
Maru OS – A complete desktop experience on a smartphone - type0
https://maruos.com/#/
======
drewg123
I'm wondering how secure it is.. According to
[https://github.com/maruos/maruos/wiki/Tips](https://github.com/maruos/maruos/wiki/Tips),
they start sshd up by default, listening on the local network, with the
default user maru and password maru. That seems like a bit of a red flag and
makes me wonder if it is the tip of the iceberg.

~~~
pdsouza
Preetam here, founder and lead developer of Maru.

Thank you for all the critical feedback on security in this thread. Maru used
to ship with sshd disabled [0] but it was enabled because of all the requests
I was getting from users who wanted to run the system headless without needing
an HDMI display and BT keyboard/mouse around to set sshd up. I assumed that
users would change the default password after the initial login, but as many
of you have pointed out, hope is not a strategy when it comes to security.
I've opened up an issue [1] to fix this.

Please feel free to open up issues (or, even better, PRs!) at any time if you
have further suggestions for improvement. It's thanks to feedback like this
that Maru continues to move onwards and upwards.

[0]:
[https://github.com/maruos/maruos/issues/22#issuecomment-2296...](https://github.com/maruos/maruos/issues/22#issuecomment-229692011)
[1]:
[https://github.com/maruos/maruos/issues/76](https://github.com/maruos/maruos/issues/76)

~~~
josephg
There's is a fundamental issue here that comes up with lots of small
organizations around security: If your process for prioritizing work is based
on which issues people complain about the most, you will never prioritize
security issues until its too late. Security problems are never obvious until
the horse bolts.

It is very easy to accidentally add egregious security vulnerabilities to
products if you don't know what you're doing. In fact, accruing small security
issues (like this SSH password problem) is the default state of the world.

As a user, _I_ pay the cost when products I use have bad security. If I get
hacked via your product, it might be embarrassing for you, but its my device
and my data that gets compromised. And because of that, I expect most small
companies will not care about their product's security as much as I do as a
consumer.

Of course, once a company grows large enough they'll hire a person or a team
to look into their software security. At that point they'll fix all the
obvious security issues. The database will gain a password. The root AWS
account will stop being shared out amongst employees. Work laptops will have
full disk encryption turned on to protect against theft, etc.

But until then, as a customer, I should be really nervous. How can you tell
the secure products apart from the insecure ones? Well, one of the most
obvious signs is that secure products will have already fixed the obvious
mistakes. Things like connecting to backend services using unencrypted HTTP.
Things like a backdoor-by-default SSH password published on the website.

That is why we (security wonks) make a big deal out of small security problems
when they're obvious. They're a sign that nobody has even taken a look at the
security situation, and for every obvious problem there's probably 10 more
that aren't obvious. This issue might get fixed, but thats why your reply
doesn't make me less nervous.

\---

And thats a shame, because your project seems super cool and I really want you
to succeed! This has come across much more negative than I intended, and I'm
more frustrated at the startup industry over this than I am frustrated with
you or what you're doing. Hopefully you can get a security review done at some
point to make sure there aren't any other simple problems that need to be
dealt with. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

~~~
arjie
Well, if you see the issue where this was enabled, the author had it
originally disabled for security reasons so it's not that he's unfamiliar with
the reasons why one shouldn't have it enabled. He did it on request from a
user while knowing the security risk so that means it's less likely that he's
made mistakes so much as yielded to users. And the latter thing is a lot
easier to solve.

------
zeotroph
I am really surprised that the "single computing / storage device" idea which
can switch between different screens and input methods seamlessly (and maybe
support plug-in CPUs) is just is not happening, though the concept here is a
small step in that direction.

Having everything in the cloud seems to have made this somewhat redundant for
most users, though I still hope one day I can carry all my data around, of
course given proper encryption and backups and the ability to distinguish
between safe and possibly monitored (public) displays/inputs.

Or maybe wireless displays are missing so that decision to quickly do a task
with a mouse and keyboard leaves out the cable plugging aspect.

~~~
jasonkostempski
I just don't see the use case. For work, most people have a work computer and
that's separate from their personal computer. Tons of people no longer have a
computer at home, those that do are likely gamers, developers or artists that
all have a huge archive of files they work with and require more power than a
mobile device can supply. I wish these companies would stop trying and just
make an open, mobile, general purpose computer for mobile use cases.

~~~
kilroy123
I don't have a separate computer. I only have one single computer for work and
personal things. I use it heavily for both. If something happens to my
computer and it goes down for a few days, I'm screwed.

I personally would love something like this. Just in case I need to get some
work done off my phone. I do no want another computer.

