Ubuntu and Hanvon

A Hanvon TouchPad F10 running Windows 7 on Intel Atom with full sized 10 inch touch screen.

The majority of Windows tablets we've seen are coming out of China have been based on Intel's Atom processor platform - mostly a decision prompted by price, but also one that means at least moderate battery life. And you'd expect a mature distro like Ubuntu to have relatively few problems with driver support etc on a CPU/Chipset combo as ubiquitous as the Atom. But like many things in the world of Linux, it ain't quite that simple.

The video below comes to us via our buddies at netbooknews.com and shows an early attempt to get Ubuntu going on a Hanvon tablet. The user is not having a great deal of luck; the standby function appears at least to problematic. The next 10.1 iteration of Ubuntu will add support for multi-touch and hopefully a top-notch user experience, but what will the Hanvon's of this world make of it all?


Hanvon recently affirmed its love for Microsoft and Windows 7, announcing a partnership for tablets aimed a business users. The strategy here is that business users would enjoy paying more for a larger screened device that runs a familiar OS. Good luck with that one.

So would Hanvon be tempted by Ubuntu? It's a license free / open source OS so why not? Well firstly, adding a free OS to an expensive device doesn't make a lot of sense, especially when one of the key selling points is that we're giving you a familiar OS. The business community is wired more for an old style Windows experience than a new fangled open source one where everything is new; Microsoft knows that they're hooked on Outlook, Word and Excel. Besides... woe betide anyone who tries to push these suit wearing decision makers to learn a new tricks, like say....er....gmail. Like teaching your grannie to tweet.