As promised Canonical has released Touch Developer Preview for Nexus devices along with instructions on how to flash the early build of Ubuntu for tablets and smartphones. Canonical notes that this build is intended for developers and evaluation purposes only and does not include full functionality of a smartphone, keep that in mind while flashing the Touch Developer Preview to your Nexus smartphones. The supported Nexus devices are Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10.
You can find the instructions on how to flash this Developer Preview to your phone at Ubuntu Wiki. You need a phone with unlocked bootloader, it our device is locked you need to unlock it before you can flash. Flashing Ubuntu will erase everything on your phone, so make sure you have Nandroid backup before you proceed.
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 Wifi
- Functional camera (front and back)
- Device accessible through the Android Developer Bridge tool (adb)
The Developer Preview has following functioning applications: Gallery, Phone (Dialer, SMS, Address Book), Camera, Browser, Media Player amd Notepad. Other applications are dummy apps, thos include, Eather, Music Player, Calculator and Ski Safari.
Other notable things to know is that data is supported through Wi-Fi only, CDMA, LTE,Airplane Mode and changing APN settings are not yet supported. Check the release notes for a complete list of what works and what doesn’t.
After flashing if you feel you that this Touch Developer Preview is not for you, you can go back to previous state if you have a backup file or you can flash factory images.
