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Marco Ceppi
Asked: 2013-01-05 12:03:20 +0800 CST

What hardware does Ubuntu Touch support?

  • 772

With the announcement of the Ubuntu Phone OS I'd like to know what phone (and tablet) models are supported at this time.

Note from foss & Oli: We are making this the master question for all future "Will this work on <insert random tablet/phone/device here>?!" questions

Note that Canonical ended development of Ubuntu Touch and any work on phones in April 2017.

ubuntu-touch

14 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Supported Devices

    Previously Supported Devices

    • Galaxy Nexus
    • Nexus 7 (2012)
    • Nexus 10

    These devices have been deprecated and further development & updates may longer be available.

    Porting to Other Devices

    Directly quoting from the Ubuntu Wiki (obsolete URL removed!):

    We want to port Ubuntu Touch to all kinds of devices. If you have experience in porting code to Android devices or are generally knowledgeable in terms of porting, working with the Kernel and other core bits and pieces of a distribution, this might be interesting to you.

    Moreover, there's really no way to tell which future devices people will choose to work on, however there is a working list of devices that the community is working to enable here:

    Release Notes in the blog

    • Be sure to check for Known Issues before you proceed.
    • And Device Specific Issues as well.

    Applications Available

    The Developer Preview comes with the following functioning applications:

    • Gallery
    • Phone (Dialler, SMS, Address Book)
    • Camera
    • Browser
    • Media Player
    • Notepad
    • Music app
    • Calculator
    • Weather app

    Installing Applications

    Only for Evaluation

    • Quoting from Ubuntu Wiki (obsolete URL removed!):

      The Touch Developer Preview project provides the open source code for enthusiasts and developers, to familiarise themselves with Ubuntu's phone and tablet experience and develop applications on spare devices.

      It is currently work in progress and intended for enthusiasts who want to contribute testing and building the platform.

    • Further quoting from their Install page (obsolete URL removed!):

      It does not provide all the features and services of a retail phone and cannot replace your current handset.

      This process will delete all data from the device. Restoring Android will not restore this data.

      So be sure to do a complete backup before venturing out.

    Flashing the device

    Head here for instructions on flashing your device.

    What to expect after flashing

    • Shell and core applications
    • Connection to the GSM network (on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4)
    • Phone calls and SMS (on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4)
    • Networking via Wi-Fi
    • Functional camera (front and back)
    • Device accessible through the Android Developer Bridge tool (adb)
    • Daily use of the phone
    • Advanced usage

    More Ubuntu Touch Documentation


    NOTE: This answer was quite old, with many obsolete URLs! Many of them are migrated and that data not available on newer portal, I have tried to keep original answer as it is with this edit. Help this answer to serve better!

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  2. I have started an Ubuntu Touch FAQ in order to have some answers to frequent questions available:

    please look here: On which devices does this Developer Preview run?

    and here: Can you make it run on my device xyz as well?

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    • 11

  4. It's certainly not slated as a supported hardware and I would say it's unlikely to ever officially become such. The only two tablets supported are the Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. Phone support is again only slated for Nexus devices (Nexus 4 and Galaxy Nexus).

    You may be able to hack it on but given the differing hardware, you'd have to do quite a bit of work.

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  5. As of tomorow (02-21-2013) there should be downloadable images available that will work on the Google Nexus (by Samsung), Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.

    They will only work on those 4 devices cause they've been specifically compiled for that hardware.

    Since the code will be published online it is to be expected that over the coming weeks and month many other devices will get ports – either officially from Canonical or from independent developers – that will allow you to flash it on your specific hardware.

    Good places to look for future information regarding 'Ubuntu for Tablets/Phones' (and especially ports) would probably be OMG! Ubuntu! , Phoronix or ubuntu-news

    Update:
    See this page for more official information of porting Ubuntu touch Ubuntu Wiki as of tomorow (02-22-2013) it will have detailed information of what needs to be done to port to other devices.

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  6. On OMG!Ubuntu → http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/01/ubuntu-phone-download-will-be-ready-late-february. Source of Ubuntu Phone OS (UPOS) will be aviaible. But that is build for Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4, don't Nokia.

    .IMG file - probably.

    N9 is great phone, and UPOS can be installed... also, hardware is same as lot of phones, one of that is Galaxy Nexus, phone where UPOS is presented.

    If developers can build Android for N9, developers can build UPOS for N9. Wait, and N9 will be on UPOS support list in future.

    Also, Android drivers can be used for UPOS. Android drivers for N9 exist. Android drivers + Nexus UPOS build = N9 UPOS build. That's my mind.

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  7. Will Ubuntu for phone run well on a Samsung Galaxy Tab2 with 3G?

    Some background:

    • The Ubuntu for Phone build is for phones.

    • The Samsung Galaxy Tab2 (7" or 10.1") is a tablet.

    • A tablet with 3G has mobile 'broadband' data capabilities.

    So, with a 3G-capable tablet you can use VoIP, but not make 'mobile' phone calls. (Unless you add some add-on 'device' to the tablet.) That equally applies regardless of what OS is present on the tablet.

    A different question (which you did not ask) is whether there will be a version of Ubuntu that will work on the Galaxy Tab2.

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  8. Ubuntu Touch is currently maintained by UBPorts Team.

    The list of supported devices is presented on https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/.

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  9. "Work on the phone and tablet is also ending, the whole convergence story, really."

    Michael Hall, Canonical Community Manager

    It is not compatible, and will never be. This is Mark Shuttleworth's (founder of Ubuntu) official blog post on the subject, written April 5, 2017:

    https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/

    (I was also sad)

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  10. I think you can use any Hardware/Device in as much it meets the following requirements.

    The hardware requirements are quite acceptable. The Entry level Ubuntu smartphone needs to have at least a 1Ghz Cortex A9 (single core as the bare minimum), 512MB or 1GB memory, a 4-8GB eMMC + SD for storage, and Multi-touch capability.

    The high-end Ubuntu "superphone" is a little more demanding and will need at least Quad-core A9 or Intel Atom processors, minimum 1GB for memory, minimum 32GB eMMC + SD for storage, and Multi-touch.*

    I don't know if it support tablet because of screen resolution. it will be awesome though on tablet.

    Sources: Click Here

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