The topic of Puppy Linux on phones and tablets has come up before... and we had some good input in the thread, but someone had a hissy fit and got the whole thing deleted. Since this topic will no doubt surface again in the future, I'm taking the time and effort to remake it. I sadly don't remember all of the input that everyone had in the thread, so I hope those that participated in the last thread will join in on this one.
DON'T WORRY, I will not get moody and request that the thread be deleted. I believe in community input, and although I am the OP, I do not feel it gives me the right to control everyone else's thoughts and input in this thread.
So lets get down to business.
Myth: 'The market is changing', and we must join in that change or we will be left out in the cold.
Fact: Yes the market is changing, but not as much as some imply.
The market is changing in the ways of how people use technology. The fact is that phones/tables are what many call 'throw away devices'. People don't upgrade them, they just go out and buy a newer one. Where as someone can install a new OS on a desktop/laptop and give it new life, people don't commonly do this on phones. My younger sister has friends that buy new phones about every 3 to 4 months. Even though their current phone is good and works fine, they want the newest and latest device. And so they toss their old one and get a new one. They don't even consider loading things onto their current phone to make it work like the newer ones.
So in a market where people just go buy a new device for a new function or feature, how many will install another OS? Yes the geeks among us will, but the overwhelming majority will not. Should we
Myth: "Desktops/Laptops are going away in favor of Mobile devices"
Fact: No they aren't.
Yes it is true that Phones/Tablets are outselling computers. I had many links in the old thread that pointed to actual industry stats of this, but I cant seem to find them now, Hopefully someone will find them and share them. If I recall correctly though, the sales of phones/tables was something like 5 times greater than sales of computers. So yes, commercially phones and tablets are selling more than computers. But that does not mean that computers are coming to an end. After all, people once said that Laptops would kill the desktop... and as we all know that hasn't happened.
The fact is that in 2012, over 100 million (If I recall correctly), computers were sold worldwide. Computers are not 'going away' A link I did found can be found here: http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer- ... tatistics/
Of interest are the sales of computers for 2011 and 2010, both of which are above 90 Million.
Myth: "Tablets are more useful, and easier to use."
Fact: No they aren't.
I don't know why people think this. Sure touch interface is nice... but right now the industry hasn't figured out how to use it properly. In another 5 to 10 years it'll have worked it out, but right now its pretty bad. Nothing more than glorified point and click, with the added flair of zooming through multi-touch. Aside from the zoom feature, touch interface really doesn't offer much more today in early 2013, than it did in late 2008, when I purchased a touch screen overlay for my Lenovo laptop. As for the 'usability' claims of tablets... this also is an exaggerated claim. I cant say it any better than John Swansburg said in a post of his. Which I'll quote and link here.
He goes on to include comments from his co-workers on the tablet idea:John Swansburg wrote:I admit that I bought my iPad for the wrong reasons. I got one because it seemed like everyone I knew had gotten one for Christmas and, well, I felt left out. I didn't think about how it would fit in with the gadgets I already owned (laptop, Kindle, iPhone), and I didn't borrow a friend's and take it on a test drive. Now I just feel annoyed, having spent $600 on a device that hasn't done anything to improve my life. A salad spinner would have been a better investment, and I don't even eat that much salad.
I don't think the iPad is useless. There's no question that it makes browsing the Web while sitting on the couch easier. Though I have a relatively svelte laptop, it's kind of a pain to tote around the apartment. But am I the kind of person who pays $600 to save the effort of detaching some USB cables from time to time? I don't want to be that kind of person.
I recommend everyone go read the article, as it addresses the issue without the commercial frenzy. And while I'm at it... I'll address another issue with tablets... they simply aren't designed well. What do I mean? Well simple, when I try to use one my hands get in the way. In our recorded history we always have had different input and output areas. Think about it, when you sit at a laptop or desktop you have the input from the screen and then the output to the keyboard. I'm talking about this from the viewpoint of the USER not the device. Well on a tablet they are the same... so my brains input is constantly being interrupted by the fact that my attempts to output are obscuring my input source. Having a single field double as both input and output is just contrary to how we observe and deal with reality around us. Hand/Eye coordination exists for this very reason in our cognitive process. With a tablet you are trying to force both into the same space. While that works for some tasks, it doesn't work well with others. Think about, when you are driving, think about when you are playing a video came, etc. This is why devices such as the Microsoft Surface has an optional keyboard. But doing this makes the tablet nothing more than a less functional laptop. So whats the purpose? Why not get something like the Lenovo Twist, thats a convertible laptop? For anyone thinking that's a new design... go back and look at the older Fujitsu laptops, they've been designing these for over a decade now.John Swansburg wrote: Me: I hate my iPad. What am I doing wrong?
