I am about to give up and leave

[AppLee]

Hi,

Thank you for raising your personal issues with the project.
First of all, I can assure you that many people share your concern and few are actively trying to change things for the better.

I guess there is an image/perception issue and I would like to try an address this.
Can I ask you to refer to this post for the next Q&A so I don't forget about it and try to give as much information as possible.

[arubislander]

@jojumaxx I am truly sorry to hear about your experience and troubles. There is a lot you mention and a lot to unpack. I will not be able to address all your concerns, but I would like to address a few, and start by sharing my own experience and expectations of the OS for context.

I have used UT from the time it was launched by Canonical. However, it has never been my only device. Anbox and then Waydroid were never good solutions for me. So I have always had an Android phone on the side for WhatsApp, banking apps and various apps I need for work.

I follow along fairly closely with the development of the OS, (I even contributed a few tiny patches and wrote a few apps for my own need, and published them in the OpenStore), but I don't follow the marketing very closely. So I am not very current on what all is being claimed as capabilities for the OS.

When the partnership with Volla was announced I did not expect UT to have more working features on a Volla phone than on, say, a Pixel 3a. The advantages of a Volla Phone might be pre-installed UT on more capable hardware and company backed customer service. But what features do or don't work, like VoLTE or an ageing browser, have nothing to do with if the phone came with th OS pre-installed or not.

Yes, UT is targeted for the 'normal' user. But the project isn't just there yet. The goal is to be usable for the average user, but the reality is that there might still be some challenges. Fixing these takes time. To me these challenges are well known. But I understand they might not be very apparent up front for a new user. If this is the case, we need to do better at setting expectations.

Yes, there will be a workable browser in the future. Right now Morph depends on components in the base Ubuntu system. These are outdated in 20.04. Keeping the base system up to date is the reason moving to 24.04 (not 26.04) is a high priority at the moment. This in itself will not make the browser components Morph depends on more up to date, because 24.04 still is not on the latest version on Qt. But it might make it possible to back port some, or all, of the necessary components.

In the meantime Alfred's Mimi browser based on WebKit might see an alpha release soon. Since this browser does not depend on base components in Ubuntu, it will be possible to update it more frequently and independently from the base system.

To your question, where to find all this info as a normal user. There are the newsletters, blog posts, Q&A's, this forum, the various telegram channels and GitLab. The last two might be difficult to parse though. Maybe we need a (bi-)weekly podcast that brings people up to speed with the goings on.

[Timespansoul]

I think it's time to change your signature to "unhappily using UT" (haha).

I've been daily driving UT for about two months. I could complain about the short comings of UT. I could complain how I have to restart my phone to grab some MMS messages, or how the wifi icon just disappears sometimes but wifi button doesn't, requiring a restart. I could complain about the limited sound customization, I could complain about battery life leaving something to be desired and a camera that isn't working at its full potential and indeed a device that isn't being pushed to its full potential. I could complain how sometimes when I try to restart the screen flickers and then I have to hard restart to restart.

Then I remind myself I could still be dealing with iOS and getting messages that my cloud storage is almost full. I could still be dealing with companies and devices that DON'T ALLOW ME TO CHOOSE WHAT IS ON MY DEVICE or how I should use it OR WHAT PASSWORD I WANT TO USE! I could fill pages. And one also has to focus on the major strides that UT has made. It really has come such a long way since its inception.

There is one thing that Ubuntu Touch offers and it's the freedom to choose just as advertised.

Yes, it's far from perfect but you have to evaluate why someone would want to use UT. Some people, like me, will sacrifice almost everything at this point for the freedom that UT offers. Since I've been running UT I've never felt so free from the corporate cesspool that everyone seems to call life these days. It's literally been an invigorating experience. My mind has more space in it for more important things in life, like helping to make UT better!

