Installing Ubuntu in tablet

Question

Can I install Ubuntu desktop OS on an android tablet? Is it possible to replace android and have Ubuntu as the only OS. If yes, then how do I install it onto my tablet? Do I need to backup my Android? What are the hardware requirement for that?

Answer 1

1. You need to install the ubuntu-device-flash package.
2. Add PPAs The SDK PPA provides additional tools needed to install Ubuntu for devices.
3. On your computer, press Ctrl+Alt+T to start a terminal.

4. Add the Ubuntu SDK Release PPA:

   sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa
   

5. Update your system to use the latest packages:

   sudo apt-get update
   

6. Install the ubuntu-device-flash package

   sudo apt-get install ubuntu-device-flash
   

7. Install phablet-tools package

    sudo apt-get install phablet-tools
   

8. List its tools with:

   dpkg -L phablet-tools | grep bin
   

   Installing ubuntu-device-flash also adds two important Android tools you frequently use: adb and fastboot.

9. Install Ubuntu on device

Power the device off with the Power button.

Reboot into the bootloader by pressing the correct physical button combination for your device type as shown here: https://source.android.com/source/building-devices.html#booting-into-fastboot-mode

Install Ubuntu using your selected channel, in this case we use the devel channel:

Wait until the reboot is done. In most cases no input from you is required.

Upgrading Ubuntu Upgrading automatically

After installing Ubuntu, upgrades to newly released images and apps are automatically provided through Settings → Updates.

Answer 2

Hello and welcome on Ask Ubuntu!

If I want to answer your question, in short, I definitely say no, unfortunately, you will not be able to install Ubuntu on a generic ARM and Android-based tablet.

A bit longer explanation:

As you can see there are lots of architectures which Ubuntu can support through different "image builds", (Sorry at the moment no better term came to my mind) and also different pieces of hardware.

Device drivers built into the kernel are frequently well-supported, and we also have proprietary drivers available from the manufacturer.

Since neither Touch nor a full-featured desktop Ubuntu is supported by most of the manufacturers it is not possible to run.

To run the system you need specific drivers and proper firmware. As you can see there are ARM builds of Ubuntu (for example for Raspberry Pi *) but they are optimized for the specific hardware or supported out-of-the-box by the kernel or have proprietary support as I said before.