This is a port of Ubuntu Touch for the Sony Xperia X (suzu/F5121 & F5122).

Sources:
Kernel:
https://github.com/fredldotme/device-kernel-loire

Device:
https://github.com/fredldotme/device-sony-common
https://github.com/fredldotme/device-sony-loire
https://github.com/fredldotme/device-sony-suzu

Halium:
https://github.com/Halium/halium-devices/blob/halium-7.1/manifests/sony_suzu.xml

Status:

Working:

• Audio
• Calling
• SMS
• Wifi (sometimes requires a reboot)
• Wifi hotspot
• Bluetooth (sometimes requires a reboot)
• GPS
• Vibration
• Orientation sensor
• LED
• USB/MTP
• USB/ADB
• Video decoding
• Photo camera
• MicroSD support
• Flash light
• Anbox
• Libertine

Missing:

• Video recording

Install:

• Make sure to upgrade your device to the latest stock Android 8.0 before continuing:

  • Windows: https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/get-started/flash-tool/
  • Linux: http://www.flashtool.net/downloads_linux.php (run with GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus ./FlashTool) and https://xperifirm.com/tutorial/install-xperifirm-linux/

• OEM unlock your device: https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/get-started/unlock-bootloader/

• Boot your device into fastboot mode by shutting it down and keeping the Volume Up button pressed while plugging in a USB cable between your phone and PC. The LED should be on and blue.

• In case of flashing issues please wipe system, data & cache partitions using TWRP

• Flash the OEM binaries from: https://developer.sony.com/file/download/software-binaries-for-aosp-nougat-android-7-1-kernel-4-4-loire/ using fastboot flash oem SW_binaries_for_Xperia_AOSP_N_MR1_5.7_r1_v08_loire.img

• Run the UBports Installer (0.4.5-beta or onwards): https://github.com/ubports/ubports-installer/releases/tag/0.4.5-beta

Now that the port has reached a certain state I'd like to present the status of this project to a wider audience,

Current status:

• Full AppArmor support
• Adequate Mir performance
• Full ofono/rild support
• Passing most hybris tests

Known issues:

• Unable to enumerate rotation status and updates
• Calling doesn't work
• Audio doesn't work
• Camera doesn't work
• Click package support incomplete

The full build instructions are available on the Halium project management issue page.

Halium port project management, HAL port specific issues:
https://github.com/Halium/projectmanagement/issues/98

Hello again!

I've been working on bringing Docker to Ubuntu Touch, with success! Although not completely finished, I'd like to share what is possible today.

This requires a device with snapd installed, so either Ubuntu Touch 20.04 with Snapz0r (untested) or Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 and up.

This required changes to the Docker Snap, with a PR on GitHub that has received two heart reactions by the maintainers, so the chances of this PR landing upstream are high. For those interested in what was necessary: https://github.com/canonical/docker-snap/pull/327

I've shared a preliminary build of this Docker Snap on Google Drive and my private NextCloud instance, until the PR is merged upstream. Download links are below.

A Pull Request with automatic firewall detection has been merged upstream, so I have removed links to my private builds. Instead follow the instructions in How to to get a working Snap on your device.

For this Snap to work on all devices, one will currently have to install it in "devmode", a mode which disables confinement for this particular Snap. This effectively means that it will run with the same privileges as an apt-installed Docker package. For confinement to work this will require additional work in snapd which I'm currently waiting for input on: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/getting-docker-snap-to-run-on-ubuntu-touch-with-k4-19-5-4/49243

Kernel support

For Docker to work your device's kernel requires a certain set of features enabled. I've tried to list them here: https://gist.github.com/fredldotme/5dffc8bfa410cfa8f541276407154494

Also, if the device uses CONFIG_ANDROID_PARANOID_NETWORK in it's configuration, it might be beneficial to disable that also since otherwise containers won't be able to connect to the internet.

How to

1. Install the Snap on your device: sudo snap install docker --edge --devmode

2. Test whether Docker works: sudo docker run hello-world

3. For running Docker without sudo, set up your user appropriately:

sudo addgroup --extrausers docker
sudo adduser $USER docker
newgrp docker
sudo snap disable docker
sudo snap enable docker

4. You're done!

If you feel really adventurous you can now even install the Clickable Snap (sudo snap install clickable) and develop your Ubuntu Touch apps directly on your Ubuntu Touch device. How awesome is that?

Hello there!

I am using the Fairphone 4 as my daily driver at the moment, and I want to ensure good security of the device. Henceforth I am updating the kernel from 4.19.157 to the last stable release 4.19.325 from December 2024. While no major update this will ensure added patches to known CVEs.

Please be aware that this is a tedious process, taking incremental patches from upstream kernel.org, applying them, checking conflicts, building them and testing them on the device. It will take some time until we reach 4.19.325, so please be patient.

If you think that's a worthwhile thing to do, please leave a donation (I could really need it). Links below in my signature.

Calling now works (with caveats). For the time being you need a test version of telepathy-ofono on your device to enable calling:

sudo ubports-qa install xenial_-_haliumfixup

Good news! Over the last few days we enabled initial support for SMS & MMS on the Pixel 3a & 3a XL on US carriers. A bunch of other fixes made it into the current release candidate to perfect it but this is the big one.

SMS work reliably on 4G now and MMS partially work (lacking proper Group MMS support right now). The phone doesn't trip off the carrier with its incomplete IMS support too.

If you want to make sure you can reliably receive MMS please make sure your APN settings are compatible, either by changing the settings or, if the system-settings GUI doesn't work, by editing the /var/lib/ofono/<number>/gprs file manually, or by disabling the Internet APN completely. Staying off WIFI is also reported to work reliably.

