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Practically everyone these days owns a smartphone which are all powered by either  iOs, Android, Blackberry, Bada, or Tizen but it won’t be long enough till Ubuntu will make its way to this list.Ubuntu is a free Linux-based operating system for laptops, desktops, and servers.

2013 seems to be a year of new operating systems earlier this year blackberry launched their blackberry 10 operating system, and it’s said ZTE will be launching a Firefox OS-based smartphone. However Ubuntu operating system will be joining the league pretty soon.

An official announcement was made in January this year to make this plan public. Later at the CES the software was tested by people on a Galaxy Nexus. The CEO Mark Shuttleworth claims the shipping of Ubuntu smartphones will arrive sometime around October 2013 rather than 2014. But an early version of the software will be available free in the next few weeks, along with tools for installing it on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone. The source code will also be released, allowing developers to modify the software so that it can be installed on any Android handset. Ubuntu is special because it is desktop software that features a touchscreen friendliness mobile interface.

Any new phone built for Android with at least a dual Cortex-A9 cores, a gig of RAM and 800 x 400 resolution could run this OS, and high spec 720p, quad-core phones should do wonders with it.

The smartphones will be released in two main “large geographical markets,” which probably will be USA and UK but we are still not sure about that. Shuttleworth says that the new Ubuntu Phone OS will access the ability to have Windows apps shared with it over a server. The Ubuntu OS will include 12 core apps which are currently under development thus  these will include social networking apps such as Twitter, Facebook, RSS Reader and YouTube, as for the other 8 apps these may include alarm clock, file manager, email client etc.

Ubuntu for Android, is an add-on that lets you run your Linux desktop from your smartphone, effectively allowing you to take your work computer with you everywhere. As both Android and Ubuntu run a Linux kernel, it’s possible for both systems to share data, including contacts, documents and photos, and network connections at the same time. Ubuntu for Android isn’t the first time that the desktop and mobile have been merged together. Motorolla Atrix tried the same thing back in 2011 but it didn’t work well however Canonical’s approach of using a desktop operating system for the desktop and a mobile operating system for the phone makes more sense, but we’re waiting to see how fast it runs.

But the question arises; will UBuntu be able to make its place in the market? Will they steal the thunder from their strong competitors? Well, for the answers we’ll just have to wait and see.