Desperate guy Here
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Hi guys, I'm desperate. 8 months ago I bought a Volla22 phone with Ubuntu Touch as the OS. I liked the idea of having a daily phone with Linux since I use Linux Mint for work. However, using Ubuntu, I see that the appstore is sparse and there are practically no apps for Ubuntu Touch. What I use is the minimum, WhatsApp and Telegram, yet the apps on the store don't work, and WhatsApp and Telegram web are unusable on the phone. So I asked the Volla Help desk for help, and they sent me a guide to install VollaOS, but the guide doesn't work, it's not very clear and defined and often in practice things go differently.
Now, after two months of searching the web to get Volla OS on my phone, I've learned that Volla OS isn't all that great, and that many Volla OS users would like to switch to Ubuntu. If I had a magic wand, I'd keep Ubuntu, but the two apps I'm interested in aren't there. Furthermore, the Ubuntu Touch package manager doesn't seem to work like a normal Linux distribution in the terminal. Am I missing something? If I wanted to keep Ubuntu Touch, how could I get WhatsApp, Telegram, and a PDF reader?
Thanks everyone.
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Let's see. For Telegram, we have a decent native solution called TELEports.
For WhatsApp, WhatsWeb has recently been updated and it's now getting good reviews, so maybe it's time to try again? Alternatively, I hear some folks use a Matrix bridge to use the Matrix app Cinny for WhatsApp.
For PDFs, Document Viewer does the job for me but maybe you prefer Annotate or Sturm Reader.I hope this is helpful!
Furthermore, the Ubuntu Touch package manager doesn't seem to work like a normal Linux distribution in the terminal.
Well, yeah, it's not another Linux distro. Please don't try to use apt, you'll probably break something.
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As an addition to TELEports and Whatsweb, did you try as well to install Waydroid in Ubuntu touch? Native Whatsweb and TelePorts app for Ubuntu touch should do the trick for most day-to-day needs, and offer notifications. But having a fallback to official Whatsapp and Telegram in Waydroid may be usefull as a complementary solution, if you need some advanced features at some point.
In addition to those already mentioned, uWolf can be another solution for modern pdf reading, although if it's a local file you currently need to enter this url manually "file:///home/phablet" then browse to your file on disk. You can bookmark the url or even set it as homepage if you don't use uWolf for browsing. Hopefully in the future we will be able to directly open file with uWolf from file explorer app with content hub.
Make sure to keep your system and applications up-to-date as things are rapidly moving forward.
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@Moem uao such a rapid response ! The community is alive. So whatsweb is whatsapp? I look at the topic u linked and is a new thing of 4 days ago !! Maybe post here is going to reveal a real good idea.
When i turn back home from office a try fo sure.Speaking about the use of apt packet manager , yesterday night, After waydroid as finish the installation progress , maybe for my abit with Linux, but i launch "sudo apt update" and 3 error pop-up ( maybe when i home i post the pic , or i open another topic idk what is the politic here about offtopic Red line) . I will try the whatsweb and the other alternative for telegram, my alternative is waydroid if i can use it.
Thanks for the quick response !!
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@pparent hi try waydroid , but pushing the icon it start to load and after that nothing .
So i try from the terminal , but after i try with the command " sudo waydroid container start and waydroid session start". it gives me an error ( it also suggest to look the file log) .
I think that i broke the os with the sudo apt update , there is a way to hard reset the phone i guess , and after that i stick to install whatsweb and teleport. What u guys think about that ?
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@XPran said in Desperate guy Here:
there is a way to hard reset the phone i guess
Best would be to reinstall using UBports installer but NOT ticking the erase user data box.
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Apt update should not have harmed anything especially if you did not remount the filesystem in read/write before.
Did you install Waydroid helper from openstore? Did you go in the helper and follow the install waydroid process?
What version of Ubuntu Touch are you currently running ( you can see that in settings)? If you are still running 20.04, maybe you can try to ubpgrade to 24.04 before anything else.
I have a vollaphone 22 , waydroid has always worked fine for me.
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There is a proper way to install waydroid for Vollaphone ? I follow a video on youtube but it doesn end well
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Yes go to the openstore, download the app "Waydroid Helper" (You can also download there whatsweb and TELEports) , then open it and click on "Install Waydroid" and normally it should work fine after that. You should not need to run any terminal command.
If it does not work you can also try to uninstall and install again from the waydroid helper app, and if really it did not work, and also reboot the phone and/or upgrade Ubuntu Touche it if applicable.
Then you can install within the Waydroid container the official APK of whatsapp that you can find on their website.
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@XPran This is the video that you should follow:
