Whether you're an Ubuntu fan or you're just not happy with any of the current mobile operating systems, this is good news for you: Canonical has announced that it will be releasing the first public preview for its Ubuntu Phone operating system on February 21. The software, intended both for developers and adventurous end-users, will be made available as images for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset as well as LG's Nexus 4. Source code will also be released for those who would like to port the operating system to other phones.

This fulfills the company's promise to release the preview in late February and is the first step toward getting actual phones in stores—something that Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth wants to do by October of this year. While Canonical's press release is careful to point out that this software is intended primarily for development use on "spare handsets" (as opposed to your primary smartphone), it should give us a good idea of how the software will stack up to current offerings.

We've already looked (with our eyes, not with our hands) at an early version of the Ubuntu Phone OS at Canonical's CES booth, but this will be our first chance to actually dig into the operating system and use it as a daily driver. If you've got a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4 that you'd like to use as a guinea pig, full instructions for flashing your phone will be available on the Ubuntu wiki starting on February 21st. We'll be flashing our phones and taking Ubuntu for a spin as soon as we've got the software in-hand.