This is a place to coordinate developers working on dekko2. (It is not the place to discuss individual bugs)

In the good old days we had dekko and it mostly worked ok. At some point a rewrite as dekko2 was deemed necessary. The rewrite was started but not completely finished. In addition the platform has moved on beneath dekko (xenial). Time has gone by and development rate of dekko has dropped.

As of today, there is no working dekko for xenial UT.

Over the last couple weeks I see here and there on various UT telegram channels messages pop up about various people trying to work on dekko. Some wrestling with the build system. Somewhere a test build showed up. Some critical bugs were mentioned (settings, system load). Workarounds and some fixes too. I think it's time to coordinate efforts. So we don't independently solve the same problems multiple times, but instead move forward faster.

So all you dekko2 hackers, speak up below with whatever you do / did on dekko2. What you need help with.

Let's make it happen!

PS: This is not an attempt to hijack the project from the current maintainer @DanChapman . Personally, I think the best future for email on UT would be a Dan maintained dekko2 with a small community of developers cooperating. Dan seems to be on a hiatus right now. Let's see what the future brings.

PPS: If you are not actively developing on dekko, then help us stay focussed by not going off topic here! Maybe you really want to encourage people to work on dekko. Or maybe you are very frustrated because you really need an email client. Well, yes, we know. We all are. Feel free to up (or down) vote posts. Or maybe you want to report an issue or suggest a feature. Then use the bug tracker. Or you just have a question. Then start a new thread or go here https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1750/dekko-0-1-6-beta2-released/1

It is our pleasure to announce the release of Dekko2 for Xenial

You find it in the open-store on your device and at https://open-store.io/dekko2.dekkan

Yes there are still bugs. We know, but it should definitely be good enough to allow you to read and write your emails from UT.

Try it out and feel free to praise or curse us below. Let us know what you think.

Bugtracker is over here: https://gitlab.com/dekkan/dekko/issues
Source code: https://gitlab.com/dekkan/dekko
Dev thread: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1477/dekko2-developer-community-thread

PS: Yes, patches are welcome

Pick one (any) convergent user story and make it a perfect experience out of the box.

For example: I receive an email from a coworker asking me to work on some spreadsheet. Dock phone and work desktop style, listening to music on my headphones. Realise I miss some info. Text another person with a question. Receive a phone call interupting me. Take the phone out of the dock and talk while I walk to the coffee shop. End the call and finish the spreadsheet on the phone/tablet interface in the coffee shop. Email the file back.

All those features are kinda there, but there are a bunch of usability features that kill this (and similar) workflows. I would suggest you draft a story like this, then test it and prioritise any bugs you run into. Docking ain't reliable - fix this. Email app closes and interrupts my drafting when switching to browser /spreadsheet - fix that. Out of the box UI scaling for localc doesn't allow me to work efficiently on a tablet display - fix it.

No need to make everything perfect, but pick one story and maybe one device and make that one really shine. If it ain't the "mobile office work" above it could be the visual artist - now you need to make sure that krita works perfectly on the tablet - does taht require better touch input in xmir well then this is your top prio feature. Or maybe its wayland on mir. The user is not gonna care as long as the workflow is awesome.

Pick a story that is achievable, but sets ubports apart from ios/android. Getting krita to run is too hard - what about preparing, adjusting and giving a presentation from the phone including live pdf annotation xournal style.

Make sure to produce a release video that shows off! Focus on the added value for the user instead of the technical feature of how you adjusted the dpi for Xmir or whatever.

Good question. I would hope that some form of regular live news/Q&A show could be maintained.

Just my two cents: I think biweekly is too much. It becomes a big workload for the ppl doing it.

Secondly, whoever might be taking it over - just take it easy. Don't put the bar too high. Dalton is leaving very big boots to fill. It's not necessary to push yourself to try to maintain the same professionalism /quality/frequency/setup... Maybe now is a good moment to go back and re-watch the early episodes as an inspiration what it looks like to start walking, before you get into the jumping up the stairs mode

I'm trying to get Halium running on the Nexus 7 2013 gsm variant "deb".

I've made a few steps already. Most notably: Plasma Mobile starts!

