Ubuntu Touch appears to run quite smoothly on the device

Oct 3, 2019 18:18 GMT  ·  By

UBports lead developer Marius Gripsgard has shared today on Twitter what it appears to be another groundbreaking move for the Ubuntu Touch project.

While everyone is waiting for UBports to release the Ubuntu Touch OS for Purism's Librem 5 Linux phone, which just stated shipping to backers last week, Marius Gripsgard and his team of skilful developers managed to port the Ubuntu Touch mobile operating system to PINE64's PinePhone.

As you can see in the video and screenshots attached below, Ubuntu Touch runs quite smoothly on the PinePhone, an open-source Linux smartphone build by the PINE64 company, which is known for developing the PINE64 single-board computers (SBCs) and Pinebook computers.

The PinePhone comes with some nice hardware, including 5.95-inch LCD with 1440x720 resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio, an Allwinner A64 Quad-Core chip with Mali 400 MP2 GPU, 2GB LPDDR3 RAM, 16GB eMMC flash storage, USB-C port, bootable Micro SD, Wi-Fi 802.11 /b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 A2DP, and GPS (GPS-A and GLONASS).

PinePhone available for pre-order now

While it looks like the PinePhone will be getting Ubuntu Touch before the Librem 5 Linux phone, the device is not yet available for purchase from the PINE64 store. Those interested in the PinePhone can pre-order it right now for just $149.99 USD, but please keep in mind that they are only intended for Linux developers at the moment.

If you're not a developer with an extensive Linux experience, you can buy the PinePhone Linux smartphone sometime later this year when the first "early adopter" batch will start shipping. To learn more about the PinePhone, check out the official website. Meanwhile, we'll wait for UBports to add the PinePhone as an officially supported device on their website.  

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Ubuntu Touch running on PinePhone
Ubuntu Touch running on PinePhone
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