Usable phone display
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Hello.
I want to use a spreadsheet on my Xiaomi Remi Note 9 Pro (20.04 OTA-5)
I don’t need a thousand functions, just that it works a table with a number of conditional format and formulas.
I don’t even need to be able to create a table on the phone if the phone is capable of reading and recording data and the table displays the results that its formulas give.
The table may be from an Office, free or not.
Therefore, I, in suffering, installed Libreoffice in a container Libertine.
Obviously nothing has worked (and still not working) as promised, but I manage to have Calc on the screen of my phone.
Is there a simple way to enlarge the display so that you can use this software which appears as on a 21" screen.
At Microsoft, accessibility options permit giant toolbars.
Thank you in advance.
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@Appointed I think the first option in this app does what you want: https://open-store.io/app/libertine-tweak-tool.doniks
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Hello.
Thank you for your response.
Well, I stopped thinking about anything.
I now just hope that at least something works...
LibreOffice is installed in a container. On my phone, I believe it’s called focal-3.
I have the Writer, Calc, etc... icons in the application list.
When I click on one of these icons, I have in a thumbnail window, the message:
Libreoffice 6.4 - Fatal error Unable to launch the application. [context="user"] caught unexpected com.sun.star.ucb.ContentCreationException: cannot create folder (invalid path): "To move forward, I found this solution:
@tenzind said in libreoffice, gedit installation/opening errors:
[...] The command to open writer:
libertine-launch --id <your container id> libreoffice --writer --nologo
writer starts fine [...]Which allows me to run Writer from the terminal.
And Writer opens but everything is too small to be used.
It is very important that those who know and explain here, understand that those who do not know can’t guess if something is not working because they are not doing the right thing, because the code has a rare yet unknown problem or because they have done everything necessary to make something work, well this something does not work because it needs something else which is the cause of the problem.
To solve my display too small, I had already installed libertine-tweak-tool.
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
@Appointed I think the first option in this app does what you want: https://open-store.io/app/libertine-tweak-tool.doniks
What is the ppi value? For everything to be larger, does it need a low or high value to ?
No matter which combinations are tested (focal, focal-3, opening of libertine-tweak-tool before or after Writer, low or high ppi) it does not change anything to the writer or calc display.I don’t know if I’m not using it properly or if it’s not working on my tel, or if it’s not working in the current configuration.
- Should I run libertine-tweak-tool before or after LibreOffice is launched? Should I let it run while using Libreoffice?
- When libertine-tweak-tool is closed, all settings displayed in libertine-tweak-tool are returned to their default values. Is this normal?
- By default, libertine-tweak-tool indicates focal as container name, should I replace it with focal-3 (which I tried without success)?
- Can libertine-tweak-tool impact a container launched from the terminal?
- When I leave Writter thanks to the gesture, my phone turns off (poweroff).
- Vim, which was added at the same time as LibreOffice does not work (when I click on the icon it appears and disappears quickly in the launcher. That’s all)
- What is the X11 support application that appears in the launcher when Libreoffice is launched but does not produce any effect and remains in the launcher once Libreoffice is closed (except when the phone turns off)?
- Why once Writer is launched, I can no longer access the terminal by clicking on its icon in the launcher?
- When I close the terminal, Writer is also closed. This seems normal to me. Why does the X11 icon remain in the launcher?
I’m making this list so that those who know understand that, when something doesn’t work as simply as those who know say it does, those who don’t wonder about everything and wonder about what is a symptom of the problem and what is normal.
But in this long list, there are several things that I can’t believe they’re normal and it’s just me who didn’t understand how they worked...
If you find this list long, wait until I have solved this problem with Libertine and I will come post the other problems...
Thanks again.
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@Appointed
In general about Libertine:
I think your expectations were maybe a little bit to high with Libertine. You can try to use Libertine to get some classic desktop apps to run on UT and it will sometimes work, but it is not working perfectly, because there are not a lot of developers for UT and other things get prioritized at the moment (but the UT team is probably very happy for everyone who could help to improve Libertine).
On a positive note:
In the near future, snap packages will be supported by UT and this should make running a lot of classic programs on UT way easier, so Libreoffice will probably work as a snap package in the future. -
@Appointed
Edit: I just installed Libreoffice on Libertine and was also not able to solve the scaling issue.
About he scaling problem:
I have not used Libertine for some time now and would also need to figure things out.
If it did not work with the Libertine Tweak Tool, you could maybe also try to set it manually:
export GDK_SCALE=2 && libertine-launch --id <your container id> libreoffice --writer --nologoor
libertine-launch --id <your container id> export GDK_SCALE=2 && libreoffice --writer --nologoYou could also try to locate the .desktop file and add "export GDK_SCALE=2 && libreoffice" after "Exec=".