Users have to keep in mind that we are limited to the vendors blobs. What would be amazing is a cheap open source device where all hardware is open source, where the drivers are well understood. Or some modular device that one could customize with whatever camera, nic, soc, etc.. they want to put in it, and drop halium all together. And then you have the carriers ripping down their own networks creating unreasonable deadlines forcing priorities onto developers. This is an uphill battle and sometimes it's a 3' brick wall with a 12" titanium plate behind it. The vendor blobs are causing a serious bottle neck in development.

Also we are a community of what... 10000? If that? I'm just guessing. This is something that isn't properly appreciated or taken into account.

Seriously take a moment to appreciate about how small that number is compared to the juggernauts. This alone should create an enlightening perspective on things.

With everything as messy as it is UT come so far and by so few. It really is something to be proud of and it feels great to be part of a community that pours its blood and sweat into giving people the "choice" and without compensation other then the satisfaction they get knowing that they are creating a choice where choice is needed. The people doing this actually care about your freedom, this cannot be measured in my eyes. Even users who don't know anything about anything still help make it better by getting involved and asking questions. By asking questions on the front-end improvements are made on the back-end. Although Telegram is suspect and I wonder why it's used but that is a whole other topic and I won't digress.

It's like being in a horse race and we've chosen a pony. Now a lot of people are betting on this pony to win the race. Some will even be disappointed when they realize half way through the race that the pony isn't going to win, that to their dismay the pony isn't performing as a horse jacked up on the best 'roids would. The expectation sounds unreasonable right? Now some of us bet on the pony because we know the pony doesn't even want to be part of the race and that it will most likely leave the track and graze the field.

In my opinion, it really comes down to philosophy; a way of life. What do we want out of life? With UT in my life I have more time to enjoy life.

[Mario.CH]

Hi @jojumaxx,

Thank you for having the courage to talk about things (convergence), but until now I thought that the core developers were already working on all the urgent things and only talked about what they found interesting in their Q&A shows. But what always bothered me (maybe like you) was that they don't always communicate honestly what and how much they are working on, or maybe nobody really has an overview.

For me, the rescue from the impending exit came with the porting of the Oneplus Nord N100.
I was able to buy an unused device (‘brand new’) for just CHF 120, and now I have a smartphone that can make calls and data traffic (UMTS/3G & LTE/4G => without VoLTE), make hands-free calls (Bluetooth) in the car, and SMS (unfortunately MMS has been dropped in Switzerland), take photos and listen to music. What else I will try out is: Chatapp Delta chat, navigation app and other things.

The chat is not important for me, however, as I can make phone calls, because I am one of those older people who have never realised why people nowadays ‘text’ instead of making phone calls (breaking records in terms of speed on such a stupid thing as a touchscreen) or, even worse, send audio messages.

So my horse is not dead yet.

Greetings Mario

[Mario.CH]

Hi @arubislander,

@arubislander said in I am about to give up and leave:

When the partnership with Volla was announced I did not expect UT to have more working features on a Volla phone than on, say, a Pixel 3a. The advantages of a Volla Phone might be pre-installed UT on more capable hardware and company backed customer service. But what features do or don't work, like VoLTE or an ageing browser, have nothing to do with if the phone came with th OS pre-installed or not.

Unfortunately, I have to raise an objection here. I believe that many people here in the forum see things a little differently. Because it has been stated many times that many problems are due to the fact that we don't know how the hardware drivers are written. I must admit I'm too lazy to search the forum at the moment to provide evidence.

Ergo, it is only logical for a user who has no technical or IT knowledge to hope that things will get better when Ubports co-operates with Volla.

Greetings Mario

[moodroid]

You've mentioned the Pinephone a few times. I have one also. But the thing that stops me daily driving it, is not that it's underpowered, but that sooner or later I'll miss a text or a call. As far as I'm aware (please correct me if I'm wrong), there isn't a single pure Linux phone where texts and calls are totally reliable.

