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Comment by edent | Hacker News Reader

Just ordered one. I had a chat to the BQ team in London recently. They're selling CyanogenMod Android phones as well. The CEO was quite clear that flashing a new OS wasn't going to void the warranty.

I didn't get to play with their Ubuntu tablets, but their Android ones are well built, responsive, and have very clear screens.

This isn't going to replace your totally tricked-out MacBook - but as a portable web-browser / word processor / coding machine, I have high hopes for it.

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So you can install and run nginx, redis, Atom.io, postgres etc. on this?

Or an SSH client, and run all that stuff at DigitalOcean.

But you can also do that do that on any iPad or Android tablet?

Plus imagine the cases where you don't have wifi (train commute, metro, lousy coffee shop etc.)

You can, but IME, it's all terrible. I've tried so many android ssh-clients, and they are all either closed source, or don't work smoothly.

You could use Terminal Emulator and run the CLI ssh client. I know CyanogenMod includes "ssh".

It's probably closed-source, but I use JuiceSSH and it is great. The Pro version has a cloud backup that makes SSH migration a breeze.

I've used TE, and it does the job, just not well. Same with CM's ssh.

I've heard juicessh is great, but I'm not going to use a closed-source app, especially to manage my ssh-keys. I have my own migration method (svn repo), that works great on laptops, it just sucks on android's shells.

+1 for JuiceSSH, I also have the pro version and I'm very happy with it.

If you're rooted on Android, you could put a full Linux distro on it with chroot.[1] You could even set up a vnc server and use that to get into Xorg. I'd recommend using a physical keyboard for any long term use or may quickly learn how strange RSI feels at the shoulder.

You may also need a busybox installer app to get things working.

[1] - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Change_root

I've done the chroot, and it's slow and bulky. Although you are correct that it does work, I still don't feel it works well.

I also want to be able to configure my tablet from within my shell, and that means I'd have to be outside of the chroot.

It's probably more useful to be able to run Lisp, R, Octave etc. in a device like this.

Than what's the point of a Linux machine?

Yes. It's a full Linux machine.

Well, that's what I've been told - we'll see once they ship.

Nice. Tempted. I wish they'd offer a nice keyboard that goes with it and clips (magnets?) to the tablet.

I wonder how hard it's to program running a remote desktop connection to a desktop computer at home. I run Intellij Idea for java dev, so no way I can run on the tablet considering the battery drain.

It would be nice to program in the park by just bringing the tablet and a keyboard. On the other hand the latency alone might distract me enough to just give up.

I run JetBrains IDEs in a persistent Xpra session on a Exynos board. It is pretty usable on subpar connections, much more so than VNC. It has options to use NX behind the scenes as well.

Thanks, I'll definitely give it a try this summer with xpra. Did not know about it.

http://i.imgur.com/mSTNYMN.png

Not in a "supported" way. If it's anything like Ubuntu on phones, it will be a read-only filesystem with image-based updates. apt is available, but only if you remount the system read-write (you do have root via sudo). If you do that, then you can't use image-based updates any more, since that'll stomp over your changes.

I'm in favour of this arrangement, since I think it's the only way to get updates to work reliably, and I think that's essential. Android and iOS also do it this way, for example. But don't expect a traditional Linux-based desktop but on a tablet, since that's not what you'll get.

On the other hand, if you package up nginx, redis, Atom.io, postgres etc. via Ubuntu's app store, then sure.

Thank you for this informative comment (where do you learn more about the interesting stuff?).

Isn't there a nice way to have it both ways, i.e. automate all changes in a script, and roll it after each image update? Assuming most things that may need to be hacked away don't see breaking changes after each update?

Sure, you could do that. Ubuntu is Free Software, and you have root and the source code on the phone, and presumably will have the same on the tablet. So you can customise it at your will, including automation, if you're prepared to put in that effort.

> I'm in favour of this arrangement, since I think it's the only way to get updates to work reliably,

Then how is it Google can update my chromebook while I keep running ubuntu with 100% of linux features? I've done this for a year with no hiccup and no linux upgrades.

Assuming you're using Crouton or something similar on your Chromebook, your Ubuntu installation is inside a chroot. Chrome OS can be updated and just leave that directory alone. The important part of this is that Ubuntu itself is not being updated.

You could do this on an Ubuntu phone or tablet I suppose, by for example running a secondary "traditional" Ubuntu system inside a container in a read-write directory on the read-only system. I don't know if this will be possible from day one, but it's certainly possible technically if someone implements it (like how someone has implemented Crouton). I doubt you'll see the same level of integration (for example with the tablet UI seamlessly moving over to your desktop) if you do it this way, however.

> I'm in favour of this arrangement, since I think it's the only way to get updates to work reliably,

How is Maemo unreliable in that respect? I was disappointed to find Touch doesn't work like it does.

> But don't expect a traditional Linux-based desktop but on a tablet, since that's not what you'll get.

I thought the whole point was that you can switch. That's what Canonical says, and what's demonstrated in some videos floating around.

Can you be more specific? We may be talking about two different things. The Ubuntu phone requires apps specifically written for the UI (though I think things written against Qt's mobile APIs can be made fairly easily). The Ubuntu phone will not run your average X app. I'm not aware of the Ubuntu tablet proposed to be any different.

My understanding is that apps will indeed seamlessly switch between the two modes - but only where they have specifically been adapted to do so. Apps not adapted will not run. Or am I mistaken?

Afraid I don't know any more than what they've written and that you can see in things like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiEkCaA_P7c (I didn't interpret a desktop experience as necessarily meaning X.)

I think it'd be awesome if they could also offer some migration path from Android in order to attract more users.

I don't care that much, but I guess a lot of people would be very happy if they could run Android applications using something like Alien Dalvik, like Jolla does. In the foreseeable future, I don't see many applications developed for other platforms apart from iOS and Android.

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