To add, I tried to install the stock image from Android -- specifically 6.0.1 (M4B30Z, Dec 2016), found here, which gave some errors and failed to fully install (though it did change the look of the bootloader.) I still was stuck with the UBports Recovery program.

So, I looked around and found the TWRP recovery program for hammerhead (Nexus 5 codename) and successfully installed that. I used it to wipe and format the drive, since all my previous attempts at installations (of either Ubuntu Touch or Android or LineageOS) failed.

Then, I tried once again to install LineageOS, by transferring the file to the phone (see code below) and then using TWRP to install it. This worked.

mark@debian:~/Downloads/Nexus5/LineageOS$ adb push lineage-14.1-20190301-UNOFFICIAL-hammerhead.zip /sdcard/. lineage-14.1-20190301-UNOFFICIAL-hamme... 4.4 MB/s (329881284 bytes in 71.197s)

I must say that the UBports recovery program needs improvement. It's far inferior to the TWRP recovery program.

Anyway, my issue is solved. I can now reinstall Ubuntu Touch. [edit] I did reinstall it. So, I'm good to go.

The recovery image is based on an older version of TWRP. However, as UT is not an Android ROM, we cannot really support most of the features of TWRP which are designed around Android, rather than alternate systems. This is why the recovery is stripped down.

@JCLemme Ok but then smth is really broken, I would suggest to start building a LineageOS tree from scratch, and get their recovery working. Or, use TWRP as recovery, try to boot boot.img from your build, let it crash and then go into TWRP, use adb and get /proc/last_kmsg if possible

I'm adding a few links here so I and others can find them easily.

Ubuntu Recovery partition specs
Touch/Specs/RecoveryPartition last edited 2013-06-14

upgrader
ImageBasedUpgrades/Upgrader l st edited 2014-07-04

After more digging I've come to the conclusion that Edify stuff is mostly dead code. I'll leave these two links until I'm certain.

https://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Doc:_About_Edify

(http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/Edify_script_language)

I have been working under the assumption that
system-image-upgader
Was written by Marius become it seemed to come from nowhere in the ubports git history.

In reality launchpad does reveal its arrival three years ago.
author Stéphane Graber stgraber@ubuntu.com
Tue, 9 Jul 2013 15:00:00 -0500 (17:00 -0300)
committer Gerrit Code Review gerrit2@hesperidium.canonical.com
Fri, 7 Feb 2014 09:03:14 -0500 (14:03 +0000)

It's interesting to note that six months seems to have passed before it was accepted. It then goes through much development in 2014.

Installed developer build 218 its stuck at 1+ logo, and 219 build is throwing some error which states that multirom has been stopped to avoid file corruption.. On the move now will post details later if anyone wants them.

Thanks for reporting!

I forgot to edit the md5 hash when updating the manifest. sorry about that.

-Marius