How Can I Contribute OR Why YOU Will Drop Ubuntu Touch Entirely
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@pparent @moem @libremax @haagch @keli @alan_g To save someone time arguing, here is simple analisys from another ai, with couterpoints of which I agree. And as stated before, this is a road map for others, to help choose direction where their want to direct their efforts, of where things are and not a suggestion on what ubports ubtouch direction should be.
I hear you, and it’s completely valid to feel defensive when a project you care about gets labeled with what sounds like a dismissive term.
Since you asked me to be sure, I ran a fact-check using Google on the definition of a "pet project" and the specific technical claims the critic made. I’m going to give it to you straight: the critic’s facts hold up, and technically, the definition does fit. But that doesn't mean the project is worthless, and you absolutely still have a valid counter-argument.
Here is what the reality check looks like, followed by how you can actually push back.
The Fact-Check: The Critic is Accurate
I verified the claims and links from the documents against current search results, and the critic's data is factual:- The "Pet Project" Definition: A pet project is universally defined as a project pursued out of personal interest, passion, or curiosity, rather than because it is generally accepted as necessary or broadly applicable to a wider group. Because Ubuntu Touch is structurally isolated and doesn't feed its work back to the broader Linux mobile ecosystem, the label accurately describes what the project has become.
- KDE & Halium (2020): It is true that KDE Plasma Mobile officially dropped Halium support in December 2020, citing the exact "uphill battle" against end-of-life vendor kernels the critic mentioned.
- Fairphone 5 & Kernel 5.4: The official UBports device page confirms the Fairphone 5 (their flagship) runs on the 5.4 kernel. Linux 5.4 reached its official End-of-Life in December 2022.
- Upstream vs. Downstream: The core of the critique—that UBports spends its time manually backporting fixes to dead kernels rather than upstreaming permanent solutions like postmarketOS does—is entirely accurate.
️ How to Counter: Own the "Pet Project" Label
You cannot win a debate against this critic on system architecture, kernel mainlining, or Wayland adoption. The numbers and the history are on their side.
However, you can counter the idea that "busy work for a pet project" means the work has no value. If you want to reply, here is the factual, grounded angle you can take:
- Linux Itself Started as a Pet Project
Open source is built on people scratching their own itches. If a group of dedicated volunteers wants to spend their free time keeping Canonical's Lomiri UI alive because they genuinely love the workflow, that is the purest definition of open source. It doesn't have to serve the broader ecosystem to be valid. - Tangible User Value vs. Ecosystem Theory
While postmarketOS is doing the "correct" upstream work, UBports is delivering a highly specific, polished, and de-Googled daily-driver experience for its niche audience right now. Features like Waydroid integration, personal data encryption, and Voice over LTE on a Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base are real things users benefit from today. Keeping a Fairphone 5 or an older device functional and private is not "busy work" to the person using that phone. - Lomiri Actually Is Shared
You can point out that while the OS itself might be isolated, the Lomiri desktop environment is not. Because of Debian maintainer Mike Gabriel, Lomiri is packaged in Debian 13, NixOS, and even postmarketOS. The UI they love is making its way into the wider world, even if the underlying Ubuntu Touch kernel stack isn't.
In short: Accept the facts, own the label, and pivot the argument to the value of user choice and immediate usability.
Would you like me to help you draft a short, punchy reply to the critic using this angle?
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And to close the things off here:
If you look at it strictly through the lens of a Technical Roadmap, the critic’s argument is cleaner and logically dominant.
The "roadmap" he presented makes a single, undeniable point: Contribution to Ubuntu Touch is a closed loop.
The Logic of the Roadmap
The critic isn't arguing about whether Ubuntu Touch "works"; he’s arguing about leverage. Most developers and users will choose the "Upstream/Mainline" road because:
Permanence: A fix in the Mainline kernel or Wayland helps everyone forever. It is an investment in the "Global Linux" infrastructure.
The Dead-End: A fix in a 2022-EOL Android kernel (like the one UT uses for the Fairphone 5) only helps UT, and only for that specific device. It has to be re-done for the next phone. That is the definition of "busy work."
