging and social networking.

But that is not everything! The MeeGo project, headed up by Intel and Nokia, develops another visually rich netbook user interface and the openSUSE Goblin team has this packaged for you in 11.3. MeeGo on openSUSE (Code named Smeegol) brings many additional features which include one of the best media enjoyment experiences thanks to the latest and greatest that Banshee offers, and will include the Amazon MP3 store when it is released. It also adds additional social media functionality, including Digg, Facebook, MySpace and Flickr.

openSUSE 11.3 is here!

The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of the latest incarnation of openSUSE, with support for 32-bit and 64-bit systems. openSUSE 11.3 is packed with new features and updates including SpiderOak to sync your files across the Internet for free, Rosegarden for free editing of your audio files, improved indexing with Tracker, and updates to Mozilla Firefox, and Thunderbird.

Among these many new features, openSUSE also provides support for netbooks and the Btrfs file system support. Users can expect to see improved hardware support with the 2.6.34 Linux kernel and updated graphics drivers. And support for the next generation of interactive computing for touchscreens like the HP TouchSmart.

openSUSE continues its tradition of delivering the popular KDE, GNOME and Xfce desktop environments, and now also provides the lightweight LXDE desktop environment. With GNOME, you can use the latest 2.30.1 version or take your installation for a drive with a preview of the upcoming GNOME 3.0. Or choose KDE SC 4.4.4 for the latest updates. They all feature the polish and integration that the openSUSE distro has been known for.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Gets SP1 Flexibility

Review: eWEEK Labs encountered a few snags testing SLES 11 with SUSE Linux Enterprise 11's Service Pack 1, especially involving KVM and Hyper-V, but Novell is doing a good job of maintaining SLES as a leading enterprise operating system that should be evaluated by any organization that employs virtualization.
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SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Gets SP1 Flexibility
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With the first service-pack update to its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, Novell has stuck with its philosophy of appealing to as many different server constituents as possible, with a particular focus on assuming as many different virtualization host and client roles as possible.

Between the OEM arrangement with VMware for SLES that Novell announced in June and the goodies that SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Service Pack 1 brings relating to Xen, KVM and Hyper-V, SUSE's enterprise-oriented Linux offering merits evaluation by organizations running virtual infrastructures of all stripes.

For a visual tour of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, click here.

Of course, the more broadly a vendor spreads its attention, the more difficult it can to really to nail any one area. In my tests of SLES 11 SP1, I encountered a few snags—particularly in the KVM and Hyper-V quarters outside of Novell's preferred Xen terrain—but I was impressed overall by the progress that Novell has made maintaining in SLES as a leading enterprise operating system amid industry shifts around virtualization and cloud computing.

Versions of SLES 11 are available for the x86, x86_64, Itanium, IBM PowerPC and zSeries processor architectures. I tested the x86_64 version of SLES 11 SP1 on a dual-processor server with 4GB of RAM, which I pressed into service as first a KVM virtualization host and then a Xen virtualization host. I also tested SLES 11 SP1 as a guest operating system running under those KVM and Xen hosts, and as a guest machine running under Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V.

SLES 11 is sold by annual subscription, with pricing that differs based on support level and processor architecture. For x86 and x86_64 architectures, subscriptions range from basic plans that include 30 days of telephone and e-mail-based support and cost $349 per system to priority subscriptions that cost $1,499 per system and include 24/7 telephone and e-mail support over the full support term.

All subscriptions include access to product updates and allow for an unlimited number of hosted virtual machines. For more on SLES 11 pricing, go here.

SLES in the lab

I kicked off my tests with Hyper-V. Owing to the infamous Linux collaboration arrangement that Novell and Microsoft began back in 2006, I expected the path to running SLES under Hyper-V to be particularly smooth. Right off the bat, I was pleased to find that the so-called enlightened drivers required to use full-speed virtual components under Hyper-V were automatically installed on my test instance.

I was less pleased to find that while the driver required for my test instance to use its virtual network interface came preinstalled, my test system needed some prodding before it would use it. I had to issue the command "modprobe hv_netvsc" to get my SLES instance to recognize its network interface. I then edited my instance's /etc/sysconfig/kernel file to load the module automatically upon subsequent boots.

Elsewhere on the virtual hardware front, I encountered some frustration with the lack of mouse support for Linux under Hyper-V, which I experienced when my first SLES booted up by default into a graphical interface. Microsoft does not provide a Hyper-V driver for mouse support, and the input driver that Citrix's XenSource developed under its Project Satori doesn't work with the Version 2.6.32 kernel that powers SLES 11 SP1.

I was able to interact with the graphical interface of my SLES instance machine by enabling its VNC-based remote administration feature, and I could administer the system easily through a command line SSH (Secure Shell) session. The system's setup tool, YAST, comes with a nifty terminal-friendly version of its interface. However, both of those routes require network access, and as I mentioned above, I encountered a few issues there, as well.