And here a little success story on combining the Clickable Snap & the Docker Snap, allowing to build AND test a click package directly on the device (in this case a JingPad). Photo courtesy of Sander:

Even better news: The wipe won't be needed.

Existing v1 policies continue working and should even be compatible with Waydroid once they're stored in the filesystem keyring. Even if they're not, that's not a blocker for v2 to land early, as existing users can enjoy their devices with the same feature set as before.

I'll go ahead and merge this.

EDIT April 3rd 2021: NFC support is now in the devel channel and will be released with OTA-17
Please use this thread as a place to exchange ideas regarding our NFC implementation.

Original post:

Hey! I have something new to play around with for people on Halium 9 builds of Ubuntu Touch: you can now test your device for NFC functionality!
The only prerequisite is that your device needs to be on the devel-based rootfs, not the edge one.

To install:

sudo ubports-qa install xenial_-_android9_-_nfcd
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo apt install nfcd nfcd-tools nfcd-binder-plugin nfcd-repowerd-plugin

To get console output from nfcd:

sudo stop nfcd
sudo /usr/sbin/nfcd -p /usr/lib/nfcd/plugins -v

App developers can try the QtNFC integration module to develop apps based on this technology. This requires the following change to be made to the rootfs before it can be used by (currently only unconfined) apps:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo apt install qml-module-qtnfc

The API documentation is located here: https://doc-snapshots.qt.io/qt5-5.9/qtnfc-qmlmodule.html

Please use this thread to share your experience with NFC enablement and even ask for help.

Hello all!

I've created a little script to aid in the recovery of data, should one choose to enable encryption on their device.

It's available here: https://gist.github.com/fredldotme/7bc4e5aee515d8b74a7b091599e67382
Save the script as chroot-into-system on your PC.

The guide assumes you have adb installed on your PC. The steps are as followed:

1. Boot your device into recovery mode
2. Mount your system partition by going to "Advanced" -> "Mount/unmount system"
3. Open a terminal on your PC and switch to the directory you saved the script in
4. Push the script to your device: adb push chroot-into-system /tmp/
5. Run an adb shell
6. Execute the script: sh /tmp/chroot-into-system
7. Now it's time to unlock the home directory: fscrypt unlock /home/phablet
8. Enter your PIN or password and hit enter
9. The home directory contents should now be decrypted and visible

Please try it on your device and let me know of any issues.

Good news, the xtables-enabled Docker Snap is now available in the edge channel. I've updated the How to section with the new install commands. If you want to refresh: sudo snap refresh docker --edge --devmode

@fair For the Fairphone 5 I've implemented something which should help you, it's available in latest daily channels. The change is here: https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/reference-device-ports/android11/fairphone-5/fairphone-fp5/-/commit/13884b434abf95f643f41f04c62b22e73be9fe1c

What it does is keep the device awake once Waydroid starts. That means it won't opportunistically autosuspend anymore while Waydroid is running.

For those wanting to try clickable with the new docker snap, or wanting to build other images on your devices, I noticed a serious performance hit in creating clickable images with the new Docker 29.0.0 which is due to the containerd-snapshotter feature. You can disable it easily though, restoring snapshot creation to a previous codepath. You'll just have to edit your /var/snap/docker/current/config/daemon.json configuration:

$ cat /var/snap/docker/current/config/daemon.json
{
    "log-level":        "error",
    "features": {
        "containerd-snapshotter": false
    }
}

Make sure to restart your Docker daemon afterwards: sudo snap restart docker

@projectmoon overlayfs not being available is a kernel problem, for which you should contact your device maintainer.

Hello again.

Some things happened since I posted the original post above. I've gone ahead and added automatic detection for xtables vs nftables to the Docker Snap, which was received quite positively by the maintainers. Here's the PR for those who are interested: https://github.com/canonical/docker-snap/pull/329

You can install the Snap via:

sudo snap install docker --channel=edge/pr-329

If you've already installed the test package from the Downloads link above, you will have to instead run:

sudo snap refresh docker --channel=edge/pr-329 --amend

When this lands it will first land in the edge channel before promotion to a more "stable" channel, so keep that in mind once you see the PR merged.

@nparafe That device's kernel is too old for using cgroupv2 and eBPF to mediate device access, it's advised in the port to set the kernel cmdline systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=0 and recompile the kernel image. Please tell your device maintainer about this.

@uxes IIRC with fscrypt in place, just replacing shadow breaks the protectors of fscrypt, leaving the system with a broken state. Also that's the dog biting it's tail: decrypting based on the password while the file containing the password is locked, that doesn't work.

Regarding bluez data: that would break bluetooth at the greeter, which might be required for some usecases.

@ikoz Encrypting apps would prevent tampering with executables and replacing them with malicious ones by evil actors.

I want to start a discussion about encrypting more data stored in the /userdata partition, for extra security/paranoia.

Right now we have /home/phablet encrypted when done so via system-settings, but there's room for improvement. I would like to also encrypt:

• Wifi settings
• Apps
• Potentially more which I don't see yet

For apps I have created a script which does the encryption in an easy-to-follow manner. This will require a device with policy version 2 support. It's available here: https://gist.github.com/fredldotme/696ab1e22bec4ed296caee471aa89a87

ATTENTION: Don't try to force the script to run on a system which only supports v1 policies, this will break app installation and uninstallation.

The script keeps the unencrypted original in /userdata/system-data/opt/click.ubuntu.com-bak which you will have to remove manually after rebooting.

Encrypting data which is usually accessed by non-phablet users will require v2 policy suppport, so keep that in mind when coming up with ideas.

Any input?

I've updated the kernel to 4.19.242 now locally, will test further and merge this ASAP.