Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04

AppLee

@cliffcoggin
I see your POV.
In this case your best bet is the list given by Dalton.
But the phone you're currently using might be saved but at the moment it cannot be said because unless trying to port it to 20.04 there is no know criteria to say if it will be easy or not to maintain this phone.

As for @domubpkm comment, this is also a good question.
And IMHO a better one than asking for a list of devices.
Maybe it can be asked on the next Q&A.

I don't know the effort required to maintain those.
I bet clicks can be available for some time like it was before 16.04 on the open-store
And reinstalling old release is a matter of disk space as far as I can tell, ... so maybe.

MrT10001

@applee I agree with what you say, but there is a larger base of phone and tablet users than PC's now, just looking at sales from DELL and HP will tell you that. I remember struggling back on Ubuntu 8.04 and early versions of Puppy compiling wireless drivers whilst having Windows crammed down our throats as the best thing ever, and more recent with Broadcomm drivers. Now a lot of stuff due to what has gone on in the past, private enterprise and some manufacturers, PC support has improved massively.
The same should be happening with mobile devices, but alas manufacturers won't do it unless there is Government intervention to force the initiative of longer device life span , so you end up with Pine and Volla trying to compete in a saturated market that is governed by two companies, Apple and Google. Microsoft were late to the table and look what has happened there.
The reason why I say computers are standard as such, is I can take my old Intel P4Q6600 setup and install Linux or Windows 10 on it and it works. I can install Linux on an old Intel Macbook, it works.
I know tablets and phones are different to a PC or notebook, experience and coming here and reading up on porting has told me that. I do not want to see UT go the way of the Windows phone or be forgotten about and become extinct. I will support it to the best of my ability.

Moem

@mrt10001 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

I do not want to see UT go the way of the Windows phone or be forgotten about and become extinct. I will support it to the best of my ability.

Quoted for truth and for displaying a great mentality.

Josele13

@spctrl Keeping such old devices is a waste of time and money. A Bq will not give you the satisfaction of use of a Pixel 3a, Xiaomi , Fairphone , Oppo or a Vollaphone, change mobile ,use it with the latest Ut features and keep that jewel, be proud to have the first mobile with Ubuntu touch, mine is already dead.

Regards...

Moem

@josele13 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

Keeping such old devices is a waste of time and money.

Time... okay, I can see that. But money? How so?

Personally I feel that it's fine to waste time, as long as the time your waste is yours to waste.

mardy

I've had a similar discussion with Dalton in Telegram, because I'm working on the FM radio service and getting it to work on the BQ devices requires a new kernel for them, and this led to a discussion about what we can do for them.

I'm certainly willing to spend some of my time to keep these devices up, but that might not be enough: from the UBports Foundation point of view, supporting a device means (and here I might even not be aware of all the implications!) having all the CI machinery to generate the images for the updates, not to mention the time spent by humans for bug triaging.

I guess that if we could reduce the involvement of the UBports Foundation to "just" produce a unified armhf rootfs for all these devices, that would be much easier for them, and we could probably expect a relatively high level of quality. But that means that the device maintainer would have to take care of producing the OTA images and diffs, and provide storage for them. GitLab CI can certainly help, but it's clear that the amount of work that would fall on the shoulders of the device maintainer (at least initially) is huge.

Do we have a team of volunteers, who do understand enough of the OTA machinery to setup a similar project, which might or might not be hosted by the UBports Foundation? I'm certainly willing to help, but it's not something I can drive myself. And I don't think we should ask anyone who's actively working in the Foundation to spend time on this.

If we manage to form a group, and find someone willing (and capable) of leading the project, then there's some hope. Otherwise, well, I guess these devices will have to live with Xenial for how long they can.

Josele13

@moem The Bq and other older phones will not support the features of ubuntu 20.04, you will pay a developer to adjust the kernel ... then it will not work half of the apps and not to call, it has no VOLTE,

You have spent the money..

Moem

@josele13 Ah, you mean 'to keep the device supported', not just 'to keep the device (and eventually use it in its unsupported state)'.
Thank you for making that clear.

nero355

@spctrl said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

In the last Q&A Dalton gave a list of devices that will be supported with UT based on Ubuntu 20.04[1]. Unsurprisingly, the BQ4.5 isn't in that list.

I think all BQ devices will become EOL and that's is just fine, but what about the rest ?!

I think the development team has done a great job giving us a supported and well working 7 year old device. I for one thank them for that.

+1

But now that this support will most probably end, the question is : What now?

Well, I thought the following would be possible :

Keep using the 16.04 LTS release without OS updates/upgrades.
Keep using the apps that will still work with the 16.04 LTS as long as they do...

Basically what I am doing with my current Android based ZUK Z2 Pro phone

On the one hand I want to keep using UT because I really like it. On the other hand, I don't want my phone to be left in a drawer somewhere collecting dust, so what else can we run on it after the update to 20.04 happens?

You can't use anything else because of the same reason you won't be able to upgrade to 20.04 LTS Release : The damn old MediaTek SoC and all the negative stuff that comes with the fact it's a MediaTek SoC

I looked around a bit, but I don't really see options honestly.

