Porting Ubuntu Touch (@UBPorts) to tenshi (BQ Aquaris U Plus)

Guf

A small guide for dummies (like me) to install from those resources. Start at creating a directory where to store images and all the tool (halium-install, for instance) necessary to install UT on your tenshi:

mkdir /home/guf/UT-tenshi
cd /home/guf/UT-tenshi

Get JBBgameich's halium-install script (latest version! it is now DEPRECATED my customized one). It will create a directory called halium-install.

Fetching the official rootfs

wget -c https://ci.ubports.com/job/xenial-rootfs-armhf/lastSuccessfulBuild/artifact/out/ubports-touch.rootfs-xenial-armhf.tar.gz

Please, fetch halium-boot and system.img from my repository to $PROJECT_ROOT, too

Then, let's start:
Download TWPR from the following page: https://eu.dl.twrp.me/tenshi/twrp-3.3.1-0-tenshi.img.html
Set developer mode and Unlock device: accordingly with https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/tenshi/install#
Connect your PC with tenshi using USB cable.
From Android running (once a developer and enabled USB debugging:

To reboot device to bootloader from PC terminal, run:

adb reboot bootloader

On bootloader, from terminal:

sudo fastboot devices

If it returns the serial number of your tenshi, then:

sudo fastboot oem unlock

Flashing TWPR into recovery

sudo fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.3.1-0-$DEVICE.img

Flashing halium-boot into the boot partition:

sudo fastboot flash boot halium-boot.img

sudo fastboot reboot

Stop boot process to recovery by pushing Volume up and down at the black screen menu
From within JBBgameich's halium-install directory:

./halium-install -v -p ut ../ubports-touch.rootfs-xenial-armhf.tar.gz ../system.img

Manually insert password (for phablet) when asked

If the process successfully end, you then can reboot to system from TWPR and enjoy UT on your device.

Feel free to contact me in case of doubts.

advocatux

@Guf thanks a million for your work!

Just to be clear, when you say:

Please, fetch halium-boot and system.img from my repository

Can you paste the exact links for those packages? Thanks again !!

Edit: I assume those links are these https://forums.ubports.com/post/21498 what I mean is that'd be nice if you include that info inside your how-to

Invy

Hello and thanks for the good work.
I was able to install everything without any errors as described above. Unfortunately the phone gets stuck in the boot window after flashing with halium-install.

ComLarsic

@Invy

i dont own the phone in quesion myself but i think this is normal with halium.
you have to give ubuntu touch the correct premissions.

you have to ssh or telnet into the phone and run these commands:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo -i # And enter your password
cat /var/lib/lxc/android/rootfs/ueventd*.rc|grep ^/dev|sed -e 's/^\/dev\///'|awk '{printf "ACTION==\"add\", KERNEL==\"%s\", OWNER=\"%s\", GROUP=\"%s\", MODE=\"%s\"\n",$1,$3,$4,$2}' | sed -e 's/\r//' >/usr/lib/lxc-android-config/70-[codename].rules

and change the [codename] to your devices codename, then do a reboot.

As described in the docs:
https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/running-ut.html

flohack

@Guf I tried to follow those steps but what are you doing with that if statement there:

The if statement does not work, you need blanks at the closing ] brace, otherwise bash breaks
Why you need to use an if statement there, just tell people where to move the tar file
Nandell told me the tar file is not available? Is it mandatory, how to get it?

If you want people to be able to follow that, it needs to be much clearer how to start. Also, why so many env variables? Thats confusing, just tell people which files to download from where into the same folder and then they should cd into that folder and run all commands form there.

Guf

@Flohack I updated the small guide since it used my old customized version of JBBgameich's halium-install. In the beginning, it was hard to fix ssh issues without personalized it, but now it works flawlessly.

flohack

@Guf Ok I will take a look. meanwhile, I see the post from @ComLarsic - did you not add the udev rules into the system.img? I can tell you how to do this really nicely. Also other configs, so people really only need to run halium-install and are done.

keep37

@Flohack can you post here (ideally in the porting documentation) how to add udev rules and other configs in the system.img? I also need that for Redmi 4x (santoni).