~~~
komali2
Do you not keep old computers as you update?

Have you considered having a cheap chromebook backup or something?

~~~
Piskvorrr
What for, dust collection? I refurbish them and give them away - by the time I
upgrade, the machines are still comparable to mid-low current ones.

------
tyingq
_" What is the default sudo password in Maru Desktop?

"maru" is the default sudo password. When installing debian packages, you may
need to enter "root" as a password_"

Oy.

~~~
noja
Similar to Chromium OS, right?

~~~
tyingq
Not when combined with "they start sshd up by default, listening on the local
network, with the default user maru and password maru."

------
djrogers
The fact that this spins up a Debian desktop when you're in desktop mode seems
to make this a much more viable option than some of the previous attempts at
this, which expected you to want to use only android apps on your desktop.

~~~
fps
I'd love to have both, though. Debian apps for productivity, android apps for
communications/games, side by side on the same screen with shared storage and
maybe synchronized state. As it is, I have to manually sync state between the
two devices which results in missed messages and inconsistent state.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
So, it would be cool to have Debian as the base OS and Android running in a
container. When in Phone mode, Android is front and center and when in Desktop
mode, the base Debian host is. Could then still access the Android container.

If the UIs supported a seamless mode, that would be icing.

~~~
my123
I'm concerned about driver support in Debian.

It's Android devices after all...

~~~
kbenson
In the worst case you might have to run a kernel built for Android instead of
the default debian kernel (e.g. lifted off the android OS for that type of
device), depending on how it was packaged up. Hopefully those aren't built
with certain useful features turned off.

For devices that support a vanilla android, I imagine the driver issue is
already worked out and there would be no problem getting them to work in _a_
kernel that you can compile yourself, even if not the default debian kernel.

~~~
traverseda
Like the halium project

[https://halium.org/](https://halium.org/)

------
xmatos
I love it!

I owned an Atrix with a lapdock, which was the first device to embrace this
concept. Unfortunately, it was poorly handled by Motorola in the sense that
you had to hack it to enable a full linux desktop, instead of what was
basically a Chromebook.

What really made me give up on it was the fact that it never got updated, so
you were stuck with Android 2. It was pretty useful even as a workstation and
saved me as I used it exclusively for a couple of weeks, while my laptop
needed repair.

I was already thinking about trying something like that again, by getting a
phone that had hdmi output and i'll definetely take a shot on that! good luck
to them!

~~~
72deluxe
I too had the Atrix, the Lapdock and the multimedia dock. It was a good
device, just hampered by the lack of RAM, the dual core processor (which was a
bit sluggish), and the hampered Linux desktop; I too hacked around with it to
be able to install all manner of useful tools (compilers, editors, office
packages) and it was useful. The Lapdock had a good screen and was
conveniently incredibly thin. I did miss a backlit keyboard though.

In any case it was years ahead of its time.

Sold all the components individually though - I think someone used the Lapdock
with a Raspberry Pi in the end.

------
DaiPlusPlus
I find it amusing the promo shot shows it running on an Apple Thunderbolt
display - which famously does not support HDMI input, only Thunderbolt - for
which there is no MHL adapter.

~~~
jasonlotito
Pretty sure this is incorrect, as I had an old DisplayPort Apple Display that
I used with HDMI input, and from what I understand, the Thunderbolt displays
also supported DisplayPort. Granted, the adapter was not cheap, but it did
work.

~~~
DaiPlusPlus
The Thunderbolt displays do not work with Mini-DP connections despite sharing
the same physical connector. The DisplayPort signals still need to be
encapsulated in a true Thunderbolt connection, so they don't even work with
pre-Thunderbolt (but still DisplayPort) Apple Macs.

------
LeoNatan25
“Maru is a new kind of computing experience.”

Is it? This type of “All Your PC Are Belong To Phone” type of fads have been
attempted (and so far, miserably failed) for many, many years now. Looking at
the website, I see little reason why this should succeed where others have
failed.

~~~
xrisk
It’s an OS for your phone that becomes a proper desktop OS if you plug in a
monitor, mouse, keyboard etc.

I don’t think this has been done before, or maybe I’m just hopelessly unaware?

Either way, I think it’s quite interesting.

