Samsung recently published a new video on its YouTube channel demoing the recently launched "Linux on Galaxy" concept it introduced last month for Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note8 smartphones.
Promising to bring the full Linux PC experience to your mobile device, the "Linux on Galaxy" concept relies on the Samsung DeX dock station, which transforms a Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, or Note8 smartphone into a full-fledged desktop or workstation if you attach a monitor, keyboard, and mouse.
Basically, Samsung DeX offers convergence for your Galaxy smartphone, something that Canonical wanted to create with its Ubuntu Linux operating system and the Unity 8 user interface that it's no longer under development. And now, Samsung wants to give you the full Linux PC experience on your smartphone.
In other words, you'll be able to run a full-fledged Linux distro straight from your Samsung Galaxy smartphone when it's connected to Samsung DeX. As you can see in the video attached below, all you have to do is to connect your phone to DeX and double click the "Linux on Galaxy" icon on the desktop.
While not yet mentioned anywhere, it looks like it will be possible to run almost any GNU/Linux distribution with the "Linux on Galaxy" feature, which currently requires registration to use as Samsung is still working on optimizing it for everyday use. The concept demo video shows Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) with the Unity 7 desktop running Eclipse IDE for developing Android apps.
"Linux on Galaxy enables developers to use Samsung smartphones for all their computing needs, even app development," said Samsung. "Linux on Galaxy allows the latest Samsung Galaxy smartphone users to run their preferred Linux distribution on their smartphones utilizing the same Linux kernel that powers the Android OS to ensure the best possible performance.
It won't be long until Samsung makes the Linux on Galaxy project available to all Galaxy users, worldwide, but when it does it will make a huge difference in the Linux community, especially for developers wanting to create apps for Android ecosystem. Until then, check out the concept video below showing Linux on Galaxy run Ubuntu OS on a Galaxy S8 device.
