Update 2/27/18: Samsung has posted a demonstration video that shows off Linux for Galaxy.
At the 2017 Samsung Developer Conference, Samsung made a lot of important announcements. The company announced Bixby 2.0 with smart home and third-party developer support and announced a partnership with Google to bring ARCore on some Samsung Galaxy smartphones. However, the announcements don’t end there. Samsung also unveiled updated to Samsung DeX with the addition of “Linux on Galaxy”, a feature which could add more value to the fledgling state of DeX and pulls more developers into buying Samsung hardware.
DeX is a hardware accessory first sold by Samsung along with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8+. It consists of a dock station allowing the user to connect the Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+ or the Galaxy Note 8 with a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to get access to a full desktop UI. The dock has a HDMI port, an Ethernet port, and two USB ports. DeX is simply an extension of Android Nougat’s multi-window to push optimized applications onto the connected display. There are obvious limitations to this as a lot of software needs to be updated to support Samsung’s DeX, but that’s changing.
Now, Samsung is launching Linux on Galaxy feature which is an app that enables the capability of running multiple GNU/Linux operating systems on a Samsung smartphone when connected to a DeX dock. There is already a way to run a GNU/Linux environment on any Android device, but it isn’t as sophisticated as Samsung’s implementation.
With DeX, you can have Ubuntu 16.04 or another distribution running on the DeX dock via connected peripherals. As these Linux distributions are made for a desktop-oriented UI, Linux on Galaxy is a perfect fit for DeX because DeX connects to your smartphone to a much larger display.
We can expect this feature to be popular among developers who will be able to now set up a fully functional development environment with all the advantages of GNU/Linux. Samsung is hoping to pull more users away from their laptops/desktops into committing to their ecosystem, though Linux on Galaxy is still experimental. If you are interested in signing up, you can do so here.
Update: Video
As pointed out by Omg! Ubuntu! (via AndroidPolice) Samsung recently uploaded a video demonstrating Linux programs such as Firefox, Thunderbird, Eclipse, and GIMP. You can check it out below.
Source: Samsung