Jessica Grose: Maybe the problem is that you are expecting it to be more than a toy. It is not "useful" in any meaningful sense, unless you are traveling with it. The games are super fun though.
Taige Jensen: I think if you bought it thinking it was more capable than a laptop, you'll probably be disappointed. I have a terrible HP laptop that you can only use when plugged in, so I'm obviously biased.
John Swansburg: I think it's amazing that Apple has convinced so many people to pay $600 for what seem like such marginal improvements in their lifestyles—$600 to be able to check my e-mail in bed in a slightly more comfortable fashion than I can on my laptop seems sort of crazy when I stop and think about it.
This is not to say that tablets are good for some things, they are. They are good at watching videos, reading books, reading papers, surfing the web, listening to music, etc. But tablets are not sufficiently better at any of these tasks to make them our primary device for these actions. Sure they make browsing the web while watching TV easier and more comfortable... but how often do we actually do that, and when we are... how engaged in both activities are we?
So why the hysteria? Because it's basically a fancy new toy for adults. And a toy that costs a lot of money and has a lot of businesses wanting to capitalize on that frenzy and get our money.
Myth: "If Puppy doesn't jump on the mobile wave, we will die"
Fact: This is nothing more than FUD. (fear, uncertainty and doubt)
As stated before, 100 million computers were sold in 2012. This means that in 5 to 10 years, those 100 million computers could use a smaller lightweight OS to give them new life. As modern OS-es continue to grow, the demands for a smaller lightweight OS will still exist. The demands for Desktop/Laptop OS-es will continue into the foreseeable future.
Btw... anyone remember the PDA craze in the 90s? It was the must have item for all techies, it was going to revolutionize everything. It didn't. The functionality was eventually folded into Phones like in the Palm Treo line. Apple ultimately made the smart-phone 'desirable' for the every day person, but it existed long before the first iphone came along.
Myth: "Puppy is perfect for the mobile space."
Fact: Puppy was and is designed for older hardware.
Yes there are releases which are focused on newer hardware, as shown by the 64 bit development. However that's where our focus has always been. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't consider the mobile space, but its not where our focus has always been. Finding developers has always been more difficult for us compared to other distros. To find and entice developers with skill in the mobile market would be supremely difficult for us. After all, anyone of serious skill in this area is being gobbled up by Ubuntu and Mozilla right now, as they make their attempts at a mobile OS.
Myth: "Puppy is what people want on their mobile device."
Fact: I hate fan-boy statements. Yes thats a fact, lol. Even when they are about something I prefer and like, statements like that often have the opposite effect in the public eye. Look at all the hatred that Apple gets because of their religious fan-boy customer base.
In the original thread, someone made an extremely poignant comment. I wish I could remember, who; so if it was you, please stand up and take credit. The comment was something to the effect of, "Puppy was designed to resurrect older hardware, why on earth would you want that on your phone?"
Taking that a bit further, one of my current smart-phones has a 1ghz ARM processor. That's more powerful than some of the older laptops I have in my house that run puppy. So why would I want puppy on that?
Puppy's performance on ARM is lacking as it is, and to be honest... we don't really have a true puppy version for Puppy. We have what, in my mind, is nothing more than a remix of Rasberrian. On my RPi (Rasberry Pi), I run Arch because it outperforms Rasberrian or Puppy by leaps and bounds. Could Puppy preform better, intrinsically I believe it could; but I don't have the skill to make it do so. And I'd prefer not to detract from my 64 bit work to attempt to make it work better. With a limited developer bases we are going to have to pick and choose where we focus our efforts.
Myth: "Puppy could gain a mobile foothold."
Fact: Puppy does not have the industry position to be able to make the business contacts to make puppy on a mobile device viable.
Lets stop for a second and look at Puppies 'foothold' in the *nix market. If someone was going to write about the history of Linux and its current state, we are at best a footnote. We dont have any substantial market foothold in the Linux OS market. Puppy's public image isnt really that good. I've talked to a lot of IT people, and Puppy is seen by many as sort of the red-headed stepchild of the Linux community. I'm going to address all of this in another thread.. so I'll link to it once I write it. No reason to derail this thread by getting into an indepth conversation about it here.
Well... I think thats a good start to the conversation, hopefully everyone who commented before will jump on board, and we'll get some new people to join in the discussion.
Edit: Fixed some grammatical and spelling errors I noticed.