@Josele13 said in PinePhone:

if there were more people donating to Ubports we would have more developers on the team.

A transition from 16.04 to 20.04 will necessitate replacing upstart with systemd. From what I gather, UBports could use some help with such a project.

Has UBports issued a call-out requesting help from those in the Linux community having expertise with systemd?

@Josele13 said in PinePhone:

I think it is better to have a Pinephone with a good software in 16.04 in which the phone and its applications work well, than a bad software in 20.04, with malfunctions, crashes or restarts. Furthermore, keep in mind that every app has to be updated.

You mentioned two potential outcomes, but forgot at least one potential: "good software in [20.04] in which the phone and its applications work well." That's the outcome that I prefer.

@Josele13 said in PinePhone:

Haste always brings problems.

Developing on a platform nearing EOL brings its own set of problems. The upgrade from 16.04 to 20.04 must be done, eventually. The question is when. So I'll ask that question: if not by May of 2020, by when?

And no, I'm not asking facetiously. To be taken seriously, UBports needs to publish a roadmap, or at least a rough outline of a roadmap, discussing such matters.

@Lakotaubp said in PinePhone:

Don't forget the original timeline of devices with OS ready for order in March next year. That's not only in our case UT being stable and working but all associated tooling, manufacturing processes etc. from everyone else involved as well.

Okay, if you truly need a stable release by March of 2020, then yes, I'll concede that you are making an excellent case for first releasing on 16.04 in March, and updating later.

Even so, and sorry for being so pugnacious, but as I wrote above, UBports needs to publish a roadmap, or at least a rough outline of a roadmap, discussing your goals, when you hope to achieve them, and if applicable, what outside resources (beyond money) would be helpful in achieving your goals.

Hi @alan_g,

Thanks much for the reply. Much appreciated!

What prompted me to post the above was that, given the recent Manjaro Lomiri builds for the PinePhone (with significant input from @mariogrip), perhaps a similar approach could be applied to create an Ubuntu Lomiri build (based on Ubuntu 20.04) for the PinePhone.

That is, I hoped that developing Manjaro Lomiri and Ubuntu Lomiri in parallel could speed the process of bringing Ubuntu 20.04 to the PinePhone. Then, once the kinks had been worked out of the Ubuntu Lomiri build for the PinePhone, the remaining Touch components could be added back.

But from your reply, I'm guessing that's not such a good idea.

Just when I thought I was out...

@Fla, maybe you didn't read my response to @Lakotaubp in which I wrote:

"Okay, if you truly need a stable release by March of 2020, then yes, I'll concede that you are making an excellent case for first releasing on 16.04 in March, and updating later."

But okay, if you want to continue the discussion, here's my response to your inquiries:

@Fla said in PinePhone:

There are tons of missing features and even more bugs in UT, do you really think that a user will care more about a 20 being displayed on the About page instead of a 16, or what the phone actually does?

I'm tempted to say, yes, they'll care because "[20] is [4] louder than [16]."

But in all seriousness, yes, I'd rather have tons of missing features and bugs on a new platform, instead tons of missing features and bugs on a soon-to-be-obsolete platform.

On a soon-to-be-obsolete platform, I'd be asking myself why I'm suffering through these bugs now, only to suffer through an all new batch of bugs next year, or whenever upgraded to 20.04. But maybe that's just me.

In any case, as I conceded to @Lakotaubp , perhaps it's better to ship with 16.04 in March, and then upgrade to 20.04 as soon as feasible.

@Fla said in PinePhone:

Why put pressure to switch to 20.04 when the current state of development is to do a successful phone call?

I'll answer that question with a question: Why do you want to strive for a successful phone call on a soon-to-be-obsolete platform, when, instead, you could switch to 20.04 soon, and strive for a successful phone call on a platform that you won't be forced to upgrade in about one year?

But again, as I conceded to @Lakotaubp , perhaps it's better to ship with 16.04 in March, and then upgrade to 20.04 as soon as feasible.

@Lakotaubp and @Flohack I promise that I had planned merely to upvote your comments and then move on. But as long as I'm responding to @Fla , I'll provide a few brief comments responding to each of you.

@Flohack said in PinePhone:

Mir and unity8 are a stack that will stay for a longer time. We cannot and will not rip out Mir to replace it with Wayland, and in the same moment create 1000s of regression bugs. Mir is a supported platform, maintained by Canonical, and we can consume it for the time being. There is no added value in just using Wayland now.

