Ubuntu May Be Coming to a TV Near You

I hope this takes off... Ubuntu has so much to offer when it comes to these things.
I was hoping for a tablet first though(A big production)

Anyone ever of mythbuntu?

And who ever said linux's dreams of world domination were at an end?

Unified.
That's the key word, and is why nobody really can commit to Linux on the desktop world since you have 5 million different distributions.

You see- if you can do that, plus make it do everything that other products don't and some of the stuff that you expect from an HPTC... you'd have a killer product on your hands.

AppleTVs are cool and all, but they lack certain things. Things that an Apple user wouldn't miss but things that other people who buy these machines do.


The next step would obviously be adding a Kinect-like camera to the system and speech recognition... but one thing at a time.

Linux will never ever be main stream because there are far too many distros. It would be like MS releasing 600 different versions on Windows. Not saying Linux is bad..it's not..but without consolidation it never get above it's .1% market share.

Why not replace the traditional proprietary TV Video processor with a small computer (x86-APU, Tegra 3 or whatever) and have the computer ALSO handle Google TV etc. Don't want Google TV. No problem, overwrite it with another offering.

Now that a small computer can be power friendly let's have the flexibility of a software approach.

Ever hear of Android? Besides, that argument is not relevant to this article as they are only talking about Ubuntu.

I do see this as already being dead in the water however with Canonical dictating this and that. Mandatory Ubuntu One account? Not for me thanks.

Yep and it is still way too primitive for most folks. Considering how long the project has been in existence, it should be much further along. The setup screens alone are downright pitiful.

Sounds like a good news!!

Yes, where they all derive from a select handful and most of them are more or less the same with different artwork. Those hundreds of distributions are not developed in vacuums.

I always root for Linux and do hope they are able to make inroads into various industries (outside of the server market).

The major problem that most Linux distros continue to have is that most people are unfamiliar with it and every once in a while it requires you to edit a config file or do something from the terminal...the non-tech person just doesn't want to do that.

Oh great. Now I have to learn command line just to change my channel

XBMC - its ready for primetime... ubuntu should just intergate with that

Yah and last time I ran it, it was unstable as hell. Put Debian on the same box and loaded MythTV and it has been stable ever since.

You would be surprised to know that probably your TV (i assume you have a digital flat panel TV) has probably more cores than you PC. As an example see the schematics of SoC's produced by ST-microelectrnics for 3D TV. http://www.st.com/internet/imag_vi [...] 250891.jsp & http://www.st.com/internet/com/TEC [...] _17804.pdf
I can clearly identify up to 5 cores, 3 X ST231 (2 for audio and one for video decoding) and 2 X ST40 Notice that one has a "Linux" label in it, so I guess they anticipated Linux TV's long ago. In addition to the 5 identifiable cores, an ST researcher told me that some other functionalities in those schematics are actually implemented using many more "minor" cores. Is quite possible that the computing power we have in different gadgets at home is higher than the computing power in our PC's

honestly, they could save themselves alot of work by joining up with XBMC,, from looking at the mockup, the only thing they'll really need to add is stuff like reading email

and holy hell!!! did you see what they think they should have for a remote?

i wonder if the help screen will be command line only?

silver565: YES! i agree. if somebody makes a ubuntu tablet i will buy one in a heartbeat. i don't trust google/android. to many privacy issues.

oh boy get ready for the days of pain with linux on a TV. i wonder how many hoops you will have to jump threw just to change the channel

News flash for all Linux haters... Linux is most likely already on your TV/Cable Box if this TV/Box has any network/App functionality.

so thats why my cable box is so slow lol

A tablet and a smart TV are two contradicting products, if you think about it.

Yes, it is slow, but at least runs. If you put Windows on it, you will deep in sleep by the time it boots. LOL

erk, sorry about the mockups. The mockups you are seeing at that link are completely bogus. I drew them. What I was doing was making the TV frame and storyboard export filter for the pencil sketching tool so that other people could do real mockups on top of the framework I was putting in place. I flung some junk on the screen to show to other people what I wanted them to do in terms of storyboarding. That remote is ridiculous, I just dragged out a bunch of checkboxes over an orange box. http://people.ubuntu.com/~mhall119/utv/ is a much better storyboard and remote (but note it is using the storyboarding template I made for the project.)

And complementary of AlanBell's comment, you get more accurate info on http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuTV
That is where all the "magic" happens. And if you read some of the irc-logs of the first days, you'll see we want to USE existing software, with patches here and there of course to get a more Unity-feel and support.

Currently is XBMC not in the repos, so even if we WANTED to use it, we'd need to get it accepted into the repos before we can use it. More info (incl. mailing-list where features are also being discussed) on the above mentioned website.

actually my IPTV box with MS mediaroom runs pretty snappy

FAIL

Is it:

OR:



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