I'm keeping (and updating while I progress) the summary below, so that:

• I don't forget what steps I took
• Others can help to improve this
• Others can use this as inspiration for their ports

Setup sources

• Follow the Porting Guide for halium-7.1 here https://docs.halium.org
• lineageos kernel sources: https://github.com/LineageOS/android_kernel_google_msm
• my local_manifest: https://gist.github.com/doniks/7ee302c7792450761332d8f8712f29f6
• binaries : https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/drivers MOB30X
• my repo with all kernel changes: https://github.com/doniks/android_kernel_google_msm

Kernel image

config

source build/envsetup.sh 
add_lunch_combo lineage_deb-userdebug
lunch lineage_deb-userdebug

• kernel config: kernel/google/msm/arch/arm/configs/lineageos_flo_defconfig
• Primary source to check for wrong configs: https://github.com/lbt/mer-kernel-check
• my kernel config: https://gist.github.com/doniks/7406a87e5f15e1eab5a64aa90ad8f633
• other config checkers for reference:
  • CONFIG=out/target/product/deb/obj/KERNEL_OBJ/.config lxc-checkconfig
  • https://github.com/janimo/phablet-porting-scripts/blob/master/kernel/check-config

patches

• https://gist.github.com/doniks/75d16dda43d241feb79b721bab6c4940

• https://gist.github.com/doniks/44faf86a23f7467b80744f033fb08100

• add cgroup_disable=memory to the HYBRIS_BOOTIMG_COMMANDLINE in halium/hybris-boot/Android.mk (this fixes some problem with systemd/cgroups, can't remember what exactly )

common porting errors

• Halium Porting Error Knowledge Base
  https://gist.github.com/doniks/2ac14a1bb6750165bf782f62139c8aab#file-gistfile1-txt-L61
• Reference of older kernel versions http://elixir.free-electrons.com/linux/v2.6.39.4/source
• [https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/r.0aae797a3bd13b4cd923b82fe29a2f47](Sailfish HADK FAQ)

test and debug

• Follow steps here http://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/debug-build/
• if you want to force init into telnet, add kernel parameter bootmode=debug:

fastboot -c "$(abootimg -i hybris-boot.img | sed -ne '/cmdline/s/. cmdline . //p' ) bootmode=debug" boot hybris-boot.img

Android image

cd halium
mka systemimage
ls -l out/target/product/deb/system.img

Rootfs

Halium rootfs

get it

• https://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/install-build/reference-rootfs.html

install it

• to install the rootfs you need working adb. I use this twrp recovery: https://eu.dl.twrp.me/deb/twrp-3.0.2-0-deb.img.html (had some problems with 3.1.1-0)
• boot into twrp recovery

git clone https://github.com/Halium/halium-scripts
./halium-scripts/halium-install halium-rootfs-20170630-151006.tar.gz halium/out/target/product/deb/system.img 

• The device should reboot and get to the point where it announces usb networking:

lsusb -vd 0fce: | grep -i serial
  iSerial                 3 GNU/Linux Device on usb0 10.15.19.82

• reboot into twrp recovery to set the root password

adb shell
cd /data
mkdir mnt
mount rootfs.img mnt/
chroot mnt /bin/bash 
export PATH=/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:$PATH
passwd

connect to it

• reboot the device and wait for usb networking to come up as above
• configure usb network on your desktop in a similar way as above for telnet, but now for ssh

sudo ip address add 10.15.19.1 dev enp0s20f0u7 
sudo ip route add 10.15.19.82 dev enp0s20f0u7

• login via ssh

ssh root@10.15.19.82 

• fix path variable

echo $PATH
/usr/bin:/bin
export PATH=/usr/sbin:/sbin:$PATH
echo 'export PATH=/usr/sbin:/sbin:$PATH' >> /root/.bashrc

what works

• test_lights makes the led breathe
• EGL_PLATFORM=hwcomposer test_hwcomposer shows rotating spiral! I need echo 200 > /sys/class/leds/lcd-backlight/brightness to turn up the display brightness, so I can actually see the spiral
• wifi: http://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/debug-build/wifi.html

nmcli d # no wlan0
echo 1 > /dev/wcnss_wlan 
echo sta > /sys/module/wlan/parameters/fwpath 
nmcli d # shows wlan0
nmcli dev wifi # list wifis 
nmcli dev wifi connect <SOMEOPENWIFI>
# or
# sudo nmcli device wifi connect <SOMEENCRYPTEDWIFI> password <PASSWORD>
ping -c 2 8.8.8.8
ping -c 2 debian.org
# install some missing packages
apt update
apt install openssh-client bash-completion command-not-found binutils nano