Click to read the rest of the article

LXDE demo on openSUSE-11.3

openSUSE-11.3 RC1 LXDE desktop demo - with faint background music

Android and Ubuntu Linux on HD2 with Touchscreen Working

Well that was a quick update! Touchscreen is now working! Now hopefully the stability of Android can be improved! GO TEAM #HTC-LINUX!

No Tablet with Ubuntu planned

Mark Shuttleworth has denied that there will be a tablet version of Ubuntu. In an interview with Golem.de on the edge of the LinuxTag, he reiterated Canonical's plans for the use of the Linux distribution on desktops and netbooks.
Ubuntu is the future for desktop PCs, netbooks and use are developed on servers, said Mark Shuttleworth Golem.de. Same time, Ubuntu will be optimized for use on netbooks. There were discussions with OEM partners how to distribute a new version, called Ubuntu Light, in parallel with Windows on netbooks.

Canonical Ubuntu will bring neither on smartphones or on tablets, so Shuttleworth. His colleague Chris Kenyon had been misunderstood in an interview. There were developers who uses Ubuntu on different devices, such as in video streaming devices, and, indeed, Tablets. Ubuntu plans to develop a special version for Tablets, there was not.

Ubuntu tablet threat to iPad? Nah

Apple mops sweat from brow, puts down smelling salts.

The founder of Linux Ubuntu has laid to rest stories of a tablet version, no doubt causing widespread relief in Cupertino.

Rumours of an Ubuntu tablet circulated over the weekend, based on an interview with Canonical's VP of Alliances and OEM Services. But those rumours have now been scotched by the man in charge, Mark Shuttleworth, who told Golem.de that Ubuntu remains about desktops, netbooks and servers.

Canonical is the company that funds and manages Ubuntu. Canonical's VP reportedly said that a touch screen version of the distribution was in the offing, and mentioned all sorts of places where the distribution might turn up including tablets. At the time we commented that this would seem in contradiction to previous statements, and sure enough Shuttleworth - the man behind Canonical and sometime amateur astronaut - has clarified the matter.

In the interview with Golem.de Shuttleworth makes it very clear that while Ubuntu will be working on a lightweight version for netbooks there is no tablet-specific version planned. The original interview, it seems, was referring to the habit of Ubuntu developers to run the platform on all sorts of hardware, as Linux hackers are wont, including tablets.

Competing with Android and Meego, not to mention iOS, would seem optimistic to the point of self-delusion. Any company, open source or otherwise, who decides to take on Nokia, Microsoft, Apple and Google for ownership of a market that might not even exist is surely fanciful at the very least.

Canonical developing Ubuntu OS for tablets

Canonical is preparing a version of the Ubuntu OS for tablet computers as the company looks to extend its presence in the mobile space, a company executive said on Wednesday.

Tablets with the Ubuntu OS could become available late in next year's first quarter, said Chris Kenyon, Canonical's vice president of OEM (original equipment manufacturer) services. The OS will be a lightweight version of Linux with a simplified, touch-friendly user interface.
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Tablets are handheld devices with multitouch screens and on-screen keyboards. This would be Canonical's first foray into the tablet market, where it will compete with Google's Android, Intel's Meego and Apple's iPhone-based OS, which is used in the iPad.

Canonical currently offers Ubuntu 10.04 for servers, PCs and netbooks. However, the company has "broader and bigger ambitions than just netbooks," Kenyon said.

With touch input and varying screen sizes, tablets are fundamentally different from PCs, Kenyon said. The focus will be on developing an OS with a simplified user interface that provides quick access to the most-used applications. Development efforts will also focus on adding on-screen keyboard features and compatibility for multitouch drivers.

"The devices world is a really exciting space right now and we're really bullish on it," Kenyon said. "Hats off to the iPad team for doing what they did."

On the hardware side, the company is also talking to tablet makers and component manufacturers for the OS to run faster while consuming less power, Kenyon said. The company has signed deals with chip makers Freescale, Texas Instruments and Marvell, which make chips based on the Arm processor for devices like tablets and netbooks. The company is also collaborating with Intel to improve power-states, and display companies like Pixel Qi, which develops battery-saving screens for laptops and tablets.

Canonical already provides cloud storage through the Ubuntu One service, and users can purchase music through the Ubuntu One Music Store. Canonical may look to make deals to bring more content to users, but Kenyon did not provide further details.

The tablet OS will be based on Ubuntu's upcoming version 10.10, which is code-named Maverick Meerkat. The company also will merge the tablet and netbook OS under a lightweight Linux version called Ubuntu Light. Canonical already offers a version of Ubuntu Light, but it is being pitched as a quick-boot companion to Windows, or as a lightweight OS for netbooks and PCs.

Canonical developed an edition of Ubuntu in 2008 for mobile Internet devices, but the category of devices failed to take off. The company is taking a renewed look at the mobile space with a new generation of mobile products and form factors emerging. However, there are no plans to release a version of Ubuntu for smartphones.

"It's a crowded space with a lot of powerful players," Kenyon said.

source