Comments on: Ubuntu gets Android apps

By: Vlad

Vlad — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:08:34 +0000

@@@But the whole reason why Linux is so bad for desktop (and laptop) (and netbook) use (for normal-ish people, or advanced-windows users who are trying to get their feet wet with linux) is because people tell them “oh, just recompile it for your distro–its so easy”@@@
Andrew!
Unfortunately that sounds more like a reason why windows has so many malware to suffer from. Click-install-done! Great! Greatest OS!!! Eh?!
What did you click on? Was the product authentic? What ELSE installed? Dunno?
You do get a lot of errors under Win due to their obscure or not-existent permissions system on earlier versions but typical win user do not see them that often because (s)he runs everything as an admin! What a beautiful and advanced solution. I feel their pain, you try to be a non-privileged XP user and tell me how you feel!
Yet you are right somewhere – installation of binaries generate less errors than compiling it from source. That only means someone pre-compiled that binary for you and you are not aware of errors if they existed.
But this easiness would not be my number one concern in this scenario.
Ubuntu has a repository system that supply you with clean and signed binaries pre-compiled for YOUR system. The only one problem that linux suffers nowadays is some software makers do not wish to compile and test their product for linux. It is not the same as something doesn’t work, I hope you understand it.
Vlad.

By: RenzaiRizumu

RenzaiRizumu — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 17:25:13 +0000

I’d want to use the source so I can practice some of my programming finally

By: pyrofool

pyrofool — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:43:36 +0000

You wouldn’t necessarily have to recompile, something this big someone would create the proper packages for other distros. This is like the “glorious” .app for mac. Linux just takes some time to get used to.

By: rizumus

rizumus — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:24:50 +0000

This would be helpful for some, I’m hoping they release the source as well

By: Erik

Erik — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:27:09 +0000

Nice, I guess this could make the desktopphone data handling a lot more easy. Hope the source will be released soon.

By: Spindizy

Spindizy — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:29:26 +0000

@jeff little:

Im assuming you’re referring to the battery life on the G1 not being what you think it should be. I own a G1. Let me give you a tip. turn your brightness down. Let me say that again, turn your brightness down. If you spend most of your day in a building, theres no need to have your brightness up past a 1/4 unless you’re outside.

This one little trick will give you many extra hours of battery life.

By: fartface

fartface — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:54:34 +0000

Oh jeebus. Installing Ubuntu is 100 times easier than installing XP or Vista. All of you fanbois hem and haw yet ignore that all Windows users get it spoon fed already installed.

Also all of you ignore that ubuntu IS easier to use than windows. If a windows user can use a mac or switch to Vista, they can use Ubuntu.

Let’s discuss the cryptic bS messages from Windows.

By: IceBrain

IceBrain — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:47:12 +0000

nebulous: they were talking about recompiling it in gentoo, not Ubuntu. If you can’t compile stuff in Gentoo you have the wrong distro.

As for Ubuntu, it’ll probably be just another package in Synaptic, one click away from installation.

By: nebulous

nebulous — Wed, 27 May 2009 09:10:17 +0000

@ james
Pay attention please. It’s not about creating programs, it’s about installing programs. And the advice given was “Just recompile”. While it’s good that you can, it wouldn’t be good if you have to.

Case in point: Windows and MacOS X. If Linux could replicate the MacOS X app bundles, that’d be marvelous.

By: Jeff Little

Jeff Little — Wed, 27 May 2009 08:49:30 +0000

So does running this make my battery life go to shit? :)

By: Ugly American

Ugly American — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:33:59 +0000

I have no affiliation with Ubuntu, this is just my take on what they’re doing.

Ubuntu is a binary oriented GNU+Linux distro. They will have easy binary installs from menus but will also make the source available to tweakers once they’re satisfied that the quality is usable. It’s a more BSD-ish approach.

The idea is to be able to access all your phone data & apps in the most natural way on your big machine yet still be able to run Gnumeric, Open Office, or whatever heavyweight code you might want. These are the sorts of things that many biz people say keeps them on Windows & OSX.

By: James

James — Wed, 27 May 2009 04:19:16 +0000

Novel concept here. But why not just use the Android Dev. Env. created by android. Oh and if make/make install is too difficult. Might I suggest not trying to create programs in the first place.

By: punmaster

punmaster — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:45:43 +0000

@cyrozap

You left out the part about spending hours on Google looking up the cryptic error messages produced by one or all of the above steps. :P

By: cyrozap

cyrozap — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:08:46 +0000

Oh, next to “cd” it should say “[directory-of-files-to-be-compiled].”

By: cyrozap

cyrozap — Wed, 27 May 2009 03:07:20 +0000

But it _IS_ easy! You only type three commands:

cd
make
sudo make install

and then you type in your admin password, hit enter, _AND THAT’S IT_!