• buttons: evtest /dev/input/event5
• touchscreen: evtest /dev/input/event0
• adb:
  • TWRP
  • chroot into rootfs
  • systemctl enable adb
• test_egl_config : https://gist.github.com/doniks/4e9ea8a8f5aaf1968c2e42846b5a9158

what doesn't work

• test_audio nothing to hear

ACDB init open file failed
[ACDB Init]->File is not found on the system
[ACDB Init]->ACDB init success!

• test_camera

library "libcamera_compat_layer.so" not found
Segmentation fault

• test_egl segfaults
• test_glesv2 segfault
• test_gps, honestly I don't know whether that output below constitutes success of failure ... since I can't recognise any coordinates, I think it failed. I've waited 5 minutes or so. There are more *** tracking lines but no coordinates

*** setup signal handler
*** get gps interface
*** device info
 id = gps
 name = loc_api GPS Module
 author = Qualcomm USA, Inc.
*** init gps interface
*** set capabilities
capability is 00000007
 ** Creating thread: 'Loc_hal_worker' (start=0xb69f23b5, arg=0x1d02080)
 ** After thread_create: 'Loc_hal_worker', error=0 (start=0xb69f23b5, arg=0x1d02080)
 **** Thread wrapper start (start=0xb69f23b5, arg=0x1d02080) ****
*** setting positioning mode
*** start gps track
*** gps tracking started
*** tracking.... 

• test_input

library "libis_compat_layer.so" not found
Segmentation fault

• test_media, get a video from http://bbb3d.renderfarming.net/download.html

wget http://download.blender.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_480p_surround-fix.avi
wget http://distribution.bbb3d.renderfarming.net/video/mp4/bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_normal.mp4
scp bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_normal.mp4 root@10.15.19.82:
ssh root@10.15.19.82
test_media bbb_sunflower_1080p_60fps_normal.mp4
library "libmedia_compat_layer.so" not found
Segmentation fault

• test_nfc

Starting test_nfc.
Finding NFC hardware module.
test_nfc: test_nfc.c:156: testNfc: Assertion `hwModule != NULL' failed.
Aborted

• test_recorder

Test application for video recording using the camera
Recording start with volume up button. And stops with volume down.
The result is stored to /root/test_video.avi

library "libcamera_compat_layer.so" not found
Segmentation fault

• test_sensors

library "/system/lib/hw/sensors.oem.so" not found
libsensor_add_waiting_client adding cb 0
Hardware module ID: sensors
Hardware module Name: Qualcomm Sensors Module
Hardware module Author: Qualcomm Inc.
Hardware module API version: 0x1
Hardware HAL API version: 0x100
Poll device version: 0x1000001
API VERSION 0.1 (legacy): 0x1
API VERSION 0.1: 0x65537
API VERSION 1.0: 0x16777217
API VERSION 1.1: 0x16842753
API VERSION 1.2: 0x16908289
API VERSION 1.3: 0x16973825
API VERSION 1.4: 0x17039361
libsensor_add_waiting_client adding cb 1
Got 0 sensors

• test_wifi 1 says :

Cannot load driver (err -1)

not supported

• test_vibrator , segfaults, but anyway the N7 doesn't have a haptic motor to vibrate

Segmentation fault

UBports rootfs

Tried the rootfs from here: http://cdimage.ubports.com/rootfs/ but it doesn't do too much for me:

• screen stays on the Google logo
• no usb iSerial messages
• no usb network interface seems to come up
• last_kmsg shows that systemd does take over http://paste.ubuntu.com/25419054/ however,
• it complains that "systemd[1]: Failed to start LXC Android Config and Container Initialization."
• no adb interface comes up, even though in TWRP/chroot I see that android-tools-adbd.service is enabled

Plasma mobile rootfs

git clone https://github.com/bhush9/rootfs-builder bhush9-rootfs-builder
cd bhush9-rootfs-builder
# follow the instructions in README to patch lb_chroot_live-packages
sudo ./build.sh
# waaaaait
# install it

The reboot takes about a minute. Then you'll hear an audible greeting and afterwards you are greeted by the plasma mobile login screen. You can login and play around a bit. Not much to do though. No network connection and it's not possible to ssh in.

