---
# System prepended metadata

title: What is porting?

---



| Doc improvment from kazien |
| - |
| [Source](https://phone.docs.ubuntu.com/en/devices/porting-new-device) |


# What is porting?

Porting is the process of making Ubuntu Touch run on new hardware, i.e. on devices that have not previously been able to run Ubuntu Touch.

On the vast majority of commercially available devices crucial parts of their systems are not open source. Furthermore, these proprietary parts are specific, not only to the manufacturer, but usually also to the individual model.

Porting Ubuntu Touch involves building it in such a way as to integrate it with these proprietary components on a device so as to enable it to “talk to” the device hardware.

# Getting started

Before attempting to port Ubuntu Touch to a new device, there are a few things to understand and consider, some research to be done, and a suitable build environment needs to be set up. This section addresses these points.

In order to be able to port Ubuntu to a new device, the following prerequisites should be satisfied, nevertheless, you are welcome to follow this guide even if you are attempting your first port with no previous knowledge.

* Android sources: the device already runs Android and we have access to an Android source tree (preferably the original as with OEM devices but CyanogenMod or independent ports are enough too) and kernel sources for the device. Note that this guide focuses on porting to devices present in the AOSP tree and another version will focus on CyanogenMod based ports.

* Drivers: you will need the vendor proprietary drivers, which make the GPU and various sensors work. If not explicitly available for download they need to be extracted from a running device.
* CyanogenMod porting guide: Porting CyanogenMod to a device should be read and understood before embarking on porting Ubuntu Touch, since a lot of the work done requires some knowledge of Android builds and system internals.
* Boot modes: you need to be familiar with how to boot into various modes (bootloader, recovery…) by pressing volume keys or any device specific method.
* Unlock and root: the device needs to be unlocked/rooted in order to allow flashing custom images. A lot of preparation work is common with attempts to port CyanogenMod or other custom Android ROMs.


    Introduction to porting
    Preparations
    Setting up the build environment



---

New Section

---


# Introduction to porting

This first section will introduce you to the specifics of porting Ubuntu Touch to an Android device. Note that it is written with the general public in mind, not primarily the experienced porting developer. In subsequent sections we have made an effort to differentiate by keeping the main text more concise in order to meet the needs of the more experienced reader, while providing links to supplementary reading for the less experienced.

The guide as a whole is written as a sequence of steps describing how an ideal port might proceed. However, porting is unpredictable and messy. Every device is different and in reality you will likely iterate and revisit some steps, skip over other steps and uncover new and undocumented challenges.


## What is Ubuntu Touch?

Ubuntu Touch is an open source operating system for mobile devices. It can be ported to devices that originally shipped with Android OS. Alas, the majority of these devices are dependent to some degree on proprietary software.

To be specific, device vendors tend to keep the code that speaks directly to the device hardware (the low level device drivers) proprietary. These components are commonly called the vendor ‘blobs’ (Binary Large OBjects). The vendor blobs need to be incorporated into an Ubuntu Touch port. Note that these components are specific not only to each device, but also to each Android version. It is therefore necessary to secure the correct version of these components when building a port.

This is why Ubuntu Touch cannot be built completely from source code for most commercial devices. Instead, porting the system to these devices involves integrating the previously mentioned vendor blobs into the rest of the system, which can be built from source.

Also always refer to sources of a working implementation, the official one being the Nexus 4 port.


[.............]