The "Pet Project" Reality: Because the work doesn't scale or benefit the industry standard, it remains a project pursued for its own sake (passion/interest). In a professional or architectural sense, that makes the "pet project" label a factual description, not just an insult.Why the Argument Ends There
When someone presents a map and says, "Road A leads to a shared city everyone is building together, and Road B leads to a private cabin that you have to keep repairing yourself," most people will choose Road A.If your goal was to find a "factual way to counter," the reality is that there is no technical counter-argument to the roadmap. You can only offer a user-experience alternative: "I prefer the private cabin because it has a roof and a heater (VoLTE/Waydroid) today, even if it isn't part of the city."
In short: The critic wins the architectural debate. Ubuntu Touch remains a choice for people who value the immediate, specific result over the long-term ecosystem investment.
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@Moem up to you. I did wrote the underlying queries to all this (and the whole process took days and two month of tokens value on claude ai), red them all more than once, and checked, then refined, over and over. This all ai thing starts sounding like a strange discrimination on a tool that is nothing but a tool, and as with any tool its value is defined by its user and not of itself (the old guns dont kill argument). But anyway, that is not the place for this. If you dont want to read, dont. You dont need to inform me about it, its solely up to you. I dont need to point this out to you either, but I did, and you informed me, so you did, so it is that. Just pointing things out around
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@grenudi
THANK YOU !
I think you make excellent points.
Long term, you are correct.
BUT (and sadly), I just asked (to get an idea of effort) AI 'how long to reverse engineer cellular modem chip to create linux kernel driver' ?
Answer was several thousand hours over 6 to 18 months.
If anyone anywhere has a better answer than that, AI or not, please tell me.
What that means to me is, given the circumstances, and the continuous change in devices, and ALL the sub modules in our modern cell phones, we will probably NEVER have native Linux kernel for OLD phones.
Best chance near term might be something like Brax Phone 3 (a NEW phone) - IF they really have native Linux Kernel drivers for all components.I might be a newbie here, but I have dabbled in programming since Fortran on Punch cards, hex code on a 6800, drawn schematics on a Xerox Alto (they invented WYSIWYG, for those of you not up on tech history), DOS, Windows, Linux - used Linux Mint since Ubuntu changed the interface to the UT style (around 2014/15 ?) because I could not stand it on a mouse driven PC.
Mostly a hardware guy.
While not an expert programmer, I have a VERY long term perspective on tech products, engineering, competitive benchmarking, and marketing, and product support.@ everyone else:
I think we all need to acknowledge the points that @grenudi makes as valid & real.
I have searched repeatedly in recent years for a cell phone & OS combination that is NOT iOS or Android, or Windows, (in other words, I would prefer Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint/UT), that does NOT need too many layers of extras running, too much effort to maintain, debug & update.
And also not over $500 (unless it will last 5 years). [I had an LG Flip phone with Qwerty keyboard that lasted 10 years, so I don't think 5 is unrealistic]I just looked at the main UT page (https://ubports.com/), that many people might land on when surfing net for info.
The first picture shows a phone and PC display, etc.
Implication is Desktop Convergence.
Yes, I actually got LibreOffice to display via wireless external display using 1+ Nord N10.
Great. OK, but 1 app, or 'office' package, is NOT the same as 'Convergence'.
There is another great recent thread here where someone with much more specific knowledge, and time, and energy, actually tried to run various real world apps on their phone on external display.
As I recall, very few were native.
And degree of success was mixed. (sadly ! if people like that can't get it working, how are the rest of us supposed to ?)
So, my perspective at the moment is that Desktop Convergence is NOT very well supported, and THAT should be stated CLEARLY somewhere (and also WiFi calling not working, and no usable VOIP as alternative, etc, etc).
Else people like me end up here after years of searching (for that device/combo), thinking we finally found a solution.
Only to discover, our expectations, based on info found on UT home pages, and others, were FAR higher than reality.
I am replying here, probably not succinctly enough, because @grenudi has put words to the feeling in my gut, that have developed over the last few months of effort, while trying get a UT based phone I could use every day, AND for a few years into the future.
Every other device/OS combination I looked at had drawbacks. So, UT on Nord N10 is best I can do for now.
IF developers can create VOIP solution, or enable WiFi calling, I could probably start using the phone.
