# UBUNTU TOUCH in 2026: it's really close!

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** The Linux Experiment
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4
- **Дата:** 14.05.2026
- **Длительность:** 26:42
- **Просмотры:** 160,389

## Описание

Use a secure, encrypted, and fast VPN with Proton VPN: https://protonvpn.com/TheLinuxEXP

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en#


List of supported Ubuntu TOuch devices: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/fajita/


👏 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:
Get access to:
- a Daily Linux News show
- a weekly patroncast for more thoughts
- your name in the credits

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLinuxEXP/join
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment

Or, you can donate whatever you want:
https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp
Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

👕 GET TLE MERCH
Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:29 Sponsor: ProtonVPN
01:34 Running Ubuntu Touch
03:37 Ubuntu Touch & Interface
11:50 Settings
13:42 Default Apps
15:02 Waydroid & Apps
21:10 Ubuntu Touch Installer
22:14 Conclusion

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4) Intro

The last time I looked at Ubuntu Touch was back in 2021. So, it's been a long while. The thing has evolved quite a bit. So, I think it's time we took yet another look at Ubuntu Touch and how it fares in 2026. This was the smoothest and most accomplished mobile Linux effort back when I tried it. It's gotten a lot of updates since then. It can run some Android apps and it still has a pretty damn nice user interface. So, let's look at all of this after this message from our sponsor, Proton VPN.

### [0:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=29s) Sponsor: ProtonVPN

So, this video is sponsored by Proton VPN. You all know why a VPN is a very important tool to have in your toolbox, whether it's in your phone, whether it's on your desktop. And the one I personally use is Proton VPN because they have a strict no logs policy. So, they don't know what I visit. They don't keep any logs. And of course, they offer me all the benefits of a VPN, letting me browse privately and securely even on networks that I don't necessarily trust. Proton VPN offers servers with really good speeds with integrated ad blockers all over the world. And you can get started with them for free as part of your main Proton account, which will also give you access to Proton Mail, Proton Drive, uh Proton Pass, Proton VPN, of course. But also, uh they have Google Sheets and Google Docs equivalent. They of course have paid plans if you need more features, faster speeds, and more privacy protections. But the default one, the free one, is already very, very good. They have apps for Linux, for phones, whatever. It's really a fantastic tool that I use literally every week. And you can do by clicking the link down in the

### [1:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=94s) Running Ubuntu Touch

description. Okay. So, first, what are we running Ubuntu Touch on? This is the Volla Phone Quintus. This is something they sent me about a year ago. I made a video about their Volla OS uh phone operating system, which is Android based. Uh but they also sent me a version running Ubuntu Touch. And I haven't looked at it since, which tells you this video is not sponsored by Volla Phone cuz if they had paid me, they would have wanted a video way sooner than this. So, this is a pretty simple phone. It's 6. 75 in. It's a mid-range Android phone in terms of specs. The display is AMOLED. Uh you've got a resolution of 1080 by 2400, 120 Hz refresh rate. It goes up to 650 nits of brightness or 980 if you enable high brightness mode. It has a hole-punch selfie camera. Some people don't like that. I don't really mind. And it uses a MediaTek chip. It's a Dimensity 7050 with eight cores running at 2. 6 GHz. It's a Mali GPU, the basic one that you get in most mid-range smartphones. It also has three back cameras, one wide 50 MP, one ultra-wide 8 MP, and one 2 MP macro sensor. It can record video up to 4K 60 FPS. The front camera, the hole-punch one, is only 16 MP, which is fine. It has 8 gigs of RAM, 256 gigs of storage. It can accommodate up to two SIM cards. It supports 5G. It has a fingerprint sensor, which is not supported under Ubuntu Touch. The OS just doesn't support that feature. And of course, it charges through USB-C, which is good. The only thing it lacks really is a microSD card slot. Now, it is pretty tall, not my favorite aspect ratio cuz I do have stubby thumbs. And so, reaching all the way up to the top of the phone definitely requires me to move my hand. We're not here to talk about the phone. It's not going to impress anyone in 2026, but it is a very solidly built device. If you want to know more about it, I made a video on that specific phone running the Volla OS Android ROM. So, you can go take a look at that. That will at least give it a few views cuz that video did not do very well. So

