Hacker News Reader

Keep in mind that an Ubuntu tablet is likely going to run the arm version of Ubuntu which has far fewer packages and PPA repositories available than the amd64 branch.

Why not install it on your Mac and dual boot?

View on HN

I've had a really bad time getting Ubuntu to play nice on my MBA. I don't really know a ton about the process so I just follow the instruction I find online but it never works well.

Surely you can cross compile or even compile on the target (albeit really really slowly).

For most packages this is a viable option for a more experienced user. But for someone just starting out it would unnecessarily complicate things and limit what they can do. For newbies it's important to remove as many potential stumbling blocks to make things as simple as possible.

Unfortunately there always seems to be one or two binary packages without any source available that I end up needing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com