~~~
cwyers
Motorola Atrix, Ubuntu Phone, Windows Phone 10 has Continuum. It's been tried
before.

~~~
ygjb
Yes, and it took around 20 years to go from the patent for the first
underpinnings of applications for phones other than communication in the 1970s
to Simon Personal Communicator in the early 90s, and then another 10-15 years
for the first smart phones to emerge. If people gave up because it "had been
tried before", we wouldn't have any of the technology we had (in fact, we
would still be planting crops with wooden sticks because Thog got trampled
trying to chase some wildebeest off of his early attempts at farming).

~~~
Retra
Nobody is denouncing it because it isn't new, they're just saying that they
shouldn't claim it's a new kind of experience when it doesn't really seem like
a new kind of experience.

------
bhauer
Looks like Windows 10 Mobile Continuum. Even the types of apps being used in
the screenshots echo Office being used in Continuum screenshots.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/Continuum](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum)

~~~
MrMember
The difference to me is that Continuum is still just a mobile OS that is
scaled up. They even point that out in their promo material, it's a "desktop-
like experience." Maru, while it looks very early in development, isn't a
desktop-like experience. It's a desktop experience because it's running a
desktop operating system.

~~~
kairuku
Well, so is Continuum, technically. Windows Phone is its own SKU of Windows 10
but it's still Windows 10.

~~~
bhauer
Yes. And with Windows 10 on ARM's x86 emulation functionality, I would not be
surprised to see broader application support in future buildf of Continuum.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I hope that can revive Windows Phone, or it'll be a wasted effort.

------
corbet
I did a review of Maru OS last year:
[https://lwn.net/Articles/684010/](https://lwn.net/Articles/684010/)

------
jccalhoun
Every time one of these is announced you know the people who worked on the
Palm Foleo feel vindicated.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Foleo)

------
chuckdries
I've always wondered about this. I love the portability but limiting myself to
the power of something that has to fit in my pocket feels... limiting. What if
we just carried around our software and files and popped them into whatever
computer we have on hand? I know they're pricey but M.2 SSDs are tiny, fast,
and high in capacity. I can imagine a desktop (maybe even a big laptop) with
an sd-card-reader-like slit where you pop the SSD in and boot in mere seconds.
Your computing environment travels with you but can take advantage of whatever
hardware you have.

It's not like you can use these phone-desktop solutions without a keyboard,
mouse, dock, display, etc. anyway. You still need hardware.

As a proof of concept, I've been itching to get a few of those USB SATA
toaster things and set them up at my desks. The only hitch is finding a laptop
these days with a 2.5" bay that's easy to get to.

Would you use something like this?

~~~
andai
I like your "just take the data with you" idea. I did something similar with a
tiny (about the size of my thumbnail) USB stick about ten years ago, running
Linux everywhere I could (and wasn't really supposed to!).

It was pretty slow though. These days though, read and write speeds (on USB 3)
are over 10x faster. So even without the hardware changes you describe, it's
already more than feasible :)

------
qwtel
Too bad my Nexus 5 just bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. I was surprised
that this only works with the Nexus 5 though, since it's a pretty old phone. I
was primarily using it to performance-test stuff on a low end phone. Maybe
maruos does it for the same reason?

------
AdmiralAsshat

      Shared storage
      
      SD card data like camera photos and downloads are shared so you can coordinate your work seamlessly.
    

This might be confusing for some, given that the only devices supported right
now are Nexus devices, which famously lack an SD slot.

~~~
wvenable
It's confusing because Android phones have a SD card mount for the internal
storage (and external SD cards are yet another SD card mount).

------
JoeRess
We spoke to the developer of Maru OS on yesterday's Late Night Linux podcast.

[http://latenightlinux.com/late-night-linux-
episode-11/](http://latenightlinux.com/late-night-linux-episode-11/)

------
excalibur
> Maru Mobile is built on the latest Android Marshmallow.

Should we tell them?

~~~
ddalex
It's factually correct though - it's not built on the latest version of
Android, but the latest version of Marshmallow.

------
falcolas
I really wish this was a viable option, but the lack of active cooling (and
mediocre passive cooling) for phones really makes the phone-as-desktop a non-
starter for anything but light web browsing or text editing.

~~~
ksubedi
But if you think about it, the use case for almost 80% of the people out there
that use laptops or desktops is for web browsing and office work (text editing
etc) which phones should be able to handle well.

