Up until now we have only been able to look at Ubuntu Touch, Canonical’s operating system for Nexus or Samsung Galaxy S III Android devices. This is about to change, as Canonical has published a guide for how to customize the Ubuntu Touch ROM and install it on your smartphone so it works on whatever device you have.
The process itself is very simple, and is very well documented, although in this case the credit belongs to CyanogenMod, the developers of custom ROMs for Android devices.
Ubuntu Touch supports audio, video, and connection hardware on your device, and runs its Linux kernel from a very basic version of CyanogenMod 10.1 from which elements that aren’t necessary on Canonical’s system have been removed, such as Dalvik, the process virtual machine that runs apps on your Android device.
All you need to do is customize a ROM for your device by following the instructions on the Ubuntu Wiki, in which you will basically create a version of CyanogenMod and Ubuntu Touch that run at the same time in different partitions.
You basically are creating a dual-boot system, and you access the Ubuntu operating system through the Android operating system that CyanogenMod is based on.
CyanogenMod 10.1 is capable of working correctly on many devices, both tablets and mobile phones, which means that any of these devices could run Ubuntu Touch. They are working on creating a version for 25 different devices (apart from the four original ones), which include the Sony Xperia, Samsung Galaxy Note II, and the Asus Transformer Pad TF300T.
You should also keep in mind that Ubuntu is in its pre-launch stage, still far from having a stable version for these platforms, so all the features still won’t be available, and the operating system could cause a headache or two.
Ubuntu for Phones | http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/phone
Ubuntu for Tablets | http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/tablet
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