Ubuntu Touch Emulator is an open source software project that provides users with a emulator tool for testing the latest version of the Ubuntu Touch operating system for mobile devices, as well as respective applications.
It pretty much inspired by the Android Emulator utility, which is provided by Google along with the standard SDK (Software Development Kit). The irony is that it actually uses some of the tools that are part of the Android SDK package, which is distributed in the same PPA repository as Ubuntu Touch Emulator.
In order to run the application, users should make sure the their computers have enough RAM (system memory), as the emulator alone requires at least 512MB of RAM, a minimum of 4GB of free disk space, as well as OpenGL capable desktop drivers to satisfy the OpenGLES 2.0 translator.
To install Ubuntu Touch Emulator you will have to own an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin), Ubuntu 13.10 (Raring Rintail) or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) operating system, add the ppa:phablet-team/tools PPA repository, updates the sources and install the ubuntu-emulator and ubuntu-emulator-runtime packages.
After that, you can create the emulator image with the "sudo ubuntu-emulator create --channel=ubuntu-touch/utopic-proposed --arch=i386 test_x86" command, and run the emulator with the "ubuntu-emulator run test_x86" command.
If no weird error messages occur, the emulator will start, displaying a prototype Ubuntu Phone with the Ubuntu Touch operating system. Various applications can be tested, but users can also add their own apps.
Therefore, we can declare Ubuntu Touch Emulator a successful product for the GNU/Linux ecosystem. Unfortunately, at the moment, Ubuntu Touch Emulator will only work on Ubuntu-based operating systems.
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