Karl Godt wrote:May I ask about known Linux/GNU software to actually use the telephone features of a smart-phone ? How do I connect to the provider to speak ? Do I need to have Skype running for that ?
I'm unaware of any. I'm sure out there somewhere some *nix developer has written something for that, but I dont know what it is.
Sylvander wrote:The OS on our "Nokia Lumia 610" smartphone is "
Windows Phone 7.5".
Is it possible to backup and restore the OS on a smartphone?
Or install a new OS?
If so, does anyone know how?
Depends on the device. On Android devices you have to overwrite the bootloader with a program that will allow you to back up and restore images. I dont know if that exists for the Windows Phone yet. I'm sure eventually it will, but that has to exist first before you have any chance of changing the OS.
You'd need to first find out if you can root your phone, and then find out what recovery/reimaging tools exist for it. I dont know those answers, but I'm sure there somewhere out there on the internet.
greengeek wrote:Q5sys wrote:What does 'cloud puppy' even mean?
Well, something like this is a start:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=32428
But there'd be unlimited possibilities for accessing puppy-style apps online and tailoring the phone to look like a puppy if its' possible to modify icons, menus, etc, and maybe even add offline apps.
What would be really useful is if the phone could just be a portal to a login page that contains your favourite apps, and also your personal data, so that if the phone gets run over by a car, you have lost nothing - just buy/borrow a new one and your data/apps are all still on the puppy web portal.
Just like webmail but including other functionality aswell. I would happily pay a subscription for access to such a cloud hub if it was puppy driven (i trust puppy more than I trust MS or google - I feel more in control of my data).
I guess a phone that accesses the "cloud" in this manner is really using a browser as a vector for a terminal server session?
This then brings about the question of what is a 'puppy style app'. The apps that technosaurus used are already existing web apps. So they aren't 'puppy' apps at all, no more than they would be 'windows apps' if I ran them on a windows machine. So there's nothing Puppy about them. Technosauruses work which is impressive is to link all that through a webpage so that puppy can access them online. But those, with exception to the install menu, would work on windows as well. Here's an image of me running it on my phone:
Remember Puppy is an OS. Gimp runs on puppy, but that doesnt make it a 'puppy application'. Theoretically any GNU or *nix application could run on puppy, so make sure not to get confused with what Puppy is and what you can do with it.
As for web-apps you can already use those on any computer/phone that has access to the internet, because they are 'web' based. Nothing fancy is needed to be able to have the functionality you're looking for. It exists already on any platform, you just have to use it. The 'puppy web portal' you are looking for is pretty much called the internet. All you need to do is to make shortcuts on your smartphone to utilize those web-based apps. As for a service provider... Running Puppy as a server somewhere online to host user data... isnt really a good idea. Puppy was never designed to be a web server, there are plenty of far superior *nix offerings out there for that. From experience though, HTML5 and Flash runs like crap on almost every mobile device I've used.
As for interface, icons, menus... All that is... is a theme. Puppy isnt a theme. Sure you could change the theme of Windows, or Mac, or even Android to look and feel like puppy, but down under where it matters, its nothing more than a fancy theme. And since we'd have to completely change the Puppy interface to be able to utilize touch interface... you still wouldnt have the puppy look and feel that you're used to. Compare Windows Mobile to Windows. Compare iOS to OSX. They are completely different as far as usability and interface. Windows is trying to blur the line... but they've only done so with the start page, once you click to the desktop the whole Metro theme thing is gone.
However... all that being said, maybe I completely misunderstood what you were trying to explain to me. So if thats the case, then please do me a favor and explain it to me again. Sometimes I dont quite get the jist of what people mean through the written word online. Sigh... words just arent adequate sometimes to express ideas.
Anyway moving along... Ubuntu Touch
Lets start off with this, right now 90% of it doesnt work yet and is just filled with image and text placeholders, just to give the look and feel. It does come with a bundled browser, which I think is a custom webkit version, but I dont know cause I didnt really mess with it much since that wasnt what I wanted to focus on.
THE UI:
Overall the UI isnt too bad, there is alot of work to be done though, which is obvious since this is just a developer release. It has a nifty swipe feature to browse through the open applications, but I'm not sure how well that'll work in the real world. They have some neat UI features for being able access different features of the tablet, but again... i'm not sure how well it'll work in real life.
The Install:
Honestly this is very simple, and i'm quite impressed at how they manage it. Assuming you've already unlocked your bootloader, you can load Ubuntu Touch to a nexus device by connecting it to your ubuntu computer via USB with debugging, adding a repo, and then updating. Done, in moments you're up and running. Part of this reason is included below...
So in reality what is it?:
Its actually nothing more than a ubuntu install chrooted into a theme'd remix of a android remix of android. It's based on the CyanogenMod for Android,
CyanogenMod 10.1 is the flavor of choice to be exact. So its running the 'android' kernel. So in that sort of quasi way... it is still linux... although not much.
The system is chrooted under /data/ubuntu on the android filesystem.
It does not include Dalvik or Java, so it cant run native Android apps at all, but it's using the Android graphical display system. So what does that mean for us? well since its not using wayland or X.org, it means that regular *nix based apps that require x11 will not run. Also the main development sdk used in Ubuntu Touch is QT5, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out in the end, since thats such a new sdk.
The reason, I think, that Ubuntu decided to go this route is of running on top of CyanogenMod, was that it gives them access to all the binaries that are already written for the various Android harware thats out there. CyanogenMod acts as an interface between the Hardware and the Application layer. This also means that portability of ubuntu touch is eaiser since anything that can run cyanogenMod 10... should be able to run Ubuntu Touch.
So in the end...
this is not a Linux port of ubuntu to a phone. Furthermore,
this means that you cannot run ubuntu/debian applications on the ubuntu touch. I think the choice of Canonical going this route, shows that it's unrealistic to try to port the entire linux enviroment over to a phone/tablet.
As for the forthcoming Firefox OS... I have a feeling they will go a similar route. I dont see Mozilla suddenly designing an entire OS. If Canonical which produces Ubuntu doesnt want to design a full OS... I dont believe mozilla will either. I'm guessing at this point, seeing how Canonical opted to go, Mozilla will just do an entire web-app system.