Status update on the next, Noble-based Ubuntu Touch release, February 2025

[peat_psuwit]

Status of Noble-based Ubuntu Touch (UTNext)

Since the last time I made a forum post, the following features has become usable:

• GPS
• NFC
• Phone call & SMS
  • Note that MMS is blocked until very recently. We'll have to recheck if it has been fixed or not.
• Camera, include picture and video recording.

Progress is a bit slower than we expected. But we still are progressing nicely.

For app developers: it's now possible to build & test your apps against UTNext

After a long await, you can now start attempting to rebuild your app against Noble-based UTNext. This should allow you to test whether your app has any problem with the Noble-based images, especially if the app was unable to start on them before due to shared library changes.

For now, you'll need to get a nightly build of Clickable. After that, specify ubuntu-touch-next-internal as the framework inside clickable.yaml and specify policy_version of the AppArmor profile to 9999. You may also also have to make sure your manifest.json specifies @CLICK_FRAMEWORK@ in the framework field so that the correct version is filled in automatically by Clickable (sadly a similar mechanism doesn't exist yet for AppArmor policy - see this issue). When building, you'll have to specify --accept-review-errors for now, as click-reviewer-tools has not been updated.

ubuntu-touch-next-internal is a framework which corresponds to the on-going development of UTNext. The -internal part indicates that there is no formal "contract" for this framework. In other words, we don't guarantee forward- and backward- compatibility with any past and future Ubuntu Touch versions. The framework is intended for testing only and is not intended to be published to the Open Store; you'll have to switch to the final framework when it's available.

Due to delays and ongoing discussions, we at the core team are still unable to settle on what versioning scheme and what version number we will use for the next Ubuntu Touch release, and subsequently as the final framework name. We'll have a separated post discussing this in more details and allow you to chime in. We're sorry for this; as soon as we're able to finalize this detail, we'll provide an update to you.

Update: please see a separated post for a discussion around version number: https://forums.ubports.com/post/84517

For porters: it's now possible to drop touch.pa overlay (for UTNext, at least) now possible on both UTNext and 20.04

If your port is one of the port which has to overlay /etc/pulse/touch.pa to provide additional arguments to pulseaudio-module-droid-discover or pulseaudio-modules-droid-card-<API>, it's now possible to instead provide extra arguments using an Deviceinfo property. The property is called PulseaudioModulesDroid_ExtraCardArgs [1] and accept all arguments which you may add to pulseaudio-modules-droid-card-<API>. For example, you can put this in your Deviceinfo overlay to set sampling rate of your device's audio chip:

  PulseaudioModulesDroid_ExtraCardArgs: "rate=48000"

Combined with a change which allow you not to hard-code API level, it should now be possible to drop touch.pa overlay entirely. This feature is now merged into UTNext and 20.04, so you'll be able to share your device tarball between 20.04 and UTNext.

[1]: In case you're wondering, yes, there are PulseaudioModulesDroid_ExtraGlueArgs and PulseaudioModulesDroid_ExtraHidlArgs as well. However, I believe you won't need them.

[lduboeuf]

@peat_psuwit
First test, i'm with clickable 8.2.0, got this while doing clickable build --arch=arm64 --accept-review-errors :

• security:policy_groups_exists:utzip:utzip.apparmor
  could not find policy groups
• security:policy_version_exists:utzip.apparmor
  could not find policy for ubuntu/9999.0
• security:policy_version_matches_framework:utzip.apparmor
  Invalid framework 'ubuntu-touch-next-internal'

I have checked the docker image, i'm on 24.04.
click-armor and ubuntu-sdk-libs seems old:
click-apparmor 0.5.1~20241107093457.7~2d4aff7+ubports~dev
ubuntu-sdk-libs 24.9+17+0~20250103234741.19+ubports~dev~1.gbp061821

[peat_psuwit]

@lduboeuf See https://gitlab.com/clickable/clickable-docker-images/-/merge_requests/150

[lduboeuf]

@peat_psuwit said in Status update on the next, Noble-based Ubuntu Touch release, February 2025:

@lduboeuf See https://gitlab.com/clickable/clickable-docker-images/-/merge_requests/150

Now the framework is fixed
But still have:

security:policy_version_exists:utzip.apparmor
could not find policy for ubuntu/9999.0

my apparmor file:

{
    "policy_groups": ["content_exchange", "content_exchange_source"],
    "policy_version": 9999
}

[nunesfl]

Hello @peat_psuwit
I have a Xiomi Redimi Note 9 Pro, trying to update to 24.04 in order to test it... it works pretty well on 20.04...
But every attempt I do, the installation stucks in the recovery screen with a message 'Error installing Ubuntu update, exit code: 256', it says to see the log but no log is generated...
Would you have any clue why I may be receiving that error message ?
Thanks,

[Lakotaubp]

@nunesfl You have already asked this question here and have an answer https://forums.ubports.com/topic/10423/noble-based-devel-images-now-available-on-most-devices-with-20-04-devel-image/29 Please do not post the same same question in two places it is confusing and the answer does not change.

[nunesfl]

Sorry @Lakotaubp I thought I did not send the other post replay... I will pay attention to that...
Would you help me with this question ?

[Vlad Nirky]

@nunesfl
I have answered on the other post.

[Vlad Nirky]

Hello.
I'm testing the 24.04 and i'd like to know where I can give feedbacks (here?)
Regards.

As you will probably have noticed, English is not my main language.
Sorry in advance for any language errors

[Vlad Nirky]

@lduboeuf
Hello Lionel.
Could you, in some words, explain what you have done with this info?
I'm landing in gitlab with the next change but how could i use it?
Sorry for this beginner question...

[lduboeuf]

@Vlad-Nirky said in Status update on the next, Noble-based Ubuntu Touch release, February 2025:

@lduboeuf
Hello Lionel.
Could you, in some words, explain what you have done with this info?
I'm landing in gitlab with the next change but how could i use it?
Sorry for this beginner question...

humm, i've just followed the instruction from Ratchanan ?.
Haven't tried again since...

[Vlad Nirky]

@lduboeuf
And how have you fixed 'ubuntu-touch-next' is not a supported framework ?

[lduboeuf]

@Vlad-Nirky said in Status update on the next, Noble-based Ubuntu Touch release, February 2025:

@lduboeuf
And how have you fixed 'ubuntu-touch-next' is not a supported framework ?

just updated the docker images via clickable update-image or image-update, i don't remember well

[Vlad Nirky]

@lduboeuf
Thank you Lionel.
It build the click and as the apparmor is not verified, with clickable install it push the click on the phone and the app (pure QML) is running.

[Vlad Nirky]

@Vlad-Nirky
Great to have Proxmox for those tests.

[Vlad Nirky]

@peat_psuwit
Good evening.
On the Redmi note 9 pro, several of us have installed noble and are experiencing a problem with the camera.
I was wondering if it's specific to this model or if the malfunction is general?
Regards.

[arubislander]

@Vlad-Nirky The camera doesn't currently work in the Pixel 3a either.

[Vlad Nirky]

@arubislander
Thanks for the answer!
Have you tried texting with the phone?
On mine, it doesn't work via messages but well on the command line via ofono.

[arubislander]

@Vlad-Nirky I don't use SMS, so I haven't tried it

[Vlad Nirky]

@arubislander
No problem. Thank you.