Reboot back into TWRP and chroot.

1. To be able to use the ssh server, you need to generate ssh server keys: dpkg-reconfigure openssh-server
2. Preferably enable password less login :

adb shell mkdir /home/phablet/.ssh
adb push ~/.ssh/id.pub /home/phablet/.ssh/authorized_keys
// todo : some chmod/chown needed?

1. reboot, setup usbnet and then reboot and login as ssh phablet@10.15.19.82
2. Alternatively, you can set the passwords, but I don't do this because it seems to actually break the graphical login:

passwd 
passwd: Authentication token manipulation error
passwd: password unchanged
# fix passwd
apt remove libnss-extrausers
pam-auth-update 
# select everything but extrausers
passwd # set root password 
passwd phablet # set user password

Debian

Haven't tried yet.
https://archive.org/download/halium-debian-rootfs/
https://github.com/JBBgameich/rootfs-builder/tree/debian

Arch

https://github.com/Halium/rootfs-builder/tree/archlinux
https://github.com/mickybart/rootfs-builder/tree/archlinux
Haven't tried yet. I'm not very familiar with arch.

What's next?

• Get ubports to run
• Get PM to run on halium-boot
• Check out LuneOS
• Check out SailfishOS
• Build a .zip file, only makes sense if some OS is remotely usable, PM is close but still not there
• get lxc-attach to work
• patch out the noise dmesg logging of the battery

Any tips or feedback appreciated!

@geekbone said in Talk to the Non-Geek People:

Your user docs... I am not sure who the audience is there

I hear you. I'm laughing and crying a little bit at the same time. Yeah, that "daily use" header is so undeserved it's not funny anymore. And the prominently placed 'container' jargonfest wins an extra prize there.

Well, I could go on to rant about a community project with lots of volunteer work and how that doesn't gel so well with "If you want thisorthat, you should somethingoranother",but let me rather beat that other dead horse:

Contributions welcome!

And I'm not saying this to you @GeekBone . Of course your contributions would be welcome! But I don't think it's fair to bark this to a newcomer first thing. I'm saying this to ... "us" ... those of us who've hung around here for a while.

Maybe there is someone who wants to put together an actual daily use / getting started page. Maybe there is someone who was looking for a low-geek way to contribute. Well, this one we would need! Couple screenshots, swipe here, swipe there, ... settings ... app store ... nothing too geeky. I kinda anticipate that the majority of the volume of the docs will stay geeky, but there should be a 'safe' and welcoming place at the start. A place before we venture down the rabbit hole ....

I almost don't dare to ask, but .... Qt update?

Oh and of course, the elephant in the room: How's 16.04 coming along?

I might have a fix for my nexus 7. Not sure whether this applies to other devices. And I'm, not sure whether this is save in all cases to do. Proceed with caution

strace /system/bin/conn_init shows that it looks for this file open("/persist/wifi/.macaddr", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory), but indeed, I don't have this

root@ubuntu-phablet:~# find /persist/
/persist/
/persist/sensors
/persist/sensors/sns.reg
/persist/properties

After I created them,

mkdir /persist/wifi 
echo 001122deadbf > /persist/wifi/.macaddr

that mac address remains and wifi is reconnected ok after reboot.

Dear lovely UBports people,

are there any graphic designers or similar enthusiasts around to help out a graphically handicapped app
developer?

I'm working on a sun compass app and I'd need an icon and a compass rose to show
on the map. The sun itself could also be prettier I guess.

I also have this other app libertine tweak tool which uses a really ugly copy of the
libertine logo and could also do with some graphical finesse.

