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    Ubuntu + Hildon UI = in-Car PC UI

    Filed under: automotive, gadgets, hardware, linux, mobile, software, technical, transportation — June 20, 2007

    Awhile back, Ubuntu announced a mobile and embedded edition of it’s popular Linux distribution. The buzz was around the possibility of Ubuntu Mobile showing up on future UMPCs. The news caught my eye, but didn’t really get my attention until the plans for Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) were announced:

    “Ubuntu 7.10 will be the first Ubuntu release to offer a complete mobile and embedded edition built with the Hildon user interface components” (developed by Nokia for the Maemo platform.)

    Now that’s interesting. Could it be that we’ll see Ubuntu Mobile booting on Nokia N800’s? It’s certainly a possibility — and one that could bring a larger breadth of software to Nokia’s mobile Linux tablets.

    However, as interesting as it may be if Nokia adopts Ubuntu, the possibilities for wider Hildon support didn’t hit me until my drive home today. It was one of those obvious moments. I had been using my Nokia N800 while walking to my car, so the touch- and small-screen friendly UI was fresh in my mind. Then I started thinking about my Car PC. It uses a 7″ touch screen and runs Ubuntu (a full distribution, with a UI designed for full-size monitors.) Running Gnome on my cheap, in-car 7″ monitor makes for a pretty lousy experience. Text is hard to read, and everything is too small to click on. However, if this news is right, Ubuntu 7.10 will change all of that. I’ll be able to run Hildon on my Car PC! That’s killer. Imagine having Canola running in-car, sitting on 100GB of multimedia…

    2 Responses to “Ubuntu + Hildon UI = in-Car PC UI”

    1. Avatar david frantz Says:
      July 21st, 2007 at 12:59 am

      Actually what I would like to see is a mainstream windows manager/Hildon replacement for the N800. Having a 1 to 1 software profile to develop against for desktop/laptop/handheld makes more sense to me.

      So has any body out there heard of a light weight windows manager being ported to the N800? Something like black box maybe. Sure the N800 screen is small but you could always grow the icons. Text is text and that will always be an issue until a resolution independent interface is developed.

      Dave

    2. Avatar erik Says:
      July 22nd, 2007 at 3:55 pm

      Thanks for the comment David!

      From a developer perspective, I definitely agree that targeting a single platform would make it easier to develop for both desktop and mobile; However, portable, touch-screen devices (lacking real keyboards) have such different UI constraints, that you often want a different interface anyway. This becomes very apparent when using applications such as Canola (linked above.) Canola’s UI would be annoying on the desktop, but on the N800 it’s decently nice to use (and much easier then some of the direct-port multimedia applications — especially while on the go.)

      That said, there has been some work to port Enlightenment to the N800.

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