But I do not know, if any of this will work. -
@Appointed About vim:
I just installed Libertine to check it out and vim and other terminal apps should run without any problems, when you open them in the terminal:libertine-launch --id focal-3 vimThe main problem with terminal apps is, that you need an external keyboard for many of them, because most key combinations do not work on the touch keyboard.
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Hello.
Thank you for this information and these tests.
I take this opportunity to indicate that I know that the participants of this forum are not responsible for what UT allows or does not allow.
So I know that @johndoe is not responsible (I hope) for the little efficiency of Libertine or the need to use some kind of flimsy gateway to use packages designed to run on a software from which UT is derived.
I will think a little more, make some other tests on other things on UT and see what following I give to UT and probably post my feeling in a more suitable topic.
So here we go for what we are dealing with here:
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
[...] I think your expectations were maybe a little bit to high with Libertine [...]
I saw somebody explaining how to install Gimp in a container...
I am not particularly interested in Libertine or the Office.
I only wanted to use the basic functions of a spreadsheet on my Redmi.
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
[...] You can try to use Libertine to get some classic desktop apps to run on UT and it will sometimes work, but it is not working perfectly [...].
Whenever someone comes here to say that they can’t do what they want with Libertine and a package that works under all distributions from Debian, someone says that Libertine exists to run "some classic desktop apps".
Someone in this forum has already asked what are "classic desktop apps".
Is there a list of desktop applications comming from Debian and that work AND are usable under UT ?
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
On a positive note:
In the near future, snap packages will be supported by UT and this should make running a lot of classic programs on UT way easier, so Libreoffice will probably work as a snap package in the future.It’s amazing, and also sad, how, when people are aware of something that is obvious, today is never the future of yesterday or 20 years ago...
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
[...] other things get prioritized at the moment [...]
Is there somewhere I can discover what is prioritized at the moment by the community ?
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
Edit: I just installed Libreoffice on Libertine and was also not able to solve the scaling issue.
About he scaling problem: [..]
export GDK_SCALE=2 && libertine-launch --id <your container id> libreoffice --writer --nologoor
libertine-launch --id <your container id> export GDK_SCALE=2 && libreoffice --writer --nologo[...]
Thank you for the information and the tests.
I also failed to make your command lines work (Office opens, but nothing changes on the display size).
@johndoe said in Usable phone display:
@Appointed About vim:
I just installed Libertine to check it out and vim and other terminal apps should run without any problems, when you open them in the terminal:libertine-launch --id focal-3 vimThe main problem with terminal apps is, that you need an external keyboard for many of them, because most key combinations do not work on the touch keyboard.
Thank you for this test.
Another unusable app or it’s just like.
Thanks again.
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@Appointed
About UT and desktop apps:
The goal of Ubuntu Touch is to be an secure and open source mobile OS, that can optionally also turn into a Desktop OS, when you connect the mobile device to a bigger screen, mouse and keyboard.
When the user is in the desktop mode of UT, he maybe wants to use classic Desktop apps and this is what Libertine is for.
So it is not the goal of UT to make any desktop app work on a smaller formfactor and without a keyboard and mouse. Of cause you can still try to do so, but that it is not scaling correctly is no surprise. The real issue are the other errors (some programs not opening or not working correctly).@Appointed said in Usable phone display:
responsible
Libertine is not working perfectly, but UT is a community driven project. You and me are as responsible to make things better as everyone else. The code is all on GitLab and GitHub. The UT core team is happy for everyone who can help.
For a lot of people it was way more important to get Android apps working on UT and move to focal and this was accomplished. So Libertine not working perfectly is a result of prioritizement and lack of contributors and not because of responsibility.
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I see a lot of people trying to turn their phone into a laptop. Are you just wanting to do it to say it works? Seems like a strange workflow. Wouldn't work get done more efficiently on a pc?
Spreadsheets on a phone sounds like a nightmare. Maybe I'm getting old.
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@Appointed said in Usable phone display:
Whenever someone comes here to say that they can’t do what they want with Libertine and a package that works under all distributions from Debian, someone says that Libertine exists to run "some classic desktop apps".
Someone in this forum has already asked what are "classic desktop apps".
Is there a list of desktop applications coming from Debian and that work AND are usable under UT ?
To clarify what can be defined as a "classic desktop app", it is an app:
- running on Linux,
- having a build for ARM64 or the SoC architecture of your device
- can be a CLI or compatible with X11 or Wayland (I might be wrong here but others are not supported)
- not especially designed as an Ubuntu Touch app
CLI app should basically work but some restrictions on the library embedded with your device make it impossible to come up with certainty.
There are so many cases regarding UI that even if many software will work, there is no way to test them all.
So it falls back on users to test it out and see if they can do what they wish they can do.
Libertine is provided as a best effort to help people achieve their goals.
