Dual-Boot Tool Adds Ubuntu Linux to Android Phones, Tablets

Want to run Ubuntu Linux on your tablet or smartphone, but don't want to give up Android?  Now you can—if you happen to own one of the mobile devices currently supported—thanks to a new tool from Canonical that allows dual-booting for Android phones.

The tool is so new that it doesn't quite have an official name, but it is available for download. Canonical promises that users can install and run the tool "in a few easy steps," and then will be able to choose to run either Ubuntu Linux or Android (which is a form of Linux too, by the way—although that can be easy to forget) when they power-cycle their phones or tablets.

There are a couple of catches. First, the application, which uses Ubuntu's phablet-flash tool, currently supports only the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10. The many other devices for which better Ubuntu support is ongoing may be compatible in the future, though.

Meanwhile, Canonical warns that dual-booting "is not a feature suitable for regular users," requires some advanced skills to configure and, if something unexpected happens, could leave Android devices in a non-working state until users re-flash them—a task that is not for the faint-of-heart.

Still, a user-friendly tool for installing Ubuntu alongside Android is a significant step forward for Ubuntu in the mobile world.  It probably does not mean that 2014 will be the year of the Ubuntu phone (or tablet), especially since Ubuntu still has a way to go simply to work stably on most mobile devices, let alone prove more attractive than Android. But the tool does make make installing Ubuntu on your phone or tablet, while keeping the pre-installed operating system, as simple as it is on your PC, and that's a basic but important part of what needs to happen for Ubuntu to gain a meaningful presence in the mobile world.