Canonical has released Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview for Nexus devices as promised. The developer preview released few hours back and brings some Ubuntu goodness to the Android Nexus devices, the supported Nexus devices include Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 devices.
Ubuntu has published instructions on how to flash Ubuntu Developer Preview to your Nexus devices. Keep in mind that this preview doesn’t offer full functionality and some of the apps included are just dummies. If you want to flash and see how it looks and feels to have Ubuntu on your Nexus device you can flash your device using the instructions noted below. Be careful to take a complete backup of your phone if you have important data. Proceed further with your own discretion.
Supported Devices (Factory firmware)
- Galaxy Nexus (takju or yakju)
- Nexus 4 (occam)
- Nexus 7 (nakasi or nakasig)
- Nexus 10 (mantaray)
Flashing the Device
Step 1: You need a Linux based system, Ubuntu system is ideal
Add Ubuntu Touch PPA by adding the following custom source list entry to your /etc/apt/sources.list file. To add run the following command in terminal.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phablet-team/tools
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install phablet-tools android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot
Step 2: Unlock your device, if it is already unlocked you can skip to step 5. For unlocking boot your device into bootloader mode, and then plug the device to your computer with a USB cable.
Step 3: Enter the following command in your terminal
sudo fastboot oem unlock
Step 4: Accept the terms and conditions. Reboot the device once you are done.
Step 5: Boot the device into Android and enable USB debugging via Settings –> Developer options –> USB debugging
Step 6: Connect the device to the computer with a USB cable.
Step 7: Execute the following command to install Ubuntu on your device. This command will wipe content of you phone so make sure you have a backup before proceeding.
phablet-flash –b
Step 8: This will deploy Ubuntu Developer Previe onto your device and your device should reboot into your Ubuntu unity shell.
That’s all. Enjoy Ubuntu on your device.
If you ever want to get back to Android you can restore if you have backup. Otherwise you can flash the factory firmware of Android to your device.
Source: Ubuntu
