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This would be very interesting. Imagine plugging your android phone into a dock and getting the ChromeOS GUI instead of Android but having access to all the sam

This would be very interesting. Imagine plugging your android phone into a dock and getting the ChromeOS GUI instead of Android but having access to all the same data and services. Now imagine we could run crouton and get full access. You could really turn your phone into your main device/dev machine (at least for light workloads). Kind-of-sort-of like what Microsoft demonstrated with the new windows 10 phones, but a souped up version.

Navarr 11y ago
Doesn't the Ubuntu phone do this as well?
- edvinbesic 11y ago
  I think that was the general idea, but as I recall the phones did not review very well which is a bummer since you can't just pick a device you want and install ubuntu phone on it.
  - zanny 11y ago
    They do support several of the most popular Nexus devices, though.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- sciurus 11y ago
  No. Canonical held a crowdfunding campaign to produce one but did not meet their goals. As I understand it, Ubuntu's desktop environment, Unity 8, isn't ready yet either.
outside1234 11y ago
Souped up? That would be totally inferior to what Microsoft just demoed.
- edvinbesic 11y ago
  In the sense that you would have root access to your phone and could potentially run any linux app that compiles to ARM.
  - RyanZAG 11y ago
    No chance. The whole idea behind both Android and Chrome OS is to push the user away from root access and leave Google as the one with root access on your device.
    - ChristianBundy 11y ago
      > Google as the one with root access on your device Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Citation needed, to say the least. Running open-source software from Google as root doesn't mean that Google has root access to your device.
      - teraflop 11y ago
        There isn't a very meaningful distinction between "has root access" and "can get root access at any time by pushing out a binary update that your device will automatically install".
        johncolanduoni 11y ago
        Nexus devices (i.e. the one with the most Google backing) can be completely re-flashed with a firmware that won't accept updates from Google's servers (e.g. with CyanogenMod). If you want an Android device free from their "imperialism", they've always offered one.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > The whole idea behind both Android and Chrome OS is to push the user away from root access and leave Google as the one with root access on your device Except that you already can "have root access" and can "potentially run any linux app that compiles to ARM" today with ChromeOS and Nexus devices. In this very thread people are talking about running Crouton on chromeos devices and running Ubuntu Phone on nexus devices. In neither case do you need some kind of jailbreak to do so. All that's needed for the GP's idea is for Android to take a page out of ChromeOS's playbook and allow a devmode that can run alongside of official Google Android.
yincrash 11y ago
Motorola did come out with a 'Webtop' in 2011 before they got acquired by Google [1]. The laptop dock gave you an Ubuntu desktop to do work in. They even ended up opening up the code (but it was pre-ICS so good luck making that up to date).[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G [2] http://sourceforge.net/motorola/motorola-webtop/news/2011/09/announcing-the-new-motorola-webtop-source-project/ http://sourceforge.net/motorola/motorola-webtop/news/2011/09...
- polshaw 11y ago
  'ubuntu desktop' meaning a very crippled system that only allowed access to Firefox. Which was rarely updated and even then not for long. There were some efforts to patch it up to make a more full system but I don't believe anyone was ever successful.
polshaw 11y ago
You can run linux/gnu concurrently with most android phones today, just not so easily[1] and not as polished and with the caveat that there is no GPU acceleration[2]. There are a few apps that do it but AFAIK Linuxdeploy is the best. 1. meaning rooting and flashing a 3rd party kernel for starters. 2. intel's next atom version for smartphones due 2016 could well solve this-- currently they use powerVR GPUs in smartphone atom chips, which like all current smartphone GPUs lack OSS drivers. (And being x86 sublimetext would actually work too-- where is the ARM bulid!!.. it would make this so useful)

Navarr 11y ago

Doesn't the Ubuntu phone do this as well?

edvinbesic 11y ago
I think that was the general idea, but as I recall the phones did not review very well which is a bummer since you can't just pick a device you want and install ubuntu phone on it.
- zanny 11y ago
  They do support several of the most popular Nexus devices, though.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
sciurus 11y ago
No. Canonical held a crowdfunding campaign to produce one but did not meet their goals. As I understand it, Ubuntu's desktop environment, Unity 8, isn't ready yet either.

outside1234 11y ago

Souped up? That would be totally inferior to what Microsoft just demoed.

edvinbesic 11y ago
In the sense that you would have root access to your phone and could potentially run any linux app that compiles to ARM.
- RyanZAG 11y ago
  No chance. The whole idea behind both Android and Chrome OS is to push the user away from root access and leave Google as the one with root access on your device.
  - ChristianBundy 11y ago
    > Google as the one with root access on your device Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Citation needed, to say the least. Running open-source software from Google as root doesn't mean that Google has root access to your device.
    - teraflop 11y ago
      There isn't a very meaningful distinction between "has root access" and "can get root access at any time by pushing out a binary update that your device will automatically install".
      - johncolanduoni 11y ago
        Nexus devices (i.e. the one with the most Google backing) can be completely re-flashed with a firmware that won't accept updates from Google's servers (e.g. with CyanogenMod). If you want an Android device free from their "imperialism", they've always offered one.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > The whole idea behind both Android and Chrome OS is to push the user away from root access and leave Google as the one with root access on your device Except that you already can "have root access" and can "potentially run any linux app that compiles to ARM" today with ChromeOS and Nexus devices. In this very thread people are talking about running Crouton on chromeos devices and running Ubuntu Phone on nexus devices. In neither case do you need some kind of jailbreak to do so. All that's needed for the GP's idea is for Android to take a page out of ChromeOS's playbook and allow a devmode that can run alongside of official Google Android.

yincrash 11y ago

Motorola did come out with a 'Webtop' in 2011 before they got acquired by Google [1]. The laptop dock gave you an Ubuntu desktop to do work in. They even ended up opening up the code (but it was pre-ICS so good luck making that up to date).[2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G [2] http://sourceforge.net/motorola/motorola-webtop/news/2011/09/announcing-the-new-motorola-webtop-source-project/ http://sourceforge.net/motorola/motorola-webtop/news/2011/09...

polshaw 11y ago
'ubuntu desktop' meaning a very crippled system that only allowed access to Firefox. Which was rarely updated and even then not for long. There were some efforts to patch it up to make a more full system but I don't believe anyone was ever successful.

polshaw 11y ago

You can run linux/gnu concurrently with most android phones today, just not so easily[1] and not as polished and with the caveat that there is no GPU acceleration[2]. There are a few apps that do it but AFAIK Linuxdeploy is the best. 1. meaning rooting and flashing a 3rd party kernel for starters. 2. intel's next atom version for smartphones due 2016 could well solve this-- currently they use powerVR GPUs in smartphone atom chips, which like all current smartphone GPUs lack OSS drivers. (And being x86 sublimetext would actually work too-- where is the ARM bulid!!.. it would make this so useful)