Linux on tablets [was: installing fedora linux on Arnova 10]

[Fernando Lozano]

Hi,

> On Sun, Sep 02, 2012 at 01:28:31PM -0500, Ranjan Maitra wrote:
>> I have access to a somewhat old (by about 2 years) thoroughly crappy
>> Arnova 10 tablet. I wanted to try my hand at installing fedora (or any
>> linux distribution for that matter) on Arnova 10.
> Why not install a tablet specific OS like Android?  It should be simpler
> to find instructions for that on the Internet.
Yes, it would be much simpler to install Android (and maybe a regular 
Linux over Android -- there's Ubuntu for Android and Google Play lists a 
number of "debian linux installers"). But it would be much more fun 
(from a hacker perspective) to have a real Linux. ;-)

I myself would be happier with a real community-developed tablet OS than 
the current "somewat" open source Andoid. And of course I'm curious to 
see wether the new ideas from Gnome 3 actually work (or not) on a real 
tablet, instead of a touch-enabled PC.

Now that ARM is a primary architecture for Fedora, maybe the developers 
could think about a "tablet spin" or even an "installer" on Google Play.

Nowadays there a lot of very cheap tablets, cheaper than a Kindle Fire 
or a Google Nexus, but with nice specs for hacking. I m positively 
surpised with some Genius modelsI got for my kids to play (GT725S for 
example -- 7" low-res display, 1GB RAM, 4GB storage, explandable to more 
32GB using the microSDHC slot, 1.2GHz Cortex processor and GPU, almost 
the same specs as a Sansumg Galaxy S2 -- and the 10" model has bigger 
resolution, same as a standard netbook). Some people report having 
success with usb mouses, keyboards, printers and 3G modems (yes, the 
Genius models have a standard PC-like USB port -- I haven't tried yet).


[]s, Fernando Lozano