### [3:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=217s) Ubuntu Touch & Interface

Ubuntu Touch. If you're not familiar with it, it is a project that is now almost 15 years old. It was started as an official Ubuntu thing straight from Canonical in 2011, back when they wanted convergence to be a thing, where you used your phone as your computer as well by plugging it into a dock. They had the infamous Ubuntu phone campaign which gathered a lot of pledges but did not reach the goal they wanted to set. And after that basically Canonical kind of gave up on all of their own desktop efforts with Unity on their own phone. And so it's no longer an official Ubuntu project. It's now run by the community instead called UBports and it's been receiving updates ever since with new over the year updates happening quite regularly. And I do mean regularly. The latest update was in early May 2026. The previous one before that was in February. So it is a living operating system. It does get updates relatively often. It gets more updates than certain desktop environments on Linux that have a lot more users. No offense meant by that at all. So back in 2021 when I looked at Ubuntu Touch in my old terrible video where the music was too loud and I was extremely uneasy in front of the camera. My opinions were that it was likely the best alternative mobile operating system compared to something like Fosh Plasma Mobile or other alternatives. But also I felt that it wasn't really usable on a day-to-day basis. So let's see how much it has improved since then and also how much I have improved cuz oh boy rewatching that old video was rough. That was bad. Don't go watch it. I won't even link it below. You'll find it by yourself to mock me in the comments if you want. Now the Ubuntu Touch interface has not changed much since I last used it. You still swipe down to access notifications and quick settings. And you can either keep your finger on screen and slide it left to right to move between settings or you can pull the sheet down entirely and then you can navigate the little top bar with tabs. It gives you all the options that you need at your fingertips. Although the interface isn't necessarily fantastic nowadays. Most of these settings only have one toggle and it would be much easier to navigate them if they were grouped in a single page like what most control centers do on Android or on iOS. Some of these settings make sense to have in their own little subpage, but having to tap or swipe to access each toggle is definitely not as efficient as a simple configurable quick toggles list like what you would have on Android or iOS. Now, this is very much a sign that this interface was designed when smartphones were not a solved thing. People were experimenting on iOS, on Android, these the quick settings and notifications changed a lot both in Android and in iOS, especially as more and more notifications piled on and the phones got more and more settings. The Ubuntu Touch interface is very much a sign of that era where things weren't as normalized. It does work, it's not bad, but I do feel that the current day control centers you get are more easy to navigate and probably also more configurable. On top of the quick settings, you also have a dock on the left side of the screen that you see by default on the home screen or you can recall that dock by just swiping from the left edge. It works like any dock you have ever used on any desktop. It is customizable. You can pin and unpin apps from there with a long press. You can also long press icons to get more options. You can drag and drop them to move them around. And if you have too many applications pinned or opened, they will fold and you can scroll the entire list just like what Ubuntu did with Unity. You cannot pin an application straight from the app grid that you can summon by clicking on the Ubuntu logo in the dock, which is a bit annoying. And that app grid really cannot be reordered as well. If you try to long press or drag icons, it's not going to do anything. You cannot pin them from there. You cannot put them into folders. Not a big issue cuz you're not going to have as many apps in that list as what you would get on an Android phone or on iOS cuz there are not many apps available for Ubuntu Touch