Ubuntu on mobile devices
Posted on November 10, 2008, under Open-Source.
Ubuntu open source software foundation has announced an alliance with Mobile phone chip designer. Both companies agreed to work on the operating system for netbooks. So far Arm has been best known for designing the chips inside smartphones and feature phones. The new operating system for Arm-powered machines looks set to be available in April 2009.
Rob Coombs, director of mobile marketing at Arm, said he expected to see the first devices running the version of Ubuntu by the time of the Computex show in June. Small form-factor notebooks have proved hugely popular with many people looking for a small device that they can use to go online while out and about. The interest in the market sector is being driven by devices such as the XO laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project and the Eee machine from Asus.
“It is clear that new types of device - small, handheld, graphical tablets which are Internet-enabled - are going to change the way we communicate and collaborate,” said Ubuntu CTO Matt Zimmerman.
Main goal for implementing Ubuntu on portable devices is managing it’s power consumption. Hardware developments such as this are important to maximise battery life for portable devices that are required to run increasingly sophisticated software and deliver relatively power-hungry applications like the web.