Out of curiosity, I tried to get Thunderbird to behave properly on a Fairphone 4. Maybe it would be an idea to make a one-click-install that does all this for a newbie. openSUSE software catalogue has a one-click yaml installer script which sets everything up. Just an idea to make it user friendlier to get common software working out of the box so to say for a newbie to make it easier to adopt Ubuntu Touch.

Step 1: Installing Thunderbird inside a Libertine container

For those of you newbies wondering how to get Thunderbird Mail client working in desktop mode on Ubuntu Touch, this is one way that seems to work well. Thunderbird has so far not crashed a single time. However the Ubuntu Terminal app and nano crashed several times during this test. This markup was written in nano and copied to this forum spot to test the interoperability between different windows in desktop mode. Copy-paste functionality between windows seems to be a bit glitchy at the time of writing.

I messed around with settings until I got something that would work in desktop mode for Fairphone 4 running channel 24.04/daily.

Installing Thunderbird as DEB

Install Libertine Tweak Tool from Openstore.

Activate lirsh command with Libertine Tweak Tool.

Open a terminal window and type:

lirsh                                                                                  
fakeroot                                                                               

We need command add-apt-repository command from package software-properties-common.

apt-get update                                                                         
apt-get upgrade                                                                        
apt-get install software-properties-common                                             

On my Fairphone 4 I was also obliged to install package apt-utils that for some reason did not install correctly by itself.

apt-get install apt-utils

At this point it was possible to issue terminal command:

add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa

cat <<EOF | tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird-ppa
Package: thunderbird
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001
Package: thunderbird
Pin: release o=Ubuntu
Pin-Priority: -1
EOF

apt-get update

apt-cache policy thunderbird

# apt install thunderbird
DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive" apt install thunderbird

exit # jump out of fakeroot

thunderbird --version

Now you can test if terminal command thunderbird launches something.

On my Fairphone 4, I saw a shaddow window but nothing more. I remembered reading that you have to force Xwayland in some way.

# lirsh
GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird

On my Fairphone 4, the zoom factor is quite big. Let's try to lower the zoom.

One way to lower the zoom is to edit Libertine container noble file ~/.Xdefaults and adjust Xft.dpi: 120 from default value Xft.dpi: 197.

Exiting lirsh and re-entering lirsh should activate the new DPI setting.

Then re-launch thunderbird from command line and see if the zoom factor is better.

# lirsh
GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird

Now the window looks a bit better with not such a large zoom factor in desktop mode.

The other way is to use a scaling factor directly before launching thunderbird.

Try this and see if the zoom factor is lower with standard setting Xft.dpi: 197.

# lirsh
GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird

Once the scaling is okay for your eyes you can create a thunderbird-launcher.

# lirsh
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
echo "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird" > ~/.local/bin/thunderbird-launcher
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/thunderbird-launcher

On my Fairphone 4, Libertine container noble folder ~/.local/bin
was not in my Libertine container variable $PATH:

# lirsh
echo $PATH

Editing Libertine container noble file .bashrc should do the trick.

Added the following lines at the end of .bashrc:

if [ -d ~/.local/bin ]; then
  export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

if [ -d ~/bin ]; then
  export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

Exiting lirsh and re-entering lirsh should activate the new setting.

exit # jump out of lirsh
lirsh
echo $PATH

thunderbird-launcher

This command should open thunderbird inside lirsh with desired zoom.

Step 2: Making a Thunderbird Mail main menu item shortcut

Poking around with the settings, you may discover that there are actually two ways to launch Thunderbird Mail once it is installed.

• Launching Thunderbird Mail from outside the Libertine container. This would require a separate launcher put in ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop. User settings will be stored outside the Libertine container.
• Launching from inside the Libertine container. This would require to edit the Libertine container's thunderbird.desktop file, which will sooner or later appear in Ubuntu Touch main menu. User settings will be stored inside the Libertine container.

For the purpose of illustration, I will do both approaches.

2a: Making a thunderbird.desktop outside Libertine container

It is not entierly clear to me what you have to do in order to trigger a main menu update after you have installed something in a Libertine container. Debian has a command update-menus which Ubuntu Touch does not have. Ususally, a reboot is the easiest way to update Ubuntu Touch main menu items. However, there should in theory be another way to refresh the main menu that is at this time unknown to me.