So that only leaves us with UT, Droidian/FuriOS and Sailfish. They're all good, and all work reliably for phone usage. I did daily drive Droidian (sorry) on my Pixel 3a for about 6 months, but I ended coming back to UT, as the ability to use and scale any Linux app isn't all it's cracked up to be, and UT has some really cool native apps!

Ultimately, UT does everything I need, and most importantly, I can depend on texts and calls working (I don't use social media). As for browsers, I can't see why more people don't use Firefox via Libertine. It seemed like everybody wanted it when it didn't work, and now it does work, nobody wants it! And it's far from being the only Linux app that works in Libertine.

[arubislander]

Hi @Mario-CH,

@Mario-CH said in I am about to give up and leave:

Unfortunately, I have to raise an objection here.

There is nothing unfortunate about that. . There is ample room for different views and opinions.

@Mario-CH said in I am about to give up and leave:

it is only logical for a user who has no technical or IT knowledge to hope that things will get better when Ubports co-operates with Volla.

That is indeed logical, assuming Volla were the ones writing the drivers in the first place, or at the very least have access to their source code, and sharing the knowledge about those with the devs they contracted to work on UT for them. I am not sure that the devs have access to this information, if it is at all available.

Nevertheless, knowledge of the drivers would only help with getting all the hardware on the phone, like camera, fingerprint reader, touch screen, and such, to work. But these already mostly work if there is a corresponding Halium version. Issues, such as the age of the the browser components, are at a different level of the OS. They are independent of any hardware compatibility.

It seems like communication on these things is not reaching the non-technical users in a way that they can understand, even though the information is out there. At present the best I can do is encourage everyone to follow as much as possible the communication channels I mentioned in ny previous message.

[tuXut]

@jojumaxx
have been with me since the BQ Aquaris 4.5. Always used UT. Don't need many apps, e-mail, browser, Telegram and offline navigation. I also have the feeling that everything is getting more and more difficult. (I follow the progress on a Volla-X ) I bought an FP5 with /e/os this year. Everything I need works. ( I don't like /e/os as much as UT, maybe UT will be really good on the FP5 one day )

[kingu]

When your friends look at phones you think are expensive, that is their choice.
You understand you are not a good user, but you want justification
for every scenario you can come up with.
The model is working just fine, the approach is sound, and the OS progresses in directions people want it to.

You have no plan. You parted with your money.
Where are you happy in any scenario?

Your friends can buy cheap devices with UBPorts on it?

That is what the market does.
Price goes down, the amount of players go up, and the OS improves over time.

There are a lot of things to do about the OS.

[jojumaxx]

@AppLee I'll do so trying to be more factual. Thank you

[jojumaxx]

@moodroid Yes, Firefox works in Libertine, but for me it'hardly usable. It scales, but not completely (also settings windows, menus, etc. are hardly usable) and touches are registered slightly on different positions which is enough to hardly tap on the things you want.
Therefore it's not usable to me. Otherwise this would have been the alternative I was looking for...
I tried other apps, but none of those I need would scale or work...

[jojumaxx]

@Timespansoul I am completely with you. When I was writing my post I did it while being angry, disappointed and clueless somehow.

If I offended someone, I really and honestly apologize. I didn't mean to lower the value of the work everybody puts in.

Ubtuntu Touch is a great project and I'm grateful it exists. Otherwise I wouldn't have been here for so long.

But nevertheless, basics need to work to use it. If a car has a broken engine, this should be addressed since driving is its main purpose and not e.g. the improvement of the entertainment system...
Keep in mind, this is subjective to me and that I don't know what the core developers are responsible for and for what others. I don't want to do someone wrong!

[jojumaxx]

@kingu Look, if you sell something on the market, which at least Volla does, you have a responsibility for your customers.
I don't really see that when I look at 4 phones hardly usable nor flashable.
Looking at what the Gigaset "originals" cost or compared to a Pinephone, yes they are expensive and in my case, taking the original bills about 1700€ of phones I can't really use.

