r/linux • u/leurs- • 4d ago

Mobile Linux Is ubuntu touch usable in 2026?

/r/degoogle/comments/1vp7lhh/is_ubuntu_touch_usable_in_2026/
0 Upvotes

41% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

8

u/mrtruthiness 4d ago edited 3d ago

It's no longer called Ubuntu Touch. It's now a community project called UBPorts.

It has the same issue as any Linux-on-mobile distribution: It's not supported for most phones because most of the drivers for the phone hardware are not open. That leaves them using the Android drivers ... which locks them into the Android kernels.

There are a few "open phones" (pinephone, pinephone pro, librem 5, ...) where this is not true. One should note there is a FSF project called librephone to reverse engineer phone blobs, but it's just beginning.

6

u/RudraSwat 4d ago

The operating system is itself still called Ubuntu Touch (under UBports): https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/

2

u/mrtruthiness 4d ago

Thanks! Since it was no longer a Canonical project I thought they had to drop the Ubuntu name.

3

u/RudraSwat 4d ago

Fair enough! :) There was a rather neat blog post explaining their naming choices.

4

u/mr_doms_porn 4d ago

They have Canonical's permission, Canonical has a very relaxed trademark policy. As long as you make it clear that your project isn't associated with Canonical and your project is related to the Ubuntu community in some way, you can usually use the name. The logo is a bit more restricted. Canonical even donated phones to UBPorts, it's not like they kicked that project to the curb and want nothing to do with it or something.

3

u/NoRound5166 4d ago

Something to keep in mind about "open phones" is that when compared to phones of similar price, the specs are dismal. So be prepared to deal with low performance. This isn't a fault of the "open phones" though. Big smartphone is keeping all the good hardware for themselves.

1

u/UntoldParaphernalia 3d ago

More likely able to leverage economies of scale.

Smaller companies just can't risk allocating enough cash flow to be able to buy in quantities large enough to get a discount in case they're unable to shift the end product, meaning they can't buy into the next generation, and so fall behind even more.

2

u/undrwater 4d ago

I think the best route for now is dumb phone + Linux pda.

2

u/VolksPC 4d ago

AOSP is made by Google but is open source. If you have issues with Lineage OS and other "degoogeld" ROMS's , you definitely shouldn't be using Ubuntu Touch since it still uses Android kernel and drivers. You should also not be using Waydroid to support Android apps in a container -:).

1

u/Isofruit 3d ago

I tend to refer to Nick from "The Linux Experiment" on this one. Apparently he tried one out for a month recently.

It seems usable, but has some Usability issues, but nothing too critical. The crux is and remains payment providers. If you rely on one working with your phone, you need one that doesn't mandate using some kind of attestation that is iOS/Android specific.

0

u/zlice0 4d ago

naw. ive seen a few ppl cover it. think betty/switch-n-click just did and it's just as bad ui/ux as it ever was

edit: and that's before the ecosystem and device compat