Now that this is working, let's try to create an Ubuntu Touch shortcut in the main menu. This can be done manually of course. In this example, I will piggy-back on what is already available.

Open another terminal tab (without lirsh environment).

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps

wget -O ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/thunderbird.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Thunderbird_2023_icon.svg                                                                  

wget -O ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spk121/hicolor-icon-theme/refs/heads/master/index.theme 

sed -i "s|^Comment=.*$|Comment=Ubuntu Touch Icon Theme|g" ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme

echo "Update icon caches (maybe obsolete)"

touch ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

update-icon-caches ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

# or

touch ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

gtk-update-icon-cache ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

echo
echo "We can re-use the thunderbird.desktop file that is in the Libertine container"

cp -v /userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "Using scaling factor GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2"
echo "to achieve similar scaling as with"
echo "Libertine container 'noble' GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6"

sed -i "s|^Exec=.*$|Exec=bash -c \'GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2 GDK_BACKEND=x11 /userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/bin/thunderbird\' %u|g" ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "Ubuntu Touch does not seem to find the thunderbird icon"
echo "by itself."
echo "    Icon=thunderbird"
echo "Icon has to be specified exactly with path to show in main menu."
echo "    Icon=/path/to/scalable/svg"

sed -i "s|^Icon=.*$|Icon=/home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/thunderbird.svg|g" ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "Trigger main menu update"

mv ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/tmp.desktop

mv ~/.local/share/applications/tmp.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "You should now see Thunderbird Mail"
echo "in Ubuntu Touch main menu."
echo
echo "Done."

Now there should be a visible "Thunderbird Mail" launcher in Ubuntu Touch main menu.

Try hitting the "Super-key" (sometimes this key has four windows left of the space bar, sometimes it can have an apple design or command key) on your external wired PS-2 keyboard (or wireless keyboard)
and type thund which should be enough to make Thunderbird Mail laucher visible.

2b: Adjusting thunderbird.desktop inside Libertine container

Adjusting Libertine container thunderbird.desktop located at
~/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop
could be done manually with terminal command:
nano ~/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

You may also install mousepad in the Libertine container to get a graphical editor. However, copy-paste does not seem to work between windows.

There are three lines starting with Exec= which needs to be adjusted to something like:

# Exec=thunderbird %u (original)
Exec=bash -c "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird %u"

# Exec=thunderbird -compose (original)
Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -compose'

# Exec=thunderbird -addressbook (original)
Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -addressbook'

This could be accomplished with using terminal command sed:

sed -i "s|^Exec=thunderbird %u$|Exec=bash -c \"GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird %u\"|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=thunderbird -compose$|Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -compose'|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=thunderbird -addressbook$|Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -addressbook'|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

Change the scaling factor GDK_DPI_SCALE to suit your eyes. Note that on my Fairphone 4 on channel 24.04/daily it seems to require a scaling factor less than 1.0 inside the Libertine container to scale things down. From outside the container, a scaling factor
larger than 1.0 had to be used to scale things up.

I am not sure about how to write the first launcher which has %u at the end. The %u in a .desktop file is a placeholder that allows the launcher to accept a single URL as an argument. A mailto link example is: <a href="mailto:someone@example.com">Send Email</a>. Ideally, such a link should be able to configure to open in Thunderbird Mail. Unfortunately I have not been able to discover how to configure it in Ubuntu Touch. There should be a mailto child in:

gsettings list-children org.gnome.desktop.default-applications

but it does not exist. If it would exist, maybe a command like:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.mailto exec 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -compose'

would make it possible to open e-mail links in Thunderbird Mail.

Concluding thoughts

If all went well, you should now be able to set up any mail account and optionally create an OpenPGP encryption key to be used when sending encrypted email to somebody else whatever email provider they use, given that the recipient has a mail reader that can use your public OpenPGP key to decrypt the email message you sent them. If they also use Thunderbird Mail client, OpenPGP encryption will work in the same way on their system. Several other mail clients, such as Evolution Mail client support OpenPGP encryption in a similar way but it might require more to configure it than in Thunderbird, which is more user friendly in this particular aspect. Of course, the email meta data will most probably not be encrypted. If you wish to avoid email metadata you might want to use tuta-mail or proton-mail or any other mail that never leaves the email provider. If somebody knows how to get a mail reader for tuta-mail or proton-mail to Ubuntu Touch, I am sure some users would appreciate that.

