Send Some: UBports Installer Love (week 5)

[CiberSheep]

This week let's try a soft design extravaganza: Let's modify the UBports Installer that is in its way of upgrade.

Rules:

• Final date to send mockups: Tuesday 4th at 20:00 UTC
• Sign the mockup with the username you base your work from (if applicable) and yours
• Mockups can be on any format (even hand drawn)

To keep in mind:

• stay on topic
• be nice to each other
• be open minded
• go bananas (no limits, let's do speculative design if you want) but
• don't be upset if your design is not used

[A Former User]

@cibersheep

I use the Snap. It flashes up a window that says there's a new version,

But when I run the given command it says there isn't:

Also, when you press the "Select Device Manually" button, it comes up with a list of options, I personally think that clicking on the option is enough: i.e. it's a bit belt & braces to have to click "Select" afterwards. But i can see why someone has done that.

[Ingo]

I hope it's not too off-topic but I'd like to see some love for the log of the installer, mainly in case of errors. Sometimes the error details are missing and sometimes errors are not logged at all.

[dobey]

@3arn0wl That is because the installer code is checking something other than the snap store (which it really can't do easily), and the newer version is not packaged as a snap yet (for whatever reason). Otherwise you'd almost never see that message, as snapd already automatically updates packages in the background.

[A Former User]

Thanks @dobey

[xqqy]

Actually, today's version works really good. And how about make it stronger: let it unlock the bootloader automatically. As it is easy to make it for some phones(such as nexus7, only need "fastboot oem unlock")
And a big idea maybe off-topic:let UBports Installer automatically port the ubuntu-touch to android devices. This is a big deal, but it is achievable for these devices have lineage or CM.

[CiberSheep]

@xqqy said in Send Some: UBports Installer Love (week 5):

Actually, today's version works really good.

I agree but we are in the speculative design area:)

And how about make it stronger: let it unlock the bootloader automatically. As it is easy to make it for some phones(such as nexus7, only need "fastboot oem unlock")

I think is there because depending on your device and provider, you might loose your warranty (not with bq, they were the few that I know that you could change the OS and keep the warranty. But even buying a second hand Nexus 5 (refurbished) I got this «if you modify the OS you loos the warranty»

And a big idea maybe off-topic:let UBports Installer automatically port the ubuntu-touch to android devices. This is a big deal, but it is achievable for these devices have lineage or CM.

I didn't understand this point. Porting Ubuntu Touch to a random Android device is not that easy, that's why there's a whole porting team, some devices that UT runs on and hallium project to ease the porting pain

[Ingo]

In the Fairphone forum someone asked why the installer doesn't automatically reboot to bootloader by issuing adb reboot bootloader.
In fact I do not know if the installer actually tries it and fails or if it by design wants the user to do the reboot manually.

[advocatux]

@ingo as I understand it (I might be wrong) the installer does this:

});
    downloadEvent.on("adbpush:done", () => {
        console.log("Done pushing files");
        console.log("Rebooting to recovery to flash");
        adb.reboot("recovery", () => {});
});

[xqqy]

@CiberSheep
It seems is much harder than I think of the porting job on halium.

But for unlock bootloader, I think if a user want to flash ubuntu-touch into their phone, they should already know these risks.
Rather than let user searching for how to unlock it, we can give them a easy way.
And of crouse installer should warn them before do the install job.

[Ingo]

@advocatux Yeah, but that is rebooting to recovery, not bootloader, i.e. a different step.

[AnotherElk]

@ingo said in Send Some: UBports Installer Love (week 5):

In the Fairphone forum someone asked why the installer doesn't automatically reboot to bootloader by issuing adb reboot bootloader.

Yeah, that was me, and that was only a minor detail I noticed with the UBports Installer. The major issue was that the installer didn't work for me (and I'm not the only one for whom it doesn't work), and there are no clear error messages to figure out what exactly it even tries to do and why that would perhaps fail.
To avoid some back and forth, I'll say it here, too:

If the installer would work like intended, I guess it would be super-convenient.
But it very obviously doesn’t work reliably yet, and so you can easily get stuck, because there is no alternative way given to install (at least on the Fairphone 2).

Not everybody is a developer able to patch the installer source code and build it from source, but there are experienced users out there.
You could just list the steps the installer is trying to do, and then let the users figure out manually what exactly fails why on their devices and how to prevent/ work around it … and with the feedback from this, the installer would improve in no time.

[advocatux]

@ingo yes, that's what I meant, that it only does those commands afaik

[advocatux]

@anotherelk the installer's code is at https://github.com/ubports/ubports-installer/ if you want to take a look

[AnotherElk]

@advocatux said in Send Some: UBports Installer Love (week 5):

@anotherelk the installer's code is at https://github.com/ubports/ubports-installer/ if you want to take a look

I can only wish the installer, which currently fails to impress on a "promoted device", the best of luck with this approach .

[CiberSheep]

Please, keep focus.
This thread is for sending design concepts for the installer, not bugs (there's a section for that).
Thanks

[advocatux]

@cibersheep yes, you're right, sorry. I should check which thread I am in before replying

[CiberSheep]

Time is up...
Let's have a break, as December seems to be busy month.

Stay tuned to your bat-channel