~~~
falcolas
Think of any task that has ever caused your laptop fans to spin up, and cross
that task off of what is possible on a phone-as-desktop list. No high
definition video calls. No 1080p gaming. No fully functional IDEs
(intellisense and interactive linting/compiling is computationally expensive).
No high definition movies. Video/batch photo conversions are probably out,
though may be possible at 1/10th speed.

The most successful tablet-laptop attempt thus far has active cooling simply
so they don't have to throttle back performance.

It's possible that more energy efficient processors will come about and prove
me wrong, but they've been working on the heat dissipation problem for decades
now (yes, even in desktops/servers).

~~~
khedoros1
I can do hi-def video calls and video playback on my phone already; the video
encode+decode is handled by dedicated hardware. Ditto for certain types of
video conversions. Gaming is at 1080p, equivalent to PC games from perhaps 10
years ago.

This is with a mid-range phone from a couple years ago. I think you're being
overly pessimistic.

~~~
my123
A modern phone CPU is way closer to a modern desktop CPU than what most people
think, due to the mobile-first (and power-efficiency-first) nature of most of
the current CPUs in the market - in the detriment of pure performance. Power-
efficiency matters more than pure single-threaded performance in both the
mobile and server markets.

------
graycoder
If you like this you might like: sentio.com

~~~
geniium
Web site currently down?

~~~
koopuluri
Hey, were you able to access? Site doesn't seem to be down from what I can
tell. I'm part of the team at Sentio. Feel free to message me if you have any
issues :)

------
garou
Is it running a Debian with XFCE when Desktop?

If not, is it able to use the Nix package manager or something like this?

~~~
sprokolopolis
Yes, it comes with Xfce and apt-get.

------
drusepth
This looks cool, but I'm wondering who the target market is for this.

To properly use it, you need:

1) An Android phone (easy to satisfy) that you're comfortable enough
installing another OS on (so... a more technical user)

2) An HDMI monitor (which could actually be a TV)

3) A SlimPort USB-to-HDMI cable

4) A bluetooth mouse and bluetooth keyboard

5) No desktop (since using it and this seem to be mutually exclusive for most
casual setups)

Most people don't have a bluetooth keyboard/mouse lying around, so the
time/cost investment to set this up is not only just installing a new OS on
your phone, but also buying hardware (keyboard, mouse, and potentially monitor
if you don't already have a computer) [and potentially also waiting for it to
arrive if you buy online]. And, after this investment, the target market seems
to be people that'd be comfortable doing the above while _not_ also buying a
desktop to go with it. So... either technical hobbyists/tinkerers and/or
people that want a $50-100 machine (and are savvy enough to set it up).

I would _love_ to use something like this, but I move enough that it doesn't
make sense to have a desktop (and, therefore, the same mostly applies to
monitor+keyboard), and if I were to live in one place long enough to have a
desktop, I'd just buy a desktop (because I likely wouldn't use it _and_ this).
Am I just not the target market for something like this (even though it
legitimately excites me)?

~~~
kovek
I was thinking that you do not necessarily need a mouse if you know your
keyboard-fu well, but then realized that you could use the phone screen as a
trackpad in place of a mouse.

------
sudosteph
As one of the backers for the doomed "Ubuntu Phone" kickstarter, this really
looks like a great alternative. I will have to play around with it this
weekend for sure.

~~~
notspanishflu
Another interesting project is UBports.

[https://ubports.com/](https://ubports.com/)

------
yk
I think the most interesting question is, how do they handle the different
interfaces between phone and desktop. A touchscreen needs a very different UI
than a desktop with mouse and keyboard.

If I read that correctly, they are just ignoring the problem and share files
on the phone between Android apps and programs running on Debian, which seems
like it could work most of the time. (No idea if there is Blender for Android,
but I am pretty sure there are .doc readers for Android.)

