14 DAY TRIAL // Now that Ubuntu for phones has also landed on the Meizu MX4, a lot of people might want it, but it's difficult to get. Some people might get the idea of buying a regular Meizu MX4 with Flyme OS, but they wouldn't be able to get Ubuntu on that device or at least not in a safe way.
Meizu recently released the MX4 Ubuntu Edition on the European market, but it's difficult to get one, as we explained in an article. There are some really good reasons why you can't just buy one of these, but users will try anything. This particular question shows up very frequently in the community, and it's been answered for some time, but it's not widely publicized.
It's also worth noting that people have been asking if they can just pick up a regular MX4 in various Q&A sessions ever since it was announced, but it hasn't been addressed in a definite manner. That's because it might be possible to do it, but not right now and not in a safe manner.
Hold on your MX4 Flyme purchase
Meizu has the same hardware in both versions of MX4, so in theory it might work, but the problem is with the way the devices are partitioned. For now, installing Ubuntu is extremely difficult at best and you can only do that if the phone is unlocked or can be unlocked, which seems to be a gamble.
"Please do not use u-d-f on production MX4 with Flyme. Even if your phone is unlocked, Ubuntu installation will fail. If you have MX4 with Flyme, you will need to use MTK flash tool to repartition phone in order to install Ubuntu. Flyme has partition table incompatible with Ubuntu requirements, so even if by some magic you manage to flash Ubuntu recovery to kick off Ubuntu installation, it will eventually fail without of disk space error," reads a message on the official mailing list.
For now, the only certified hardware that is unlocked and fully supported is Nexus 4, and it will be up to each manufacturer to make this possible.