Ubuntu for Android and The Boot to Gecko Project 

Posted on by Philip Casey

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to justify my interest in technology to myself, but this past week has seen two developments which have made me sit up.

What I had hoped to live to see, but thought I probably wouldn’t was the Mozilla Seabird concept, the video of which was floating around about a year and a half ago

Mozilla Seabird 2D

Uploaded by BiIIyMay on Sep 19, 2010

Read about the project at http://www.MozillaLabs.com/seabird
Designed by Billy May: http://www.Billy-May.com

The kind of thing a grey geek might have dreams about.

Then this week, at Barcelona, Mozilla announced Boot to Gecko.
I was going to include a video of the developers because their cosmopolitan, youthful idealism is refreshing, and also because it gives some idea of just how exciting this project is. Imagine, a phone which does most of what an iPhone does for 10% of the price of an iPhone. That’s what I call revolutionary. Not only will young people (and old geeks like myself) be able to afford such a phone, they will be able to see (and change?) the source code of what makes their phone work. That way they can learn coding fast and well.

Sadly, their video is private, but you can see the video at this link http://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/02/mozillas-boot-to-gecko-the-web-is-the-platform

The “Boot to Gecko” engineering team talks about the project and their involvement on extending the capabilities of the Web to mobile devices.

Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko Mobile Operating System

Uploaded by muktware on Mar 1, 2012

We bring to you the complete demo of Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko from Mobile World Congress. Subscribe to our channel to stay updated with latest technology news.

So what about the dock we saw in the Sunbird video? Well, there’re no pico projectors in this video, but maybe this is the interim step. Welcome to

Ubuntu For Android Demo

Uploaded by AndroidCentral on Feb 27, 2012

Phil gets a look at Ubuntu for Android at Mobile World Congress

The Boot to Gecko project isn’t that dreadful word a product yet, only a demonstration, but it seems that phones will be available before the end of 2012. And the downloadable source, for geeks grey and otherwise, will also be available.
Some commenters have assumed that because it uses web technologies, that it will depend on a live connection to the web, but as I understand it, the apps you have on your phone, your address book, dialer, sms etc will stay on your phone. Things like games will stream from the web.

And I understand that Boot to Gecko, a geek term if ever there was one, will probably not survive as the name of the technology.

Seabird, anyone?
Or even Gaia?


Update: you can download Gaia here, but for the moment the install looks fearsomely complicated, so only try it if you have the hardware and the know-how. See Building B2G for Samsung Galaxy S2



Thus Spake Zarathustra on your smartphone, anyone? 

Posted on by Philip Casey

What to do with your sad old android phone, lying in a drawer?

Samsung Spica i5700

Samsung Spica i5700

In my case it’s a Samsung Spica i5700 (see picture), which was the cheapest I could get in 2010. I replaced it with the Geeksphone Zero last year, but it’s still a nice phone with a nice screen (which actually appears bigger than that of the Zero, but isn’t). I discovered quite by accident that I liked reading books on it.

It has no SIM card, but doesn’t need one to be a dedicated e-reader (and music player, and photo album, perhaps, when I get time). All it needs is an SD card (I bought a cheap one on ebay) and wi-fi, which it has, plus decent book reading software.

Aldiko 2 does the latter job just fine.

I use it mostly to download public domain books, as (a) there’s a lot of classics I haven’t read, and (b) I like to buy hardcopy contemporary books. I actually have hard copies of many of the classics I’ve downloaded – so why bother?

Indeed, but why go hunting for a book when I have an electronic copy to hand? And now that books by Joyce and James Stephens, and Virginia Woolf are in the public domain, it’s nice to dip in quickly and read a few pages of books one knows quite well, perhaps, just to relax after a long day.

I’m not sure if I’ll manage Moby Dick or War and Peace, or Proust (none of which I have managed to finish in hard copy either, to my shame), but it’s nice to have them handy. Just in case. As for re-reading The Prince, or stories from Dubliners, well, it’s just perfect. The Book of Tea is delightful bedtime e-reading, I assure you.

Another reason to stick to public domain is that I haven’t got my head around DRM. If I publish another book, and I hope I will, no doubt I’ll have to face up to its rights and wrongs, but for the moment I’m shying away.

Aldiko taps into a number of e-bookstores for both paid and free material, and Feedbooks is excellent for public domain titles. If I ever get around to purchasing ebooks, I’ll no doubt do it at Feedbooks. Hosting public domain books is an excellent way to promote loyalty, I would say.

I have no fears for hard copy books. They’ll survive, just like cinema and radio. They’ll just have to learn to live with their e-family.

Meanwhile, Thus Spake Zarathustra on your smartphone, anyone?

[and speaking of meanwhile, I got two spam about e-books while writing this]

Links

Today is not tomorrow (or, how to beat Amazon) – via @dermotcasey on twitter

gnome-shell on Ubuntu 10.10 

Posted on by Philip Casey

gnome-shell on my computer
I’ve been bothering myself looking at endless videos about the new Ubuntu 11.10. I’m a year behind, on 10.10, so I’ve been torn between upgrading and the work involved in a new install, not to mention the work I’m supposed to be doing… It’s been an eventful time in my life and time has been limited and energy even more so.

The thing about it is that the pictures and videos I’ve seen of Unity are not energizing – not to me at any rate, and I know it has its many admirers and converts. However, I’ve been taken by the Gnome 3 gnome-shell on 11.10, and have watched several videos with pleasure, so I was tempted.

And then I discovered that I could install an earlier version of gnome-shell from the Software Center in about 20 seconds. How could I have missed that?

So it was back onto the web to hunt for videos and articles.

First of all see How to Install and use Gnome Shell in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

And then this video, for example, How to install Gnome Shell in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

It looked great and I was in an edgy mood (probably a bit reckless) and I installed it from the Software Center, and added

Hit ALT + F2,run gconf-editor, and type the command

gnome-shell –replace

Have a look at the further tweaks suggested from 1’24 on the video.

It’s not the fancy gnome-shell you’ll find in Ubuntu 11.10, but I love it.


gnome-shell on my Ubuntu 10.10 click to enlarge

gnome-shell on my Ubuntu 10.10. Click to enlarge.



Ironically I couldn’t find the Software Center once I’d rebooted. Click on your name, System Preferences and you’ll find it in there. You can right click and make it a favourite in Activities/Applications if you wish.

The latest version supported in Ubuntu 10.10 is 2.32, apparently.
You can also install the full Gnome 3 gnome-shell, but that’s a bit more complicated.

We’ll see how I get on…

Change of Site Title 

Posted on by Philip Casey

Grey Geek Looking at Ubuntu4Beginners becomes TuxGarage! made me think that my old Ubuntu Learner title, while still valid insofar as I’m still learning, is a little out of date as there are already a few entries on Android. So without any promises of in-depth articles – this will still be a learn-as-I-go site, welcome to The Ubuntu Android.

The Grey Geek
Android, Ubuntu, WordPress: Learning by mistakes

No jokes at the back, please. I know who you are ;>)