specifically. So, not a big deal, but still kind of a bummer. Now, this is really similar to what Ubuntu still offers today. They left panel dock and a top bar. Basically, it's the same interface that you know and that comes straight from Unity. And it is still a fantastic interface. A dock of applications that you can scroll is much more practical than a fixed set of five applications stuck to the bottom of your screen like what you would get on most default launchers on Android or on iOS. That dock is more practical. You also have more options when you long press apps. It's good. It's a good interface. But, the fact that you summon it from a left swipe is not that good. Because this means there are no swipe left to go back gestures inside of applications, which means you need to hit the little back arrow in the upper left corner. And on that Volla Phone, it's just not practical. It is very tall. It is the exact opposite of where my thumb is sitting naturally. So, it's not necessarily the best UX for that phone and all the current giant phones form factors. It wasn't a problem in 2011 when Ubuntu Touch started. Screens were reasonably sized, but nowadays the back button should never be placed in the top left corner of anything on a phone. Now, the gesture-based system for navigation doesn't end here though. And let's be honest, this was kind of groundbreaking at the time because Ubuntu Touch was the only one using gestures to navigate. Android had not brought their own gesture And iPhone was like a decade away from all of that as well. So, you also have a swipe right to left gesture that brings up all your open applications displayed in a Windows Vista-esque slanted shape. You can tap one app to resume using it, or you can swipe it up to dismiss it and close it. If you quick swipe on that edge instead of long swiping, then you will automatically switch to the latest open apps. And this is instantaneous and also really smooth. The interface is very simple, very easy to get to grips with. It's not the best suited for a gigantically tall phone, but it's very easy to remember how to use it. You can even adjust the width of the drag area on the edges to compensate, for example, for a curved screen, which makes everything easier to use. Honestly, that main UI, dock, quick settings, app grid, and gesture navigation is good. It's still really good in 2026. I would say this UI is still on par with what you would find on Android or iOS. There are some usability issues. The back button in the applications is not well placed. The quick settings are not as easy as a control center, but generally the dock is better than what you would get on most other systems and using gestures to navigate feels good, feels snappy, feels intuitive. So, even though it hasn't changed since introduction of Ubuntu Touch in 2011, it's still really good now. Also, it looks quite good. If you like at least the Yaru theme and the squircle icons and the Ubuntu font, which I do, I think it looks good, then you will absolutely love the interface on this. It doesn't look outdated in the slightest in my opinion. Now, back in 2021, when I reviewed it, I had issues with the settings. Plenty of stuff was not finished or buggy. This seems to be pretty much fixed. The online accounts that didn't work properly back then now let you log into a Google account, for example, to auto import calendars, contacts, notes, and the like. Setting the ringtone now also works properly. The battery charge graph now displays properly. Basically, the bugs that made using the thing a bit of a chore a few years ago are not there anymore. I'm sure there are still some issues remaining and we'll see a bunch of them later, but generally this thing gets updates, it gets fixes, it works, and the general concept of it is still absolutely decent and absolutely usable. The main fault I have with this interface is that the font size is too small. Icons, text, everything is a bit too small and I could not find a way to change that in the settings. Apparently, this has been in discussion for years, but it's a lot of work to do, so no one really has tackled that. It's not unusable, but it's not as comfortable as I would like. Uh bumping up the font size and icon size by like 1. 25 or 1. 5 would be really much better. Now, let's