~~~
djhworld
It looks like they run android when you are in "phone" mode, then when you
connect it up to a monitor it boots Debian

------
hartator
I don't get the negativity in the comments. Maru might be early and probably
won't be the one, but this is definitely the future.

~~~
FussyZeus
No, it isn't. These kinds of devices cover a very small but very vocal
component of the computer user population, mostly bloggers, writers, i.e.
people who's computers don't need shit in terms of power or storage. We hear
from them constantly about how tablets are ending computers, laptops are
ending desktops, phones are ending computers and it's all now and previously
been nonsense.

For as many tasks that newer phones could likely take on, you are not drafting
graphical work on an iPad Pro, you are not building 3D models for print or
media on a frickin Samsung Galaxy and you are not simulating weather patterns
and doing storm calculations on a goddamn Windows Phone. The desktop PC is not
going anywhere and I don't mean to sound so angry but this constant narrative
that is produced by tech media AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN that somehow these
little, for lack of a better word, toys are going to replace the actual
machinery behind the products so many consume is demonstrably false and
irritating to read over and over.

~~~
vorg
> that somehow these little, for lack of a better word, toys are going to
> replace the actual machinery behind the products so many consume is
> demonstrably false

How old are you? I thought similar in the 1980's whenever I saw people
tinkering with their toy PC's running DOS and Windows 3. They weren't going to
replace MVS on an IBM mainframe, or VMS on a DEC, or VME on an ICL. The 'V' in
those names stood for "virtual" \-- how could PC's replace that?

------
zfnb
From the FAQ: Is Maru an app or does it replace my current Android OS? Maru is
firmware for your device, so yes, it will replace your existing Android OS.

I wonder how this works: is Android a virtual machine within the Maru/Debian
host? It would be very interesting to be able to use the underlying Linux
networking, for example, to control the Android functionality.

~~~
problems
More likely it's close to vice versa for driver reasons. Android owns
everything, the debian stuff just runs in a chroot and it needs a few custom
hacks to make display and input work nicely, which is why it's not the same as
just running Termux or Linux Deploy on your phone.

------
intrasight
Put it in a Cardboard with some type of virtual keyboard, and you've solved
the looming laptop airplane ban.

~~~
dschep
Have keyboards been banned from the cabin too? If not, cardboard + a physical
keyboard would do :)

------
nkkollaw
I always embrace change and appreciate all kinds of experiments, but I don't
think you want the same thing on your phone and desktop.

I want different files on my desktop that I don't want on my phone—like
accounting and tax stuff. I might want Skype on my PC, but not on my phone
(because I can just call people), etc. etc.

iCloud and similar are a good balance, allowing you to have a shared virtual
folder that you can browse on both your phone and desktop and is kept
synchronized automatically. Google apps are great to keep things syncronized,
too: contacts, passwords (iCloud or Google Chrome), etc.

I use macOS as a desktop OS and Android as a mobile OS, and I'm perfectly
happy with using the right tool for the job which works well for what you need
to do, instead of a security-nightmare OS and complicated mobile OS.

Just my two cents.

~~~
thinkling
It's not the same thing -- the phone runs Android for phone-mode use, and
"Peek under the hood and you'll find rock-stable Debian Linux" for the desktop
mode.

~~~
nkkollaw
I assume it's the same files and app..? Otherwise I don't get the point.

------
zwieback
We are trying to do a similar thing with the Elite X3, not sure whether it's
one of our big sellers...

~~~
komali2
Who is "we" and what's stopping you from asking your sales team for the
numbers?

~~~
throwanem
Per GP's profile, HP; internal siloing and bureaucracy, would be my bet.

------
Schwolop
I have a nexdock; an HDMI screen, bluetooth keyboard + trackpad, webcam, USB
hub, and battery - with no CPU. It's intended to work with continuum/handover
compatible phones, compute sticks, or raspberry pi like devices. Something
like MaruOS would be an even better option in my mind.

And yet, then I think why would I bother carrying a laptop-minus-cpu plus a
phone with desktop ability when I could just do what I currently do and carry
a phone and a full laptop? I can see this brings a bit of flexibility, and my
files/config would always be on my person, etc. But we have global and close-
enough-to ubiquitous internet now - isn't that sufficient or even better?

I guess I just don't get the use case. Or maybe I get the use case(s) but not
the business case.

------
yeldarb
I want this on my iPhone so badly. iOS when standalone, Mac OS when plugged
into a display.