Having Morph browser open with several tabs and Thunderbird Mail open at the same time uses 3.1-5.9Gi RAM memory, reports terminal command free -h.

TEXStudio is working in Libertine! The generation of sample documents went well. Tested on channel 24.04/daily on Fairphone 4. RAM usage topped at 2.7GB (free -h).

Other working things that are often used together with TEXStudio in the same libertine container:

• inkscape (vector graphics)
• atril (pdf viewer)
• thunar (file manager)

Other;

• mousepad (text editor)
• parole (music)

Not working as well out of the box:

• emacs
• gedit
• leafpad (usable, complaining about wayland)

Observations

• xfce software tends to work with libertine.
• Some windows get a window title bar that I didn't figure out how to get rid of.
• Some apps in libertine are in bright mode. Maybe there is a way to add dark mode theme to a libertine container.
• A libertine container can say you need to run dpkg --configure -a as root to fix an installation gone wrong. How to become root in a libertine container is not straight forward. su - not working. su phablet not working. libertine-container-manager exec -i noble -c "/bin/bash" and then fakeroot seems to work.

I would apreciate something to get rid of the cookie questions. Something like addon "I still don't care about cookies". Maybe someone knows how to achieve it.

Not sure if the article is still valid for 24.04 noble. Tried it, didn't notice any difference. Then I discovered app UT Tweak Tool which seems more handy than typing config files.

In 24.04 noble, is there any way, even programmatically, to increase or decrease the different text sizes individually, as well as increase and decrease the icon sizes separately from scaling the text(s)? The scaling in app UT Tweak Tool scales everything, causing some text in some apps not being visible if the scaling is big. The default text size is quite small. In desktop mode, it seems that the scaling is different, but if adjusted it adjusts the scaling even in non-desktop-mode. Somehow, it would be desirable to have two different text(s) and icon scalings, one for the device itself standalone, and one scaling when connected in desktop mode.

Usually, there is one text size for WindowTitles, one for Documents, one for Interface, one for Monospace and then there is usually a TextScaling factor that adjusts all text sizes (fonts) without having to tinker with each one individually. Hinting and AntiAliasing is usually also part of what you can adjust.

Out of curiosity, since I managed to get Thunderbird to behave properly on a Fairphone 4... maybe it would be an idea to make a similar guide for Firefox web browser.

Step 1: Installing Firefox inside a Libertine container

For those of you newbies wondering how to get Firefox web browser working in desktop mode on Ubuntu Touch, this is one way that seems to work well. Firefox has so far crashed one time only.

This markup was written in nano and mousepad. Copy-paste functionality between windows seems to be non-existent between Firefox and other windows at the time of writing. The only way to copy this markup was to cat markdown-text.md in a terminal and manually copy the lines from terminal with right-click copy, and paste it in this forum.

I messed around with settings until I got something that would work in desktop mode for Fairphone 4 running channel 24.04/daily.

Installing Firefox as DEB

Install Libertine Tweak Tool from Openstore.

Activate lirsh command with Libertine Tweak Tool.

Open a terminal window and type:

lirsh                                                                                  
fakeroot                                                                               

At this point it is possible to issue terminal commands:

install -d -m 0755 /etc/apt/keyrings

wget -q https://packages.mozilla.org/apt/repo-signing-key.gpg -O- | tee /etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc > /dev/null

echo "deb [signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc] https://packages.mozilla.org/apt mozilla main" | tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list > /dev/null

echo '
Package: *
Pin: origin packages.mozilla.org
Pin-Priority: 1000
' | tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla

apt-get update 

# If you want to update the whole Libertine container
apt-get upgrade --fix-missing

apt-cache policy firefox

apt-get install firefox

exit # jump out of fakeroot

firefox --version

# To install a different language pack, execute:
# lirsh

apt-cache search firefox-l10n

# to get the list of all available language packages.
#
# Install the language pack of your choice like:

fakeroot

apt-get install firefox-l10n-es-es # Spanish

# or

apt-get install firefox-l10n-de # German

# or

apt-get install firefox-l10n-fr # French

exit # jump out of fakeroot

You may now see Firefox in Ubuntu Touch main menu, or not. One way to trigger a main menu update is to create an update or a .desktop file in one of the catalogues that Ubuntu Touch is monitoring. Try these lines one at a time, to see if the launcher appears, in a fresh terminal tab:

if [ -d /home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor ]; then
  touch /home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor
else
  mkdir -p /home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
  wget -O /home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme https://github.com/matthewbauer/appstream-generator/raw/refs/heads/master/data/hicolor-theme-index.theme
fi

