Connvergence / Dock for Oneplus One?
-
@keneda that's a figure of speech. (But I actually bought the UBPorts community edition of the pinephone, btw). However, convergence was a major selling point for Ubuntu back when they fundraised for the Ubuntu Edge, that 17 million USD kickstarter, years ago... And today, it figures prominently on the UB Ports website, thus I was thinking, that it is already usable. As mentioned, I also have a pinephone, and while I have not tested with Ubuntu Touch, all the other distros I have tested on it, including Mobian, Manjaro Arm, PostMarket OS, all support convergence out of the box. Unfortunately, the Pinephone's hardware is pretty modest, so this is basically a proof of concept, so something you really want to use as a replacement for your laptop. But the hardware of the Oneplus One is reasonably powerful, thus I was hoping that convergence somehow works with it.
-
@jro said in Connvergence / Dock for Oneplus One?:
As mentioned, I also have a pinephone, and while I have not tested with Ubuntu Touch, all the other distros I have tested on it, including Mobian, Manjaro Arm, PostMarket OS, all support convergence out of the box.
First of all, Ubuntu Edge was a canonical thing, and Canonical abandonned Ubuntu Touch since, UBports is not Canonical, even if UBports kept the same goals, you can't ask them for the same productivity.
Plus, uTouch is not a standard linux distro, it's a highly sandboxed one, with high privacy confinment between apps.
The way it works is not the same as the other distros you mentionned.
And most of devices it runs on are android based ones, adding their own problems.
Pinephone is not yet full supported by UBports, so i can't tell if it will be better there.All i can say is it's clearly said on promoted device page that Nexus 5 is the device to choose if you want to test convergence for now.
If you choose another device, you can't expect to have this feature working the same, or working at all.
Actually, with its small core dev team, convergence for all devices is not the focus of UBports, for now, it's 20.04LTS.
-
OnePlus One CAN send to external display wirelessly though - I have tested it as working for this with the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter v2. I've also tested it as working with the iClever BK-08 bluetooth folding keyboard/touchpad - so with both these things engaged, while performance with the touchpad is slightly laggy to the external wirless display, it still gets you a "converged" experience though.
Best regards,
Steve Berson -
Supporting external display depends on the hardware. UT supports "desktop mode" in all devices. If the device supports either wired/wireless external display, it'll usually just work. But if the hardware doesn't, nothing we can do about it
-
@jro I don't think connecting an external screen has much to do with convergence either.
Convergence means running the same software on different hardware like PC, smartphone, tablet, Raspberry Pi, etc.. -
@thilov Actually, with regard to Linux smartphones, it clearly does mean that the phone can convert itself into a full desktop computer when connected to a full display & keyboard. That's also how it is being described on the Ubports website. And again, with my pinephone it works: I plug in a USB-C port and everything connected to the USB-C port - display, keyboard, mouse, ethernet etc - becomes available. I don't know whether it works with Ubuntu Touch on the pinephone, its support of the PP hardware looks incomplete for now. But with other distros, it does work.
-
@jro well as others said, convergence is more a vision right now: On other side everything is ready, but we need also hardware that can do whats cool. You can try with the Microsoft Miracast adapter to do wireless external display but your mileage may vary. It has a lot of input lag so you cannot really work with it like on a PC.
Rather than that we need devices that feature a native HDMI out port. Such a device is e.g. this one: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pro1-x-smartphone-functionality-choice-control#/ - there are videos on the net that show the Ubuntu Touch desktop whenconnected with an external screen.
But regular Android devices seem to have dropped that idea. Its simply not what "normal" consumers do with their smartphone. I guess we have to wait for open Non-Android hardware to do that job.
-
I have a slimport monitor port I used with convergence on my Nexus 4. It is the same connector type as the OPO. If it works I can't see why a larger slimport dock wouldn't be able to support it. The pinephone port is different though. I'll go check (this matters to me as well as the eventual goal for me is to replace my computer.)
EDIT: I haven't found it. I really need to clean my computer area.
-
@totalrando OnePlus 1 does not support video output over USB. It doesn't matter what adapter you use, as none will work.
-
@dobey ok. Was not aware. Wireless display it is then.
Edit: how do you hook up a wireless display? Bluetooth?
-
@totalrando No, Bluetooth doesn't have the bandwidth for it. You need a Miracast adapter, such as MS Wireless Display Adapter. Some TVs and such have support built in. Also, it will be pretty laggy for interactive use. It's really only good for streaming a video or such.
-
@dobey Ok, bit of a depressing answer there-- so basically for convergence, operability and 4G it sounds like my main choice is "Nexus 5." Is there any way to build USB operability on the OPO, was it removed, I am really confused here.
-
@totalrando Not really. DisplayLink is proprietary (which is something that can enable video over USB on anything, but again requires yet a different type of adapter), so we can't include that. Whether a device supports it directly is something the manufacturer has to enable when building the device.
Several later devices with USB-C do support Slimport docks, but I'm not sure how many are supported by UT currently, beyond the Pinephone. Google Pixel phones do not support it.
-
@dobey I'm frustrated enough to look at the code. A Nexus 4 can support convergence and it doesn't even have 3G. Same USB-Mini port, so I can't see why it doesn't have it.
EDIT: Ok now I have a better understanding. I am going to try this before tearing my hair out and buying a Pinephone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXhPvW-aOtY&t=21s
EDIT #2: Ok-- I see what you mean. Displaylink is proprietary. It seems like my only path without buying a new phone. Gonna take the risk.
Nerd with UT on a OnePlus One. OnePlus 6T waiting in the wings for VoLTE.
-
Wired external display supports must be supported by the hardware and software. At the moment, nexus 4, 5, and 7 are the common UT devices that has support for it. Fxtec Pro1/Pro1-X is the other one but rare, expensive and a very young UT port.
To be honest, desktop mode on an external display is cool but still not ready for actual use especially on these old under specced devices. So if you expect something that you can use every day, it may not be worth the money and effort.
-
@totalrando External display support is not "convergence" and the Nexus is a 3G phone.
And no matter what you do, none of these phones are as powerful as a full sized PC. So, unless the only things you do on your PC are pretty basic, a phone is not likely going to replace it in a way that fulfills all your needs.
-
@kugiigi I have a Nexus 4, if we're being honest I'd be using it right now if I had 4G, even though I am no longer sure my OPO is picking up 4G. The main issue with the Nexus is honestly memory size, as I like having a lot of gigs handy.
-
@dobey I generally have worked on low-spec machines for almost two decades now. Most of what I do is either on a browser or some sort of office application. I'm not playing World of Warcraft on these things.
-
@totalrando thanks to @TotalSonic for describing the items needed for Convergence on OPO here. https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5810/using-firefox-with-ut-in-2021/14?_=1623956226816
Marking solved. Ok. Can't mark it solved. Guess it's too old to do housecleaning on. Actually, no. It's not my topic.
-
@totalrando
I will do it, as I don't know if OP is still active...