------
real-hacker
I was interested in the merging of desktop and mobile OS many years ago. I
don't understand why Apple/MS/Google didn't pursue this, is it technically
challenging? or is this just not "something people want"?

~~~
Epskampie
Well, Microsoft did try really hard, it was called "continuum", but the fall
of windows mobile brought that dream to an end.

The other company that tried was Ubuntu, their effort was called Unity if I'm
correct. That was axed recently as they needed to focus on profit-making parts
of the company. Also, I don't think any mainstream ubuntu phone with unity was
ever released.

Finally, Apple's strategy is clearly different, they see iOS and macOS as
clearly different beasts, and will probably never try to directly merge the
two. Data-sharing is the way to go for them.

~~~
andai
I had a dream once where I was holding an iPhone, and every time I looked away
and back again, it would be one form factor bigger (iPhone -> iPad ->
MacBook). That was a really cool dream.

------
anotheryou
What is the real benefit?

\- If I use it on the go, I need an external screen and keyboard. I'd rather
carry a laptop or just the keyboard und use the tiny screen (possible with
stock android already). And if you are somewhere with a screen, there is
probably also a machine at which you could boot some live distro.

\- files are "in sync" between desktop and mobile. But the few file-types I
open on my phone can just as well be synced over the internet (mostly just txt
and a pdf every now and than).

\- less expensive (but a desktop that beats a phone is probably also cheap to
get)

If there was a really cheap laptop dock for it it might make sense for me,
otherwise I don't get it.

------
methodin
What's the reason all of these start with very specific phones? Assuming you
have a rooted phone running recent Android, what is the blocker for having
something like this running? Why only Nexus devices?

------
znpy
I am honestly disappointed this is not a thing yet.

Years ago Canonical demoed Ubuntu for Android
([http://musho.tk/l/666778c3](http://musho.tk/l/666778c3)) which was freaking
cool.

Most phones nowadays have means to connect to displays and keyboard/mices. We
have cores, speed and ram.

WHY ISN'T THIS A THING YET?

I have seen banks hand out expensive ThinkPads to people to basically use
Internet Explorer and Outlook, plus company phones and stuff.

My speculation is that whomever gets this thing right first is going to make a
metric fu __ton of money.

------
jasonlotito
So, with the recent discussion about banning laptops on flights form Europe
into the US, I was wondering about something like this. A way to still have a
computer but in something the size of your phone. Not just a phone OS, but a
full desktop OS. Obviously the small screen size is an issue, but I wonder how
that could be handled. Possibly from the airlines with some form of display
input for a screen on the back of the seat? Not sure, really. Either way,
interesting stuff.

------
catmanjan
I like the idea, the biggest benefit is of course the "all in one" deal -
seems a waste to have to tether your phone to your laptop, or get a laptop
with a SIM slot (and all the costs that go with it)

I'd like to see: 1\. The source code 2\. Support for newer devices (might go
hand in hand with 1) 3\. Support for wireless HDMI adapters, having to carry
no cables at all would be very neat, although I guess this needs a power
supply to last for any useful amount of time

------
edward
Maybe this is the answer to the impending cabin baggage laptop ban.

Carry a keyboard and screen in your hold bag, the phone with your data and
applications in your pocket.

~~~
BjoernKW
I keep hearing people say that technology can't solve political problems. This
has never been more true than in this case.

Instead of contriving ridiculously convoluted solutions to a non-problem we
could simply stop electing politicians who propose implementing ludicrous
airport security theatre.

~~~
GrinningFool
I agree, but... which ones would those be again? And are they generally
electable based on on other platform planks?

THe problem here is that most of the public believes that security theater is
real security. Unless that changes, most politicians will espouse their "firm
positions on security" in order to help them get elected.

THe ones who "get it" tend to be in the independent/libertarian camps (last I
looked) - and they don't get a whole lot of public support.

~~~
BjoernKW
Therein lies the rub, doesn't it? The first thing to do is convince people
that voting independent or libertarian (or for that matter for an outsider
candidate such as Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party primaries) isn't un-
American or unpatriotic or whatever weird notions people have about not voting
mainstream but their democratic right and an absolutely reasonable thing to do
(perhaps the only reasonable thing in today's political environment).

I think it can be done. If you think of another notorious modern two-party
system neither of the UK's dominant parties today existed before the 19th
century. Given how fast opinions spread these days it should be possible to
bring about significant change in a matter of years rather than decades. Think
about how quickly movements like the Pirate Party became successful in some
countries. That they declined just as quickly again in most of these countries
can be mostly attributed to their own stupidity rather than systems that are
inherently averse to change.

------
omot
This is an amazing idea. Right now my laptop is my PC, I want my phone to be
my PC, but I don't want to use android. I want MacOS

------
nonsince
I don't use a smartphone, and the only smartphone-ish device I have (iPod
touch) I only even bought because some things won't even run on PC anymore.
This is successfully selling me on getting a high-end android phone, something
I never thought I would do. I'm always looking for ways to reduce the amount
of space my office setup takes.

------
AltDelete
Windows mobile has had a similar feature for a while, but you know, windows.
I've thought for a while that this is ultimately the way computing is moving -
single device that fits in your pocket. I love my laptop, but there is no
substituting the portability of a smart phone that seamlessly syncs with
panels at home and at work.

