14 DAY TRIAL // The Mycroft AI home automation solution that managed to gather enough funds on Kickstarter just a few months ago also promised an Ubuntu implementation of its Mycroft AI. It looks like those plans have hit a bump in the road for Unity 8.
One of the promises made by the developers was that the Mycroft AI, the software that powers the devices, was to be brought to Linux, and that's still on track. The major problem seems to be related to the fact that Mycroft depends on Python and that particular component is no longer being provided in Unity 8. Ubuntu devs are saying that Python 3 on ARM hardware is not a good idea since it takes a heavy toll on the performance.
The Mycroft developers are trying to keep their promise, as they say that Ubuntu will be the first distribution to get the new AI. The regular version of Ubuntu with Unity 7 won't be affected by this problem, but it's a completely different matter on the phone. Fortunately, the Mycroft developers can still bundle the Python 3 package that they need although it doesn't seem the most elegant solution.
Mycroft on Unity 8 will be tricky
There is an extensive discussion on the mailing list about what the Mycroft developers are trying to do, and some progress has been made, but it's slow, and it will take a lot of work. It turns out that voice control is a lot harder that you might think, or at least the integration of that service.
"Thank you all for the replies, that's really important for us. For integration I mean to be able to run a background process just after Ubuntu is started and to launch an UI as soon as someone start interacting with Mycroft. So, if I well understood, we can use Upstart to autostart Mycroft as soon as Ubuntu is started. We also could develop a Scope or QML App to be the Mycroft UI," wrote developer Jonathan D'Orleans.
For the time being, it looks like the prime candidate to be the first to receive the Mycroft AI is the regular Ubuntu with Unity 7, but it will take a while until that happens.