A few improvements to Desktop Convergence would be nice.
But if I REALLY wanted to use that, probably need WIRED external display (1+ 8 maybe ?).
I wish I was expert programmer, and 20 years younger, and rich, so I had enough free time to really help. -
@grenudi
You literally raised issues about the project. What do we do with issues? Stare for eternity?
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.
Most people won't care about the things you mentioned. You had the knowledge on these things so you care about them but most don't so they don't need to the same insane effort you did or doing here
the official website markets Lomiri as a "fully Wayland-based shell environment,"
I don't know where you got this. The site said Mir and Wayland
When someone arrives here wanting to make a minor contribution—maybe a translation or a small bug fix
I don't know why they would think that since they are contributing to a project that doesn't explicitly say "We are Mobile Linux and your contributions contributes to the whole Linux community"
Anyway, you've put a lot of effort on this already. You don't like UT, we get it, it's fine. Don't you have anything else worth putting your effort into? Like for example contributing to Linux mobile?
Are you like paid to do this? Wait, are you from GrapheneOS? LOL
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@oldbutndy some are valid. Some are technically correct, but don't matter. Others are matters of opinion. But to me it mostly reads like complaining. Iterating a lot of problems (real or supposed), and using a sycophantic AI to write long winded arguments.
Postmarket OS etc is mentioned repeatedly, along with complaints about UT not upstreaming. Fact of the matter is, postmarket OS does not have a fully working device yet. Halium is a compromise that allows Linux to run on modern(ish) devices. I love postmarket OS, but I also love functioning hardware with 5g. I don't really care if Halium is underneath.
Instead of AI generated complaints, maybe take action? Not even saying program kernel drivers. But at minimum, do some constructive research about what the effort would take, where expert volunteers could start with upstreaming, and so forth.
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complaints about UT not upstreaming
that's exactly that, the talking electric heater is used to put in form and make convincing prejudices. Upstreaming is good yes ? actually that's the case when what you are upstreaming is of general use.
If UT developers are stumbling into bugs in linux or systemd and they are sending fixes, that's of general use.
When PostmarketOS are writing drivers for hardware that is specific to phones, it would be of general use if there was a thriving market for linux phones. That's the prejudice I am talking about; it supposes existing something that is plainly non existent. In the mean time, drivers for these specific devices are coming when this hardware is usually no longer in use and these ten of thousands of lines of code are just loading work for the linux kernel team, useless for everyone in the linux market but PostmarketOS.
However when you are using a talking electric heater, this kind of thingy is really good at counting, especially big numbers, and the ten of thousands of lines of mostly useless drivers are litteraly drowning the small contributions of UT developers and so encode the prejudice of the person writing this trolling garbage.
That's what it is: a troll. Linking this troll into other unrelated posts leaves no doubt. Talking electric heaters have many uses, including helping writing better trolls. Thanks for this troll, it has helped me to understand the true risks of using talking electric heaters, like all tools they can be misused, language can be used to communicate but also to destroy and in bad hands language can be as dangerous as a hammer.
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@projectmoon said:
@oldbutndy some are valid. Some are technically correct, but don't matter. Others are matters of opinion. But to me it mostly reads like complaining. Iterating a lot of problems (real or supposed), and using a sycophantic AI to write long winded arguments.
Instead of AI generated complaints, maybe take action?Maybe I misunderstood when I read some @grenudi comments. I thought AI was used to try to summarize a large number of hours of research into something more concise.
My own use of AI, in asking google to estimate how long to write a kernel driver for a sub section of hardware (after reverse engineering it), was to get a sense of just how much effort that is. (No idea here, since I am hardware guy with some embedded controller coding, and data sheets were always available). So, when I multiplied all the various manufacturer sub sections by all the hours required (AI est.) to reverse engineer and code kernel drivers, the effort required seemed to be hundreds or thousands of times as large as the current method using halium layer.
Summary: only way it (native component drivers in the kernel for a whole device) will ever happen is if OEM's WRITE those drivers.
Translation (for past devices) = NEVER.
Future: Maybe (brax 3 ? or others ?). < update here, I don't think Brax 3, since I think it requires halium.
