Instructions for flashing a phone or tablet device with Ubuntu

The Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview is intended to be used for development and evaluation purposes only. It is an experimental development snapshot that can potentially brick your device. It does not provide all of the features and services of a retail phone and cannot replace your current handset. This preview is the first release of a very new and unfinished version of Ubuntu and it will evolve quickly.

This process will delete all data from the device. Restoring Android will not restore this data.

Disclaimer

"Touch Developer Preview for Ubuntu" is released for free non-commercial use. It is provided without warranty, even the implied warranty of merchantability, satisfaction or fitness for a particular use. See the licence included with each program for details.

Some licences may grant additional rights; this notice shall not limit your rights under each program's licence. Licences for each program are available in the usr/share/doc directory. Source code for Ubuntu can be downloaded from archive.ubuntu.com. Ubuntu, the Ubuntu logo and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

"Touch Preview for Ubuntu" is released for limited use due to the inclusion of binary hardware support files. The original components and licenses can be found at:

https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers

What to expect after flashing

For detailed information check the release notes

1. Shell and core applications
2. Connection to the GSM network (on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4)
3. Phone calls and SMS (on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus 4)
4. Networking via Wifi
5. Functional camera (front and back)
6. Device accessible through the Android Developer Bridge tool (adb)

Supported devices and codenames

The table below lists the supported devices and their corresponding factory images, should you want to switch back to Android. The images can be foundhere.

Device	Codename	Factory firmware from Google
Galaxy Nexus	maguro	takju or yakju
Nexus 4	mako	occam
Nexus 7	grouper	nakasi or nakasig
Nexus 10	manta	mantaray

Flashing the device

Step 1 - Desktop Setup

The following steps are required on your desktop system that you'll need in order to flash and communicate with the device.

Setup the Touch Developer Preview Tools PPA

The PPA has the tools and dependencies to support Precise, Quantal and Raring. Add the Ubuntu Touch PPA by adding the following custom source list entry to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:phablet-team/tools

or if add-apt-repository is not available, append the following to your sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/phablet-team/tools/ubuntu [dist-codename] main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/phablet-team/tools/ubuntu [dist-codename] main

*Note: replace [dist-codename] with precise, quantal or raring

Then do the following:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install phablet-tools android-tools-adb android-tools-fastboot

Step 2 - Device unlock

If the device is already unlocked, skip to Step 3. These steps will wipe all personal data from the device.

1. With the device powered off, power on the device by holding the Power button + volume up + volume down.
2. The device will boot into the bootloader.
3. Plug the device into the computer via the USB cable.
4. On your computer, press Ctrl+Alt+T to start a terminal. Type sudo fastboot oem unlock, followed by Enter
5. On the device screen, accept the terms of unlocking.
6. Boot the device by pressing the power button (pointed by an arrow with Start on the screen).

Step 3 - Initial Device Setup

Follow these initial steps on your device:

1. If not booted, boot the device into Android
2. Enable USB debugging on the device
   • on Ice Cream Sandwich (version 4.0) go to Settings and turn on USB Debugging (Settings > System > Developer options > USB debugging).
   • on Jelly Bean (versions 4.1 and 4.2) you need to enter Settings, About [Phone|Tablet] and tap the Build number 7 times to see the Developer Options, activate USB Debugging via Settings > Developer options > USB debugging.
   • on 4.2.2 you will need to accept a host key on the device, if you already had adb installed, do the following
     • On the workstation-> adb kill-server; adb start-server
3. Plug the device into the computer via the USB cable.
   • Depending on the installed Android version, a popup will show up on the device with the host key that needs to be accepted for the device to communicate with the workstation.
4. Save the version of the current image on the device, if on Android, to use as a reference to revert back to. The version can be found by going to Settings > About Phone > Build Number.

Step 4 - Deploying Image to Device

To install the Ubuntu Touch Developer Preview on your device, you will need to execute the command below. Please note, this will wipe the contents of the device so ensure you have made a back-up. To install and get updates, run the following command:

phablet-flash -b

The -b performs a full bootstrap on the device. If the device is already unlocked it will carry on. If you have already bootstrapped once and want to install a daily just do:

phablet-flash

This will deploy the latest build onto your device. Your device should reboot into the Ubuntu Unity shell.

Notes:

• the files are saved in Downloads/phablet-flash.
• If the deploy fails(ex boots to black screen), try wiping the /data partition on your device and redeploy
• phablet-flash will not work unless you have booted your device (it must not be displaying the boot loader screen and "adb devices" should list your device).

Restoring Android

The Ubuntu Touch Preview image is not for everyone and may not suit your current needs (yet). If you wish to roll back to an Android factory image, follow these steps:

1. Recall the version that was installed before flashing.
2. Download the factory image corresponding to your device's model and version (initial table has links).
3. Ensure the device is connected and powered on.
4. Extract the downloaded file and cd into the extracted directory.
5. run adb reboot-bootloader
6. run ./flash-all.sh (use sudo if lack of permissions on the workstation don't allow you to talk to the device).

Your device should boot into Android after the process is finished.

wiki.ubuntu.com

Linux 3.8: Hello 2013, Goodbye 386 Chips

After a few days' delay, Linux creator Linus Torvalds on Monday released version 3.8 of the Linux kernel, the first new update to arrive in 2013.

“The release got delayed a couple of days because I was waiting for confirmation of a small patch, but hey, we could also say that it was all intentional, and that this is the special 'Presidents' Day Release',” Torvalds wrote in the announcement email. “It sounds more planned that way, no?”

Linus Torvalds on Monday released version 3.8 of the Linux kernel.

Though it bears the nickname “Unicycling Gorilla,” Linux 3.8 brings a number of improvements that are far from frivolous. The removal of support for Intel 386 chips is surely among the most striking of those, but numerous others are notable as well and promise significant benefits for Linux users.

Ready for a rundown? Here's a brief look at some of the highlights of Linux 3.8.

1. So Long, 386

While it seems unlikely that many will shed a tear over this change, Linux 3.8 does indeed remove support for the Intel 386 processor, as was widely reported late last year when the decision was made. What that means? Just that it can't be run on very, very old PCs.

“This tree removes ancient-386-CPUs support and thus zaps quite a bit of complexity... which has plagued us with extra work whenever we wanted to change SMP primitives, for years,” wrote developer Ingo Molnar in the change submission in December. “Unfortunately there's a nostalgic cost: your old original 386 DX33 system from early 1991 won't be able to boot modern Linux kernels anymore. Sniff.”

Fans of older hardware can rest assured, however, that the 486 chip is still supported.

2. A New File System for SSDs

An interesting addition in Linux 3.8, meanwhile, is “F2FS,” an experimental new file system contributed by Samsung that's optimized for flash memory storage devices. While Linux already has several file systems designed for flash devices — including LogFS, JFFS2 and UBIFS — they aren't generally designed for non-native flash devices such as many commonly used solid-state drives (SSDs). F2FS, by contrast, targets SSDs specifically, and is optimized for the way they work. Samsung developer Jaegeuk Kim explained the differences in more detail in a list posting last fall.

3. Btrfs and Ext4 Refinements

Also from the file-system department are improvements in both the Btrfs and Ext4 file systems. In Btrfs, for instance, a new, explicit device replacement operation considerably speeds up the process of removing an old disk and adding a new one. Ext4, meanwhile, has gained the ability to store very small files in the unused inode space, making reading such files much faster while also saving disk space, according to the changelog on Kernel Newbies.

These are just a few of the many changes on the way to Linux users through this new kernel update. For a more complete look, check out Kernel Newbies or the multipart report on The H.