Day: April 26, 2012

(Cross-posted from the Hand Held Hack)
Wow! I love my Fire! And, apparently, so do you!

comScore: Amazon Kindle Fire is 54.4% of US Android tablets

“Amazon’s Kindle Fire now makes up the absolute majority of the Android tablet platform in the US, comScore found in a fresh study. The e-reader and tablet crossover represented 54.4 percent of all Android tablets sold in the country. At second place, the entire Samsung Galaxy Tab lineup comprised just 15.4 percent of Android slates.

No other manufacturer got above 10 percent, with Google’s reference tablet, the Motorola Xoom, stopping at seven percent. Despite its size as a company, Sony only netted 0.7 percent for the Tablet S.

The share was a virtual doubling of the Kindle Fire’s stake from December and had seen every other manufacturer’s share shrink as a result. Researchers didn’t attempt to explain the shift, but the increasing bias suggested that the $199 price was again the determining factor and that devices trying to compete more directly in the iPad’s price and category sold in low numbers.

For Google, the findings pose extra problems as it moves towards the low end. Although publicly content to let the Kindle Fire succeed, Google now faces a situation where the most popular Android tablet goes without not just Google’s official interface but the Google Play Store and other services the company depends on to make money from Android. A rumored ‘Nexus’ tablet may be priced at the same level to undermine Amazon.

Alongside Android tablet share, comScore discovered that those with small tablets were much more likely to use the web. Where someone with a seven-inch tablet like the Kindle Fire or a five-inch crossover like the Dell Streak or Samsung Galaxy Note typically looked at no more than 90 pages, those with a larger design like the 9.4-inch Tablet S or the 9.7-inch iPad looked at 116 or more. The gap suggested that the willingness to see content, including beyond the web, was directly linked to screen size.”

It is TIME! Upgrade to the Precise Pangolin (12.04 LTS) of Ubuntu Linux! I did! Awesomeness! By the way, unlike what the linked article says, it is no longer Beta, it is fully production!

Howto: Upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin from 10.04, 11.04, 11.10 | Desktop & Server

For a Desktop Upgrade:

“So to upgrade from Ubuntu 11.04 or older on a desktop system, press Alt+F2 and type in update-manager -d into the command box. Update Manager should open up and tell you: New distribution release ’12.04 LTS‘ is available.

Before to upgrade remember that is important to update your system first then click Upgrade and follow the on-screen instructions:

1- Press Alt+F2 and type in update-manager -d

For a Server Upgrade:

To upgrade from Ubuntu 11.10 on a server system to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS:

1- install the update-manager-core package if it is not already installed:

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

2- Edit /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and set Prompt=normal;

3- Launch the upgrade tool with the command

sudo do-release-upgrade -d

and follow the on-screen instructions.”

---

Ubuntu Precise Pangolin (12.04 LTS)

“The developers behind the Ubuntu project have announced the availability of Ubuntu 12.04, codenamed Precise Pangolin. The new version of the popular Linux distribution brings updated software, several major user interface improvements, and a number of changes to the platform’s default application lineup.

Ubuntu is released every six months on a time-based schedule. The version number is based on the year and month of the release. Version 12.04 is the sixteenth release since the original launch of Ubuntu in 2004. Ubuntu’s audience grew at a rapid pace and quickly elevated it to the status of the most popular Linux distribution for the desktop. The distribution has since been expanded to support servers and mobile and embedded systems.

Ubuntu 12.04 is a long-term support (LTS) release, which means that it will receive security and stability updates for an extended duration. LTS releases, which are issued every two years, have historically offered three years of support on the desktop and five years on the server. Regular Ubuntu releases, by comparison, are only supported with updates for 18 months.

Ubuntu 12.04 is the first LTS release that will receive a uniform five years of support in both environments. The support guarantee is backed by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. LTS releases are significant because the extended support period makes them more suitable than regular releases for deployment by hardware manufacturers and enterprise Ubuntu adopters.

Canonical’s official release announcement touts 12.04 as a release for the enterprise desktop, highlighting things like OEM certification and the availability of enterprise-centric software from partners VMware and Citrix.

Due to the longer lifespan and nature of the intended users, the focus of LTS releases tends to be on stability and robustness rather than new features and major technical changes.”