Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?

Opolork

Hi.

Is the latest UT release not compatible with the Fairphone 2?

Thanks.

Ref: https://ubports.com/en/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-2-focal-release-3894

arubislander

@Opolork if the FP2 had a focal OTA-1 then it should also receive OTA-2.

Lakotaubp

@Opolork Not sure that one is 20.04 ready can't find it on the lists or https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ the FP3 is but not the 2.

Keneda

@Lakotaubp
It's not in the list indeed, even without installer.
But I guess it could get 20.04 as it has an android 10 official FPOS, at least if kernel is recent enough.

Edit:
It seems that last kernel on FP2 is 3.4.113.

Edit 2:
So it seems it's almost a dead end here as focal uses systemd wich requires 3.15 linux kernel for basic support, 4.15 being better...
Porting FP2 would need huge amount of work see here last part of last post :
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/8386/no-new-stuff-for-xenial-but-what-about-old-new-stuff/12?_=1691470274847

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/main/README

Opolork

Hi @Keneda. My current FP2 version is Ubuntu 16.04 (OTA-25). So I will need to get a FP3 or FP4?

Lakotaubp

@Opolork If you can go for the FP4 it's newer and 20.04 runs well on it.

Keneda

@Lakotaubp
And there is a mainlining linux kernel work ongoing for it.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Fairphone-4-Linux-Patches

https://forum.fairphone.com/t/official-mainline-kernel-support-for-fp4-planned/76741

Wich possibly means, if done, virtually no end of support for this device. Any futur version of Ubuntu could run on it.

arubislander

@Keneda said in Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?:

Wich possibly means, if done, virtually no end of support for this device. Any future version of Ubuntu could run on it.

There is no such thing as 'no end of support' for anything, even if it is mainlined. We now have a few mainlined devices running Ubuntu Touch: Raspberry Pi's, and the various Pine64 devices. And even though there is ample kernel support for these devices (not all of it mainline either at the moment, as a matter of fact, but at least the changes are being pushed upstream), continued support is not automatically guaranteed.
The case will largely be similar to the halium devices: these mainline deviced will need maintainers to keep support current. When maintainers move on, and no others step up, support will inevitably suffer.

Keneda

@arubislander
You missed an important word here : virtually...

My point is the FP4, wich is a promoted device, will, if mainlined, not suffer end of support due to deprecated kernel, like majority of the Xenial ones are suffuring now.

domubpkm

Smartphones 'maintained' / 'promoted' or not, it's always a race against time so that UT does not get left behind by the real world. UT is not in tune with the current technological world and is at least 2 years behind in my opinion and it's a race that must be very frustrating for all developers (without them no UT so a big thank you ) very difficult to catch up and even so that it does not widen more. Well despite that, I still really like UT but it has to be functional daily in today's real world.

arubislander

@Keneda said in Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?:

My point is the FP4, wich is a promoted device, will, if mainlined, not suffer end of support due to deprecated kernel, like majority of the Xenial ones are suffuring now.

The old kernels in the Android devices are a challenge, for sure. But not an insurmountable one, as has been shown in the effort to bring Focal the OP1. Sure it is a whole lot of work (a HUGE thank you to @TheVancedGamer for undertaking it!!), but what is slowing the effort the most is contributors, not kernel version.

Continued support also is not necessarily easier for mainlined, as development on the PinePhone has shown. Newer kernels also introduce new bugs. Support for older or less common hardware deteriorates or gets dropped.

As newer Fairphone models are introduced, hopefully also with UT support, choices will have to be made if, and how long, the limited resources will continue to be allocated to older models, mainlined or not.
The only way continued support for any device can be guaranteed is a large enough maintainer base.

Keneda

@arubislander said in Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?:

But not an insurmountable one, as has been shown in the effort to bring Focal the OP1

Yes, like said in the link I gave in a previous post here, it is possible to bring focal to android 9 devices with a huge work.
By the way, kernel is 3.4.113 on both OPO and FP2.

Anyway, with the "good" kernel, it's simpler.

Let's hope someone step on for doing this huge amount of work for the sake of FP2 UT users.

Also, as I understood what makes Pinephones hard to port is because their ports are not built on halium, unlike any android device mainlined kernel or not.

arubislander

@Keneda said in Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?:

Also, as I understood what makes Pinephones hard to port is because their ports are not built on halium, unlike any android device mainlined or not.

The whole point of a mainlined Android device would be exactly that Halium would no longer be needed, presenting it with the similar challenges as the Pine64 devices and RPi's, which are mainline devices.

Keneda

@arubislander
Correct me if I'm wrong but mainlining and android device like FP4 is including vendor blobs drivers in a mainline branch of linux kernel, so that it's not needed to depend on vendor custom kernel right ?

Does that necessarily also mean you can't no longer use the halium way if Fairphone release some FPOS including this mainlined linux kernel ?

arubislander

@Keneda It probably doesn't mean you can't use Halium, but I am not sure what advantage it brings to continue using Halium, it being a hardware abstraction layer between the OS and the hardware drivers, if all the relevant drivers would already be supported by kernel itself.

Some relevant posts from the FP Forums:
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/official-mainline-kernel-support-for-fp4-planned/76741/10
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/official-mainline-kernel-support-for-fp4-planned/76741/19

Also note that mainlining drivers for the latest FP device is a multi year effort, and is being done part-time. Chances are good that it will not be completed before a new device is released, and then attention might shift to that device instead (as you see, another game of catch-up).

Keneda

@arubislander said in Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?:

but I am not sure what advantage it brings to continue using Halium

Like you said yourself, porting UT to pinephone is an uncharted challenge, still ongoing for years, whereas porting in the halium way is a known territory.

Some relevant posts from the FP Forums

Yes, I gave link to this topic in my previous post ^^

And as you can read from the FF employee that work on mainlining FP4, it'll help to maintain android rom on it also, so as one Fairphone goal is to make their device last the longer possible, we can hope the soon to be released Fairphone 5 not to kill mainlining effort for the 4.

Anyway, let's hope the port for Pinephone reach a 100% state and then it can be adapted quickly for any mainlined kernel android device, making halium irrelevant for those.

arubislander

@Keneda said in Is Ubuntu Touch OTA-2 Focal incompatible with the Fairphone 2?:

what makes Pinephones hard to port is because their ports are not built on halium

What makes the Pinephones hard to port was mostly the lack of drivers for the hardware. As the hardware becomes better supported, then the port works better, see Focal on RPi 4, for instance. If drivers would be mainlined, then it would not be necessary to use Halium to communicate with them.

My point however, is that even such support is not 'free'. If a piece of hardware is not widely used, maintenance for it could potentially still fall on the shoulder of a team of one. And unless support is financed by the hardware vendor, that one could become none at any time unexpectedly.

Luksus

I started work on FP2 kernel for focal, multiple times, but never got it to a usable state. Iirc, I got it booting one time, but in this state, it was missing lots of needed configs, for getting UT up with UI and other needed stuff.

Keneda

@Luksus
Did you see @peat_psuwit post where he says he patched kernel to run plasma mobile, wich needs systemd, on a FP2 ?

Edit : https://forums.ubports.com/topic/8386/no-new-stuff-for-xenial-but-what-about-old-new-stuff/12?_=1691470274847

TheVancedGamer

y'all need focal for FP2?

there