Canonical Dropping Ubuntu Touch Support For Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 (2012), and Nexus 10

Canonical has officially supported the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, 7, and 10, to date and let the Ubuntu Community handle building support for other devices (the community has added support for approximately 50 devices). We expected the Nexus 5 be added to the list, but now it seems Canonical will not be officially supporting Google's latest Nexus handset.

Canonical is focusing down its efforts for official support, and is dropping the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 7 (2012), and Nexus 10 from the official support list. This means that the only devices Canonical will be working on are the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 (2013). Of course, the community will likely pick up the slack on the rest; and, Canonical has not left those devices out completely, simply saying that they won't be part of the current release cycle aiming at April 2014 (and Ubuntu 14.04), although work on supporting the Nexus 5 could start as soon as the end of January.

Canonical said in today's Ubuntu Phone mailing that the issue is that all of the work so far has been focused on the Android 4.3 enablement stack, and to "reinvest" in all of the Nexus devices with the new Android 4.4 enablement stack would be "too high" a cost right now. Instead, the team will be focused on optimizing the platform for use on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 (2013), as well as building ARM and x86 emulators this month. 


Source: OMG! Ubuntu!

Canonical Shows Off Dual Boot Ubuntu For Android

Canonical today unveiled their latest work on their Ubuntu mobile operating system. Today, the company has announced the availability of a developer preview of a new dual boot feature allowing supported Nexus devices to switch quickly between an Android based OS and Ubuntu. To switch between operating systems, users have to launch an app on whichever side of the dual boot setup they are currently using to execute the OS change. In the past, command line interfaces and various key combinations were needed, making the process not exactly the most efficient or user-friendly.

Keep in mind that this is a developer preview, and as such will be unstable compared to a regular Ubuntu or Android installation. You can find instructions to get the dual boot setup on a Nexus 4 here. To go through the setup, it seems basic knowledge of the command line and a Ubuntu computer are required. You will need an unlocked bootloader, familiarity with adb commands, and the ability to follow a step-by-step guide.

Source: Ubuntu Developer Blog

Ubuntu Teases Tablet Related Announcement For February 19th

We're only a few days away from the preview image of Ubuntu for phones going live, and a new countdown timer has shown up on the Canonical website. This one isn't as cryptic as the last (which tricked us because we didn't expect the announcement a year before the full release), exclaiming clearly "Tick, tock, tablet time!" So, it looks like Canonical is about to show off tomorrow the work done to make Ubuntu tablet-ready.

Canonical and all of the developers contributing to Ubuntu have been working on making Ubuntu tablet-ready since October. The early work has been done with the Nexus 7 as the reference device, and has focused on optimizing the OS to run on mobile processors, to be more efficient with memory, and more power efficient as well. A lot of these improvements have already found their way into Ubuntu 13.04, which is due in 2 months. The plan is to have Ubuntu be an all-in-one OS from phones to tablets to desktop in time for Ubuntu 14.04, due in April 2014. 

Source: Ubuntu

Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview Will Be Available On Feb 21st

Canonical has announced that the Developer Preview for Ubuntu Touch will be available on Thursday, February 21st, with compatibility for something with a lot more power, namely, the Nexus 4.

For those of us attending Mobile World Congress in just a little over a week, Canonical has assembled teams ready and willing to flash their Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview onto compatible devices. Now that’s what I call service. Of course tools will be made available that will allow regular users like yourself flash the OS onto your device and if you’re already accustomed to flashing custom ROMs, should prove relatively easy.

First official smartphone models to launch with the Ubuntu OS pre-loaded are scheduled to arrive sometime in October of this year. Anyone somewhat interested in Ubuntu’s mobile OS, or do you think it will be dead in the water? Full press release below.

Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu to be published on 21 February 2013

• Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu for Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 will be available
• Daily update mechanism to follow progress in Ubuntu
• Canonical will flash phones at MWC for industry, developers and enthusiasts
• Preview SDK and App Design Guides already available for developers building touch apps for Ubuntu
• London, 15th February 2013: Images and open source code for the Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu will be published on Thursday 21st February, supporting the Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4 smartphones.

They are intended for enthusiasts and developers, to familiarize themselves with Ubuntu’€™s smartphone experience and develop applications on spare handsets. Tools that manage the flashing of the phone will be available on the same day in the Ubuntu archives, making it easy to keep a device up to date with the latest version of the Touch Developer Preview.

Attendees of Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, 25th – 28th February can have their phones flashed to Ubuntu by Canonical team members at the Ubuntu stand, booth number 81D30, App Planet Hall 8.1, where Ubuntu will be shown on a range of devices.

The code release is a milestone in the development program for Ubuntu’€™s phone experience, and enables developers to port the platform to other devices. “€œOur platform supports a wide range of screen sizes and resolutions. Developers who have experience bringing up phone environments will find it relatively easy to port Ubuntu to current handsets”€ said Pat McGowan, who leads the integration effort that produced the images being released. €”We look forward to adding support for additional devices for everyday testing and experimentation.”

The install process and supported device list are maintained at wiki.ubuntu.com/TouchInstallProcessand will be updated as new devices are added.

The release also marks the start of a new era for Ubuntu, with true convergence between devices. When complete, the same Ubuntu code will deliver a mobile, tablet, desktop or TV experiences depending on the device it is installed on, or where it is docked. Ubuntu 13.10 (due in October) will include a complete entry-level smartphone experience.

Canonical has published a Preview SDK and App Design Guides to allow developers to create applications for the full range of Ubuntu platforms. The toolkit provides a range of documented templates to enable native applications to be created quickly and easily. The App Design Guides explain how these templates can be used to design and build beautiful and usable apps. Blackberry Touch developers will be familiar with the Qt/QML environment, which supports rich native touch apps. Developers will not need to cross-compile or package applications differently for phone, tablet, PC and TV. One platform serves all four, a single application binary can do the same.

On Ubuntu, native and web or HTML5 applications sit as equal citizens and so those developers already developing HTML5 applications will easily gain support for Ubuntu.

“This release marks the threshold of wider engagement both with industry and community.” says Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu. “€œFor developers, contributors and partners, there is now a coherent experience that warrants attention. The cleanest, most stylish mobile interface around.”


Availability: 
Go to wiki.ubuntu.com/TouchInstallProcess to download Touch Developer Preview of Ubuntu from Thursday 21st February.
Go to developer.ubuntu.com to download the SDK to develop applications for Ubuntu.
Go to http://design.ubuntu.com/apps to read the Apps Design Guide giving advice about designing and building beautiful and usable apps for Ubuntu on the phone.
Visit Canonical at Mobile World Congress: Booth Number: 81D30, App Planet Hall 8.1.



Source: Canonical