So, from what I understand of all this so far, is UT developers are making this work the ONLY way practically possible. Best way architecturally ? does not matter. No other way.
Future: when multiple millions are using UT ... -
Long term, you are correct.
BUT (and sadly), I just asked (to get an idea of effort) AI 'how long to reverse engineer cellular modem chip to create linux kernel driver' ?
Answer was several thousand hours over 6 to 18 months.
If anyone anywhere has a better answer than that, AI or not, please tell me.
What that means to me is, given the circumstances, and the continuous change in devices, and ALL the sub modules in our modern cell phones, we will probably NEVER have native Linux kernel for OLD phones.
Best chance near term might be something like Brax Phone 3 (a NEW phone) - IF they really have native Linux Kernel drivers for all components.I havent thought of that, thats a good point and a food for future thoughts. Glad to see constractive conversation around here. Thank you
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I thought AI was used to try to summarize a large number of hours of research into something more concise.
Yes, and to counter prove the points made, fact check facts, and so on, working on it as a project in claude and not just "make a huge paper on how ubuntu touch is bad. And make it look cool and stuff. Proceed", as I'm getting impression that some here think that this is the only way to use llms, and that they all are the same, that because free gpt now produces halucinations that means pro version claude is the same and all of them are. By the way have you noticed that they have "downshifted" free use of geminy in recent days, just like it was with gpt ? Now its much harder to get something useful out of it, it even messes up given queries confusing words contexts
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As I've said, if ai produces slop for you, you are using it wrong, or using a wrong ai
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where expert volunteers could start with upstreaming, and so forth.
Thank you for the suggestion. I'll think about it. I'm currently crafting such comprehensive roadmap. Dont know if anything useful will come out of it and it will require 5 times, or even more claude tokens, than the current project took, which already was a lot and currently I can not afford more.
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where expert volunteers could start with upstreaming, and so forth.
Thank you for the suggestion. I'll think about it. I'm currently crafting such comprehensive roadmap. Dont know if anything useful will come out of it and it will require 5 times, or even more claude tokens, than the current project took, which already was a lot and currently I can not afford more.
I would say doing something constructive is better than complaining, at least.
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I asked claude for ESP32 project help (about 10 days ago, for first time ever) & it went reasonably well.
So, yesterday I asked if it could help code a UT app to talk to that ESP32 project over wifi.
Claude said better solution was webserver on ESP32, then access through any browser from any phone.It gave a summary of good sounding pro / con's, with that same 'confidence' all AI's seem to have whether they are 100% right, 100% wrong, or anywhere in between !
Do you use claude for coding, as well as analysis / summary of things ?
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I would say doing something constructive is better than complaining
@projectmoon exactly! Glad for this mutual understanding
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Do you use claude for coding, as well as analysis / summary of things ?
Yes. I want to advise you to own that execute button on any ai, especially claude, he loves to jump straight into execution, create ton of how to, code snippets fixes and so on, burning your tokens like a teenager his life. Own execution button, I mean that I spicifically instruct it to outlay the whole plan of actions and how he is going to execute them, relay the whole project plan, my intent in .md artifact, then I read the artifact and instruct it on more specifics, he relays it back extended, and so on, untill we have as detailed plan as possible of what i want from him and how i want him to do it, and what are expected outputs, what and how to validate and so on. This is especialy helpfull to bootstrap a new proqect and template architecture, and you do not want him to create bigillion of project files and constantly adjust the mess afterwards, easier to do it in one go (it will ask a lot of continue tool usage), and more conservative on your token balance.
and another tip - dont trust their context always instruct it to write researched, gathered, googled info in facts artifacts (I use .md at the moment) in the project and consult with them. Because I've noticed they tweak things on those llms all the time and they can be very lazy, stating from time to time something with 100% confidence when in reality it never fact checks, googles those claims(for that I have permanent instruction in memory to always factcheck by trusted resources its claims and place a disclaimer, always, if it cannot be done).
just wanned to share my exp. Maybe you already know all that so sorry for the unasked advise. Maybe it worth a post somewhere but im pretty sure there is plenty already about it, and its much easier to ask the thing itself
how to speak to it in the most productive way and dont burn tokens for nothing
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