ramorim's Journal: Bossa Conference 2008: Ubuntu for UMPCs

Ubuntu Mobile and Embedded (UME) will be out soon, and Linux Magazine Brazil had a preview at Bossa Conference 2008, presented by Adilson Oliveira from Canonical. UME is targeted at connectivity devices, such as UMPCs and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices), but not at cell phones, as they are "too closed", according to Oliveira.

Canonical's UME tests are currently being undertaken on a Samsung Internet tablet device that originally had Windows running. The first stable version of UME will be out in May, and will be based on Hardy Heron, with packages directly derived from the official ones. At first it will be available only for x86 processors, which is why it needs notebook-like hardware. However, it is completely focused on touchscreen interfaces, with its current GUI roughly based on Nokia's Maemo.

The web browser is based on Firefox and all applications are displayed full screen by default. The test hardware sports many connectivity interfaces, with a video-out jack, multiple USB jacks, bluetooth and wireless, and is powered by a 900MHz Celeron processor with 1GB RAM.