Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14

gdegrez · 22 Nov 2020, 08:41

Hello,

This is a kind of follow-up on the same subject on OTA-12.
I've tried (successfully) to install Firefox and Frescobaldi yesderday, but neither works properly. Frescobaldi launches and then quits, Firefox issues an error message like " the tab crashed, click on restore the tab to reload the page".
Looks like there is still a long way to go before achieving true convergence. Any report of (really) successful Desktop app installation on OTA-14?

Gérard

kugiigi · 22 Nov 2020, 12:15

@gdegrez I won't be good until all devices switched to wayland and xwayland. Xmir is unmaintained and wasn't in good condition in the first place. Also, rebasing to 20.04 would also help to get newer versions of apps.

Also, running desktop apps per se isn't part of convergence, it will only make sense if they are also usable of smaller screens which most of them are not and that's why they are called legacy apps in libertine. Good thing is that because of the Pinephone and LIbrem 5 and such, there are now efforts to make some desktop apps be convergent

gdegrez · 22 Nov 2020, 14:21

@kugiigi said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

Also, running desktop apps per se isn't part of convergence, it will only make sense if they are also usable of smaller screens which most of them are not and that's why they are called legacy apps in libertine. Good thing is that because of the Pinephone and LIbrem 5 and such, there are now efforts to make some desktop apps be convergent

Well, I guess there's a difference to make between smartphones and tablets. I'm running UBtouch on an Aquaris M10 and I'd love to be able to use it both as a tablet and a small desktop computer (with a BT keyboard and mouse). I look forward to the new developments you mention which will eventually make this possible.

flohack · 23 Nov 2020, 17:17

Convergence is not "running desktop apps on a phone". For us its mainly a task to create Apps that behave well on devices of various size and capabilities.

Firefox is in no way optimized to run in UT, and Libertine is kind of a bridging the gap, but still has a lot of chances to break. You will run into a lot of usability issues, also exchanging data between other apps outside Libertine may not work.

gdegrez · 24 Nov 2020, 09:32

@Flohack said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

Converges is not "running desktop apps on a phone". For us its mainly a task to create Apps that behave well on devices of various size and capabilities.

Firefox is in no way optimized to run in UT, and Libertine is kind of a bridging the gap, but still has a lot of chances to break. You will run into a lot of usability issues, also exchanging data between other apps outside Libertine may not work.

Well, I guess I misunderstood the statement on ubuntu-touch.io under the heading Convergence: " Imagine linking your mobile device to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and having it instantly transformed into a desktop experience. With Ubuntu Touch you only need one device. "

I've long resisted purchasing a tablet because I hate the iOS and Android operating systems which do not allow to do anything serious on those machines. I finally purchased a (2nd hand) Aquaris M10 FHD to install UBTouch on it, hoping that I would be able to do more. I am a musician, I would like to be able to engrave my scores (using Frescobaldi/Lilypond or Musescore), install the tablet on a stand with the resulting pdf (with the possibility of annotating it) and connect it to a BT pedal to turn the pages as I am playing using a single device.
With iOS and Android, I can do the second part, but I need a desktop or laptop running a decent OS for the engraving part.

I understand it's not an easy job to make this possible (Microsoft failed with Windows 8 and the Metro interface), but I still look forward to the fact that it will be possible some day.

PS1: I tried to install Firefox because I cannot connect to my google account (shame on me) with the Morph browser and there's no alternative browser.
PS2: As they don't work, I would like to uninstall Firefox and Frescobaldi/Lilypond. How to do that properly is unclear to me.
Any help would be appreciated.
PS3: I installed the application in a container of my own. The system however came with a built-in (puritine) container in which several apps (such as libreoffice) are supposedly installed. But I don't know how to launch them (and even whether they can be launched at all): ubuntu-app-launch-appids does not show them at all.

gdegrez · 24 Nov 2020, 09:42

@gdegrez said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

PS2: As they don't work, I would like to uninstall Firefox and Frescobaldi/Lilypond. How to do that properly is unclear to me.
Any help would be appreciated.

Got this one from http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/dailyuse/libertine.html

doniks · 25 Nov 2020, 07:09

@gdegrez said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

@gdegrez said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

PS2: As they don't work, I would like to uninstall Firefox and Frescobaldi/Lilypond. How to do that properly is unclear to me.
Any help would be appreciated.

Got this one from http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/dailyuse/libertine.html

That also solves "PS3", right?!

gdegrez · 25 Nov 2020, 09:19

@doniks said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

That also solves "PS3", right?!

Well, I'm not fully sure. As ubuntu-app-launch-appids does not show them at all, I guess they are not installed (despite what is mentioned in the system parameters). Actually, the .cache/libertine-container/puritine appears to be empty, rootfs is just a soft link to an inexisting directory, which supports my guess. Right?

doniks · 25 Nov 2020, 09:45

@gdegrez Ah, right. I didn't read it carefully enough. Tbh, I only have second hand knowledge about puritine. I understand it was a prerolled, read only container that Canonical shipped. My guess is: It's probably best to not care too much about that anymore. UBports has made lots of updates to repositories, so you're probably better off today with a self created libertine container anyway. I don't think puritine ever offered any unique advantage over a self created container, other than sparing you the creation

gdegrez · 25 Nov 2020, 10:34

@doniks said in Libertine and Desktop apps in OTA-14:

@gdegrez Ah, right. I didn't read it carefully enough. Tbh, I only have second hand knowledge about puritine. I understand it was a prerolled, read only container that Canonical shipped. My guess is: It's probably best to not care too much about that anymore. UBports has made lots of updates to repositories, so you're probably better off today with a self created libertine container anyway. I don't think puritine ever offered any unique advantage over a self created container, other than sparing you the creation

Thanks. Yes, that works but, unfortunately, many desktop apps don't work under Libertine (in my recent limited experience, firefox, frescobaldi, musescore)
Hope that future developments will bring a solution. But the fact that the only supported tablet is the BQ Aquaris M10 (no more recent device using wayland) worries me a bit...