How Can I Contribute OR Why YOU Will Drop Ubuntu Touch Entirely

grenudi

@Moem Im glad, and thankful for it. which is why I still post here. Thank you

grenudi

@projectmoon on the pet project, its not just a figure of speach. Ubuntu touch is textbook definition of a pet project:

While "pet project" is a colloquial term rather than a formal technical specification, in the context of software development and community wikis, it carries a specific weight.
Definition: The "Pet Project" in Software
A pet project is a venture maintained by an individual or a small group primarily out of personal interest, sentimental attachment, or a niche vision, rather than commercial viability, industry-standard practices, or broad ecosystem integration. Key characteristics include:

Architectural Isolation: Relying on bespoke tools that the rest of the industry has moved away from.
Maintenance over Growth: Spending the majority of resources keeping old systems alive (downstreaming) rather than building for the future (upstreaming).
Community Insularity: Existing within an "echo chamber" where personal devotion to the project outweighs its objective utility or external adoption.
How Ubuntu Touch Fits the Definition
Based on the provided research, Ubuntu Touch aligns with this definition through its structural isolation and its role as a "custodian" of abandoned corporate technology.

It is a "Rescue" of Abandoned Tech
A classic pet project hallmark is picking up what a major entity discarded. Canonical abandoned Ubuntu Touch and the Unity 8 (Lomiri) vision in 2017. The UBports community took it over not because it was the industry standard, but because they wanted to keep that specific vision alive.
Architectural Isolation
While the rest of the Linux mobile world (postmarketOS, Mobian, Fedora) converged on Wayland, mainline kernels, and shared components like Phosh or Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch stayed with Mir and Lomiri.

Industry Rejection: Major players like Intel and Red Hat explicitly rejected Mir in 2013.
"Going it Alone": UBports contributes ~95% of Halium, a project other major OSs like KDE Plasma Mobile dropped years ago because it was an "uphill battle" against EOL kernels.

Maintenance of the Obsolete (EOL Kernels)
Instead of contributing to the mainline Linux kernel—which benefits all users permanently—UBports focuses on the "tedious process" of backporting patches into vendor-specific Android kernels that are already End-of-Life.

The flagship Fairphone 5 runs on Linux 5.4, which reached EOL in 2022.
This creates "offline toys" that require constant downstream effort just to stay secure, rather than integrated effort that moves the needle for the whole Linux community.

Stagnation of Core Code
A pet project often struggles to innovate beyond its original creator's input. Audit data shows that Lomiri is still 93% Canonical’s abandoned codebase, with only about 1,400 commits made between 2018 and 2025—many of which were just translations.
Draft Message: Ubuntu Touch as a Pet Project

"Ubuntu Touch has become the ultimate 'pet project' of the Linux mobile world. While the UBports Foundation deserves credit for keeping the lights on for eight years, the project is architecturally trapped in 2017. By clinging to Mir—a display server the industry rejected over a decade ago—and focusing on 'downstreaming' security patches into EOL vendor kernels, it has isolated itself from the broader ecosystem.
Unlike postmarketOS or Mobian, which contribute to mainline kernels and shared tools like ModemManager, Ubuntu Touch’s efforts benefit only Ubuntu Touch. It is a labor of love, but it is effectively a 'cul-de-sac' for developers. You spend years backporting CVEs for a Fairphone 5 kernel that died in 2022, only to realize your work doesn't move the Linux mobile needle forward by a single inch. It’s a successful alternative OS for its own small community, but it’s a preservation society, not a path to the future."

pparent

@grenudi said:

In a few years, those dozens of devices will surely run the mainline kernel and have the daily driver base needed,

I would like to add the following about the mainstream vs. halium topic:

We have to work with an industry that produces devices and chipsets that are not standardised as would be a PC, that are made for Android with closed-source drivers, and are made to be obsolete after only a few years (at least are for sell only for a few years). Also the constantly evolving telephony standards are making devices rapidly obsolete and unusable. For example, some parts of the US are already dropping 4G, making some devices that are only few years old completely unusable. I really hope this logic can change.

But until then we have to work with it and it requires a lot of effort to port a new device to the point where it is fully usable, while the device has only a short period of availability. Given that it takes a lot of time to port the devices the interval between the time when the devices is ported and the time it's removed from market or not compatible with latest telephony standards may be short.

Then in this context the practical difference is that porting a device to mainstream Linux takes a lot more time and effort to achieve the same level of functionalities as porting it with Halium.

I think what would really be good is that the manufacturers start to make things meant to work with mainline linux in the first place: devices and CPUs adapted to phones. And this would certainly happen if we started to have a decent adoption of Mobile Linux and some traction.

