Re: What is the future for Debian on (Android) tablets?

[Brad Alexander <storm16@gmail.com>]

Have you looked at the Maemo distribution? It came out for the Nokia Nseries tablets (n770/800/810/900), and is Debian-based. I have (briefly) started looking at whether this supports tablets. Since it was designed for (smaller) tablets, hopefully, it will work on the larger tablets.

My problem with tablets (aside from the android dillution), is the cost. For the cost of a tablet, you could get a pretty nice laptop, which seems more cost effective.

On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 5:25 PM, Mark <mamarcac@gmail.com> wrote:

A friend is looking into tablets, and one of the main drawbacks we've found for Android based tables is that there is no scheduled support timeline - i.e. an Android 2.1 tablet isn't necessarily upgradeable to 3.0 if Google or the manufacturer (not sure of logistics here but assuming it's one or both of them) decides that device won't receive the next version upgrade.  The same thing is happening with Droid phones.

So, when the support life of a device ends (or even sooner), the ability to use Debian would be great to extend the life of the device.  Since tablets (10" specifically) aren't the cheapest things out there, it would be nice to be able to have a say in when the user determines they don't want to use the device any longer, not because the OS has become obsolete by a company's decision.

My internet searches turned up a few posts, but nothing really solid as far as the future of Debian on tablets.  There are rumors of an Ubuntu tablet being made in China, which makes me think there is hope for Debian.

Any thoughts or information?

Thank you,
Mark