~~~
khedoros1
On the other hand, although I love my phone's portability, there's no
substituting a few hundred watts of processing power and a few terabytes of
storage in a decent desktop.

~~~
Piskvorrr
Sure. But I have my phone anywhere, and peripherals are ubiquitous. My beefy
silicone devices...not.

~~~
khedoros1
I guess that's my point, in a way. I've got my phone everywhere, but its
utility is inherently limited by its power. My beefier machines are powerful,
but inherently mobility-limited by their form factors. Plugging the phone into
a dock or something increases its I/O abilities, but doesn't give it the extra
benefits that make the non-portable computers useful.

> and peripherals are ubiquitous.

I'm not sure what you're specifically thinking of, with that. I know that I've
got many more PC peripherals than phone ones.

~~~
Piskvorrr
I mean "I can take my phone most places and expect to find both a HDMI-capable
display and Bluetooth input devices." Of course, I don't expect massive
computing power - but even as a thin client to more powerful machines, this
would suffice; and always having a netbook in your pocket is also useful.

------
JustSomeNobody
I really hope all phone OSs go this direction. I love my laptop(s) and they're
great for doing serious work, but sometime when I'm, say, composing an email
on my phone and it starts getting long, I'd love to be able to plug in to a
monitor and keyboard and keep going.

------
ausjke
OK, Android is very close to a phone, Google might be able to support wireless
keyboard/mouse plus a hdmi-screen out of box easily one day? Replacing the
whole firmware is a bit intrusive for me at the moment.

~~~
ausjke
I mean very close to a PC...

------
janwillemb
I think this may be the future of computing, but not yet. A high-end phone may
have the computing power to replace simple desktop systems, but connectors to
the peripherals haven't been standardized yet.

~~~
moojah
With USB-C this shouldn't be a problem whatsoever. In fact, the peripherals
largely already exist. Given the driver support, these should just work "out
of the box" with an up-to-date linux kernel.

------
dingo_bat
Does anybody know what's the difference between this and Samsung dex?

------
flyweight
I don't get the fuzz but i have a galaxy s3 with omnirom and usb keyboard and
mouse work out of the box. Also bootstrapping debian is easely done. Connect
it to a monitor and your good to go.

------
a_b_c_d
A single board computer e.g. RaspberryPi is a "phone" and a "PC". No need for
baseband, a computer that the user does not control. RPi: Boot a variety of
OS.

------
tmsldd
Hey, that's cool ;) IMO, this approach is the most innovative idea on how to
merge mobile and desktop experiences. I expect other companies following the
same approach.

------
atomical
I have a portable air conditioner that I throw my Z5 compact into when I'm
tethering. I assume you would need to do the same with this to get good
performance.

------
unixhero
So is it still only for Nexus 5x?

This can now be achieved on the Samsung Galaxy S8 with the accompanying dock.
It's global, rolled out to anywhere you can buy a Samsung S8.

~~~
floatboth
Nexus 5, sadly not 5X

~~~
pdsouza
Very early alpha available for the 5X on the forum:
[https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maru-os-
dev/U9EpPQ0SFb0/4MIe...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maru-os-
dev/U9EpPQ0SFb0/4MIelzz9FwAJ)

~~~
voltagex_
The 5X doesn't have HDMI out, does it?

~~~
Fletch137
Nope, it doesn't. No hardware video out support at all AFAIK.

------
rhodysurf
Why is it built on Marshmallow instead of Nougat?