Because there are no options!

Eventually it wont be (easily) possible to install apps (unless maybe the click-packages will be kept available somewhere online and we can download and install from there), and it may not be (easily) possible to install UT back to the device (unless the images and instructions are kept available somewhere).

You could check if you can boot TWRP one time and then Image your phone so you have a working backup!

I also looked around for other OS'es I know about, but none of them seem to have a port for the BQ4.5.

YUP!

I looked for the following, but don't see ports for Lineageos
(Besides, I'm unsure how well this would work on an Ubuntu edition device since it doesn't have the Android buttons),

The buttons should work but they don't have a LED that shows which button does what!

I have been running Android 5.x for a while after that cruel Canonical April 1st announcement

PostmarketOS, SailfishOS, LuneOS, Manjaro and Mobian
That doesn't leave much options of course. Maybe someone has other OS'es or ports they know of that can run on the BQ4.5? What are you planning to do once support ends?

Like I said : NOPE.AVI

@applee said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

There is rarely support for fingerprint readers on laptops for example.

I think that depends on the brand that is used by the manufacturer of the laptop ?!

And what is considered standard on a phone is far from usual on other computer stations like GPS, 2G, 3G, 4G (and now 5G) modems, accelerometer, ...

Laptops with a modem are very common as long as you stay away from the consumer stuff and go towards professional/enterprise models

The reality is that manufacturers mostly don't care and support for Linux is minimum.
Drivers may exist but are rarely open sourced neither is their API available...
This problem has seen no real improvement since the begining of Linux and only a faster and stronger community and some big company's policy improved the situation for end users.

AMD and Intel have pretty much changed that completely and are now the two brands you really want to buy in case you are a Linux user

Nvidia however is on the edge of getting deprecated and even banned in some cases like the LibreELEC project for example!

Hopefully Pine64, Volla, F(x)Tech and others will see the benefit of working with the FOSS communities.

Pine64 does that already I think ?!

The other two however... dunno... seem to be more Android focused than non-Android ?!
Especially F(x)Tech and the horrible mess that their company is for example RMA wise... brr...

@cliffcoggin said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

That is a straightforward management issue that should not be avoided any longer, no matter how unpopular the decision will be in some quarters.

To be honest :

I think UBports has a managemend issue in general :

They need to have some kind of plan when it comes to porting to certain phone models for example!
At the moment it seems all a bit random ?!
Details about which phones will be compatible with 20.04 LTS are still unavailable...
etc...

Is there even someone in their team to manage the whole project ?!

Moem

@nero355 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

They need to have some kind of plan when it comes to porting to certain phone models for example!
At the moment it seems all a bit random ?!

Well, most of the porting is done by the community, that means by volunteers, to their abilities and at their leisure. You can't really plan for what volunteers all over the world may or may not be willing and able to do; they're not employees after all. In other words, from its very nature, it will always be a bit random.

On a strictly personal title: can you please refrain from telling the team what they need to do, must do or have to do? It sounds so demanding.
I know you probably don't mean it like that but it does come across that way.

nero355

@moem
So all porting is done by the community and none by the UBports developers ?!

That would explain a lot!

But it does create a large issue : The purchase of a certain phone becomes a gamble and you can't plan ahead when you buy a certain phone!

Buying second hand phones isn't a problem, but it needs to be a bit reasonable because of the whole battery issues part...
Do you see yourself buying a phone that's older than 2 or 3 years ?!
That's basically creating a challenge for yourself...

Moem

@nero355 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

So all porting is done by the community and none by the UBports developers ?!

Please read what I wrote. Not all porting, but most of it. And that explains why the devs cannot guarantee what the porters will or won't do, and also why they cannot come up with a reliable list of devices that will definitely remain supported. They can only tell us what they, themselves, have planned.

Personally I have never bought a phone that was younger than three years. My current daily driver is from 2016. We're all different.

stanwood

To be honest :

I think UBports has a managemend issue in general :

They need to have some kind of plan when it comes to porting to certain phone models for example!
At the moment it seems all a bit random ?!

Details about which phones will be compatible with 20.04 LTS are still unavailable...

etc...

Is there even someone in their team to manage the whole project ?!

I think the reality is much more complex than that.
Our core team collaborates mainly in open discussions so that everyone's work is as effective as possible.

The functioning of UBports is not comparable to that of a traditional commercial company based on performance and profit.

Keneda

@nero355 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

Well, I thought the following would be possible :

Keep using the 16.04 LTS release without OS updates/upgrades.
Keep using the apps that will still work with the 16.04 LTS as long as they do...

Basically what I am doing with my current Android based ZUK Z2 Pro phone

That's what i'm going to do, as i also did after canonical drop.
I stayed 2 years with their last OTA using Open Store.
This time i hope by there Pinephone(s) will be full working devices, i'd really prefer open source hardware so no more vendor obsolescence.

