Ubuntu Touch may not be the most popular mobile operating system out there, but that doesn’t mean it’s dead. In fact, Ubuntu Touch is still being developed and supported by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. Ubuntu Touch is a mobile operating system based on the Ubuntu Linux distribution. It was first released in 2014 and has since been updated several times. The latest version, Ubuntu Touch 16.04 LTS, was released in April of this year. Despite its lack of popularity, Ubuntu Touch is still being used by a number of organizations and individuals. For example, Canonical uses it to power the Ubuntu Edge smartphone and the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition tablet. Additionally, Canonical has plans to release a new version of Ubuntu Touch every six months. So despite its lack of mainstream appeal, don’t count Ubuntu Touch out yet – it’s still alive and kicking! ..
A release candidate build of Ubuntu Touch based on 20.04 has been released by the independent developers at UBports, letting you make your phone Linux-powered. That’s not the newest version of Ubuntu, as it was first released in 2020. However, Ubuntu Touch has been stuck in 16.04 since Canonical abandoned the project, so this is the first time the underlying OS has actually been updated since UBports began maintaining it.
16.04 had been getting old, so the fact that it’s now based on 20.04 means excellent news for long-term support — after all, it’ll be supported through April 2027, a little over four years from now, and it’ll have security patches until 2032.
Given how this is aftermarket firmware that you can currently install on existing Android-powered smartphones, 10 years of support is formidable — and you might even get more than that as the underlying operating system keeps getting updated. After all, Ubuntu goes up to 22.10 now.
20.04-based Ubuntu Touch is only available on a small number of devices right now, but you can check the official download page to check if yours is among them.
Source: Liliputing