ComLarsic

@keep37

i dont own the phone in quesion myself but i think this is normal with halium.
you have to give ubuntu touch the correct premissions.

you have to ssh or telnet into the phone and run these commands:
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo -i # And enter your password
cat /var/lib/lxc/android/rootfs/ueventd*.rc|grep ^/dev|sed -e 's/^\/dev\///'|awk '{printf "ACTION==\"add\", KERNEL==\"%s\", OWNER=\"%s\", GROUP=\"%s\", MODE=\"%s\"\n",$1,$3,$4,$2}' | sed -e 's/\r//' >/usr/lib/lxc-android-config/70-[codename].rules
and change the [codename] to your devices codename, then do a reboot.

As described in the docs:
https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/running-ut.html

I posted how to do it here ^^^

keep37

@ComLarsic I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough
I was asking a way to add the results of these commands in the system.img.
I thought it would be possible (and I think it is possible) to generate udev rules on the first installation and then copy the file somewhere in the build directory and integrate it into the build system so that it ends up in the system.img file.
So no need to execute these commands after every flash.

I assume that the rules for other devices found in /usr/lib/lxc-android-config/ come from the xenial rootfs.

ComLarsic

@keep37 maybe you could mount the system.img and run the command inside of the mountpoint?

flohack

@ComLarsic No this is not the right way to do this. It works like this:

Create a folder ubuntu in your device repo
Copy all relevant config files for your port there, in my case:
ofono.override: Customizations for the ofono/RIL part
70-hammerhead.rules: udev rules
display.conf: Screen resolution settings
config-default.xml: repowerd config
Open device.mk or similar file for your port
Add a section like this:

# Ubuntu Touch
PRODUCT_COPY_FILES += \
    $(LOCAL_PATH)/ubuntu/ofono.override:system/halium/etc/init/ofono.override \
    $(LOCAL_PATH)/ubuntu/70-hammerhead.rules:system/halium/lib/udev/rules.d/70-android.rules \
    $(LOCAL_PATH)/ubuntu/display.conf:system/halium/etc/ubuntu-touch-session.d/android.conf \
    $(LOCAL_PATH)/ubuntu/config-default.xml:system/halium/usr/share/repowerd/device-configs/config-default.xml

You can also copy files into the system image if needed, firmware, startup scripts for Android init.rc - its very flexible.

Note: Keep the names for those 4 files on the right side! They are overwriting existing files in the rootfs and its absolutely necessary to keep them like this, otherwise it wont work.

You can add various files with this method. They will be dynamically mounted into the rootfs at boot time. Never touch the rootfs! It needs to stay clean for updates.

flohack

@ComLarsic you posted a developers command from the docs, but that´s not how it can be persisted correctly. Unfortunately our guide lacks a lot of informations.

ComLarsic

@Flohack ah alright, sorry if i lead to any confusion. thanks for the help

Invy

Thanks for your help!
In the meantime I was able to install UBports successfully with the new files.
UBports runs really well on the Aquaris U Plus.
After the standby, I always get the window with the selection to shutdown or restart, seems to be a bug.
The media playback also works very bad.
But otherwise I like this port very well.

Guf

@Invy Still to fix audio and videoplayback, LEDs and compatibility with anbox, I know it. I hope to fix them ASAP.
Regarding waking it up after standby, it might seems something recently introduced by some new package version, with new graphical version. Need to investigate about it, even though I doubt it is a bug.
I keep on using tenshi as daily driver and it works fine

Invy

With an anbox compatibility and without the bugs you mentioned, I would also use the phone as a daily driver. I'm available for testing or other support if I can help you with the development.

Nandel

Hi, you still work on this port? I ask, because some important things not works on my Uplus. For example, import of contacts vcf not possible on any ways. Uplus would be my preferred device. But without contacts is unusable. I hope you don't stop the work on this device.

Guf

@Nandel https://forums.ubports.com/topic/2987/import-contacts-to-ubuntu-touch
there is an example about how to import contact to UT. It worked on my device

malditobastardo

Because this port also deserves it's own place here. AFAIK it's fully usable now for daily use. @Guf could you please tell us more about the actual situation of the port?
For sure there are more people interested in knowing about this awesome device.

Thanks a lot!!