FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Ubuntu Touch?

Ubuntu Touch is the touch-friendly mobile version of the popular Ubuntu operating system. Originally designed and developed by Canonical Ltd, the project now resides with the UBports Foundation.

The Ubuntu operating system, upon which Ubuntu Touch is based, is one of the most popular Linux distributions in the world. UBports is the new home for Ubuntu Touch and will continue with Canonical's original mission of Convergence - the bold idea of bringing mobile computing to the desktop and desktop computing to mobile which will now be developed by the UBports Foundation.

The goal of Convergence will be to seamlessly blend mobile and desktop environments into a single unified experience. UBports Foundation is excited to continue development of Ubuntu Touch and to bring Convergence to life.

Who is developing Ubuntu Touch?

The UBports project was founded by Marius Gripsgard in 2015 and the programming source code for the project was, thanks to the hard work of many volunteers, picked up and moved into the free software community where the project could not only be maintained but also expanded.

Starting first as a handful of developers meeting on Telegram within just a couple of months this tiny UBports group had grown into a 'super group' community with hundreds and hundreds of people from many countries and walks of life. The overall resonance has been fantastic, dialogues exciting, and community membership is growing at a break neck speed.

What is the most recent version of Ubuntu Touch?

The most stable version available for the core devices (Nexus 5, Fairphone 2, Oneplus One and the BQ Aquaris M10 Tablet) is 15.04. Soon 16.04 LTS will be released for these devices. The next version, 16.04 LTS, is under active heavy development and will be released shortly. For developers and testers interested in working on 16.04, please check out the wiki at https://wiki.ubports.com/wiki/How-to-install-Ubuntu-Touch-16.04

Who or what is the UBports Community?

The UBports Community is a community-based project built by countless hours of volunteers who care about this privacy and net neutrality. They have been working for years to develop a safe operating system for mobile devices that will not only help with all of the above problems, but also break down walls of creativity that have otherwise been blocked by the current mobile device operating systems.

The Community picked-up where Canonical left off and is now the sole entity that is developing the presumed-to be-dead Ubuntu Touch OS.

Who or what is the UBports Foundation?

UBports Foundation is the foundation/legal entity that has started to grow out of the UBports Community and stands behind projects like The Ubuntu Touch OS project. It is currently being established as an official foundation and we are 'acting as such' in the mean time. This because we want to be transparent to our community when it comes to the general road map, communication, finance and structure.

Does UBports guarantee support for Ubuntu Touch?

Like everyone else, although we cannot be held legally liable for any problems that happen with the devices, we will always work diligently to resolve any issues as quickly as possible, should they arise. Just like you, we are passionate about every device working as smoothly as possible and we look forward to you helping us accomplish this.

Will you keep Ubuntu Touch alive?

Yes! We will take over all devices and will continue delivering new features on some of the more recent ones. The older devices will be on life support and the actual work will happen in the non-legacy branch, but we will still provide critical security-updates and merge bug-fixes from the community. This way you will still be able to use your phone with Ubuntu Touch if you own one of the official devices, but the cool and shiny new features will probably only land in the non-legacy branch.

We are putting devices here because we don’t have any other choice. The official devices from BQ and Meizu have closed Android device trees. Because of this, we aren’t able to fix bugs in hardware enablement or add new features dependent on the kernel.

Which devices will be supported by the 16.04 branch?

This is not yet decided. Promising candidates are the Fairphone 2, Nexus 5, Oneplus 1, Oneplus 5, HTC 10 and Bq M10 tablet, but this may change in the future.

Why won't all Canonical devices get an upgrade to the new 16.04 base?

The simple answer is that we cannot upgrade these devices because their Android source tree is closed and there is no *official* Lineage OS port available. This can be broken down into *more* explanation!

Why do you need Android at all? Aren't you making a GNU/Linux distribution?

This is the unfortunate reality of Android hardware. There is no BIOS or UEFI to start up all the bits and pieces of a device. There aren't standard ways to access hardware. To be perfectly honest, it's a complete mess. It's the mess that we live in, though.

Android drivers are written for Android and nothing else. A regular GNU/Linux distro has no way to use these drivers as they speak completely different languages. Because of this, we need to run a small copy of Android to translate between Android drivers and the language that GNU/Linux speaks. This is provided by Halium.

In order to build Halium for a single device, we need to have all of the source and configuration that goes into that device. This brings up our next problem.

Closed Android Source Tree

Most of Android is licensed under the Apache license, so there is no need for a device manufacturer to provide this code and configuration to the world. BQ and Meizu chose not to provide this source code except to their partners. This choice is within their rights.

"But wait," we hear you say. "Here's a GitHub link to the kernel source of *device X*. Now you can port to it!"

A device kernel must always be open source due to the copyleft nature of the GPL. That's not all of Android, though. There's another ~20GB of source code that gets compiled into our hardware compatibility layer.

Sometimes, though, the Lineage OS community is able to put everything together and release their OS to a closed source device. This can lead to our third problem.

Official Lineage OS Ports

For now, official ports of Halium are based on official ports of Lineage OS. This is because we want to provide the most reliable experience for developers. An unofficial port of Lineage OS (or Resurrection Remix, or one of the other hundreds of Android ROMs) can have issues in drivers that cripple development before it even begins. We don't have the time or manpower to deal with these issues. Porting to devices is difficult enough as it is.

Of course, we will always accept community help getting more devices ported. The Nexus 4 port is community-maintained, for example. We simply will not take that work on ourselves right now.

We hope this better explains our position on the official Canonical devices.

Why not skip 16.04 and go directly to 18.04?

