Ubuntu isn’t the only Linux-based operating system that can run on the Google Nexus 7 tablet. Bodhi Linux developer Jeff Hoogland has piggybacked on Canonica’s work with Ubuntu to offer a tool that lets you install Bodhi on the $199 tablet.
Bodhi Linux uses the light-weight Enlightennment Desktop which, among other things, offers a touchscreen friendly user interface for tablets.
At this point Bodhi for the Nexus 7 is still a work in progress. The touchscreen and user interface works, but audio isn’t fully functional yet.
The operating system includes a touch-friendly app launcher, an Android-like home screen that lets you arrange app icons, and toolbars at the top and bottom of the screen. There’s also an on-screen keyboard.
Unlike Android, however, Bodhi runs desktop-style apps in resizable windows.
Hoogland also offers Bodhi Linux builds for other ARM-based devices including the Raspberry Pi, Samsung Chromebook, and Genesi Smartbook.
This is exactly what the world needs. Honestly, I don’t understand why anyone would run products like “Android” or “Chrome” that are produced and significant expenses and distributed for almost nothing by a company whose entire business model is based on harvesting their data for ambiguously defined purposes. These efforts by Ubuntu, Bodhi and others provide real alternatives for keeping control over your own information. Personally, I’d be willing to pay for alternatives like this up front. At least then I would know for certain what the cost of using the product really is.
Ubuntu is not a real alternative. Canonical is just the same as all the other evil companies.
I don’t get it, why waste one’s time doing this? Isn’t Android essentially a flavor of Unix? Too many people keep forking off into new projects, and that isn’t always useful.
I have to agree that “By the time the kinks have been worked out, the hardware will be a couple of generations old”!
Give a quick read of this article:
“…is Android Linux? The folks at the Linux Foundation seem to think so
(and seem awfully happy about it), and I’m going to have to agree with
them. Now before you purists come to West Virginia to beat some sense
into me, I’m not saying that Android is unadulterated GNU Linux. Clearly
it’s not, there’s far too many differences and psudeo-open source
licensing at play to call it pure. But for all intents and purposes,
it’s close enough.
Android now runs on top of a standard Linux kernel,
and uses many of the same kernelspace utilities and code that my
desktop does. Essentially, that’s what Linux is — the heart of many
different systems. Google, and the Android partners like Samsung, HTC,
and CyanogenMod, then build things out to present the user with an
interface to interact with the kernel. The kernel does stuff, all our
taps and swipes and presses are telling it the stuff we want it to do.
Just like any of the popular Linux distributions that you can install on
your computer at home or work.
Android looks and acts a little different because it needs to look
and act a little different to be useful on a small touch screen device.
Of course, this is the simplified version of things, but if you’re the
type who understands how the kernelspace and userspace interact, you see
where I’m coming from. Too much nerd is often too much.
So the next time you grab your Android-powered phone or tablet, just
remember that you’re part of the long standing tradition that is Linux.
It’s a good place to be.
https://www.androidcentral.com/ask-ac-android-linux
I’d be happy if I could install a different desktop environment. Or at least if I could run apps at the same time or have windows. I also really want ro run Linux apps on Android, which it does not allow since it is a pretty closed Java system (which also makes it kind of slow, by the way).
This is why I love what the Bodhi team has done there (I’d install gnome though, since my experience with enlightenment has been horrible). If they now introduce a convinient way of running android apps on there, I’d be all over it and even buy a Nexus 7 just to try it.
“At this point Bodhi for the Nexus 7 is still a work in progress.” AND from the Ubuntu article… “At this point Ubuntu for the Nexus 7 is still in the early phases.”
So sad that this is always the case with new hardware. By the time the kinks have been worked out, the hardware will be a couple of generations old. Been seeing this for a couple of decades in regard to Linux.
Honestly don’t bother with Desktop-centric Linux anymore – the jack of all trades, master of none “solution”…
Spoken like a true hack that doesn’t know what is going on.
I know exactly what’s going on so don’t get so offended. Been using Linux since the late 90s when it had mutated into a server-centric kernel for far too long. I just don’t feel like massaging egos anymore.
It’s time to step up the game and stop with all belly-flopping even it means Linux-specific hardware – which is the point I’m making.