14 DAY TRIAL // The community is working on a OnePlus One Ubuntu Touch port, and the developer who's doing the heavy lifting is also trying to help other people port the OS to their devices.
OnePlus One is one of the few active Ubuntu Touch ports, but there used to be a lot more. Developers who try to port the new OS to their phones had some problems and most of them have decided that it's probably not worth the effort.
The main problem with the porting process seems to be the drivers for GMS and Bluetooth. We've seen a ton of ports that took just a short while to make the OS work but mentioned that they were still working on GSM support. The lack of proper driver support from manufacturers is a big problem, but some developers managed to get past this.
Support for other Ubuntu Touch ports is important
More developers need to port Ubuntu Touch to their phones, and they need more than the official support provided by Canonical. The OnePlus One developer is working on this precise issue.
"The community developer that has been working diligently on porting Ubuntu Touch to the One Plus One has put a system-image server. More importantly, he also set up a UBPorts (Ubuntu Ports) server, with the intention of getting community developers to work together in porting Ubuntu Touch to more devices," explained Bruce Griffis on Google+.
This should help other developers that want to have Ubuntu Touch running on their system. For now, the only two active and working Ubuntu Touch ports are for OnePlus One (OnePlus 2 is also coming) and Nexus 5. The potential for other ports is huge, especially on the popular Samsung phones, but it's more difficult than people might realize.
Canonical is also preparing to launch a new major OTA update for Ubuntu Touch, the ninth, and it should land by the end of January.