Ubuntu Nexus 7 Desktop Installer Available

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The wonder of being part of a community like XDA is that it doesn’t take long before someone catches an inspiration and starts finding ways to put different flavors of an OS on their device—or even a different OS entirely. One need only look at the HTC HD2 to find the perfect example of that inspiration with Windows Mobile 6.5, Android, Ubuntu and Meego all making an appearance on what was arguably one of HTC’s most notable devices. Every time a new, more powerful device comes along, it isn’t long before threads talking about how to load Ubuntu on that device start popping up. Most of the time it is in the form of such methods as chroot, but occasionally you’ll find someone like XDA Recognized Developer lilstevie porting full-blown Ubuntu to devices like the ASUS Transformer TF101.

A while back, Ubuntu informed the tech world that they would be bringing the full Ubuntu experience to dual-core Android phones, but the “how” was shrouded in marketing-speak for “we’ll leave it up to the carriers to figure out how to deploy it.” With the release of the Google Nexus 7, the first Nexus tablet, came the natural interest to get Ubuntu loaded onto this device and Canonical rose to the occasion.

Last week, Ubuntu released the Ubuntu Nexus 7 Desktop Installer, a one-click process for installing Ubuntu 12.10 onto the Nexus 7. While it is only a developer preview and not a final release, it has been reported that the process works really well and is relatively stable. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, was quoted on OMG! Ubuntu as saying:

“We’ve said that the driver of Unity was to build an experience that spans phones, tablets, desktops and tv. I think we can do that by 14.04. So in 13.04 we’re focused on tuning the performance of the base system in mobile settings – memory footprint, boot performance, battery life, etc. We’ve ported Ubuntu to the nexus 7 (it’s just the desktop) and will all be focused on that for 13.04.”

So if you’re interested in taking the plunge, feel free to visit the installation guide and the general discussion thread.