I truly do appreciate your response. But to be blunt, provided I'm correctly interpreting what you meant when you wrote that "[UBports] cannot and will not rip out Mir to replace it with Wayland," I think what you wrote in the above snippet is pretty far off-the-mark. The whole point of upgrading from "old" Mir to "new" Mir is that "new" Mir is Wayland compliant. For now, in addition to the Wayland protocol, "new" Mir also supports the protocol used by "old" Mir. But that support for the old protocol is not enabled by default in current versions of Mir, and will eventually be removed from Mir altogether. Hence the need for migrating fully to Wayland, eventually.

@Flohack said in PinePhone:

There is no requirement to use systemd on 20.04, if we fork upstart and adapt it, it can be used. In fact a lot of things already now on the phone have been forked, to either use newer or older versions. Ubuntu Touch is a heavily tweaked Ubuntu, in no way just using all packages as they are.

I'm less sure about this topic than I am about Mir/Wayland stuff. While it would be possible to fork upstart and maintain it yourselves, to me, that sounds like a terrible idea. So no, my guess is that, unless you move away from Ubuntu to something like Devuan (which I doubt will happen), you'll be using systemd on 20.04. But maybe I'm wrong about this. Hope this will be discussed elsewhere.

@Lakotaubp said in PinePhone:

Along with what Flohack has just said above there was the call out for developers not too long ago https://forums.ubports.com/topic/3368/want-to-develop-ut-and-need-a-device/2 which should bring more developers on stream in the not to distant future and move the whole of UT development along.

The linked posting isn't really what I had in mind. I was thinking you could identify a few discrete projects (and the skill sets needed for completing them) and posting that information.

@Lakotaubp said in PinePhone:

Secondly I would like to just point out this thread is specifically about and for UT and PinePhone and not general UT future planning and development discussions. I think we are just beginning to drift slightly.
No harm at all in that line of thought and discussion but probably better off in a new thread somewhere else. Thank you for your understanding.

100% agreed. Provided no one pulls me back in, I'm out

@kugiigi said in PinePhone:

I'm pretty sure that timeline will be really hard to meet with the current workforce of UBports even if we decide to do it now. I'd love that as well but we have to be realistic though. Best case that I can think possible is having the new Mir/Unity8 and perhaps wayland. Rebasing to 20.04 would be a huge task to do.

You'd probably know better than I would. But please do keep in mind I'm not suggesting that phones requiring hybris be upgraded to 20.04 by about May of 2020. Rather, my suggestion is restricted to the PinePhone, which is much more like upgrading a release for a traditional desktop device. So I'm not ready to give up on my suggestion just yet.

@kugiigi said in PinePhone:

And somehow, I don't agree that there's a rush in the development just to make a good first impression to future PinePhone users. I mean as far as I know, there's no OS yet that's fully functional on the PinePhone and I think UBports already has the advantage at the moment.

It's a bit late here, and so I'll provide a more complete response another time. But in the meantime, please consider the reaction of a potential user who's told that the OS he/she is about to install on his/her shiny new Linux phone is based a four year old release. Sure, you can justify sticking with 16.04 from a technical standpoint. But it's very difficult to market that justification to those who want the latest and greatest. Also, I think you'd agree that most devs would much prefer to develop on a newer platform. Here too, perhaps you can justify developing on a four year old release, but it's a tough sell.

@kugiigi said in PinePhone:

Lastly, not to be negative, but I predict that most future PinePhone users are looking for a linux-experience that are similar to desktops which UBports won't give them by default and that might be a bad first impression already that we can't do much about But of course, i still believe UT is a great OS that many will still learn to love.

Actually, I think that UT has the capability to provide a Linux experience (through convergence) that even the most hardened Linux desktop user would welcome. But as mentioned before, an OS based on a four year old release will be, well, a bit off-putting to many such potential users.

Again, I know that sticking to 16.04 can be justified from a technical standpoint. But really, 16.04 is nearing EOL and upgrading is inevitable. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect that upgrading from 16.04 to 20.04 will be easier on the PinePhone than on any other device. If so, I hope that UBports will start the upgrade process for the PinePhone sooner rather than later, and certainly before starting the process for those devices requiring hybris.