One thing that always confused me is why there are so many different websites to what I thought would be one thing. ubports.com, ubuntu-touch.io, devices.ubuntu-touch.io

after a cursory glance at the new designs, it seems that ubuntu-touch.io and devices.ubuntu-touch.io look more like they are one coherent thing, so that confusion might be solved.

but ubports.com versus ubuntu-touch.io I still find confusing. To be fair, I never sat down and thought about why there should be two pages and just chalked it off to ... uhm ... history ... volunteer project ... different people scratching their own itches ...

only just now, that I see this new proposal to come up with a coherent design, I thought about this again and I realize, maybe there is a good reason to have both. Because we want to tell this (complicated) story of here's the community and there's the product, and while they are linked, they are not the same, and maybe someone outside of this community/product circles could care about the distinction, because ... well, I guess because we want to cater to other projects/communities, a'la "hey <randomlinuxdistribution> look there at this great software product, maybe you want to ship it. Oh and by the way here is the community creating and supporting it" ... something like that.

so, after all this rambling let me get to one maybe actionable suggestion:

Please make it clear that one is the community and the other is the product.

e.g.

• don't start the devices page with "The ubports community is ...", but with something about devices, like "Here you find an overview of all the mobile devices capable of running ..."
• don't start the ut.io page with "We are building ... " , but "UT is ..."
• keep the clear language of "We are the UBports community" of ubports.com
• make sure (and maybe that's already taken care of in this new design) that there is a consistent top level navigation, where I guess "community" always links to ubports.com and "ubuntu touch" always links to ubuntu-touch.io , etc

Nice work @NewBit

@Moem

Phone? I think you meant to say watch... right?

err, eh, yes. sorry. fixed

I'm aware that the PineTime does not run Linux

ah. ok. then I guess I'm not really understanding the xenial/focal question. seems all I'm contributing here is confusion I shut up

@RayCulp said in Questions about contributing to the documentation:

I would like to contribute to the documentation

Thats great @RayCulp very much appreciated

• There are a number of open issues in the Github repo for the documentation. If there are no objections, I would suggest beginning with these: evaluating them to see if they are still relevant, closing the ones that are not immediately, and making updates / creating new content for the ones that still are.

Let me first take a step back and clarify that there isn't exactly an abundance of contributors to the docs.

As for how to start:

Like with many volunteer efforts, one good way to start is do what you like to do, are comfortable doing, "scratch your own itch". It's a way to create and sustain motivation for your self. If you feel like ticking the boxes of the open issues great - go for it, but it could be that some of the issues are very specific, not sure they are all up to date, or really representative of the highest priority tasks.

Another way, how I might do it, is just pick a topic or area that interests you. Read and review it and think about whether you like it as is, or want to change.

Who would be the right person to coordinate with, i.e. who is in charge of the documentation?

"in charge" is a big word, but I am the one who most consistently looks at the pull requests made

• The move from UT 16.04 to 20.04 may have rendered some sections of the existing documentation outdated. Will UT 16.04 continue to exist alongside UT 20.04? If so, might it be a good idea to preserve the existing documentation as it is, create a copy, and update the copy / create new content to reflect the current functionality of UT 20.04?

I would lean towards not doing this. It would of course be the best solution to have an extensive coverage, high quality and up to date docs for both, but I think it is just an unrealistic goal. As I mentioned there aren't a lot of contributions. So, it would be wiser to aim for a decent coverage, ok quality, and not terribly out of date for latest version only

@Moem said in PineTime $25 FOSS smart watch:

I'm wondering, does anyone here use this watch? I'd love to know whether it will worh with either Xenial's or Focal's BT stack.

used ... I have one on the shelf collecting dust and waiting for me to have time to play with it again, but note that the phone watch doesn't run UB, or any Ubuntu, or any Linux. It runs one of a selection of operating systems of your choice: https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineTime#Default_OS and then it cooperates with "companion applications".

At the time when I last touched it long long time ago, I couldn't quite get to using it regularly, so it ended up on the shelf, but I am definitely looking forward to trying it again

@Shohag blast from the past what exactly does "doesn't work" mean? what's the output you get?

