Greetings. For someone like me who started working with Unix in the ancient days of Version 6 (egads, no stdio library yet!) -- it strikes me as just short of magical to now have fully functional, up to date Linux systems able to hang in a little box on my belt.

Back in November, I reported on the ability to install Debian Linux on the G1 (though the procedure was rather complex).

Now comes word that a G1 version of Ubuntu Linux has arrived, complete with an X11 desktop environment. While I haven't tested it yet, the installation appears to be significantly simpler than was the case for Debian.

As you'd probably expect, doing this install requires a "rooted" G1 (or dev model ADP1) -- but after all, that's what rooting is for.

There is a sense of refreshing continuity in knowing that accidentally typing:

rm * .tmp

instead of:

rm *.tmp

can do just as much damage on my phone as it could on a big old PDP 11/45 minicomputer several decades ago ...

Seriously, Ubuntu on the G1 looks like a great hack, in the most positive sense of the word.

--Lauren--