But other than that, I wonder whether porting mainline Linux to a constantly evolving hardware base, is not just too much work for the community, that has to be endlessly renewed like the myth of sisyphus.

Therefore I think a strategy can be: first attract a decent userbase with Halium, then use it as a leverage to have manufacturer produce hardware really designed for Linux on smartphone.

libremax

@Moem said:

You may have noticed that we are not suppressing your opinion, even though some parts of it may be uncomfortable to some. That alone should indicate that we are open to discussion.

What might be annoying and make this discussion difficult for some is that @grenudi in the last few months has already started ten or so threads on the same topic.
In my opinion, this isn’t a proper use of the forum but rather a form of abuse.

grenudi

@pparent , I appreciate that perspective, but it illustrates exactly why the wider Linux mobile community has moved on from the Halium model.

The "Halium first, leverage later" strategy has been the plan since 2017, yet it hasn't resulted in manufacturer leverage or a sustainable ecosystem. Meanwhile, projects like postmarketOS and Mobian have proven that the "tedious work" of mainlining and reverse engineering is not a myth of Sisyphus—it is a high-yield collective investment.

When developers like Caleb Connolly upstream a Snapdragon driver or Bhushan Shah patches ModemManager, that work is permanent and benefits every single distribution. That isn't a chicken-and-egg loop; it’s building a shared foundation.

The real "Sisyphus" work is actually what happens in downstream silos: manually backporting security patches into EOL (End-of-Life) vendor kernels that will never move forward. One strategy builds infrastructure that lasts; the other maintains "offline toys" that become obsolete the moment the community stops porting security fixes to a kernel that died in 2022.

Fact-Check & Evidence Base

This research reflects the consensus and documented state of the ecosystem as of March 2026.

The "Sisyphus" Fallacy: While mainlining is difficult, downstreaming is the true endless loop. UBports developers admit that backporting patches to ancient kernels is a "tedious process" that must be repeated for every single device. In contrast, a mainline driver is merged once and works forever across all distributions.
The "Leverage" Reality Check: UBports has used the "attract a userbase with Halium" strategy for eight years. As of March 2026, they have only 5 daily-driver-ready devices. Meanwhile, the mainline-focused postmarketOS supports 723 device models.
The Chicken-and-Egg Loop: The mainline community isn't waiting for vendors; they are bypassing them. Community-driven mainlining of mass-market hardware (like the Snapdragon 845) proves that independent progress is viable, permanent, and scalable.
Industry Isolation: Major projects like KDE Plasma Mobile dropped Halium in 2020 because maintaining it against EOL vendor kernels was an "uphill battle". Even UBports developers acknowledged they are the only project still investing in it.
Stalled Development: The Halium ecosystem itself has stalled; as of late 2025, there was "nobody working on" Halium 16, the base required for newer Android hardware.
Software Standards: While hardware varies, the community has standardized the software stack (Wayland, ModemManager, PipeWire). Ubuntu Touch remains the only major player refusing to go "Wayland only," which prevents them from using standard, modern Linux components.

kugiigi

@grenudi Are all these just because you didn't properly research what you're getting into?
Sorry, but the you seem to be technical and know things so I would assume you would have had the proper skills and know how to judge if UT is what you're looking for. From what I see, you're just lashing out because of that bad decision.

UT under UBports has existed for almost a decade now despite having very low man power. That has improved in recent years but it's still not as good as even the other mobile distros like postmarketOS, Mobian, etc.

Some of the issues you raised are valid but those would've have been solved long time again if they are simple to fix. You're basically asking the project to start fresh and ditch a lot of things. UT has had users since 2014/15, UBports picked it up along with those users. It's not realistic to continue the project while taking out its gut and expect users to still have a usable system.

If you don't like the project, then you're free to use and contribute on other projects. If you really want changes in UT, you are also free to contribute and address the issues you raised.

grenudi

@kugiigi said:

You're basically asking the project to start fresh and ditch a lot of things.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but have you seen a single suggestion in my post about the future direction of Ubuntu Touch? There are none. This isn't a feature request, and it is not a list of demands for what UBports should do.

The purpose of this document is to serve as a roadmap and a reality check for newcomers. You mentioned my technical background—that is exactly the point. If it took me this much effort, digging through hour-long Q&A sessions and forum threads from 2020, to uncover the architectural reality, how is a regular user supposed to know what they are getting into?

For example, the official website markets Lomiri as a "fully Wayland-based shell environment," yet the developers state in Q&As that they "are not going to go Wayland only". That isn't a lack of research on my part; that is misleading communication by the project.