A minimal index.theme can also be made like this:

cat <<EOF > /home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme
[Icon Theme]
Name=Hicolor
Comment=Ubuntu Touch fallback icon theme
Hidden=true
Directories=scalable/apps

[scalable/apps]
MinSize=1
Size=128
MaxSize=256                                                                            
Context=Applications                                                                   
Type=Scalable
EOF

If Firefox still does not show up in Ubuntu Touch main menu, you can try to make a change in folder /home/phablet/.local/share/applications:

cp -v /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/.

sleep 3

rm -v /home/phablet/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

Try hitting the "Super-key" (sometimes this key has four windows left of the space bar) and type firef which should be enough to make Firefox launcher visible.

Now you can test if terminal command launches something.

# lirsh
GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox

On my Fairphone 4, the zoom factor is quite big. Let's try to lower the zoom.

One way to lower the zoom is to edit Libertine container noble file ~/.Xdefaults and adjust Xft.dpi: 120 from default value Xft.dpi: 197.

Exiting lirsh and re-entering lirsh should activate the new DPI setting.

Then re-launch firefox from command line and see if the zoom factor is better.

# lirsh
GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox

Now the window looks a bit better with not such a large zoom factor in desktop mode.

The other way is to use a scaling factor directly before launching firefox.

Try this and see if the zoom factor is lower with standard setting Xft.dpi: 197.

# lirsh
GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox

Once the scaling is okay for your eyes you can create a firefox-launcher.

# lirsh
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
echo "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox" > ~/.local/bin/firefox-launcher
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/firefox-launcher

On my Fairphone 4, Libertine container noble folder ~/.local/bin
was not in my Libertine container variable $PATH:

# lirsh
echo $PATH

Editing Libertine container noble file ~/.bashrc should do the trick. The full path is:

/home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/home/phablet/.bashrc

You can edit this file both from outside the Libertine container noble as well as from inside the Libertine container.

Added the following lines at the end of the Libertine container ~/.bashrc:

if [ -d ~/.local/bin ]; then
  export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

if [ -d ~/bin ]; then
  export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

Exiting lirsh and re-entering lirsh should activate the new setting.

exit # jump out of lirsh
lirsh
echo $PATH

firefox-launcher

This command should open firefox inside lirsh with desired zoom.

Step 2: Making a Firefox main menu item shortcut

Poking around with the settings, you may discover that there are actually two ways to launch Firefox once it is installed.

• Launching Firefox from outside the Libertine container. This would require a separate launcher put in ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop. User settings will be stored outside the Libertine container.
• Launching from inside the Libertine container. This would require to edit the Libertine container's firefox.desktop file, which will sooner or later appear in Ubuntu Touch main menu. User settings will be stored inside the Libertine container.

For the purpose of illustration, I will do both approaches.

2a: Making a firefox.desktop outside Libertine container

It is not entierly clear to me what you have to do in order to trigger a main menu update after you have installed something in a Libertine container. Debian has a command update-menus which Ubuntu Touch does not have. Ususally, a reboot is the easiest way to update Ubuntu Touch main menu items. However, there should in theory be another way to refresh the main menu that is at this time unknown to me.

Now that this is working, let's try to create an Ubuntu Touch shortcut in the main menu. This can be done manually of course. In this example, I will piggy-back on what is already available.

Open another terminal tab (without lirsh environment).

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps

wget -O ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/firefox.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Firefox_logo%2C_2019.svg

wget -O ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spk121/hicolor-icon-theme/refs/heads/master/index.theme 

sed -i "s|^Comment=.*$|Comment=Ubuntu Touch Icon Theme|g" ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme

echo "Update icon caches (maybe obsolete)"

touch ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

update-icon-caches ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

# or

touch ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

gtk-update-icon-cache ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

echo
echo "We can re-use the firefox.desktop file that is in the Libertine container"

cp -v /userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

echo
echo "Using scaling factor GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2"
echo "to achieve similar scaling as with"
echo "Libertine container 'noble' GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6"

