132

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.

7
  • 14
  • @JamesMitch As is pointed out in this answer, there are currently only 4 supported devices and a slew of community contributed support for many devices. Yours is not listed at this time. I suggest, if you're interested, learning how you can help the effort and possibly get involved if you actually want to see your devices supported. Apr 11, 2013 at 22:31
  • FOSS, Oli, and Marco: I hope you and the other mods don't mind, there's questions that ask about Ubuntu Touch and devices that aren't phones or tablets, and I added "device" to the small note text.
    – Thomas Ward
    Nov 1, 2013 at 23:55
  • Instructions are now available here
    – Wilf
    Jun 28, 2014 at 12:16
  • 1
    @Elfy Ubuntu Touch has been released as of 14.04 Sep 2, 2014 at 11:51

14 Answers 14

72

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!

8
  • Now with Nexus 7 (2013) 'flo' support.
    – david6
    Mar 2, 2014 at 0:58
  • Nexus 7 2012 seems to be removed and abandonned.
    – MrVaykadji
    Mar 7, 2014 at 23:11
  • 4
    @MrVaykadji: Status of Nexus 7 (2012) is shown as Deprecated. I guess there won't be any further development specific to this device, but one can still run Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 7 (2012) because of all the past development that took place. So, removing Nexus 7 (2012) from the list of supported devices would just create confusion :-)
    – Aditya
    Mar 8, 2014 at 14:51
  • Needs updating cos of site link updates and Aquaris E5 edition :)
    – Wilf
    Jun 9, 2015 at 13:34
  • updated it a bit :) I suggest adding a old devices might help. You can get updates on available devices from insights.ubuntu.com/phone-and-tablet and webupd8.org/search/label/ubuntu%20phone?max-results=20
    – Wilf
    Jul 5, 2015 at 0:15
14

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?

11

I wrote about this a while back but I figure this may help those who stumble across this in the future. Top 5 devices you can buy right now that we know support Ubuntu Touch:

  1. Samsung Galaxy Nexus
    enter image description here

  2. Google (LG) Nexus 4
    enter image description here

  3. Google (ASUS) Nexus 7
    enter image description here

  4. Google (Samsung) Nexus 10
    enter image description here

  5. Aionol Novo7 Venus
    enter image description here

0
10

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.

6

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.

4

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.

3

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.

1
  • I thought that for hardware purposes it would be a similar build. Also, the salesman I spoke with said that the Galaxy Tab2 is able to make regular phone calls without VoIP, unlike the Nexus 7. Since I didn't ask before, will there be a version of Ubuntu for tablets?
    – Xilacnog
    Jan 23, 2013 at 6:24
3

Ubuntu Touch is currently maintained by UBPorts Team.

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

2

"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)

2
0

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

0

I think the XDA site should also be mentioned here. For a lot of phones and tablets this is a good place where development is done. There is no support, or at least not from Ubuntu or canonical, but there is a large community trying to get it to work. Here they have a list of phones on which development is going on to get Ubuntu touch on it. Be sure to read trough the forums to see whether everything you need works.

0

What most people overlook is that Ubuntu Touch as it has been running on the officially supported devices until now runs almost two Operating Systems at the same time, not one.

You have Ubuntu Touch running the device and being your interface and you have a LXC container providing Android services. While the LXC container is not a full fledged Android with a UI, this setup consumes a bit more resources and complicates porting for non-Android devices.

0

Canonical has announced some unfortunate news for those who were hoping to get Ubuntu Touch on some rather recent (and even new) Android devices. Engineers have confirmed that they are dropping official support for three different Nexus devices. That leaves us with the Nexus 4 and the 2013 Nexus 7 as the only two devices that Ubuntu will continue working on for the Ubuntu Touch project.

-1

Canonical gives its specifications on the Operator and OEM Partner page.

0

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .