In case you didn’t know, HP bought out Palm and its amazing operating system in hopes to penetrate the mobile market a bit deeper. It seemed like a good idea at the time, however that seemingly great idea has pretty much fallen apart. I remember seeing the webOS family picture shortly before the launch of the Veer and I was stoked. Unfortunately the majority of that picture will never see the light of day due to HP’s recent axing of their mobile offerings. The only good part about HP’s drastic move is the huge price drop on the Touchpad. Both variations of the TouchPad’s prices were recently sliced by 300 bucks. An amazing deal and it didn’t take long for the hackers and developers to get Android and even Ubuntu Linux running on the device.
Why? Just because, is a good enough answer. Shortly after the fire sale started (and assumingly before) the work to port Android to the tablet was under way. As expected undertaking such a task is no simple endeavor and will be awhile until full functionality and an easy root is available. However, recently it seems as if the project has made some leaps into making it possible. Early builds show off CyanogenMod 7 booting on the TouchPad but leaving the touch screen not so touchy. Check out the video here.
As work continues Team-TouchDroid has found a way to dual boot Android 2.3.5 with webOS check it out here.
While the touch screen is still not operational it will surely be functional as work on this progress. Android running on the tablet surely has many TouchPad owners attention as the specs on HP’s now defunct tablet are super nice. But what if you could run Ubuntu Linux on the TouchPad as opposed to Android or webOS for that matter, it’s all about the choices right. Progress in this arena has also been under way. While the process isn’t any easier or harder then the Android port, it too has made some leaps and bounds. Users that are so inclined are reporting that they not only have Ubuntu Linux running on the TouchPad, but the touch screen is fully functional and installation of applications like Google’s Chomium, FireFox and even some bit torrent clients are up and running fine. Check out Chromium running on the TouchPad with UbuntuChroot below.
So the HP TouchPad has been taken to the next level, are you in? While webOS is a very powerful operating system it’s hard to picture its future, so why not install a bit of Android or Ubuntu Linux? But if you don’t, no worries as the TouchPad is super fly with webOS. If you are in need of some HP TouchPad accessories no matter what operating system is we got you covered.
*Also if you plan on porting, rooting or attempting to install Android or Ubuntu on your TouchPad, be sure you know what your doing. NO one else is responsible for it turning into a paper weight but you.