~~~
koopuluri
Something like this takes a while to build. They likely started before Nougat
was released.

~~~
pdsouza
Preetam, lead dev here: Correct! Maru started on Lollipop actually and moved
to Marshmallow with the 0.3 release. It can be a PITA to port upwards to a new
Android version if there are significant changes in the internal system APIs
(these are open to rapid change between major versions of Android, unlike the
stable app-facing framework APIs). Anyways, hoping to move to Nougat before
too long...

------
thewhitetulip
I'd love this if it worked on my phone, but it seems like it doesn't work on
any device other than Nexus

------
jumpkickhit
Cool idea, I just don't think we're ready yet.

If a cable has to be used, i'd prefer it to be a single USB-C, which also
charges the phone while plugged in and being a desktop. Possibly to a dock
with a keyboard/mouse/monitor and other ports.

ARM processors have made some insane progress over the recent years, maybe in
another 4-6 from now they will actually be quick enough to really make this a
solid experience.

------
ibic
Is it fair to call it an OS? My feeling it's simply Android with some
customization and/or apps.

------
dagi3d
I truly believe personal computing will evolve in this direction

------
mikejmoffitt
Can this be used with a wired keyboard and mouse on most phones?

~~~
pdsouza
Right now no, since Maru uses SlimPort for streaming the desktop to your
display. SlimPort eats up the USB pins that you would need for connecting up a
wired keyboard/mouse via USB-OTG [0]. Wired keyboard/mouse will become
possible when we support other methods for display streaming in the future
like wireless.

[0] [https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maru-
os/rsSpHZ0DIJA/mEfp_J9M...](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/maru-
os/rsSpHZ0DIJA/mEfp_J9MCwAJ)

------
hammondOfTexas
So this is kind of like Microsoft's Continuum for Android

~~~
nedp
...And kind of Samsung DeX.

------
pier25
Why aren't Apple or Google doing something like this?

~~~
limeblack
My guess is that Apple doesn't want it to impead on desktop sales. An all in
one device wouldn't be a good idea from a sales stand point. Ubuntu attempted
this and I have gathered that it isn't exactly easy to support it. Some apps
are built specifically for touch screens and making them work on a desktop
computer with out for thought could be difficult.

------
peteretep
Gotta wonder if this is the end game for Apple. MacBook Air that's basically a
battery, screen and peripherals holster for the 2020 iPhone 12, all running
via USB-C. I'd buy it.

------
pramodzion
Maru == (Windows Continuum || Google Fuchsia)

------
jczhang
Support for Pixel anytime?

------
Callmenorm
I think it might succeed because it's built on Android with Android apps.

------
sayurichick
the future, once smartphones become a lot more powerful.

------
rweichler
> See title

Looks cool.

> Android

Pass.

~~~
voltagex_
What would you base it on?

Mainline Linux is possible on the 2013 Nexus 7, but you might fry your flash
if one of the parameters is wrong.

~~~
rweichler
Idk, but Android isn't the way to go

Probably would need to make a custom OS. I'd probably base it on BSD

------
reiichiroh
I never asked for this.

~~~
devopsproject
we only wake you up for the important meetings

------
cwyers
If you have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard, you may was well have a computer.
Seriously, if you have a laptop-like enclosure for all those things to make
them portable, adding a SoC to make it a PC is what, $20-$40 to be on par with
this in terms of compute? And last I checked, it's still not The Year Of The
Linux Desktop. This is gonna crash and burn.

~~~
fps
You don't get the value proposition. This isn't for cost saving, it's for time
saving and organization.

Here's where we are today: If I spend any significant amount of time away from
one of my devices (phone, laptop, desktop), it piles up with dozens of
notifications. Even with cloud based apps, there's no shared state. So when I
get back to a device, I have to clear away all the notifications, assuming
that they must have appeared on the other device at some point. And if I
change a password on my laptop, because of one of the dozens of data breaches
that have happened this month, I have to retrieve my new password out of my
password manager and re-login on my phone. At any given point, 2 or 3 apps on
my phone are in a "logged out" state because I use them primarily on one of my
computers, so i'm actually not getting all my notifications everywhere, and I
miss some of them.

Also, even with google drive, not every file on my computer is immediately
available on my phone and vice versa. So if I need access to a file on the go,
there's a good chance it won't be there.

I don't expect this to solve all these problems, but I'm looking forward to a
day when I don't have to carry my laptop everywhere I go.

~~~
Bakary
Your post makes me wonder if this constant back and forth switching is
actually conducive to productivity.