An excellent question. Going from 15.04 to 16.04 isn't easy, but it seems to be much easier than going from 15.04 to the (very early) 18.04. Similarly, rebuilding 15.04 sources on a 16.04 base isn't easy, but it is faster. Choosing the easier path means a faster release, which means we don't get left in the dust. Release early, release often.

When will I be able to re-flash my phone with new images?

We're working as fast as we can to get the images out there but currently do not have fixed dates. The Halium project is expected to significantly speed this process up.

How can I help?

We need you! UBports is a welcoming community of like minded individuals interested in promoting Ubuntu Touch. If you are interested in Ubuntu Touch we would love to have you. Please check out https://ubports.com/page/get-involved to find out how.

Will you port to my device, which is not currently in the core devices or legacy devices list?

Due to limited time and resources, we are not porting to new devices until the 16.04 rebase is finished.

You can see a list of devices where ports are in the works at https://ubports.com/page/devices - click on any of the links to find out more about the state of the images in question.

If you should want to get involved in porting, this guide ( https://wiki.ubports.com/wiki/UBports-Development-Information) might be of interest.

Which device is the best to test Ubuntu Touch?

The Nexus 5, Fairphone 2 and Oneplus One offer the best experience and are used by many people as their 'Daily Drivers'.

What are the Core Devices?

Core Devices are the Devices that will recieve all the new features, critical security-updates and bug-fixes from UBports. These devices will soon be rebased on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Until then, the existing legacy image (based on 15.04) can be installed.

One Plus One

Fairphone 2

Nexus 5

Optimus L90

BQ M10 HD

BQ M10 FHD

Do you have official Ubuntu Touch documentation?

Yes, it's all on GitHub. Assuming you mean the documentation on docs.ubuntu.com.

What license does Ubuntu Touch use?

Ubuntu operates under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and all of the application software installed by default is free software. In addition, Ubuntu installs some hardware drivers that are available only in binary format, but such packages are clearly marked in the restricted component.

How do you "say" UBports? How do you say Ubuntu?

OK, so if you watched any of the YouTube live shows, https://ubports.com/blog/community-updates-5 , then you know what this is about!

Does Ubuntu Touch support Android apps?

Although the short answer is 'no', there have been some promising experiments with Anbox ( https://anbox.io/) in the past and it will be implemented, if available, at some point in the future.

Is it possible to dual-boot with Andoid? (eg. Multiroom)

No, and why would you want too? But, because answering questions is fun in the FAQ section, we haven’t played with MultiROM in over a year and it would be too much work to fix it right now. So, if you have MultiROM and you want Ubuntu Touch, you will have to choose one OS. That *may* change with Halium project, but that’s not carved in stone yet and we won’t make any promises.

Does Ubuntu Touch support Desktop GNU/Linux applications?

Yes-ish. We will try to improve compatibility in the future.

What's up with SNAPS?

Currently not supported but we'll never give up the dream of functional snaps and convergence.

Where can I find apps for Ubuntu Touch?

In the OpenStore app. The Ubuntu Store will be closing its doors at the end of 2017 and we will be working with developers to help migrate their apps over to the OpenStore.

Are apps moved from the Ubuntu Store (Canonical) to the Open Store (UBports) yet?

We've taken a fairly conservative stance on moving apps wholesale from the Canonical store into the OpenStore. We don't want to be stuck with a ton of apps that will never have any hope of being maintained again. Instead, we've been contacting and encouraging developers to move their apps on their own accord.

Which applications run on Ubuntu Touch?

There are many applications in the open store http://open.uappexplorer.com that run on Ubuntu Touch. Some popular applications include: Telegram messenger, Podbird (audio shows), Dekko2 (email), Instagraph (instagram) and uNav. However, many of the apps that you know on android/ios might not exist yet. There is a project called Anbox that is working on allowing android apps to be run on Ubuntu Touch.

Will Ubuntu Touch have a desktop interface if plugged via HDMI cable or Slimport?

Yes, if your phone is capable you will be able to run Ubuntu Touch on it's touch screen, but then dock it to an external screen, and be presented with the Desktop shell. This is the power of Convergence which the UBports team is excited to bring to phone, tablet, desktop and TV.

Where can I get information on the "Core Packages"

All of the required packages for the system are found in our metapackage: https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch-meta

Can you offer full disk encryption capabilities?

We don‘t have a GUI for this yet, but we should have the ability to encrypt the home folder using the terminal similar to how it‘s done on a regular install of Ubuntu.

How can one contribute to graphics and UX design?

There are multiple ways to present and offer them, first you can get hold of us on Telegram or #ubports at Freenode, you can send us your work there.

You can also find information on our Get involved page.

If you wish to submit new designs via github, you can start an issue and post images of your ideas.

How can I create a theme?

Right now, you‘d do this by creating a UITK style, but we don‘t have terribly much information for this. It‘s possible that changes will come with 16.04, but we‘re not sure yet.

How do I install Ubuntu Touch on my device?

If you want to install Ubuntu Touch on your mobile device, please visit https://ubports.com/page/get-ubuntu-touch.
Here you can select one of our core devices, and install the UBports installer via the steps that are given there.

I have heard something about this Magic-Device-Tool, what is it and how does it work?

The magic-device-tool is a simple and easy way to install Ubuntu Touch on a core device. It uses bash scripts to automate the install process so you only need to enter one command and everything will be done auto-magically!

https://github.com/MariusQuabeck/magic-device-tool

You will need:

Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 LTS and above

A device from the supported list below

USB cable for your device

Internet connection

I have heard something about ADB, what is it and how does it work?

In simple terms, adb is a way for your desktop computer and device to communitcate with each other through a USB cable. It is a tool that comes with android-tools-adb and android-tools-fastboot which is used by magic-device-tool to install Ubuntu Touch on a core device.

FAQ