Canonical has released Ubuntu 8.04 Mobile Internet Device Edition, a version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution geared towards netbooks, mobile internet devices, UMPCs, subnotebooks, or whatever they’re called this day of the week. It has a whole slew of optimisations geared specifically towards Intel’s Atom platform, as well as a set of open source applications designed specifically for MIDs, all courtesy of Intel’s Moblin project.
As Canonical’s announcement reads, “Ubuntu MID Edition, a fully open source project, gives the full Internet, with no compromise. Custom options may include licensed codecs and popular third-party applications.” This means all those popular Web 2.0 applications we all love and hug so much work just fine on Ubuntu MID Edition, thanks to its support for Java, Flash, AJAX, and more. It also includes support for web cameras and GPS.
The interface is touch-driven, and no stylus is needed (no word on multitouch support, though). The look and feel can be completely customised by OEMs, using HTML, Flash, Clutter, Python with GTK, and C/C++ with GTK and Java. Canonical offers to assist OEMs in this process through its Custom Engineering program.
Phoronix took a closer look at this new release, and has some more to say on what it has to offer.
With Ubuntu MID Edition 8.04, some packages have been removed, some added, and some are modified to better run on MID/UMPCs. One of the additions in Ubuntu MID 8.04 is a Gecko-based web browser designed specifically for smaller screens and with support for screen zooming. This piece of software is just called just MID Browser.Some of the included pieces of software are Pidgin for instant messaging, GNOME’s Cheese for web-camera integration, Claws Mail as the default mail client, and Moblin Media for music and video playback. A few games are also included such as Neverball and Frozen Bubble. For reading books on your MID or UMPC, Ubuntu MID provides FBReader as one of the default packages. Last but not least, there are a variety of other small applications such as an alarm clock, calculator, and contacts list.
MID Edition uses the 2.6.24 version of the Linux kernel, and X Server 1.4.1 pre-release. You can try it out yourself if you happen to have a supported device, but since the images Canonical are put out are geared towards a few specific devices, they are not really suitable for normal end-users, but more for OEMs. Luckily, Canonical does provide an image for use with KVM. Download it here.
Looks pretty sweet, but the target market for this doesn’t really seem to exist just yet, at least on x86.
All the x86 internet tablets I’ve seen are basically just subnotebooks, or really really expensive, or both.
I’d install it today if they had an ARM version. I think it would be a lot more useful to me than Maemo on my N800.
That’s definitely what I’d like to see too. I’d much rather run Ubuntu on my N800 than maemo at the maemo. That said the maemo platform is slowly improving and my views on it are constantly changing.
Looks huge, I mean the top taskbar seems to eat lot of space also some controls looked very big compared to screen size. I just hope it’s due viewing them on large screen. Hope to see products soon.
“Huge” is generally a good thing on small screens, since it gives you a larger target to hit. And since you’ll generally only be doing one thing at the time on such small devices, as long as you can have whatever you’re working on open full screen, then the size of the other controls won’t matter.
“…geared towards netbooks, mobile internet devices, UMPCs, subnotebooks, or whatever they’re called this day of the week. ”
My understanding is that there is a “Ubuntu Netbook Remix” that are for netbooks/subnotebooks/UMPC’s and this one is for the smaller, keyboardless internet devices with touch-screen such as the Nokia N810.
Correct me if I’m wrong here.
Edited 2008-06-25 06:49 UTC
I wonder how over stretched can Canonical become with all of this different and multiple flavors of Ubuntu in a development/maintainability way…
JeOS, Server Edition, Desktop and now MID… And of course this isnt the only thing that they develop. I mean, nothing against it, if they are going still to be providing Ubuntu in such a good shape, who am I to be say something…
You sure dont have time for some web browsing during work there