In November we wrote an article on how graphical environments for Linux-based mobile operating systems were progressing. They have their lights and their shadows, but the truth is that, in my opinion and as I always say, if the developers do not give up, the future is promising. If what exists were not enough, recently has presented an operating system that, initially, would be the best visually speaking and whose name is JingOS.
But if you have a PineTab, calm down. The developers of this operating system, at least right now, have focused on something for convertible computers, that is, those that go from tablet to PC if we remove or add the keyboard. Yes, the PineTab also has this option, but at the moment it is only supported by the Surface Pro 6 and the Huawei Matebook 14 with touch screen. The CEO of Jingling Tech says that it can be used on most x86 PCs, but that we will not be able to enjoy the best experience without a touch screen.
JDE as a graphical environment
On the official page of the project we can see a little what the interface of the operating system is like. It is not exact to the iPad, but it does look a lot like, with the Control Center on the right that, if they tell us that it is from iOS 15, we almost believe it. The impression that we are facing iPadOS we take it, above all, by the dock at the bottom and the distribution of the applications on the main screen.
Like other operating systems, JingOS has native applications, such as calendar, timer, file manager, media player, and calculator. It is more than likely that this knows us little, but the operating system also is capable of running desktop applications. In addition, that it is designed for touch screens allows us to use gestures on the screen, such as three fingers to the left or right to switch from one app to another (where have I seen that?).
The graphical environment that we see has been baptized as JDE, which is Jing Desktop Environment, and I imagine that they have been based on the name of the project from which they borrow software. And it is that JingOS uses KDE 5.75 and Plasma Mobile 5.20, all on top of the Ubuntu 20.04 which was launched in April 2020. We remind you that 20.04 Focal Fossa is an LTS version that will be supported until 2025.
JingOS can be tested at the end of January
What? What do you like and would you like to try it? I am sorry. What they will launch will be JingOS v0.6, but will land on January 31 if there is no delay. It will be at that moment when the users of the Surface Pro 6 and the Huawei Matebok 14 will be able to get the most out of it, while the rest of us can test it, if it does not give any failure, in an alternative such as GNOME Boxes / Virtualbox or from a pendrive. If you're feeling daring, you can probably install it too, but we don't recommend it.
While we wait, the best thing we can do is take a look at the video-preview that they have published on YouTube.