When someone arrives here wanting to make a minor contribution—maybe a translation or a small bug fix—they often believe they are contributing to the broader Linux mobile ecosystem. They deserve to know upfront that Ubuntu Touch's architecture means their work stays in a downstream silo and will not benefit postmarketOS, Mobian, or the mainline kernel.

I am not asking the project to "ditch a lot of things" or tear out its guts. I am simply providing the documented facts so that new developers, translators, and users can make an informed choice about where to invest their time and effort.

grenudi

Perfect example of what this info saves devs,users from

Re: I am about to give up and leave (@jojumaxx )

pparent

@grenudi said:

high-yield collective investment.

For the record the two Android devices currently supported by Mobian ( Mainline linux ) are "OnePlus 6/6T" and "Pocophone F1". Both are NOT compatible with 5G (hardware-side). While I'm clearly not in favor of constantly pushing new telephony standards, and I think it is very sad that it happens, we have to acknoledge that the industry is pushing for it, making it hard to use phones that are not compatible with the latest standards on the long run. So I really wonder how those mainline linux phone can be considered as a future-proof long-term investment with an expected high-yield, susceptible to attract new users to daily-drive a mobile Linux phone. It is to be added that Mobian does not fully support yet all the hardware on those devices including the most important one to daily drive a phone (like camera), 8 years after the release of the phone.

PostmarketOS (which is a project I contributed to a bit few years ago) offers only one device compatible with both calls and camera (very basic feature to daily drive a phone), and it is the ... Librem 5 (sold with another Linux OS).

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

@grenudi I'm reiterating my question: what phone OS are you using and have you been using in your daily life?

grenudi

@pparent said:

what phone OS are you using and have you been using in your daily life?

I have clearly stated that this thread is not a discussion about personal tastes, hardware choices, or daily-driver experiences. I compiled this document to provide the full architectural picture based on documented facts.

If you are genuinely interested in my personal opinions and daily setup, please feel free to create a separate forum thread for it (I cannot direct message you due to my current reputation score).

If you have specific evidence to correct or counter the actual facts I have presented—such as the reliance on EOL vendor kernels, the Mir/Wayland contradictions, or the downstream isolation—I am all ears. But so far, the main architectural points of my research have not been touched by anyone here.

As the saying goes: when a finger points to the moon, don't look at the finger. Look at the moon.

Moem

@grenudi said:

@pparent said:

what phone OS are you using and have you been using in your daily life?

I have clearly stated that this thread is not a discussion about personal tastes, hardware choices, or daily-driver experiences.

It's still a good question. It provides a little context for your experiences. Please answer it, it does not require a new thread for such a simple statement. We have shown you goodwill, please extend the same to us.

grenudi

@Moem I've used lineageos for years, keeping in mind ubtouch from those promos back in the day first pine phone came. Didn had money, time for it at the time, but kept in the back of my head that there are ppl moving linux mobile forward and I'll join when I can. About a year ago I started device hopping, landed on the thought that there is legendary (in my head at this point) ubtouch. Went through the list of best supported devites, some instructions, tips, forums, watched some videos wich turned out mostly to be from 2022,23 or crap quality, no detaided examitations (wich was strange but I did not pay attention to it). So 1 month of going though tedious xiaomi unlocking, and I've had the working ubtouch phone, the rest is history on the forum. Ah, after ubtouch dissapointment, I've bought pixel 7 for daily with graphene os, serves its needs. As for linux mobile looking into daily drivers stated at mobian, postmarked, and a ways to participate there as stated in the document. Here I'm currently to clarify for others, who may need the clarification, what I didnt know back then.

Moem

@grenudi Thank you!

pparent

@grenudi Thank you!

@grenudi said:

the rest is history on the forum.

Can you re-explain briefly what turned you off about Ubuntu Touch as a user? Because in your messages I feel it's more development philosophy concerns.

Personally I don't pretend that Ubuntu Touch is ideal. The fact that it is using Halium and proprietary blob is clearly a tradeoff, and I would prefer 10 times running a mainline Linux with 100% Foss. And Mir1.x does not seem to me the best compositor in the world, we'll see about Mir2.x.

The thing is that when you are really committed to not using Android-based or IOS mobile OS, and use a Foss-Oriented OS, well Ubuntu Touch saves the show. If I had to use postmarketOS or Mobian as a daily driver it would greatly handicap my personal and social life. And sailfishOS is partiality proprietary so I don't see the point to prefer a locked-down environment to another. So for me your concerns are of secondary importance in comparison to what UT provides: a Linux mobile experience that does not handicap me too much in my daily life and social life since 7 years.

Ps: I'm surprised that you don't seem concerned that your Android-based phones are running the same kind of vendor kernel that are not the latest versions, and that get outdated in the exact same way as UT kernels.