@pparent

Example from this review: https://itsfoss.com/news/pinephone-review/
"As a result, users of it are subject to Ubuntu Touch’s “locked-down” style, similar to Android and iOS."

" PinePhone owners are generally tinkerers who like control over their device, which is made much harder with Ubuntu Touch."

Actually apt is allowed in the PinePhone, so the article linked is mistaken. Which is typical for that site since it is not technical. The "locked-down style" is particularly wrong and shows the author hasn't done any research at all.
In general, new people coming into UT should expect having to adapt to things being different than their Linux distro. I like to describe the Ubuntu Touch experience as the closest you can get to the familiar GNU/Linux stack while retaining the phone's original functionality.

@gpatel-fr These small utilities can installed with nix or just copy the executable from the .deb to .local/bin.

@fredldotme Encrypting WiFi settings (/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections) is a must-have, as they contain passwords. But what is the reason to encrypt apps' installation? The executables and assets are public anyway, I don't know any app that stores sensitive data in /opt.

@bbiw I think it's feature for when you listen to music through external headphones and you disconnect them to stop playing music. It also happens on Android.

@TeckMonster There is a port for the Samsung Fold 3 (https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/community-ports/android11/samsung-galaxy-z-fold3), you may want to ask its status on Telegram, and if the porter got the screen switching working.

@asiasiasi The UBports PDK is what you are looking for, presumably the "emulator that didn't work". There was a recent post where someone needed to make chages for it to start. It is essentially a QEMU VM with adaptations for graphics but not used often so it can break.

As you already found out, Lomiri can be ran on normal Ubuntu as well in case you want to familiarize with the environment.

Individual apps can be ran (and built) using clickable desktop to test if it what you want, since apps are a big part of the ecosystem.

@gpatel-fr Actually all that A-GPS does is significantly (normal GPS is 50b/s) speed up downloading the satellite orbital data (almanac and ephimeris) through cell towers. It can also help with the triangulation as the phone knows it's near to the cell tower.

@mihael You can use scp to copy (pull) those file over ssh to your phone: scp user@ip:/file.txt /dir

@gpatel-fr

Vndk deprecation happens in Android 15, not 14 - unless Halium 14 means Android 15 ?

I think the only thing UT has to do with VNDK is mount the correct partitions to be read by the android container, which handles the rest. Ask in the porting group for more detail, there are already some short discussions around it.

to check the vndk version, it's necessary to enable debug mode on the phone, connect a computer through usb and use adb

You can install an app called Treble Info from F-Droid.

@gpatel-fr

Also, what's up with vndk deprecation for Android 15 ? Has libhybris any chance of being updated to use the new-fangled apexes ?

New devices use GKI (generic kernel image) which is part of the effort by Google to standarize the kernels used by devices. For us this means that the first boot will be harder to achieve, but it will be easier to get more phone hardware working due to the similarities. Halium 14 is already working to some extent so there shouldn't be any issue.

(Sorry for the late reply, couldn't respond when I first read it and forgot it later.)

@poVoq That is correct, there shouldn't be any incompatible changes across updates that affect UT.

@poVoq The VNDK version is the one you are looking for (I confused SDK and VNDK previously but now edited the post). VNDK version 30 means android 11.

The porting notes are for Android 9+, they are mostly (excluding GKI) the same for even the latest version (currently 14). The script needs as input the boot.img of the partition, which includes the kernel.

@poVoq In UT you can run getprop which will dump many info regarding your device including the SDK version.
In Android you can use apps like Treble checker.

Alternatively, use the unpack_bootimg.py script from the porting notes.

@poVoq Nowdays Google allows manufacturers to run a newer Android version on top of an older VNDK. The version that matters to Halium is the VNDK's as that is what defines the APIs.

(edited to replace SDK -> VNDK)

@foxx This is getting very off topic, politics are not that related to the issue. I never said that you cannot use your camera, it just has to be interfaced through Halium. You can quickly make an app with Qt that captures frames from the camera, and maybe use the Qt Networking framework to broadcast.

@foxx said in How to use camera via terminal v4l on Pixel 3A:

Canonical tried to push Unity using pretty useless Ubuntu Touch, when actual problem was on hardware manufacturers' incentives layer to make unified drivers, so some organization could make actual linux, not gnomes and package managers without underlying layer.

That's why they wanted to become the manufacturers themselves and started crowdfunding Ubuntu Edge, which would have been an awesome device but it never reached its funding target.

Probably government could oblige manufacturers to provide drivers , which should comply with some POSIX

People don't understand any of these. Politicians not only don't care about privacy, standards etc, but are busy pushing those stupid laws forbidding end-to-end encryption, I wouldn't expect anything from them.

The world is far from perfect and it will always be like that, so you have to make compromises.

@foxx How does termux work better? Even if you have a rooted device, you still aren't using the familiar GNU/Linux stack. Termux is still an emulator, it modifies the syscalls, and you don't have access to every directory.

In UT you can do everything you would on a desktop Linux distro but it is more difficult, mainly due to relying on hardware abstraction.
The only solution to this is using an upstream kernel with complete driver support. This is however a much harder task than the already hard porting process. PostmarketOS does that, and that's why almost none of their devices work fully.

All manufacturers should mainline their device drivers but none do, instead they use ancient downstream (often bugged) kernels so they can release their product quicker (and cheaper).
There are exceptions such as the Pinephone(s), which have full mainline kernel support, and allow using devices such as camera in the same way as in a normal Linux device.

In my view, Ubuntu Touch does solve a problem. It is the closest you can currently get to a normal GNU/Linux system, while retaining the phone's intended functionality (telephony, camera, etc).

@foxx You can only see cameras through Qt, see this post for more details.

@Charly Snap doesn't make sense for these small standalone utilites. Also fdisk doesn't exist as snap and rsync packages are only some outdated third party programs, which I would never install.

@LITTLEFisky It could be something with your environment, have you tried using installing with another Linux distro (e.g. Ubuntu)? It can work from a VM or live USB.

The "cannot read data from undefined" seems like an issue reported from JavaScript, that's why I'm saying it's an issue on your environment.