sed -i "s|^Exec=.*$|Exec=bash -c \'GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2 GDK_BACKEND=x11 /userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/bin/firefox\' %u|g" ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

echo
echo "Ubuntu Touch does not seem to find the firefox icon"
echo "by itself."
echo "    Icon=firefox"
echo "Icon has to be specified exactly with path to show in main menu."
echo "    Icon=/path/to/scalable/svg"

sed -i "s|^Icon=.*$|Icon=/home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/firefox.svg|g" ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

echo
echo "Trigger main menu update"

mv ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/tmp.desktop

mv ~/.local/share/applications/tmp.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/firefox.desktop

echo
echo "You should now see Firefox"
echo "in Ubuntu Touch main menu."
echo
echo "Done."

Now there should be a visible "Firefox" launcher in Ubuntu Touch main menu.

Try hitting the "Super-key" (sometimes this key has four windows left of the space bar, sometimes it can have an apple design or command key) on your external wired PS-2 keyboard (or wireless keyboard) and type firef which should be enough to make Firefox launcher visible.

2b: Adjusting firefox.desktop inside Libertine container

Adjusting Libertine container firefox.desktop located at
/home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop
could be done manually with terminal command:
nano ~/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

You may also install mousepad in the Libertine container to get a graphical editor. However, copy-paste does not seem to work between windows.

There are four lines starting with Exec=:

Exec=firefox %u
Exec=firefox --new-window %u
Exec=firefox --private-window %u
Exec=firefox --ProfileManager

These four lines starting with Exec= need to be adjusted to something like:

Exec=bash -c "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox %u"
Exec=bash -c "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox --new-window %u"
Exec=bash -c "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox --private-window %u"
Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox --ProfileManager'

This could be accomplished with using terminal command sed:

sed -i "s|^Exec=firefox %u$|Exec=bash -c \"GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox %u\"|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=firefox --new-window %u$|Exec=bash -c \"GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox --new-window %u\"|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=firefox --private-window %u$|Exec=bash -c \"GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox --private-window %u\"|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=firefox --ProfileManager$|Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 firefox --ProfileManager'|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/firefox.desktop

Change the scaling factor GDK_DPI_SCALE to suit your eyes. Note that on my Fairphone 4 on channel 24.04/daily it seems to require a scaling factor less than 1.0 inside the Libertine container to scale things down. From outside the container, a scaling factor larger than 1.0 had to be used to scale things up.

Testing

If all went well, you should now be able to set up Firefox with any extensions you prefer.

Sample of extensions that seem to do what they are supposed to do to a great extent:

• uBlock Origin
• NoScript
• Privacy Badger
• Cookie Autodelete
• I still don't care about cookies
• Video DownloadHelper (not possible to select other video format than default). Remark: When opening a downloaded media clip with Thunar file manager, Lomiri crashed and closed all open apps.

Observations

• The mouse pointer becomes huge when hovering Firefox. There should be a way to make the mouse pointer smaller.
• Copy-paste does not work well. Not possible to copy and paste from Firefox to mousepad nor into nano. Clipboard looks full at the beginning and clicking on paste greys out clipboard while nothing is pasted.
• https://duck.ai works (does not seem to work properly in Morph browser). However, you cannot copy-paste the answers.

Having Firefox browser open with several tabs at the same time uses 3.7Gi RAM memory, reports terminal command free -h.

Out of curiosity, I tried to get Thunderbird to behave properly on a Fairphone 4. Maybe it would be an idea to make a one-click-install that does all this for a newbie. openSUSE software catalogue has a one-click yaml installer script which sets everything up. Just an idea to make it user friendlier to get common software working out of the box so to say for a newbie to make it easier to adopt Ubuntu Touch.

Step 1: Installing Thunderbird inside a Libertine container

For those of you newbies wondering how to get Thunderbird Mail client working in desktop mode on Ubuntu Touch, this is one way that seems to work well. Thunderbird has so far not crashed a single time. However the Ubuntu Terminal app and nano crashed several times during this test. This markup was written in nano and copied to this forum spot to test the interoperability between different windows in desktop mode. Copy-paste functionality between windows seems to be a bit glitchy at the time of writing.

I messed around with settings until I got something that would work in desktop mode for Fairphone 4 running channel 24.04/daily.

Installing Thunderbird as DEB

Install Libertine Tweak Tool from Openstore.

