Hi Keith, To summarize my comments regarding Android below, you might want to wait for ubuntu phone. http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone
On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 7:49 PM, Keith Lofstrom <kei...@gate.kl-ic.com>wrote: > Are Android tablets "programmable enough" to do open source tasks? > They look like media vending machines to me, not quite walled > garden like iCrap but focused on entertainment and social media > rather than constructing work environments with open source tools. > > But how do you really feel about iPhone? > Over a couple of decades, I have slowly learned how to configure > an X86 Linux machine to do a few work tasks - handling text, ssh, > tunneling vpn links, writing shell scripts, etc. > > The tasks I have in mind are: typing notes for later upload to > a server, looking at downloaded PDFs and documents. Ok. > Bonus points > if the device can run local copies of Apache and MoinMoin. When > wifi or hard wired ethernet(?) is available, surfing the web for > information, connecting through an openvpn tunnel to a firewalled > internal LAN, ssh'ing into a server for ascii email, printing > through CUPS, logging into webapps on the internal LAN. > Ok, except for hard wire ethernet. > > Securely, of course. > > And since tablets use Android and non-X86 processors, and > cross-compiling is too complex for my simple brain, a local > copy of the GCC toolchain and related libraries, perhaps > Perl and Python. Android runs a GUI written and mostly programmed in Java. JVM languages (JPython is one) can be made to work. There is a NDK (native development kit) for GCC but the Linux environment is different. > In otherwords, recreating most Linux > laptop/desktop capabilities in the Android environment. > Forget that. > > All FOSS apps, of course. I'm not much of a programmer and > rarely tweak code, but routinely look at source to figure > out how the heck a poorly-documented app works, or what > files it is looking for or spitting out. > Android is FOSS, the code all available from google. > > I'm a "$5 a month for basic cell phone" guy. I don't want > to pay $20 a month (which I think of as $2400 per decade) > for another wireless service. So I want to be able to run > unconnected, connecting when free/cheap wifi is available. > OK > > > Is this realistic, or are tablets different enough that I would > need to spend years (at a few hours a month) re-learning how to > accomplish these kinds of tasks? Should I just stick to laptops > and netbooks? > Once you get over some surprises and become a touchy kind of guy, you could get a lot of work done, but it too would be different. Good Luck -- Pat P.S. I'm not endorsing this but for $90 you could make your own judgments: http://www.walmart.com/ip/21152158?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227015286872&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=17436468070&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem > > Keith > > -- > Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com Voice (503)-520-1993 > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > -- p.j.timl...@ieee.org www.timlick.com 503-476-3119 10990 NE Paren Springs Rd. Dundee OR 97115 _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