Is it wrong, questioning this?

Why do I have no plan? If you need to have a plan, this should be outlined, don't you think?

And what exactly makes me a bad user? If special skills are necessary, this should be outlined, too.

That's exactly, what this is about.

Search the net, there are enough reviews of normal people (bad users?) who tried. If everything was working, maybe the market share would be higher (or maybe they just have no plan).

[Keneda]

@kingu said in I am about to give up and leave:

You understand you are not a good user

That's what you "understand", and you're wrong.

Someone using UT for almost 10 years as daily driver would not do a thread like that without being disappointed.
Some decisions, like making morph the only webrowser, and part of the system and in consequence not updatable independently, could not end anything different that the situation we encounter now.
This is a very important thing on a smartphone, being able to browse the web.

And his "grief" on Volla can be heard, they sell the only smartphones preinstalled with UT on it, which make them the first choice for "noobs" that fear flashing devices, and those devices are not 100% working, even the very first one, under UT.
Maybe Volla should focus on that and not on doing things like dual boot (keeping it for themselves... viva open source..), and selling new devices like Quintus, when the older ones are still not 100% fonctionnal.

[arubislander]

@Keneda said in I am about to give up and leave:

Maybe Volla should focus on that and not on doing things like dual boot (keeping it for themselves... viva open source..), and selling new devices like Quintus, when the older ones are still not 100% fonctionnal.

This is an important point, that is often overlooked. Once Volla as a company commits to shipping UT on their devices, they also have some responsibility to their customers for ensuring a usable experience.

None of the regressions are their fault, of course. But that does not mean they have no means to influence their remediation. For instance, they could sponsor or contract work on the new browser. Although to be fair they do already have some people working on UT, which just goes to show that these things are not trivial.

All of the above notwithstanding, if a Volla customer is disappointed with their device the best place to voice their dissatisfaction is to Volla.

[domubpkm]

@Keneda said in I am about to give up and leave:

This is a very important thing on a smartphone, being able to browse the web

It is !! I would even say that if we can no longer do this normally, we can no longer call it a smartphone !

[Timespansoul]

@jojumaxx I do agree that Volla and Pinephone in particular have an obligation to their customers and are a special case. I would expect a device that has something preinstalled from the manufacturer to work flawlessly, and if it didn't I would be very disappointed. If I spent 1700 euros on devices that didn't perform as advertised I would be very upset, and I would write a letter explaining how upset I was, to *Volla or *Phinephone.

I know little about these devices as in my mind, what they offered me was simply too expensive for me and they didn't offer much more than a ported Pixel with some porting time put into it. Buying these phones was also a gamble if you considered the size of the teams working on this stuff and where UT was in development.

Keneda makes a good point saying that these devices are a first choice for the technically impaired and in my opinion are severely overpriced especially considering that problems do persist even on those phones. And it leaves a bad taste in someone's mouth knowing that the next guy bought a 3a for $40US that functions about as well as a Volla.

I did want to talk about that in my previous post but it was turning into a novel.

You are very right, this is extremely subjective. My post was very subjective and I feel in your circumstance, being a Volla owner, you have the right to be angry about these things.

I was merely highlighting that we have to keep our expectations in check and accept the reality of the situation even for the Volla and Pinephone.

In my eyes UT equates to sacrifice; freedom over functionality and performance.... for now. Maybe some day we'll have it all haha.

[Homer3]

@jojumaxx fort messenger I am quite happy with Cinny to connect with Whats app Users, one downside is that I have to start Waydroid every ~10 days to avoid beeing logged out oder whatsapp

[Timespansoul]

Just to give you a better perspective of where I'm coming from, I was willing to gamble $100 US. I entered the game when UT was a bit older and more sophisticated(just this year). I bought a OP Nord N100 for just that. I was willing to lose it all lol. And at a 100 dollars I would say that I am very happy with the transition. However, my expectations were "reasonable" expectations. I did plenty of research before I got into it and with that research came a more reasonable expectation. Having said that, Volla should be much more transparent and honest with their customers. Then again, the browser on the PS4 has always been a POS. In the end we truly decide what we use and if that is not to use it at all you have the right to do so. So don't worry about hurting anyone's feelings if you're being honest. It's your right.