### [11:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=710s) Settings

talk about the settings. They are still pretty bare-bones in Ubuntu Touch. You can still pick keyboard layouts and a few options as to how the keyboard looks and acts. You have the usual Wi-Fi, cellular, and Bluetooth settings. You can use your phone as a hotspot. You can set up a VPN. You can enable or disable NFC functionality, although I'm not sure if many applications would take advantage of it here. You can also change the wallpaper. You can enable blur for everything that overlays on top of it. You can enable dark mode, although you will have to restart all the running apps for this to take effect. You have a few settings for the volume. You have silent mode. You have vibration. You have uh ringtone settings, sounds for receiving messages. You can set up a few accounts like Google, Nextcloud, or generic CalDAV account. You can manage notifications for applications, and you can adjust the gesture threshold. And then it's the basic time and date-related settings, battery settings, brightness, setting up a PIN to unlock. And that's about it. There's nothing super fancy. Ubuntu Touch is definitely a set-it-and-forget-it kind of experience. You're not going to tinker with it a lot. look at the settings and try to find the best workflow for you. That's not how it works. Uh it's very, very much set in stone how this thing works, and you just have a few options here and there to relieve certain annoyances you might have with the behavior of the keyboard and the general UI. Now, you also have that very interesting concept of a home screen, which theoretically should show you a bunch of stuff, uh like the videos you recorded, the photos uh you took, the calendar appointments, and all of that stuff. This little circle represents where you are in your day currently. It requires you to use a lot of stuff on this and I will admit my testing with Ubuntu Touch has not brought much to that home screen. I like the concept. I think it would be really nice to have that kind of like wheel at a glance, but here in my use case it didn't really net any useful

### [13:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=822s) Default Apps

information. Now as for the default applications, we're not going to linger too long. There's nothing groundbreaking, but you will get what you need. You have a very competent file manager. You have a decent clock and timer which does everything and timer should do. You have a basic calendar to just view your appointments and create new ones. You have a basic text messaging application which as far as I can tell doesn't support RCS, so I'm not sure that it's going to be really fantastic to use. You have a music app to browse and play local files. You've got a notes application that does what it sets out to do. You've got a photo gallery and a decent enough photo and video app. On that note, the camera seems configured well enough at least on the Volla Phone Quintus. I could take decent video of those unfinished Warhammer miniatures and of some plants in challenging lightning conditions as well. It works decently. The only one that I really did not appreciate is the browser. It is clunky. It is very slow. YouTube video playback is stuttery. Scrolling search results doesn't feel good. There is no ad blocker that I could find which makes mobile browsing absolutely hard. But let's be honest, what makes or breaks a smartphone these days isn't necessarily the default set of applications. It's everything you can tack on top of it. And that's where Ubuntu Touch used to fall really short. It still falls short a little bit, but a lot less than it did previously. So by