Activate lirsh command with Libertine Tweak Tool.

Open a terminal window and type:

lirsh                                                                                  
fakeroot                                                                               

We need command add-apt-repository command from package software-properties-common.

apt-get update                                                                         
apt-get upgrade                                                                        
apt-get install software-properties-common                                             

On my Fairphone 4 I was also obliged to install package apt-utils that for some reason did not install correctly by itself.

apt-get install apt-utils

At this point it was possible to issue terminal command:

add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa

cat <<EOF | tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/thunderbird-ppa
Package: thunderbird
Pin: release o=LP-PPA-mozillateam
Pin-Priority: 1001
Package: thunderbird
Pin: release o=Ubuntu
Pin-Priority: -1
EOF

apt-get update

apt-cache policy thunderbird

# apt install thunderbird
DEBIAN_FRONTEND="noninteractive" apt install thunderbird

exit # jump out of fakeroot

thunderbird --version

Now you can test if terminal command thunderbird launches something.

On my Fairphone 4, I saw a shaddow window but nothing more. I remembered reading that you have to force Xwayland in some way.

# lirsh
GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird

On my Fairphone 4, the zoom factor is quite big. Let's try to lower the zoom.

One way to lower the zoom is to edit Libertine container noble file ~/.Xdefaults and adjust Xft.dpi: 120 from default value Xft.dpi: 197.

Exiting lirsh and re-entering lirsh should activate the new DPI setting.

Then re-launch thunderbird from command line and see if the zoom factor is better.

# lirsh
GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird

Now the window looks a bit better with not such a large zoom factor in desktop mode.

The other way is to use a scaling factor directly before launching thunderbird.

Try this and see if the zoom factor is lower with standard setting Xft.dpi: 197.

# lirsh
GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird

Once the scaling is okay for your eyes you can create a thunderbird-launcher.

# lirsh
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
echo "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird" > ~/.local/bin/thunderbird-launcher
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/thunderbird-launcher

On my Fairphone 4, Libertine container noble folder ~/.local/bin
was not in my Libertine container variable $PATH:

# lirsh
echo $PATH

Editing Libertine container noble file .bashrc should do the trick.

Added the following lines at the end of .bashrc:

if [ -d ~/.local/bin ]; then
  export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
fi

if [ -d ~/bin ]; then
  export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

Exiting lirsh and re-entering lirsh should activate the new setting.

exit # jump out of lirsh
lirsh
echo $PATH

thunderbird-launcher

This command should open thunderbird inside lirsh with desired zoom.

Step 2: Making a Thunderbird Mail main menu item shortcut

Poking around with the settings, you may discover that there are actually two ways to launch Thunderbird Mail once it is installed.

• Launching Thunderbird Mail from outside the Libertine container. This would require a separate launcher put in ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop. User settings will be stored outside the Libertine container.
• Launching from inside the Libertine container. This would require to edit the Libertine container's thunderbird.desktop file, which will sooner or later appear in Ubuntu Touch main menu. User settings will be stored inside the Libertine container.

For the purpose of illustration, I will do both approaches.

2a: Making a thunderbird.desktop outside Libertine container

It is not entierly clear to me what you have to do in order to trigger a main menu update after you have installed something in a Libertine container. Debian has a command update-menus which Ubuntu Touch does not have. Ususally, a reboot is the easiest way to update Ubuntu Touch main menu items. However, there should in theory be another way to refresh the main menu that is at this time unknown to me.

Now that this is working, let's try to create an Ubuntu Touch shortcut in the main menu. This can be done manually of course. In this example, I will piggy-back on what is already available.

Open another terminal tab (without lirsh environment).

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/applications

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps

wget -O ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/thunderbird.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Thunderbird_2023_icon.svg                                                                  

wget -O ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spk121/hicolor-icon-theme/refs/heads/master/index.theme 

sed -i "s|^Comment=.*$|Comment=Ubuntu Touch Icon Theme|g" ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor/index.theme

echo "Update icon caches (maybe obsolete)"

touch ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

update-icon-caches ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

# or

touch ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

gtk-update-icon-cache ~/.local/share/icons/hicolor

echo
echo "We can re-use the thunderbird.desktop file that is in the Libertine container"

cp -v /userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "Using scaling factor GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2"
echo "to achieve similar scaling as with"
echo "Libertine container 'noble' GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6"