This is a much different perspective that yours and I can empathize with your situation to a certain extent. You've invested much more than I have, more time, more money.

I hope I didn't come off as too aggressive in my first post. If so, I apologize, I am passionate in my pursuit for freedom.

[vince.vs]

An opinion from a UT user since 2016

At the time, I chose a phone pre-equipped with this operating system, developed at the time by Canonical, i.e. BQ Aquaris 5. I was very satisfied with this phone with UT.
It was almost entirely functional, and the translations were complete both in the settings and on the screen.
Of course, a number of technologies evolved, and we had to meet a certain demand for different services. This phone could no longer accommodate, for example, the banking services (which I still don't use) available via Waydroid.
But in anticipation of the evolution of technologies and also because the BQ Aquaris screen was cracked, I opted for a Oneplus 5T, seeing that, in the meantime, the community had taken up the torch from UT, and that for some time now, it had been doing a good job already visible on the BQ 5.
So I bought the oneplus 5T, and used it with 16.04 ota-24 and ota-25.
It was when the system was upgraded to 20.04 that things got complicated.
And here, I agree with @jojumaxx regarding his requests, which are not particularly mine, but in essence, for a user, who wishes to have a functional phone, on the basis of what was for a while a ranking by adaptability and functionalities of a phone model, it can be very confusing for someone who wishes to use the one he has chosen on this basis.
Of course, everyone will come with their bug reports, and their hopes that they'll be fixed as soon as possible.
And this is where, on such essential functionalities that belong to a cell phone, there are bugs that seem not to have been solved for years, as if, these are not as important as having the latest services accessible via Waydroid.
I have, of course, like many others, asked for certain problems linked to the use of my phone model to be resolved, such as audio failures after video recording, better translation (at least for certain international languages) of the phone, the flashing LED triggering after phone calls or sms, or messaging, and it's frustrating to note that - for the average user - of which I am, and who is not a developer, this seems to remain at a standstill, whereas we are at ota-5?
What conclusion can I draw from this, and it's only my opinion?
I'm waiting for ota-6, of course, to find out if any of these bugs have been resolved; I'd already be happy and feel that the request has been taken into account.
I'm not going to invest, as some people do, in several phones to find out which one suits me best, or to have the pleasure of blowing money for nothing when UT should be part of an ecosystem (since it's a phone, either second-hand, or part of a sustainable ethic); it's nonsense, as I've seen it written before, walk around with a UT, and eg. an Android, you can imagine the investment, which would reduce the thickness of my wallet but wouldn't be enough to carry 2 phones, and several phone numbers ... I rather feel that UT's original idea was to offer a sustainable, economical, privacy-conscious alternative. But it's true, one day it'll get tired and have to be changed before it's fully functional, and then, for a newer one, it'll be the same recipe all over again.
People will tell me that the system is in continuous development, which is fine, but even in the private sector, it's in continuous development, isn't it?
I think, of course, that there's a lot of good will in the development of UT, some interesting things that will be, in use, necessary, but also that many developers have their own specificities and interests in their work, of course, they often do it voluntarily, but it's an experience for them (business card), and UT brings together a bit of everyone who puts a bit of everything into it, and no longer concentrates on a requested base and perhaps not on the essentials of a UT smartphone, which for me would be what it should be and remain, first and foremost a system for devices, fully usable for the basic functionalities I've described, well translated, and what it was chosen for, i.e. its simplicity of use and respect for privacy.
This is the type of OS that I think many people would like to use, and that we could promote around us! Proficiat.
So, ota-6, yes, ota-7, if it comes out, we'll see if I try too
Thanks for reading.