In a recent blog entry, Mark Shuttleworth, owner of Canonical and the de facto leader of Ubuntu development, announced that future versions of the OS will be optimi ed for tablets and smartphones. By spring 2014 (assuming the company keeps to its rigid release schedule), version 14.04 LTS “will power tablets, phones, and smart screens from the car to the office kitchen, and it will connect those devices cleanly and seamlessly to the desktop, the server, and the cloud.”
Shuttleworth’s ambitions are certainly timely. While it has become apparent that Linux will never challenge Windows’ core constituency of desktop and laptops, the definition of what constitutes a computing platform is expanding at an enormous rate thanks to continued advances in smartphone and tablet capabilities. Android and iOS have already established themselves as clear challengers to the Windows paradigm while ARM is threatening the x86 portion of the vaunted Wintel Alliance. Even more importantly, this is scarcely an idea the Canonical owner jotted down half-baked. Ubuntu’s Unity GUI, writes Shuttleworth, was specifically designed to scale across a wide range of devices from small touch screens to desktops, and to provide a consistent operating environment across all of them.
Ubuntu is the most popular, user-friendly Linux OS. Shuttleworth clearly has a plan in mind, and mentions multiple top tier partners like Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, IBM, and Lenovo. What could possibly go wrong?
Just about everything.
There’s a tremendous difference between offering a version of Ubuntu that’s been optimi ed to run on a tablet/slate, and negotiating with an OEM partner to ship it in commercial volume. Given the problems Android’s patent infringements have created for Samsung and HP, any vendor seriously considering a commercial product built on Ubuntu is going to want guarantees that they won’t run into patent problems down the road. Microsoft and Apple both have substantial patent portfolio war chests; negotiating a path between them is going to be tricky at best.
Ubuntu is also going to have to pay much closer attention to its power management. A known bug in Ubuntu 11.04 increased mobile device power consumption by 10-14 percent on average, and up to 30 percent in certain workloads, due to problems with PCI device polling. Oneiric Ocelot, which shipped several weeks ago, didn’t fix it. It’s now been confirmed as present in the Linux 3.2 kernel. With issues like this popping up on mainstream products using bog-standard Intel chipsets, Canonical clearly has to tighten its QA testing if it wants any shot at tablets, much less smartphones.
Ubuntu’s greatest challenge, however, will be justifying itself as a mainstream commercial option as opposed to a user-installed alternative to Windows 8. By the time 14.04 is ready, Android will have moved past Ice Cream Sandwich, Windows 8 will be on the market, and we can assume MS will have either done another major WP7 update or be working on WP8. Apple will likely have released iOS 6. WebOS may or may not still exist — rumors of Ama on’s interest are slugging it out with rumors that HP is going to finally pull the plug. Either way, the market is going to be darn crowded with major products from huge vendors, all jockeying for position.
A version of Ubuntu that penguinistas can install on their tablets? Sure, that makes sense. Anything more than that, and Shuttleworth has his work cut out for him. It’s one thing to crow about the growth of non-Windows, non-x86 devices, but none of the companies pushing that growth are sitting in their offices saying, “Gosh, if only we had a version of Ubuntu that could run on our tablets.” At least, if they are, they haven’t told anyone. It’s Canonical’s job to convince us otherwise.
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