sed -i "s|^Exec=.*$|Exec=bash -c \'GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.2 GDK_BACKEND=x11 /userdata/user-data/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/bin/thunderbird\' %u|g" ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "Ubuntu Touch does not seem to find the thunderbird icon"
echo "by itself."
echo "    Icon=thunderbird"
echo "Icon has to be specified exactly with path to show in main menu."
echo "    Icon=/path/to/scalable/svg"

sed -i "s|^Icon=.*$|Icon=/home/phablet/.local/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/thunderbird.svg|g" ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "Trigger main menu update"

mv ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/tmp.desktop

mv ~/.local/share/applications/tmp.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

echo
echo "You should now see Thunderbird Mail"
echo "in Ubuntu Touch main menu."
echo
echo "Done."

Now there should be a visible "Thunderbird Mail" launcher in Ubuntu Touch main menu.

Try hitting the "Super-key" (sometimes this key has four windows left of the space bar, sometimes it can have an apple design or command key) on your external wired PS-2 keyboard (or wireless keyboard)
and type thund which should be enough to make Thunderbird Mail laucher visible.

2b: Adjusting thunderbird.desktop inside Libertine container

Adjusting Libertine container thunderbird.desktop located at
~/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop
could be done manually with terminal command:
nano ~/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

You may also install mousepad in the Libertine container to get a graphical editor. However, copy-paste does not seem to work between windows.

There are three lines starting with Exec= which needs to be adjusted to something like:

# Exec=thunderbird %u (original)
Exec=bash -c "GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird %u"

# Exec=thunderbird -compose (original)
Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -compose'

# Exec=thunderbird -addressbook (original)
Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -addressbook'

This could be accomplished with using terminal command sed:

sed -i "s|^Exec=thunderbird %u$|Exec=bash -c \"GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird %u\"|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=thunderbird -compose$|Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -compose'|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

sed -i "s|^Exec=thunderbird -addressbook$|Exec=bash -c 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -addressbook'|g" /home/phablet/.cache/libertine-container/noble/rootfs/usr/share/applications/thunderbird.desktop

Change the scaling factor GDK_DPI_SCALE to suit your eyes. Note that on my Fairphone 4 on channel 24.04/daily it seems to require a scaling factor less than 1.0 inside the Libertine container to scale things down. From outside the container, a scaling factor
larger than 1.0 had to be used to scale things up.

I am not sure about how to write the first launcher which has %u at the end. The %u in a .desktop file is a placeholder that allows the launcher to accept a single URL as an argument. A mailto link example is: <a href="mailto:someone@example.com">Send Email</a>. Ideally, such a link should be able to configure to open in Thunderbird Mail. Unfortunately I have not been able to discover how to configure it in Ubuntu Touch. There should be a mailto child in:

gsettings list-children org.gnome.desktop.default-applications

but it does not exist. If it would exist, maybe a command like:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.default-applications.mailto exec 'GDK_DPI_SCALE=0.6 GDK_BACKEND=x11 thunderbird -compose'

would make it possible to open e-mail links in Thunderbird Mail.

Concluding thoughts

If all went well, you should now be able to set up any mail account and optionally create an OpenPGP encryption key to be used when sending encrypted email to somebody else whatever email provider they use, given that the recipient has a mail reader that can use your public OpenPGP key to decrypt the email message you sent them. If they also use Thunderbird Mail client, OpenPGP encryption will work in the same way on their system. Several other mail clients, such as Evolution Mail client support OpenPGP encryption in a similar way but it might require more to configure it than in Thunderbird, which is more user friendly in this particular aspect. Of course, the email meta data will most probably not be encrypted. If you wish to avoid email metadata you might want to use tuta-mail or proton-mail or any other mail that never leaves the email provider. If somebody knows how to get a mail reader for tuta-mail or proton-mail to Ubuntu Touch, I am sure some users would appreciate that.

Having Morph browser open with several tabs and Thunderbird Mail open at the same time uses 3.1-5.9Gi RAM memory, reports terminal command free -h.

In some markets Motorola handsets are the budget phones. In other markets it is Xiaomi which provides cheap handsets. Currently there is no Motorola kernel in the Ubuntu Touch tree of searchable kernels. OnePlus Nord 3 kernel is there, but no port to UT . Pixel 9 kernel (often on sale) is not there. If Xiaomi Redmi 13C,14C,15C would get ported, it would hit a large segment of users. There seems to exist kernel sources. Same with the Redmi Note series. OnePlus 11 has a kernel in the tree, but no port.

