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A comment on Ubuntu ported to the Nexus 7. Parent comment

Re:Ubuntu ported to the Nexus 7 by jiggy2011 on Saturday October 20, 2012 @10:05AM (#4677086)
"Normal" Windows won't run on ARM afaik. So you'd be looking at running WinRT which is stripped down version of Windows that doesn't allow things like sideloading or desktop apps.

Ubuntu will be a better bet for people who want to run desktop type applications on their tablet. Quite how popular a use case that really is remains to be seen.

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Re:Ubuntu ported to the Nexus 7 by ConstantineXVI on Saturday October 20, 2012 @12:51PM (#4677509)
If someone "broke" WinRT enough to get it running on the N7, I'd be very surprised if it wouldn't also be possible to get a compiler going and build normal desktop apps. It's still capable of running at least a significant subset of "classic" Windows (at minimum, however much it takes for Office to run); so once it's been convinced to disregard security, it should theoretically be possible to get many other Windows apps compiled for and running on ARM as well.

That said, if you want to run desktop-style applications, you're far better off just buying one.

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Re:Ubuntu ported to the Nexus 7 by jiggy2011 on Saturday October 20, 2012 @01:08PM (#4677556)
Assuming that you can get the source to these desktop applications and re-compile them for ARM. I also doubt that older Win32 libraries will be compatible with WinRT.

You would basically be getting WinRT "homebrew" like you do with some consoles, a cool hack but probably miserable for getting work done.

OTOH an ARM based ubuntu might be a usable dev system.

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