Ubuntu Mobile Lets You Run Ubuntu on Your Android Device

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Ubuntu Mobile is a tool that lets you run Ubuntu Linux on Android smartphones and handsets. While the tool used to involve some complicated steps for installation, a new Android app will make installation easier through an automated process.

Ubuntu Mobile is basically an installation of the popular Ubuntu distribution stored on the SD card, and runs on the tablet or mobile phone as a virtual machine. You can access it on your Android smartphone or tablet through VNC. This means Android and Ubuntu are essentially running side-by-side (through technically Ubuntu is running from within Android).

Now why would you want to run Ubuntu on your Android device? For most people, it’s because you can. The fact that you can tweak your handheld device to run an operating system supposedly for desktop computers can be cool. For more practical folks, this can be used to run desktop apps like Firefox, LibreOffice, VLC or other software otherwise unavailable on Android.

The app was originally designed for the Dell Streak 5 and 7 tablets, although it will also work on other Android smartphones and tablets. Ubuntu Mobile will be available on Android Market soon, but the author expects that a name change might soon be in order, knowing how Canonical is strict with using the Ubuntu name on other products.