Bonum Certa Men Certa

(GNU) Linux on the Tablet in 2013

Desktop? Bypass that.

Motorola Xoom
Photo by Pjpearce



Summary: Celebrating the quick growth of Android on the tablet, which in turn facilitates GNU/Linux on more tablets

Tablets are a growing market. A lot of people have tablets these days. The concepts behind tablets are not new; they have been around for decades and Apple popularised them with hypePad (paying celebrities for endorsements and other such spin); in 2013 tablets running Android pretty much left Apple hypePad in the dust, just as Android had done to hypePhone in prior years.



As many tablets running Android are permissive in the sense that the user can install alternative operating systems (like Replicant or full GNU/Linux distributions) it should be no surprise that a rise in Android on the tablet will spur a growth of GNU/Linux on tablets (commercial efforts on this have been made before and are still being made [1]).

Android on the tablet currently accounts for the lion's share of the market. To give some examples from this month's news, there is a new $38 Android tablet [2], there are dual screen tablets [3], there's ZaTab [4], and there are even national efforts in India [5].

Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Will ZaReason's second tablet also be a dud?


    A company that last year put on sale an Android tablet that turned out to be a dud is marketing a new model this year - and using most of the same marketing spiel from 2012 to try and sell it.


  2. $38 Android tablet the new king of cheap
    Datawind is bringing three commercial “UbiSlate” versions of its 7-inch, Android 4.0 Aakash tablets to the U.S., including a model that starts at $38.

    Datawind’s three new UbiSlate tablets are based on the Aakash 2 educational tablet that shipped in India in early 2012, as well as an upcoming Aakash 3 model. The Aakash 2 was hailed as the world’s cheapest tablet, at about $40, and was available to schoolchildren at lower prices thanks to subsidization by the Indian school system. In India, sales of the Aakash 2 overtook the iPad according to U.K.-based Datawind.


  3. YotaPhone. Always-on dual screen, thicker than most, but not by much
    The YotaPhone is a smartphone from Yota Devices Ltd., a Russian company that also manufactures a portable LTE router called Ruby.

    YotaPhone is an Android smartphone, running Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. But it’s different from other smartphones (Android and otherwise) in that it comes with a dual screen (it’s a double-display smartphone). On the front is a 4.3-inch, HD LCD display and on the back is an e-ink display that’s also 4.3 inches.


  4. Testing the New ZaTab Open Hackable Android Tablet


  5. Shri Kapil Sibal Releases Updated and Advanced Urdu Language Software Tools CD, Bharat Operating System Solutions (Boss 5.0) CD and Urdu Children Stories for Android Based Aakash Tablet
    The “Bharat Operating System Solutions CD (BOSS 5.0)” is a GNU / Linux developed by C-DAC under the guidance of Free and Open Source Software’s (FOSS) group of DeitY, Govt. of India is having Urdu language interface. This localized Operating System and tools will benefit the usage of Free / Open Source Software in India. This new release of BOSS 5.0, namely “ANOKHA” comes with many new applications focused on enhanced security and user friendliness. The release also includes the software updates for various packages including Apache Server, BIND DNS Server, GNU Compiler collection, GIMP, MySQL, Open SSH, php, python, etc.


Recent Techrights' Posts

What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
 
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025