Today there are phones and tablets designed to work especially with Linux. The most popular are those of PINE64, and the most used systems are (the limited one) Ubuntu Touch, Mobian and Arch Linux, to which Manjaro is also added, but the latter are focusing much more on telephones. Using a little limited Linux on a mobile is fine, but wouldn't it be more interesting to be able to run a desktop system? Well it seems that it is possible, and even a iPhone 7 can do it.
This has been demonstrated by a user called newhacker1746 on Reddit, who is probably named Daniel Rodríguez if we pay attention to the name that appears in the YouTube videos. But if you are thinking that it is something simple within the reach of anyone, forget it. In fact, Rodríguez decided to take the plunge because his iPhone 7 no longer worked due to a problem in its storage memory. It was then that he decided to try another operating system, and the one chosen was Ubuntu 20.04.
Ubuntu 20.04 on iPhone 7: possible, but only for experts
The first thing to keep in mind is that the iPhone 7, and I imagine that its Plus version is also compatible (it does not mention it), you have to have the jailbreak done with checkra1n. From there, the steps are detailed in this link from Reddit. As for the operation once installed, you can see it in the following video:
Personally, from the previous video I was surprised by the good performance. And I have a PineTab and the Touch version of Ubuntu is very slow, so much so that I am very disappointed. To make matters worse, right now you cannot use apps from official repositories, such as Firefox, so the system is also limited. This is not what we see in the previous video.
After 1:30 minutes, Daniel enters the Ubuntu desktop. You see him "fight" a bit with the windows, but that's because, at least in the published videos, the interface is always vertical (The header image is a montage so that it looks good and fits into the design of the blog). Even so, we can navigate with Firefox, and the videos look better than on the PineTab and the fluidity also seems better, we can enter the application launcher and it is perfectly, we can raise and lower the brightness and LibreOffice fills the entire screen, something that I know they had a hard time getting Mobian / Arch Linux developers with Phosh interface.
This feeds my hopes
As I have mentioned, I have had a PineTab since September. I know perfectly well that I have an edition for Early Adopters and that not everything was going to be perfect, but I think there is too much work to be done today to have a mediocre experience. But the truth is that progress is coming And, in my head, I see a future in which Linux on mobile phones and tablets will be an option, and a good one.
See what has been installed Ubuntu 20.04 on a device like an iPhone 7 makes me think that everything is possible, and it keeps me in my idea that, if developers don't give up, Linux has a lot to say on mobile devices too. Can you imagine using Ubuntu Desktop on a phone and Android applications, like WhatsApp, thanks to Anbox? I do, and I dream about it, even if Mark Shuttleworth gave up on his day.