### [15:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=902s) Waydroid & Apps

default, you have what they call the Open Store which let's be fair does not have what you're looking for. You have unofficial web apps for a few things like YouTube or YouTube Music, WhatsApp or Spotify, but you're entrusting your login details to a third-party app here. They're mostly going to be web views. This might not be something you're willing to use. You have a few things available for each use case, but nothing that a company might force you to use if you want access to their products or services. And in today's world, that's just not that usable. You don't really have banking apps either, which basically breaks the entire thing for me. This is an operating system that will not really let you plug into any ecosystem. It won't match what Android or iOS offers right now. And it's not necessarily meant to be. Ubuntu Touch is not meant to replace Android or iOS feature for feature. It is a phone for enthusiasts, and that's what it does. You have the stuff that you might need to run a smartphone, but it's not going to be your full computer in your pocket. Although, they do want it to be that as well, cuz theoretically, you can plug it into a monitor and use it as a full PC. This never worked for me. I enabled the toggle in the settings. I tried using the Steam Deck dock, the Nintendo Switch dock. I tried using just a regular display-enabled USB-C cable to my monitor. Nothing was recognized. It didn't work. And the wireless display feature also did not detect my TV, which supposedly supports that as well and works with other devices. So, I couldn't try the desktop mode of Ubuntu Touch, cuz nothing I own lets me make that work. But theoretically, it is possible. Meaning, they do want it to be a full PC, and you can install basic applications that you might want to use. The problem is, the apps you want for a smartphone, they're just not going to be there unless you're willing to use your phone for a digital detox kind of lifestyle, where you don't rely on all the social networks that you might want to use, all the usual music streaming services, all the usual banking apps, and all of that stuff. Now, what changed since I last looked at Ubuntu Touch in 2021 is Waydroid. This did not exist, or at least not in a reliable, usable form back when I looked at it. But nowadays, Waydroid works much, much better on Ubuntu Touch. All I had to do to use it was opening the built-in terminal application, which is something you get on Ubuntu Touch, and it's pretty cool, and I had to run sudo Waydroid init. That's it. It downloaded everything needed, and it preconfigured the entire thing. Then all I needed to do was open the Waydroid app. This runs a full Android, let's call it, desktop on top of Ubuntu Touch, complete with your navigation buttons and your preinstalled default applications and your quick settings. All Android applications also show up in the usual Ubuntu Touch app list, where you can start them, although they're all lumped into a single Waydroid app when you're looking at the dock. So, you're not going to see individual app icons for Android apps. You'll have to hit the Waydroid app and then manage your open Android apps through there. It's basically a second operating system on top of the one you're already running. You also don't get the multitasking cards view with every single Waydroid app running. You'll just get Waydroid, and you'll have to manage things through there. So, I installed F-Droid. I installed the Aurora Store, which has most Google Play applications. You don't get Google Play services or the Google SafetyNet, so plenty of applications will not work here, like, for example, most banking applications or Google applications. But plenty of other applications do work. I installed Firefox, which is a much better browser than the default one in Ubuntu Touch, and I could use that to browse the web with performance similar to what I would get on the Android variant of the Volla Phone. Even games can run, at least those that don't use a Google API to download additional stuff. Asphalt 8, for example, failed at the very start screen cuz it tries to download the actual game. But I could pick this horrendous game after hours of ads told me it would be amazing, and it runs. It's absolute garbage, but it runs. Or you can play Subway Surfers at the very least. So, at least I can to sure that people pay attention to me when I'm talking to them, which is good. Now, WayDroid changes things a lot for Ubuntu Touch. It is far from perfect. It is still not a replacement for someone who uses their phone heavily. I personally could not rely on just Ubuntu Touch plus WayDroid. For example, I use the YouTube Studio app a lot to manage both my YouTube channels. That doesn't work here. The website doesn't really work on mobile. I use a workout app that doesn't run there either. But, if what you use a smartphone for is basic browsing, basic email, taking pictures, the default applications are fine enough, and WayDroid will fill the remaining gaps quite handily. You'll get the occasional crash still. Audio can be stuttery at times. Games that try to download asset packs will not work. There's a bit of latency in certain games, but generally the performance feels really nice. It doesn't feel like you're emulating anything or that you have some kind of giant overhead on top of your system. Things run as you would expect them to run on the phone that you run them on. Now, it's still not a fantastic integration because the notifications that these applications spawn will not appear in Ubuntu Touch. You don't get individual cards for each app in the multitasking view. You don't get icons in the dock. It's not perfect. You're still basically running Android on top of another system. And of course, the lack of Google Play services can be a chore. You can install WayDroid with G apps support, but that just didn't work for me properly. It crashed all the time and never managed to pass the security check either. Even with WayDroid enabled, it is still something made mostly for enthusiasts, but at least you can sort of replicate the experience you would get on a de-Googled Android ROM without microG, without Google Play services. If you can run a de-Googled ROM without all of that, you can also probably use Ubuntu Touch and add a few things from WayDroid because the apps you'll get made specifically for Ubuntu Touch are just few and far between and very limited. It's not a bad experience if you can live there. Personally, I don't think I can, but for a lot of people, that's going to be usable

