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Installing Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 7 (2012) Now That It Is No Longer Supported

Sarah Jenkins • • 6 min read
Installing Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 7 (2012) Now That It Is No Longer Supported

I'm trying to install Ubuntu on my Nexus 7 (2012) Tablet, however, it appears that this tablet is no longer included in the official dev releases. I'm about half way through following the Porting to a New Device Guide and I'm just starting to realize how in-depth this project is about to become, so I was wondering if there was a way to find and install the last devel release for grouper.

This is the result that I got while following the install guide for Ubuntu Touch:

$ ubuntu-device-flash touch --channel=stable --device grouper --bootstrap

2015/06/08 12:48:59 Device is |grouper|
Device grouper not found on server  channel stable

I also tried this with devel as well. It makes sense that a uTouch build for Grouper is not in either of these channels, as it is no longer officially supported.

As I'm not against taking the time to learn how to do this properly, if there is not a way to access a build for grouper, does anyone have some good articles to read or advice from their attempts at doing these sorts of things? This will be my first major foray into development or trying something like this.

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3 Answers

Since yesterday I have on my Nexus 7 2012 desktop Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS, so I think steps for reproduce this on Ubuntu Touch can be similar (or you can try desktop version).

So everything you doing on your own risk. :-)

My steps was in short this:

  1. Flash Ubuntu 13.04 via Fastboot (commands in previous answer)

  2. Edit file with repositories at /etc/apt/sources.list based on this examples (I choose Trusty because it is next LTS after 13.04 and I doesn't expect any problems)

    deb trusty main restricted
    deb-src trusty-security main restricted

  3. Make apt-get update and apt-get upgrade

  4. Optional: Install SSH server with apt-get install ssh

  5. Restart tablet and enjoy latest LTS version of Ubuntu :-)

Source: my today blogpost (in Czech)

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Step One: Download Everything

First, grab the latest Raring daily build files for the 2012 Nexus 7:

ubuntu-13.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+nexus7.bootimg

ubuntu-13.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+nexus7.img.gz

(found here: )

Next, grab the tools required to install these build files to your device:

  1. On your computer, press Ctrl+Alt+T to start a terminal.

  2. Add the Ubuntu SDK Release PPA:

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

  3. Update your system to use the latest packages:

    $ sudo apt-get update

    $ sudo apt-get upgrade

  4. Install the ubuntu-device-flash package:

    $ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-device-flash

(found here: )

Sarah Jenkins
Author

Sarah Jenkins

Sarah Jenkins is a veteran tech journalist with over 12 years of experience covering artificial intelligence, mobile innovations, and digital ethics. Her insights have appeared in leading technology publications worldwide.