Canonical unwraps Ubuntu Linux for tablets - wilkeswhoundle

Information technology's been just a a few weeks since Canonical proclaimed Ubuntu for phones, but on Tuesday the caller followed awake by winning the wraps off the software's tablet counterpart.

Among the well-nig notable features offered by Ubuntu for tablets are a new capability Canonical calls "side stage" multitasking along with wide-cut disk encoding, multiple secure user accounts, and intersection across phone, tablet, TV, and PC form factors.

"Multitasking productivity meets elegance and rigorous security in our tablet feel for," said Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu and Prescript. "Our family of interfaces nowadays scales across every last screens, so your phone can provide tablet, Microcomputer and TV experiences when you dock it. That's unique to Ubuntu and it's the time to come of grammatical category computing."

The Ubuntu "side stagecoach"

Fans of Ubuntu Linux whitethorn remember that the phone user interface software unveiled in January was notable for its use of complete four edges of the screen.

That's part of the tablet interface as well, but the pad of paper version also introduces the Ubuntu "sidelong stage" as a way some to enable underspent multitasking and to improve the serviceability of phone apps on tablets. Accordingly, users of Ubuntu for tablets can tend both a phone app and a tablet app on the screen simultaneously.

Thus, "you can buoy nip while watching a movie," for instance, OR "take notes while surfriding the Net," Shuttleworth explained in a compact briefing this dawn.

Enterprise-level security

Particularly compelling from a business organisatio perspective are the security features included in Ubuntu for tablets.

Not entirely is full-disk encryption available for the device itself, but there's as wel egg-filled encryption of ad hominem user data, making the device eminently suitable for use past multiple distinct users in an initiative setting.

Ubuntu can offer a full PC undergo when the tablet is docked to a keyboard, with access to remote Windows applications over standard protocols from Microsoft, Citrix, VMWare, and Wyse.

"We expect to see Ubuntu tablets organism adopted initially in enterprises, with multiple users for a single tablet because the tablet gets passed around," Shuttleworth explained. "And because it's barely Ubuntu, it's all manageable from the same tools people are using to carry off desktops and haze over today."

'A single app double star'

Finally, the tablet interface is powered by exactly the same code that provides Ubuntu's phone, PC, and Telly interfaces, enabling true device overlap.

"The exact same code testament give you the same live depending on the computer hardware you boot IT connected," Shuttleworth explained. "IT responds to the computer hardware and presents the optimum user experience for that device."

Not only can the operational system itself scale smoothly across all form factors, in point of fact, but so besides can the apps developers create for it. "Developers can then write a single app binary that can keep going phone, tablet, Microcomputer, or Television set," he added.

That convergence is expected to cost complete past Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, due in April of side by side year, Shuttleworth aforementioned.

The video below explains the construct in more detail.

A 'Touch Developer Preview'

The Ubuntu tablet port supports screen sizes from 6 to 20 inches and resolutions from 100 to 450 ppi.

This Thursday Canonical will relinquish a "Tactile sensation Developer Preview" of Ubuntu, with installation instructions for the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets as advantageously as smartphones including the Nexus 4 and Galaxy Nexus. Installable images and source code testament be procurable from Ubuntu's developer site.

And when can we expect to be able to buy out actual pill hardware functioning this New Ubuntu? Likely the first quarter of 2022, but Sanctioned is not hitherto sure whether phones or tablets wish appear first, Shuttleworth said.