### [21:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=1270s) Ubuntu Touch Installer

enough. So, if you're wondering, how do I get Ubuntu Touch for my phone? Well, first, you'll have to visit their website. It's uh devices. ubuntu-touch. io for the list of uh supported devices. They also have an installer that you can run. Uh it's available for Windows, for macOS, as a snap, as a Debian package, or as an app image. It's going to ask you to put your phone, your Android phone, in developer mode, and it's going to try and install and flash stuff if that phone is supported both by UBports and also by the installer. The list of devices supported by this seems to be 31 devices. That includes the Fairphone 5, uh some Xiaomi phone, the Fairphone 4, some older Pixels like the 3a and the 3a XL, and a bunch of others from Asus, uh but don't expect like the usual Samsung phones, the very latest phones. Just like with de-Googled Android ROMs, support is not going to be amazing for everything, and for a lot of phones, you can install UBports, but you're going to lose a lot of the features, the physical features of the actual phone. But, you can go check it out. I'll leave the link to that installer and device list down

### [22:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzTow_X5b4&t=1334s) Conclusion

in the description. So, to conclude, Ubuntu Touch is the mobile OS that has been in development the longest, and I think it really shows. It is smooth, it looks polished, it looks good, it has a bunch of features, and the UI is not dated in the slightest, in my opinion, even in 2026. It still has some very interesting core features and ways of doing things that I think are really good. Sure, there are some things that would require a nice little update, the font size, the back button not being placed properly, uh maybe giving you more options for the app grid to reorganize stuff, create folders, uh maybe interacting a little bit more with the default home screen, stuff like that, but generally, it doesn't feel bad to use at all. And even on that phone, which is not specifically powerful, things were really, really smooth. Now, if I decided to go for a digital detox and ditch most smartphone applications and needs, just use local music, just use a basic maps application and a basic web browser, I could absolutely make do with Ubuntu Touch and a few complements from uh WayDroid, but I don't live in that world just yet. I do still need a few apps here and there, and WayDroid doesn't fix all of those gaps. Now, it's always going to be the same question. Why would I replace my existing phone that works and does what I need with something that might cost as much but doesn't do as much, like literally does half of what I want it to do? That's a hard question, and it really depends on your approach to technology. Some people might say the same about Linux. Why would I run Linux when it doesn't play all the video games I want and it doesn't run all the applications I want and I have to relearn a bunch of things. But, where Linux makes my life easier with more customization, more choices, more performance, more battery life on my devices, generally an easier experience for me, I don't think Ubuntu Touch makes my own phone experience easier cuz it requires me to jump through a bunch of hoops to actually achieve what I can already achieve even on a de-Googled Android ROM, which technically will probably also support the exact same phones. I still love the thing. I like its looks. I like the community efforts. I like the idea of a grassroots OS where everything is left to build and to discover, but I simply cannot use that today. If you can make do with that though, it's awesome, and I wish I was you. In the meantime, my attention will be directed more towards phones that can run de-Googled ROMs. You already gave me a bunch of recommendations in previous videos, but keep dropping them in the comments cuz I am still undecided. Maybe Fairphone, maybe waiting for the Motorola Bros Graphene thing. We'll see how it goes. Anyway, that's going to be it for this video. I hope you enjoyed, and I'll leave you in the capable hands of Nick telling you about our sponsor, Tuxedo Computers. Cuz if what you're looking for is a computer, not a phone, then you can check out Tuxedo. The link, as usual, is down in the description. They make laptops and desktops that ship with Linux pre-installed. All the hardware is picked specifically because it is very Linux-compatible, and they even contribute stuff upstream to make sure that all the little features and light bars and keyboard backlight colors are supported on Linux, too. They have a big range of devices, uh whether you need something more affordable and a smaller form factor, all the way up to giant workstations, gaming PCs, whatever. If you don't want to worry about Linux compatibility, they're the provider I would recommend. I only use their computers these days. Everything you see here, read from me, is done on a Tuxedo computer. I don't have problems with them at all. They're just fantastic. So, check them out down in the description. Anyway, this will conclude today's video. I hope you enjoyed listening to it, watching it, whatever you did while you had this playing in the background. You know where all the YouTube buttons are. comment sections are. Whatever. There are also links to support the channel if you want to do so. I'll leave you at that. Thank you all for watching, and I guess you'll see me in the next one. Bye.

---
*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/51397*