Android - Linux Stall

Ubuntu for Android

Now you can install Ubuntu on your Android phone. Canonical has announced Ubuntu for Android which will provide a full Ubuntu desktop experience on the Android phones. It will work in the same way it works on your PC. Your Android phone will work same as other Android phones but when you connect it to a dock with a monitor, you can see the Ubuntu desktop on the attached monitor.

The user interface is same (Unity) and several free applications are available to access easily. The important thing and the main feature is the consistency of data and other services between Ubuntu and Android environments which includes unified contacts, messages and call through the desktop, synchronized calendars and social media integration.

Since both operating systems share the same kernel so there will be no such issues like “an Ubuntu application running atop Android or vice versa”. Both applications will run at the same time on the same device which gives a great performance.

Mark Shuttleworth said:

The desktop is the killer-app for quad-core phones in 2012. Ubuntu for Android transforms your high-end phone into your productive desktop, whenever you need it.

He also said that they are aiming about 200 Million Users in 4 years.

Summary of features

Complete desktop solution for full productivity on docked Android phones
Easy to integrate with existing Android phones in development
Certified apps for business users from Adobe, Citrix, VMWare and more
Drives sales of multi-core phones with faster CPUs, more cores, more RAM and high-end graphics
Drive adoption of 4G handsets since office apps shine with low latency and higher bandwidth
Canonical leads in ARM Linux support, co-creator of Linaro with ARM
Target the enterprise thin client, and emerging market first-PC markets
Ubuntu and Android share the same kernel, running at the same time, accessing data and applications
The world’s favourite free desktop fully integrated with the world’s favourite open phone

Requirements

If you want to install Ubuntu on your Android phone then your Android must have at least 1 GHz processor, dual-core CPU, 2 GB free space, shared kernel driver, X driver, HDMI support and 2 GB RAM.

Here’s why you can’t update to Ice Cream Sandwich right away

Ice Cream Sandwich, best piece of software from Google (till date), was released in October, 2011. This Android software is beyond imagination and pinches in your whole world in your palms. Users wait eagerly for an android update but what is restraining them from installing one? Let’s find out.

Involvement on multiple parties holds the whole update process back. Its not that manufacturers and carriers don’t want to push out latest updates but before doing that they need to test it on their equipment for compatibility issues. Suppose a Motorola handset which is sold by Verizon. Manufacturers are Motorola but the software is made by Google and is running on Verizon network. Therefore, an update before being pushed out to end users should be tested by Motorola for hardware compatibility. This update when released will be passed on to carriers for further testing. When they approve of, only then updates are made available for users.

This whole life cycle seems to progress slowly but truth behind this is, of course, multiple parties. iPhone users don’t have to face this issue as every stage is carried out in ‘house’ itself. Android users have to wait a bit longer to enjoy Ice Cream Sandwich and we are sure that it is worth waiting.

Android Tethering: Using Android to access internet on your Linux machine

What is Android Tethering?

Android Tethering is a way to access internet on your computer with the help of your Android smartphone. USB and Wi-Fi access point tethering is natively supported from Android Froyo 2.2.

USB tethering

For USB tethering you must have root access to the phone and a USB cable to connect your phone to computer.

Step 1: First of all you will have to enable USB debugging on your Android. Go to Settings -> Applications -> Development -> USB debugging and enable it. After enabling just reboot your phone.

Step 2: Connect your phone to computer using USB cable.

Step 3: Now enable tethering option from your phone. For this go to Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Internet tethering and enable it.

Step 4: Open up terminal on your computer and run the command given below

 ifconfig -a

The output will be like:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 40:61:86:B1:E9:33
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:480 (480.0 b)  TX bytes:480 (480.0 b)

usb0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr C2:5A:11:8D:43:F5
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

usb0 is denoting your Android device. If you don’t see it then you will have to load the usbnet module and you can do that using modprobe command as:

 modprobe usbnet

Step 5: Now to configure new network device via DHCP use the command given below:

 ifconfig usb0 up && dhcpcd usb0

For configuring the new network device using iproute toolkit the command is:

 ip link set usb0 up && dhcpcd usb0

For stopping the network sharing the command is:

 dhcpcd -x usb0

Netcfg

You can use Netcfg to configure USB tethering, for that just add a static ethernet configuration like:

/etc/network.d/usb-tether

CONNECTION='ethernet'
DESCRIPTION='A basic dhcp ethernet connection using iproute'
INTERFACE='usb0'
IP='dhcp'