Lakotaubp

@nero355 My newest phone for UT is a OP5 and that was over two years old when I got it. Before that it was a OP3 and a OP1. Have replaced the OP1 battery but all still work and I have another OP5 to do when I can. Looking good for this https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-and-the-10-year-smartphone-3799

Lakotaubp

All this thread is proving to me is why the decision on which devices may or may not make it is so hard. People love and rely on their UT phones no doubt each is as individual as it's owner. Which is why UT is so special. That is also why cutting loose any phone is hard choice. It's not just the phone it's the people too as Dalton has already said. The fact however remains that decsiosions will have to be made at some point in the very near future and some people will feel upset whichever way it goes. Almost a no win situation. Except by making it the project will continue and move forward, continuing to grow and develop as it does so. I'm sure that is something we all want.

AppLee

I think the main message for the survival of your individual device is to take action.

Gather a group of people interested in savekeeping this device
If you gather enough people and knowledge maybe your device team will be able to successfully port 20.04.

I think the foundation and core team will help as much as they can.

~~____________________________________________________________________________________________________________~~
As a reminder, UBports foundation is not a company. Driving a living community of beings is not as easy as leading a company.
We are no customer but members and contributors.

A company answers to money and customer depending on how much they spend have an impact on it.
Loosing a member has a different impact on a community depending wether or not this member was contributing a lot or less...

Acting like a company would mean stop listenning to members whose contribution is considered not important enough.
I think we can all agree it won't be a good thing.
So keep that in mind when pondering the decision made by those who contribute a lot, listens to others and try to satisfy the most people.

I think everyone in the core team, the members of the foundation and major contributors are doing a fantastic job.
They explain what they do, why they do it. They try to federate people and ask for contributions because UBports depends on it. The people paid to work on Ubuntu Touch cannot maintain the OS and port it to devices by themselves.

Money and talents are required, that's true, but UBports is not a company.

nero355

@moem said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

Please read what I wrote. Not all porting, but most of it. And that explains why the devs cannot guarantee what the porters will or won't do, and also why they cannot come up with a reliable list of devices that will definitely remain supported. They can only tell us what they, themselves, have planned.

So there are no guidelines for the community porters either ?!

Personally I have never bought a phone that was younger than three years. My current daily driver is from 2016. We're all different.

So how do you deal with worn out batteries ?!

@stanwood said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

I think the reality is much more complex than that.
Our core team collaborates mainly in open discussions so that everyone's work is as effective as possible.

The functioning of UBports is not comparable to that of a traditional commercial company based on performance and profit.

But every team needs somekind of planning ahead I think ?!
How does the team take care of that part ?

@lakotaubp said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

My newest phone for UT is a OP5 and that was over two years old when I got it. Before that it was a OP3 and a OP1. Have replaced the OP1 battery but all still work and I have another OP5 to do when I can. Looking good for this https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-and-the-10-year-smartphone-3799

Where do you get your batteries from ??

@lakotaubp said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

That is also why cutting loose any phone is hard choice.
The fact however remains that decsiosions will have to be made at some point in the very near future and some people will feel upset whichever way it goes. Almost a no win situation. Except by making it the project will continue and move forward, continuing to grow and develop as it does so. I'm sure that is something we all want.

Phones going EOL isn't a bad thing in some cases because you simply need certain features which only newer phones have...

And in some cases it's simply because they have become too slow for new software like most of the BQ phones by now have become...

@applee said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

I think the main message for the survival of your individual device is to take action.

Gather a group of people interested in savekeeping this device

If you gather enough people and knowledge maybe your device team will be able to successfully port 20.04.

I think the foundation and core team will help as much as they can.

But why waste all that time and talent on too slow and outdated devices ?!

As a reminder, UBports foundation is not a company. Driving a living community of beings is not as easy as leading a company.
We are no customer but members and contributors.

A company answers to money and customer depending on how much they spend have an impact on it.
Loosing a member has a different impact on a community depending wether or not this member was contributing a lot or less...

Acting like a company would mean stop listenning to members whose contribution is considered not important enough.
I think we can all agree it won't be a good thing.
So keep that in mind when pondering the decision made by those who contribute a lot, listens to others and try to satisfy the most people.
Money and talents are required, that's true, but UBports is not a company.

I am not saying they should become a company but the impression I have so far is that certain things need better guidance/management/organization!

Moem

@nero355 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

So there are no guidelines for the community porters either ?!

I don't know, I'm not a porter. But it seems likely that there are.

I don't understand the 'So' here. For me, that does not follow at all. Also all the '?!' make you sound agitated or demanding. Just a hint!

So how do you deal with worn out batteries ?!

I don't know yet, it's still working. Is that so amazing? It's just six years old.

nero355

@moem said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

I don't know, I'm not a porter. But it seems likely that there are.

So that's a NO then...

I don't understand the 'So' here. For me, that does not follow at all. Also all the '?!' make you sound agitated or demanding. Just a hint!

The ?! means I am surprised or shocked...

I don't know yet, it's still working. Is that so amazing? It's just six years old.

I think you are very lucky indeed!

Most batteries get a lot worse in about 3 years and are sometimes barely useable after 5 years!

Maybe you got used to it step by step over the years ??
Have you compared SoT's of your phone against when the phone was new ?