14 DAY TRIAL // Before getting Ubuntu Touch on the market, developers will need to release an RTM version of the operating system, and it looks like they are very close to this milestone.
Having an RTM version for an operating system is actually much harder than you can imagine. RTM stands for release to manufacturing, and it means that whatever product you have with this denomination then it's pretty close, if not ready, to get into the hands of the public.
It's one thing to have a regular distribution that you develop and publish every six months, for free, and it's an entirely different scenario when you need to have an OS ready to be used by paying customers who expect everything to work.
Ubuntu Touch will soon power the first Ubuntu Phone
The Ubuntu developers need to fix all the major problems and blockers well before the first Ubuntu phones arrive on the market. This means that very soon users will have two stable branches to choose between, one that's opened for regular updates and new features, and an RTM one that will slowly get new features after extended testing.
"We are moving towards our first promotion of an RTM image in slow steps, some of the blockers have been fixed and are in the process of landing in the RTM distro (location service and new click sideloading support). We decided to drop one blocker that has purely cosmetic effects on the test results( seekbar tests in mediaplayer are not skipped on arches where no seekbar is available), but trading for that there was a new blocking issue with the url-dispatcher found during QA testing where the music app does not start when tapping on a single track in the music scope," Canonical's Oliver Grawert in an email.
It's hard to anticipate when that RTM image will be ready, and not even the developers know when that will happen. There are all sorts of blockers, and it will take a while to solve all the issues, but that day seems to be much closer.
If you want to test the Ubuntu Touch operating system, you will need a Nexus 4 or Nexus 7 device. Installing the OS is a breeze and there is a very comprehensive wiki to show you how to do it.
The first Ubuntu-powered phones should arrive this fall, from Meizu in China and Bq in Europe, but there is no precise date set. We'll keep you apprised with any news on the subject.