Android the most popular mobile operating system is trying to expand its capabilities in collaboration with Ubuntu. But your next concern would be that Ubuntu is a desktop OS and android is a mobile OS. How are they going to work together in an expansion?
The idea is far beyond my craziest tech dreams. It’s almost like carrying a CPU in your pants pocket. And of course, today’s Smartphones are having almost same hardware configuration as a laptop computer. Using that, they are going to install Ubuntu as an android application on your Smartphone. Once you connect your phone in to a desktop monitor and a keyboard using a dock, the whole system will turn in to an Ubuntu powered desktop. 
How it Works?
As the first step you will have to install Ubuntu on your Android Smartphone. They will release the application once everything is prepared. Then you will be able to load Ubuntu on your Smartphone screen. Of course the integration will be seamless since both the OS are using the same kernel. Although Ubuntu is running on your Smartphone it won’t be able to give you the real desktop experience. Therefore you will have to expand it to a desktop using few hardware components.
- Dock: This will stream the video from smartphone to desktop monitor
- Monitor: This will display video coming from Smartphone via dock
- Keyboard and Mouse: Take your hand off the tiny display in Smartphone
After that it’s all set. You have a Smartphone which is always ready to be converted to a desktop. When you are working on your desk at your office, dock the Smartphone and let it turn in to your desktop workstation. Use the monitor, keyboard and mouse to interact with it. Forget that it’s a Smartphone. When you leave you desk un-dock and turn it back to your Smartphone. This is how you are going to work in your office in near future.
Minimum Hardware Requirement
However there has to be a minimum hardware muscle to give you the real desktop experience. Below is the currently published minimum hardware requirement for this setup on official Ubuntu website.
- Dual-core 1GHz CPU
- Video acceleration: shared kernel driver with associated X driver; Open GL, ES/EGL
- Storage: 2GB for OS disk image
- HDMI: video out with secondary frame buffer device
- USB host mode
- 512 MB RAM
This is pretty much standard for any Smartphone in today’s market. So, almost all Android Smartphones are ready to run Ubuntu on it.
Features
Applications
The Android-Ubuntu friendship allows you to run both Android applications as well as Ubuntu applications. There will be the entire set of standard application such as photo viewer and editor, Google Calendar, email client, Google docs, Music player etc. 
Web Browsing
Browsing on Smartphones is a great experience, yes. But since it’s having a tiny screen you will get fed up so easily. With Android-Ubuntu integration you can have desktop web experience with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox browser forgetting you are using a Smartphone. These super fast browsers give you same amazing features such as security and tabbed browsing in this platform as well.
Call and SMS
This is the best part in this set up. You can make calls and send SMS using your Ubuntu desktop. This was never possible in conventional Ubuntu desktops. Since you are using your Smartphone as the hardware to run Ubuntu, nothing stops you by using its feature “Phone”. This is one of the most ignored features in today’s Smartphones. 
Get in Touch
If you want to get latest updates of this trend setting project, click here to go to Ubuntu website. There you have to enter your details and then they will send you the latest news about the progress of this project.
Tags: #Android #Smartphone #Ubuntu #USB