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        Nexus 7 2013 (WiFi) and Ubuntu Touch - Blog - easthighNerd
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            <h1 id="nexus-7-2013-wifi-and-ubuntu-touch">Nexus 7 2013 (WiFi) and Ubuntu Touch</h1>
<p><a href="/res/img/nexus_7_2013_wifi-scopes.png/" target="_blank">[IMAGE] Scopes (home screen)</a></p>
<p>About a month ago (give or take) I purchased a Nexus 7 2013 (WiFi) with the intent of flashing Ubuntu Touch (OTA 9) onto it. I had previously flashed Ubuntu Touch onto a Nexus 5 that I had gotten for Christmas last year, again with the intent of flashing Ubuntu Touch onto it, so I knew what I could look forward to and what I could expect.</p>
<h2 id="flashing-ubuntu-touch">Flashing Ubuntu Touch</h2>
<p>Flashing Ubuntu Touch onto the Nexus 7 was pretty easy overall. First thing I had to do was install <code>adb</code> and <code>fastboot</code> onto my computer (running Ubuntu), as well as the <code>ubports-installer</code> snap.</p>
<p><a href="/res/img/ubports_installer-nexus_7_2013_wifi.png/" target="_blank">[IMAGE] UBPorts installer</a></p>
<p>Next, on the nexus 7 I needed to enable developer mode, enable USB debugging, unlock the bootloader, and re-enable dev mode and USB debugging. After that, I hooked up the Nexus 7 to my PC and launched the UBports Installer. It detected that the Nexus 7 was connected and pulled up the menu for flashing it right away. I clicked the needed buttons to flash it and let it do it’s thing.</p>
<h2 id="initial-setup">Initial Setup</h2>
<p>After Ubuntu Touch was flashed onto the Nexus 7, I went through the initial setup of the device. First was the standard stuff like setting up WiFi and creating a user account.</p>
<p>After that, I made sure any updates were applied and went on to install the apps I use from the Open Store, as well as any that I made myself.</p>
<h2 id="day-to-day-usage">Day-to-Day Usage</h2>
<p>Using this thing more-or-less every day for about the past month, it has worked great! I use it to check the weather, browse my Mastodon feed, shop on Amazon, and more!</p>
<h2 id="papercuts">Papercuts</h2>
<p>Of course, my experience has not been perfect. While I have not had any major issues using Ubuntu Touch on the Nexus 7, here are some papercuts that I have come across:</p>
<ul>
<li>Screen orrientaion is locked to landscape on lockscreen</li>
<li>WiFi may not auto-reconnect. Pulling down WiFi menu may reconnect Wifi. Disabling WiFi and re-enabling reconnects WiFi</li>
<li>Username on lockscreen does not move when keyboard pulls up</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="summary">Summary</h2>
<p>All in all, I love this thing! Ubuntu Touch is maturing nicely, and is very much in a usable, daily driver state. The Nexus 7 is a nice tablet, with a good screen resolution, feel, and size.</p>
<p>Of course, you may suffer from a lack of apps compaired to what you may be used to from iOS or Android, however there is a nice selection of apps available on the Open Store that may fill almost any role you need them to.</p>
<p>Overall, I would definitely suggest this setup to anyone wanting a nice tablet with a free OS on it, or simply a nice tablet experience overall!</p>
<h2 id="afterword-app-picks">Afterword: App Picks</h2>
<p>Here are some apps I recommend using on Ubuntu Touch:</p>
<ul>
<li>FluffyChat (Matrix Client)</li>
<li>Podbird (Podcast client)</li>
<li>Telegram/TELEports* (Telegram)</li>
<li>uMastonauts (Mastodon client)</li>
<li>Recorder (audio recorder)</li>
<li>uAdBlock (system-wide ad blocker)</li>
<li>UT Tweak Tool (tweak UT even more. Use caution!)</li>
</ul>
<p>*TELEports is still in beta as of writing</p>
<hr />
<p><a href="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png/" target="_blank">[IMAGE] CC BY-SA 4.0</a><br />
This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License</a>.</p>
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