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the Ubuntu Phone by Meizu is released tomorrow for the European audience. I've been looking around for information on it, but the only I can find are some hand on reviews, that don't answer the most important - for me - thing: The Ubuntu phones are (or will be?) supposed to be turned into a fully fledged desktop system once connected to an external screen. Therefore I assume that the user will be able to run and compile programs as they would, on a non-mobile Ubuntu system.

So my question is, will the Ubuntu Phone OS in the new phone by Meizu (MX4) be able to do that? Will I be able to install C/Python/Java etc on it, the way I would on a desktop/laptop and compile or run the equivalent programs?

If that feature is not available yet in the Ubuntu Phone OS, is anyone aware whether there are plans for it to be implemented?

Thanks!

user307976
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I have a BQ Aquarius E4.5 running Ubuntu 15.04 (r23). It comes with Python 3 (just remember to start "python3" - "python" does not exist and does not symlink to Python 3) so that's a start.

I can't see any gcc, cc, or Java on the phone, and no hits on "gcc" or "compiler" or "java" in the Ubuntu Store. If you make the file system read-write you should be able to install all kinds of stuff directly via apt-get but will then lose out on the over-the-air updates as I understand it. However, for developer work that is probably OK ?

Jan Holst Jensen
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  • Wow, very interesting that python3 would run out of the box! Can you elaborate on "making the file system read-write"? Do you mean running as root? – user307976 Jun 24 '15 at 21:29
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    You can already get to a root prompt via sudo, for instance run sudo su -. But you can't install packages with apt-get because the file system is read-only.There is some more information about it here: link but I don't know how up-to-date that information still is. I haven't dared try it myself yet. – Jan Holst Jensen Jun 25 '15 at 22:09