@arubislander said in Libertine tweak tool, how to install on Focal?:

@doniks The main issue with Libertine has always been how well the apps behave running under XMir (xenial) or XWayland (focal). No more work is being done on XMir, bit XWayland is under active development, and we should see things improving on that front.

Ah. Awesome. Happy to hear that!

@applee I wanted to leave it at that, but the topic keeps spinning around in my head.

I understand future proof, capacity, priorities, etc, etc, as well as scratching ones own itch, opinions being allowed to differ and above all else meritocracy. But I'll put these disclaimers aside for one more sec and look at this more strategically/architecturally.

Let's say someone writes (or updates) a solitaire game. Built with gtk/gnome, all newest best of breed, responsive design, wayland, sandbox ready, younameit. Also super standalone, wouldn't really need any platform integration to speak of as it has no notifications, doesn't read or write user files. But even if it needs any platform integration it is fully flatpak portal ready. You know, as state of the art and future proof as it gets. If we take Libertine out of the gui equation then the only way this application could come over to UT is if someone did the work to use UT's packaging format "click" to bring it in. In the previous/original vision of Libertine I would assume it to be sufficient to apt install the package from upstream ubuntu and then letting wayland be wayland.

So despite of what I said before of Libertine being basically a place to install "legacy" applications, it might be more appropriate to say upstream (apt) applications. Some of which might be "legacy" (non-responsive, X, dated stuff), but others might perfectly well be "modern" (response, wayland, etc).

But, of course, climbing down from my strategic vision horse back into reality, a lot of parts are moving: mir/wayland, upstart/systemd and if Libertine got (more) broken along the way and no one is fixing/rewriting it, then that's how it is.

@applee said in Libertine tweak tool, how to install on Focal?:

@doniks said in Libertine tweak tool, how to install on Focal?:

The future proof solution is stuff like wayland and (new) apps that are built with touch and small screens in mind. But, alas, here we are playing Libertine and trying yet again to carry the non-touchfriendly oldschool apps over to UT.

Emphasis on this part
Yeah basically convergence is the future.
In my opinion Ubuntu Touch is the best OS for it and if enough effort is made towards convergence we won't need what are distractions to me: Libertine, Waydroid, Anbox, ... Android, iOS

Native and convergence is the way.

Well, I agree it is the future. But it has been the future for quite a while and it still hasn't turned into the present. While I'm waiting for the future I still see the need for a (multiple-years .. decades?) stopgap ...

@grumpyoldbloke said in Libertine tweak tool, how to install on Focal?:

@doniks Just tried another couple of apps: Firefox worked correctly but Kpatience didn't..

I would be quite interested in helping to solve this problem, happy enough to poke at things with a little bit of guidance.

Awesome!

So, the first thing to understand (at least for me that was a revelation) is that libertine isn't all that magical. There are a few layers of magic (to me) like mir, wayland, xmir, xwayland, android drivers, chroot, proot, lxd, but we can ignore all of those.

For our discussion here, Libertine is basically just a folder with a regular old linux installation inside. And what you want to do is shoehorn the X configuration and X based apps inside that regular old linux installation into ... mostly just make things larger on the screen. Sometimes maybe also hide some parts or maybe arrange things in a more touch friendly way. That means that there actually is already a large part of information out there in the internet where people are trying to force X into small screens or fighting with high dpi screens stuff like this. The challenge here is to find this information. Many of those things have been reinvented a few times over the decades. However, often this information also rots away, since, well it is not a future proof solution. The future proof solution is stuff like wayland and (new) apps that are built with touch and small screens in mind. But, alas, here we are playing Libertine and trying yet again to carry the non-touchfriendly oldschool apps over to UT.

As with many advanced linuxy topics, a great place to start is arch documentation: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI Next to X things there are now also quite a few gtk/gnome or kde specific tricks that one can play. Also there are for practically every desktop environment some appearance, theme tweaking tools. a few loose notes I collected are here: https://gitlab.com/doniks/libertine-tweak-tool/-/blob/xenial/TODO Once we know how to tweak some app this boils down to changing some config file inside ~/.config or ~/.gtkblahdiblub or so. Libertine-Tweak-Tool is even less magically, it just performs some specific changes in some of these config files.

rough and quick and dirty. give it a read and let me know what you think