Canonical Ponders an Android Friendly Remix

by Kristin Shoemaker - May. 27, 2009Comments (2)

As the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) kicks into high gear, the hopes, dreams and plans for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release are taking shape. Over at Ars Technica, Ryan Paul reports on Canonical developer Michael Casadevall's presentation highlighting some of the technical nuances of making Android applications run on Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Ubuntu's popularity aside, it is still esoteric -- Google has the upperhand in non-open source enthusiast name recognition. This no doubt plays into netbook manufacturer's opting for Android on netbooks, even though (as Paul states) Android is still very much a smartphone platform. Android can be modified, of course, but Ubuntu (or any Linux distribution) are already lightweight desktops potentially requiring fewer modifications to work well on netbooks.

Will adding Android compatibility make Remix a more attractive platform option? Can it really hurt?

I'm fairly sure that getting Android applications to run alongside traditional Linux-powered applications on Ubuntu Netbook Remix isn't a bad thing. It's still very experimental, and a lot of the key pieces that would enable Android programs to play nicely on a traditional Linux distribution are still being assembled. There's still a significant time and effort investment ahead to get things working smoothly, but the pay-off -- for Linux and Android developers and users, as well as OEMs -- might be well worth it.

What I find most striking is how radically different Android's take on Linux is from what is, traditionally, Linux. While I was aware that Android used the Linux kernel, but not the traditional GNU environment that makes desktop (and server) Linux platforms what they are, I wasn't aware of how different -- and isolated -- the Android platform is.

Android is open source (though there have been discussions in some circles about how open and ultimately workable it is), and uses a customized Java environment. This (rather nicely explained in the Ars piece) makes porting Linux applications to Android (and vice versa) a problem, and is the same reason Android applications are unable to run in Java virtual machines and Java ME settings.

It might very well work out, as cloud computing takes serious hold, that all that's needed is a basic operating system. We aren't there yet, however, and maximizing communication and compatibility between platforms is critical. While the work Canonical is doing is beneficial for Remix and Android users -- this gives Remix more bang for the buck.