@kugiigi Thanks for posting your experience, did you post / find an issue on gitlab regarding it? I am interested in Ubuntu Touch development, so if I get the chance I'd like to work on that, because if something like that worked it would allow portable convergence, which is what I'm after.

@ikoz Hi there, how did you 'convert' the step that says systemimage:install into pure fastboot/adb commands? I'm having a similar issue with FP5.

I have also looked for files needed for the systemimage install process, and boot.img and vendor_boot.img are easy enough to find (https://cdimage.ubports.com/devices/FP5/), but other things that must be flashed for a fully working OS are less easy to figure out...

@Charly I see, could this be a device-specific issue? It seems to have been done before here for example: https://xdaforums.com/t/tutorial-howto-convert-your-external-sd-card-from-fat-exfat-to-ext4-3-ways.2480963/

Or did you mean Ubuntu Touch specifically is unable to deal with ext4-formatted SDs?

@amazones Were you able to install any emacs packages? I really want to do PDF, HTML and audio annotation (bookmarks/highlights and comments) with emacs, but I would want it to work universally (not just on my desktop, but on my phone as well).

Something else I would like to try is this: https://elpa.gnu.org/packages/kiwix.html

@kugiigi Maybe this should work reliably: https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/advanceduse/screencasting.html

You'd need to make everything tiny on the phone, putting it into a sort of 'desktop mode' (similar to what I was saying before). That way you would be able to make full use of the large screen.

@kugiigi Good point, even having a single external display already creates a 'multiple display setup' doesn't it? I wonder if temporarily disabling the main internal one would help make the larger external one function correctly. Sure, it's not ideal, but usability first!

@Charly Hmm that sounds like a good question for Ubports Core, SD cards still remain immensely helpful for storage - let us know if you happen to find out more about it!

I also got some suggestions from the main Telegram group, here is a summary:

(in the case of a broken Ubuntu Touch installation)

• you can run the installer again
  • untick the 'wipe userdata' box
  • you don't need to reinstall any other ROM

This is ideal for my use case as I will actually be setting up software mainly on Libertine, Waydroid and Pocket VMs, which are containerised anyway, while the 'host' OS is for day-to-day essentials such as calling and reading documents.

I am sure taking snapshots/backups of containers is a lot more straightforward than the entire OS (which can be reinstalled to a guaranteed working state anyway): I haven't tried it yet, but with similar tools (Waydroid on Raspberry Pi OS and VirtualBox on MacOS), it was simply a means of copying the files somewhere else and moving them back when needed, so I'm sure it won't be any harder.

I will write again here if I find a way of performing incremental snapshots (a great storage space saver), or for any other useful information on this topic

What do Ubuntu Touch users choose if they want a simple and reliable way to backup and restore their phone, preserving the exact state of the OS so that they can 'roll back' if necessary (eg. bricked phone)?

I haven't really seen a satisfying post about this, so I thought I might as well start the conversation: I'm happy to experiment with different tools and report my findings here as this is a very important feature to me.

@kugiigi Thanks for posting your experience, did you post / find an issue on gitlab regarding it? I am interested in Ubuntu Touch development, so if I get the chance I'd like to work on that, because if something like that worked it would allow portable convergence, which is what I'm after.

Did any of you try touchscreen monitors, and if so, what model and was anything not working?