Ubuntu for phones to arrive next week on Nexus 4

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 15 Feb 2013 at 17:40

A developer preview of Ubuntu for phones will be made available for download next week for Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 smartphones, Canonical has said.
The open-source firm said the Touch Develop Preview for the phone version of Ubuntu will arrive 21 February, allowing developers to download an image of the OS.
Canonical said the build is being released to give developers time to create apps for the Ubuntu phone platform, set to arrive in October, and also for "enthusiasts" eager to get a look at the early builds.

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Ubuntu aims high and low with new smartphone OS

Pat McGowan, who leads the integration on the project, said Canonical plans to add support for additional devices. "Our platform supports a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions," McGowan added. "Developers who have experience bringing up phone environments will find it relatively easy to port Ubuntu to current handsets."
The preview features a tool to make it easy for users to update their version of the OS as it progresses through development.
Canonical's plan for the new version of Ubuntu is that it will work across any device, be it mobile, desktop or TV. "Developers will not need to cross-compile or package applications differently for phone, tablet, PC and TV," Canonical said. "One platform serves all four, a single application binary can do the same."
Canonical confirmed the schedule for the phone code to be included in the OS, saying Ubuntu 13.10, due for release in October, will "include a complete entry-level smartphone experience". Canonical's founder Mark Shuttleworth said last week that Ubuntu phones would be released in October.
The Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu for phones will be available here next week.
Canonical will be at Mobile World Congress at the end of the month, and will help anyone with either handset to flip over to the new Ubuntu OS.

Ubuntu CEO: two-year releases are only "an idea" PC Pro News

By Barry Collins

Posted on 24 Jan 2013 at 12:24

Canonical CEO Jane Silber has told PC Pro that proposals to release a new version of Ubuntu only once every two years are merely "very, very early stage discussions".

Ubuntu has been on a six-monthly release cycle since 2004, with Long Term Support (LTS) versions of the OS being released every two years. However, Canonical developers earlier this week discussed the possibility of scrapping those interim releases, with new features being introduced in rolling updates as and when they're ready.

In an exclusive interview with PC Pro, Silber said the plans are far from concrete. "This is very, very early stage discussion. Because we do things so openly, sometimes our early stage ideas get attention in the press well before they're anywhere near a decision," she said.

The honest answer is I don't know if it's likely, because it's an idea at this point, and I think the idea merits discussion

"The honest answer is I don't know if it's likely, because it's an idea at this point, and I think the idea merits discussion."

Silber denied the proposed move was to ease the strain on Ubuntu's developers, who are now working on versions of Ubuntu for smartphones, televisions and tablets as well as the PC. "It's not so much a resource-management issue as an efficiency issue," she said.

"When we started Canonical and Ubuntu in 2004 and we said we're going to release Ubuntu every six months, the reaction was 'you guys are crazy, nobody can put out a full operating system every six months, that's just madness'."

"Remember, at the time Debian was coming out unpredictably every three to five years, Windows was coming out with many years in between - it [a six-month schedule] was unheard of. We believe we've professionalised that release process - that process of integration and getting open source communities to work together to a six-monthly release cycle.

"Now everybody does it. Fedora does it every six months, SUSE does it every six months, we showed how it could be done. Now six months seems a really long time."

Allowing developers to release new features when they're ready, rather than waiting for the traditional April and October releases, would give them greater flexibility and get those features to consumers sooner, said Silber.

"A lot of our customers who upgrade every six months would be pretty well served by a rolling release, because what they want is the latest and greatest all the time. Every time we do one of those releases, we stop doing other development work."

Read more: Ubuntu CEO: two-year releases are only "an idea" | News | PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/379507/ubuntu-ceo-two-year-releases-are-only-an-idea#ixzz2ItlbYC9V