Aquaris as Core Device

GIEMME · 12 Jun 2017, 08:37

Hi,
referring to the current statistics of ubports, the most widely used device is the aquaris E4.5 (about 27%) which sums up to 11% of the "twin" acquaris E5 reach about 38%.
It would be useful in my opinion that the two devices were included (at least now) in the "Core Devices".
This is why it's bizarre that the main platform is not considered "core".

IMHO

GM

wgarcia · 6 Dec 2017, 14:34

@GIEMME Hi, as I understand they are not core devices because the Android base system, that is all the drivers that allow us to access their hardware, are closed source, and therefore we are stuck with the 15.04 base and kernel that these devices originally provided.

nikhilbhalwankar · 12 Jun 2017, 13:55

@wgarcia thanks for clarification. I was having same question

flohack · 12 Jun 2017, 18:25

its a shame, true, but on the other hand, those 2 devices are not the greatest. I have E5 as daily, and N5 for playing, and I must say N5 is much more powerful when it comes to CPU and RAM. Those devices were ment to be developer phones, not daily drivers, so they should be cheaper, and probably would have been used mainly for stationery App testing etc.

BR

mike · 6 Dec 2017, 21:34

@GIEMME
yea... my bq5hd...gone...as daily device. i bought from my last money a nexus5 for daily use..and my bq5hd is now my shiny no sim-card
'breaking-images-with-apt-get-fetish-test-mobile-phone-and-flash-it-again-device .

UKPhil · 13 Jun 2017, 02:15

I too have a bq E5 and found it hard to use as a daily phone, I had to return back to my Samsung S5. For me it was not the OS, it was more the hardware, or so I believe. I do think however, these should be on the core list as they were the original ones that came with Touch.

ZeroPointEnergy · 13 Jun 2017, 15:24

@wgarcia I think they are even open source or am I missing something? https://github.com/bq/aquaris-E5 because Linux is under the GPL and not publishing the drivers while selling the binaries would be a violation of the license terms.

I'm not sure if this is true for all the devices and all the drivers. Maybe they have a way around that like nvidia. Does anyone know more about this?

But I think even with the sources it would be a lot of work to adapt the drivers to a newer kernel version. It is a shame that all this is not just committed upstream so that newer versions of the kernel would automatically support the device like it is the case with PC hardware.

wgarcia · 13 Jun 2017, 16:27

@ZeroPointEnergy The uBports developers can explain it better, but if the Bq phones are not core devices as I understand it is because there is no way of moving them to the kernel that 16.04 has, because there is no open Android base for those devices with that kernel. They are very limited in hardware, but if there was a CM or Lineagos with that kernel for these devices, they could still be moved on.

marcokarlo · 15 Jun 2017, 14:47

Hi,
since a young developer provided a Lineage OS 13.0 version for BQ Aquarius E4.5 maybe one could use this as a base to get a newer kernel?
I am not exactly sure what kernel version and what else is needed to get 16.04 working on Krillin but any insight in the requirements for porting to 16.04 would be heartily appreciated.

Here is the link to the Lineage OS porting guide:
http://www.cyanogenmods.org/forums/topic/lineage-os-13-aquaris-e4-5-krillin-marshmallow-rom/
Here are the links to the Github repository of the developer:
https://github.com/Pablito2020/android_kernel_bq_krillin
https://github.com/Pablito2020/android_device_bq_krillin

I am currently switching my Krillin from the Canonical to the UBPorts image, but if it helps I can also try out the LineageOS version.