http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20891868

Not sure if there is much a market for this TBH

Looks interesting. Would certainly give it a try if I can get it on to a desire hd which is soon to be replaced by a new handset. Should be able to get existing Linux compatible software to run on it I presume.

Don't think it will ever appeal to the mass market consumers though.

I think the UI is too fiddly. What happens when you are using apps or games, especially ones that rely heavily on swiping and gestures? Would those menus keep coming up from the sides, because that would be very annoying.

I'm not sure the Desire HD would be powerful enough.

Given the comment about it running on "last and current generation" hardware, I might just keep my old S2 around to try this out on.

Is this not what the Nokia N900 achieved like years ago?

Nokia didn't back it up with any type of ecosystem or even a followup handset. It will be interesting to see if Ubuntu can actually deliver a workable ecosystem they are starting out from scratch on mobile but they do have something of a run up it sounds like we'll be seeing beta and alpha images for other hardware fairly soon.

There are a few interesting videos on YouTube. It looks very interesting.

I'd like to see more choice in the phone OS market.

As Android is already a Linux based phone OS, I am struggling a little to see this as a major revolution, but maybe developers can see more potential.

I'm not so sure about that, people have got iCS and jellybean roms running on it and pretty smooth too. I still run current gen 3D games on it, and although not butter smooth, still work pretty well. It's a pretty capable handset, even now, still get decent zippy performance which you wouldn't expect from a single core cpu,

jellybean on Desire HD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3-aCxH6Ang

Android had Linux under there somewhere, and iOS has OS/X which is a *nix derivative at the end of the day.

Both completely and utterly hide their origins, and in the case of Android is adds the Dalvik VM for running apps - which gives plenty of cross-platform compatibility at the expense of performance.

Ubuntu just gives you what is effectively "raw" Linux, and gives a fair performance increase as a result - no doubt on the same hardware it'll run considerably faster than Android.

The PlayBook has a thicker bezel all the way around though which doesn't detract with what is happening on screen. Phones these days hardly have a bezel. It is a valid point about how the swipe gestures will effect gaming.

Not really - unless it's not been through at all - then I'm sure it's be thought about and something will be implemented so it does not cause a problem.

A pure linux phone or as close as can be, that really appeals to me.