Ubuntu Ereader Edition???

[drawkcab]

I was looking at this post/video where Jesse Vincent figures out how to run ubuntu on his kindle.

http://hackaday.com/2009/09/03/ubuntu-9-04-on-kindle-2/

The introduction to the clip states: "Our problem is that if you’re going to carry around a portable device it should do a whole lot more than just display text from a few books."

I couldn't agree more.

How difficult would it be to come up with an edition of Ubuntu (or some smaller distro that supports ARM) that runs effectively on an ereader with an eink display?

[Austin25]

That was almost a year ago, and there's been Linux on a lot of things. Like a NDS (http://dslinux.org/), or an iPod (http://ipodlinux.sourceforge.net/index.shtml).

[NCLI]

I was looking at this post/video where Jesse Vincent figures out how to run ubuntu on his kindle.

http://hackaday.com/2009/09/03/ubuntu-9-04-on-kindle-2/

The introduction to the clip states: "Our problem is that if you’re going to carry around a portable device it should do a whole lot more than just display text from a few books."

I couldn't agree more.

How difficult would it be to come up with an edition of Ubuntu (or some smaller distro that supports ARM) that runs effectively on an ereader with an eink display?

Why can't you just carry an e-reader to read books? Seriously, an e-ink screen isn't suitable for anything but reading in its current form, and I'm fine with that. I used to have to carry around heavy books, now I just have a Kindle.

[wyliecoyoteuk]

The introduction to the clip states: "Our problem is that if you’re going to carry around a portable device it should do a whole lot more than just display text from a few books."

Why?
If you carry a book around, should you be able to read newspapers on it?

To be honest, I am tired of "mutlifunction devices" that don't actually do anything well.

Phones that are rubbish as phones,PDAs and ebook readers for example.

I want a phone that is good at being a phone, something which all of the smartphones (and I have used several) actually fail at bigtime.

Why should I want something which is rubbish at everything, if I can have something that is exceptionally good at one job?

hint:books are good at being books, ebook readers are good at being ebooks, smartphones are rubbish about almost everything except playing pointless games.

[NightwishFan]

I also dislike smartphones (and the ipod touch). It is a bunch of eye candy.

[drawkcab]

Actually this is more what I had in mind:

http://openinkpot.org/

It doesn't seem development is very active though. A number of devices are not supported and the installation guide is pretty sketchy. :(