If people start demanding guaranties or certainty or even predictability it won't be humanly possible to support it anymore and we might consider removing the feature to "avoid confusion"It’s amazing, and also sad, how, when people are aware of something that is obvious, today is never the future of yesterday or 20 years ago...
We need people to make it happen.
What's amazing to me is how large this community is and comparatively how small is the team of contributors...Is there somewhere I can discover what is prioritized at the moment by the community ?
Sure you can go to gitlab and dig in the backlog to get an idea how big a mountain we have to move:
https://gitlab.com/groups/ubports/-/milestones -
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@Appointed I've boosted your 'forum reputation' points, see if it helps.
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Hi @Appointed
I manually published the messages you tried to send.
At least it appears this way.
If it happens again, ping me and I'll try to allow the message.As it appears, the message is published, but not set visible.
@Moem I use the
restorefunction on the grayed out messages to do so... -
Good evening.
@Moem said in Usable phone display:
@Appointed I've boosted your 'forum reputation' points, see if it helps.
Thank you.
@AppLee said in Usable phone display:
[...] I manually published the messages you tried to send. [...]
Thank you... but...
I dropped multiple messages and so the messages posted and restored are only part of my original message which is longer in fact and I've just stop sending all when it became boring to do.
I would prefer it to appear in its entirety.
I will try to post it again and if I can, I would allow myself to delete the message pieces.
So I've tried and be again blocked by Akismet.com.
So I deconnect myself and connect again and replace all the @ in my message by Ø (maybe it's the posting time, too much message in a short time, or maybe there are too many @ in my message...).
This time my whole message is in line.
Thanks again.
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Hello
Thank you for your answers.
I’m not sure where to start.
The contributions:
I started a list of bugs, missing translations, amazing behaviors or things that could be added.
But my skills are limited to VBA.
So I could only be another claimant and/or one more grumbler who will just point out what is not working (or does not work as he wants).
In addition, it would take me time to write correctly and constructively and then translate all this into English.
I would love a smartphone without Android and IOs and I’m more than sad to have seen the end of Windows Phone.
And I am ready to make my meager contribution to making things better.
But wouldn’t this time spent on UT be better spent in another Linux OS, just as full of promises and just as bad?
I know that UBports is not waiting for me to make it the third smartphone OS.
But spending time on something that doesn’t convince me...
If I came to Ubuntu Touch, it is because it seemed the least bad of the OS hacked from Linux and not Android.
But I am not convinced by the choices that were made or their results:
One of my contributions would be to point out that bad choices have been made for this OS.
I think spending time adding Android app support is time wasted and digging the grave of UT.
Libertine:
I don’t have the skills to develop anything (apart from user friendly interfaces for MS office software).
Above all, I find the existence of Libertine incomprehensible.
Most of our smartphones are ARM with a FullHD display.
There are at least one hundred desktop distributions that can be installed on this type of architecture.
If we added a zoom function on the screen, we could use any Debian App (since Ubuntu is Debian), right away.
I know there’s the driver problem.
But it seems mastered by Hardware Abstraction Layer since several mobile touch distributions manage to interact with the drivers and the hardware.
It would be "enough" to push the thing so that the current interface between hardware/drivers and OS is seen as an architecture recognized by Debian.
Debian and its derivatives would feel like they are installed on a touch-sensitive PC.
ØTimespansoul said in Usable phone display:
I see a lot of people trying to turn their phone into a laptop. Are you just wanting to do it to say it works? Seems like a strange workflow. Wouldn't work get done more efficiently on a pc?
The value of having a desktop software in your pocket rather than in a bag?
And even more amazing, "lot of people". Maybe there is a real wish, even more when we know that UT was launched on the theme of convergence and that the latest WinPhone were capable of this feat...
ØTimespansoul said in Usable phone display:
Spreadsheets on a phone sounds like a nightmare. Maybe I'm getting old.
Or you are not old enough!
Twenty years ago, it was possible to buy PDAs with a touch and lighted version of Windows and Office right from out of the box.
At this time, the PDA had to be constantly in standby and powered: turning it off or running out of battery meant a reset to its factory state.
Today, smartphones more powerful than desktop machines are not able to run office programs in a useful way.
Does the average smartphone user even at UT expect to be able to send SMS, call, take photos and install a thousand applications including 500 different social networks and 500 sales sites?
I want a smartphone on which I can do what I do on Debian machines.
If I need to do something, I look on the internet how it works on Debian, and I do the same thing on my smartphone.
I want editable settings pages.
That’s what I want.
By the way, I reset my tel to zero.
I created a new container and installed Gnuméric.
This one is launched from its icon but it always appears too small.
Libertine Tweak Tool does not change anything in this app.
At first, as I did not find the icon of Gnumeric after installation in the container.
