Miatoll devices UT Focal support

fungie

@zubozrout this is exactly were I am coming from. So when I break the system I want to be able to make a new installation without xiaomis permission. Maybe they will change there security methods in a few years and then you can't do anything after breaking the system. Update halium seems also impossible than.

zubozrout

@fungie as I said, I never had to go down the road. Whenever I wanted to flash a different firmware I just installed the respective Xiaomi system using the recovery flashable zip archive. Then I didn't even have to let it boot, rebooted directly to fastboot and let UBports Installer to take care of it. And as mentioned above^ this time, once 20.04 is available, I am going to ignore the full system installation and just going to try to install the firmware also available on the same xiaomifirmwareupdater site, because that needs to suffice.

Of course in case you experience a bootloader relock just like @beyolf you might need to go down that route of booting the Xiaomi system and unlocking it again in system settings.

fungie

Correct me if I am wrong but my understanding is like this:

-Halium is based on the stock ROM for these devices.

-flashing a stock rom means repartitioning and flashing ROM, recovery and bootloader and in the case of Xiaomi this means you have to unlock the boot loader again then. Which is only possible with the official installer, were you have to log in with your Xiaomi account.

I have no experience if dirty flashing Ubuntu touch on a broken Ubuntu touch installation without installing the stock rom is possible. If so you would be tied on the installed stock rom/Android version of the halium version (hope I got this right) if Xiaomi drops support on the present security method.

zubozrout

@fungie

-Halium is based on the stock ROM for these devices

Only the Firmware part (drivers communicating with the hardware), which is the base of the stock ROM and something that gets installed on your phone if you install the full stock ROM, yes.

-and in the case of Xiaomi this means you have to unlock the boot loader again then

I don't think so, but we seem to differ here. Never happened to me, though I was only ever installing the stock ROM via recovery, never through MIflash tool mentioned by @beyolf. Might be the difference, IDK.

if dirty flashing Ubuntu touch on a broken Ubuntu touch installation without installing the stock rom is possible

Of course it is. UT is using the base firmware it needs, but if you break the UT installation somehow the firmware will be intact and you can always just use the UBports installer to make a new clean install, as mentioned already.

beyolf

@zubozrout said in Miatoll devices UT Focal support:

don't think so, but we seem to differ here. Never happened to me, though I was only ever installing the stock ROM via recovery, never through MIflash tool mentioned by @beyolf. Might be the difference, IDK.

Maybe that's the difference and the miflash is locking it.. so I would probably do what you are doing and flash it through recovery so the bootloader don't get locked again

beyolf

The UT Focal port is ready and can be installed from the installer. Make sure to choose the 20.04/devel channel if you wish to test Focal and if you find bugs please report them in https://t.me/ut_miatoll

Have a great day/night

beyolf

@zubozrout @fungie

I am stupid i was using the miflasher and there is a option to lock the loader when you flash the ROM and its checkd by default and i didnt saw it before.

So you can use miflash also without locking the bootloader

zubozrout

@beyolf No at all. But interesting that options is there :). But it is great it can be disabled at least ... Thank you for the info!

beyolf

There is an issue with the installer the system partition is too small and needs to be resized before installing focal. We are currently working on the fix.

beyolf

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Hello guys the installer was fixed and now you can install focal on miatoll devices. Please make sure to check the "Partitioning" check box if you install focal for first time or the installation will fail.

If you are using Xenial you CANNOT update to focal from OTA you need to do it from installer, but just uncheck the wipe option , but KEEP the partitioning button checked

there is a known issue with the flashlight (currently working on it) and there are some freezes when you switch between apps.

Have a good day/night

beyolf

Small update: the flashlight was fixed and it should come through OTA in the following days.

We verified that the freezing between app switch and closing is caused by the lomiri-app-launch package, no ETA when that would be fixed so far, because that's not a port related problem. Will give you more info when I have.

Have great day!

Damian1944

@beyolf Good evening, thank you very much for your work on updating this group of phones to UT 20.04. I'm using Redmi Note 9 Pro and I've been wondering for the last few months if there is any solution to make Miatoll devices live again. I started using Redmi with UT as my first phone a few months ago. And now I'm happy that the process is back on track. Thanks a lot and I will be happy to test the new version of the system

beyolf

@Damian1944

Hey thank you very much! I am glad that i managed to bring it up with the help of the community. If you need assistance with anything you can join the Telegram group and get in touch with us.

there is a know issue with freezes between app switching and there is a temporary solution for that issue I am currently working on more longterm solution.

Good luck and hope you enjoy it.

beyolf

Update: Guys the freezing problem was fixed today. I made a MR with the fix and soon it will be available for all of you.

have a good day/night.

beyolf

Update: all of the MR fix requests were accepted, probably with the next OTA update the flashlight fix and the freezes fix will come on your devices.

Please contact me if you find any issues.

Thank you for your support.

Keneda

@beyolf
I don't own this device but thank you for the work

One question though, you said that app switching issue is not this port specific, does it means that it can occur on other devices ?
What was the issue origin ?

beyolf

@Keneda

It turned out to be kind of port specific, but yes it can occur on other devices with a bit older kernel as miatoll was. The fix is quite easy.

The Xperia port had the same issue as miatoll and it turned out to be the same kernel problem even that both devices use different kernel versions.

https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/community-ports/android10/xiaomi-redmi-note-9-pro/kernel-xiaomi-sm6250/-/commit/c45ed3b1cdf7d8e485bb4b50dfd1ec9842b4bd64

This is the source of the issue. If in the kernel the

oom_adj
oom_score_adj

Files are with read only permissions 400 the problem will most probably occur. Because lomiri-app-launch spawns SUID helper when it cannot set the scores in this files by it self and the spawn is done by forking so the freezes occured because of the forking.

The problem with lomiri-app-launch is that it spawns a process for each thread to adjust the score which is not very good and in some applications as chrome this is a lot of processes and forks which copy pages and that's slow, but by making lomiri-app-launch able to set the scores by it self then it does not need to spawn SUID helper so no forks no freezes.

Hope I managed to explain it clearly enought.

If you need more information you can contact me in telegram.

beyolf

Small update: The automatic screen brightness is now fixed and working properly. i made an MR with the fix so it will be available probably in couple of days

Have a great day/night

Damian1944

@beyolf Hello! I will join the Telegram group with pleasure. Is Telegram the most convenient way for you to report potential problems? I've now successfully installed Focal devel and it is running without any problems. Once again many thanks and congratulations for maintaining the miatoll port within 6 days. As I wrote above, everything works very well - there is a visible graphical improvement and the OS runs much faster. In the agenda of things that could be worth considering, from my small experience with UT, are: time indicator on the bottom bar partially hidden by the round corner of the screen and the similar problem on the left side in horizontal view (but it is not a important bug, only esthetical); losing mobile coverage sometimes but without any notification (it is important, but I experienced this problem on Xenial, maybe it is solved on Focal); no MMS messages (medium important, on Xenial too, it had worked well in the beginning and ended later). And finally, I would like to point out that as a user of Ubuntu desktop for 10 years, I was happy to install UT. But I didn't think it would be easy to use the UT phone everyday / as a first phone. But it is possible. I use Redmi Note 9 Pro with Ubuntu Touch as my main phone since 3 months - and it works great.

beyolf

@Damian1944

Hello , I am very happy that you managed to install focal without problems. Hope you enjoy it.

You can report bugs here, in the gitlab or in the telegram group. I personally am most active in telegram , so it's the easiest way to reach me.

Hope you have pleasing experience with UT on miatoll. I am doing my best to improve the port as much as I can.