The was the same for LibreOffice icons.
I guess it have to restart them to appear since they appeared after reboot.
Before I found this, I used the command given here:
https://docs.ubports.com/fr/latest/userguide/dailyuse/libertine.html
phabletØubuntu-phablet:~$ lomiri-app-launch focal_gnumeric_0.0 Started: focal_gnumeric_0.0 phabletØubuntu-phablet:~$But at first, I didn’t pay attention and copied exactly what was recommended by https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/dailyuse/libertine.html
phabletØubuntu-phablet:~$ lomiri-app-launch focal_gedit_0.0 terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error' what(): Invalid app ID: focal_gedit_0.0 Aborted phabletØubuntu-phablet:~$So I tried, by mistake, to run Gedit instead of Gnumeric and it did not work.
But I didn’t realize my mistake immediately and so I tried other things to launch Gnumeric.
Which allowed me, despite myself, to discover a behavior that I am sure is not normal.
So the rest is a series of tests that are not necessary to solve my case, but which end with a helpful remark. I tried:
phabletØubuntu-phablet:~$ libertine-launch --id focal gnumeric --nologo ERROR: ld.so: object 'libtls-padding.so' from LD_PRELOAD cannot be preloaded (cannot open shared object file): ignored. Unknown option --nologo Lancez << gnumeric --help >> pour afficher une liste compète des options disponibles en ligne de commande. phabletubuntu-phablet:~$So yes, there is indeed a spelling mistake in "liste compète". It should be corrected in "liste complète".
I tried to:
phabletØubuntu-phablet:~$ libertine-launch --id focal gnumericGnumeric opens.
It is no longer possible to write anything in the terminal (no more prompts).
Use gesture to close the terminal Gnumeric close: OK.
Use gesture to close gnumeric turn phone the phone off (poweroff): not OK and already mentioned above.
Once the phone is turned off in this way, you have to press the power button for more than 10s to turn it on again (poweron) while when it is turned off properly, (function turn off), it only takes a 3s press to turn it back on.
Symptoms:
Each time I use the command:
libertine-launchAND
That I close the application so opened using the gesture, the phone turns off (poweroff)
AND
You must press the alim button for more than 10s to turn it on again (poweron).I spent several hours writing the above and redoing tests to check that everything was going as I indicated.
I did some poses while doing research on other problems of my phone (notch and round corner for example).
And I found this:
https://ubports.com/fr/blog/ubports-blogs-et-nouvelles-1/post/ubuntu-touch-q-a-100-3754
There is this phrase: "Within the next four year period we need to get Lomiri working beautifully on desktops. That will be our second big contribution, after the phone OS."
A community that hopes to promote its smartphone OS focuses on developing a concept for desktops...
And worse, the paragraph "Smartphones should be a tool box" which explains, without wanting to, why UT has not evolved in functionality for years and is still not the Linux smartphone that so many people hope.
Thanks again.
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@Appointed said in Usable phone display:
And worse, the paragraph "Smartphones should be a tool box" which explains, without wanting to, why UT has not evolved in functionality for years and is still not the Linux smartphone that so many people hope.
A smartphone is a communication device first and foremost, so telephony and messaging are going to be its main functionality. To get these two functions working with UT on Android devices with a limited amount of developers - people who can actually understand and do this in their own time with no financial reimbursement - is a massive undertaking. It is not easy at all and will always be behind what Google, Apple and the major players in the mobile market can do due to the amount of money that these big companies can throw at their operating environment.
Then there are the other features such as the camera, GPS, WiFi/Internet and so on, again taking a lot of time and effort to get to a usable state.
Then there are other things that are nice to have that nice to have, but again take a lot of time and effort to develop.
There are some things that I cannot do on my UT device that I use Android for, such as mobile banking, video calls. This is much like the desktop environment with Windows, MacOS and Linux. I know lots of people who use Windows, few that use MacOS and very, very few that use Linux desktop whatever flavour.
For my devices running UT, things that I want are Telephony, messaging, Internet, anything else is a bonus and anything I can get working is a bonus.
After trying various other mobile operating systems that are not mainstream, UT is one of the most advanced, with a lot of devices and a lot of interest. It could be better, but so could iOS and Android. We all use our smartphones in different ways, what works for some, doesn't always work for others.
Thank you for your thoughts.
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Hello.
Thanks for your advice that permit me to start enancing my mind about UT.
I find our dialogue very interesting. Really. Sincerely.
But on the one hand, we can see that they do not lead to anything concrete, neither for me nor for other users (I think that, even if we have a revelation here, it would take years before we have something corresponding).
So I will think about it a little before continuing in this conversation, even if I like to do so.
I’m not giving up, not right now.
I will be less available for a few days, so my next answer may be delayed.
Thanks again.