It is difficult to find a UT handset sometimes. Fairphone 4 and 5 are sometimes the only real possibilities to find something. A Fairphone 4 with a bulging battery nearly breaking the display was on sale for 400€. When the selling company realized the battery had swelled they lowered it to 280€. Instead of repairing the unit it went into the bin as hazardous material since they were scared the battery would blow up.

@oldbutndy and anyone:

• Email, such as Thunderbird, with GPG-encryption, anyone tried that?
• Firefox with addons? Anyone tried it?
• Brave browser?
• Linphone?

Long text in short, size defined buttons is a classic... The buttons need to resize according to the text on a new line if there is little space. Sometimes landscape mode reveals more text in buttons. This is especially notable when using a translations file to set the labels based on locale setting.

I completely understand the huge impact. It is one of those things engineers call "should have thought about that earlier"... The positive note from this is that at least it has been brought up (again aparently), to be searchable in the forum for others who dwell upon investing in a Fairphone (because older USB3 devices are hard to find).

@danfro Thank you for your comment. It is good to know what one can expect when it comes to the graphic user interface. No text adjustment to be expected anytime soon. I am glad to know that this text resizing functionality has been brought up before (not visible in this forum by search). I understand that the Ubuntu Touch design did not permit for text adjustment. Maybe in version 26.04-1.0, 28.04-1.0, 30.04-1.0 it is a good time to consider text adjustment when everything needs to be adjusted anyway.

Thank you! Now we know what to expect in this part. That was really good information.

Tell me where the settings should be placed and what they should be called in the Ubuntu Touch Settings cog wheel. Same for all font settings and font scaling and icon scaling variables. Does this mean there is some kind of recognition or understanding that the visual part has to be addressed? It seems so (wishful thinking). The first thing is to agree on something, that something should be improved. Then agree on how. There is not much discussion about fonts, text sizes, scaling and graphic user interface (GUI). There is no setting place for it, even if it is not working. UT Tweek Tool does not have a setting for it either, even if such settings are not working. The system is read only. So far everyone seems happy with as it is. "If it ain't broken, don't fix it". I have seen one observation about the annoyance of accidentally opening the app drawer when doing something with the mouse on the left side in desktop mode on a wired external monitor. Thats it. There are not many GUI related conversations to give the impression that GUI is important for the public who are supposed to be using Ubuntu Touch. I understand the reluctance of a major design change. If I am the only one who talks about a need, then you are all happy with how it is now. No point of making changes for one newbie. If 60% think something is not good enough, it is probably so. If you want the public to adopt Ubuntu Touch, do a market research what the public needs (not only wants). Segment them into groups to see what most user groups express is a need. Then decide what target groups you want to address with Ubuntu Touch. The other public subgroups that you do not care about when it comes to their deal-breakers with Ubuntu Touch will have to wait some years.

Being able to help is also a matter of finances and actual availability for a device. Fairphone is not cheap. As a comparison, demo units of Google Pixel 9 with USB3 and 12GB RAM were selling out at 70-80% discount compared to.introduction price. A third of the price of a Fairphone. But Pixel 9 was not a ported device. OnePlus has some models with USB3 that are soon to be sold out as demo units. But those devices have no Ubuntu Touch port. So there is a need for some help to get a Fairphone for development, USB spare part, battery spare part at a considerably cheaper price than on the market. Many times you can see a discount being marketed, but there is no product in inventory. Without a device for testing it is much harder.

Has anyone managed to get AOL email to work with Dekko or Dekko2?

I read that GMAIL, ICLOUD, YAHOO works, but not sure if this applies to year 2026. Otherwise, Morph browser has to be used to connect to the web interface.

Email is one of those things that is a priority for many and people seem to prefer an app for email reading. Android has Gmail email reader, there is also Thunderbird email client, Apple has its own email app for icloud. So I guess that newbies on Ubuntu will look for an email app like Gmail or Thunderbird from the android experience. I am sure there are divided opinions on that too.

@pparent When you install Ubuntu Touch on the Fairphone 4, everything is default setting. UT Tweak Tool shows scaling 21. The text size is about 0.8mm for characters like aceimnosruvwxz. It is small. Heading size is about 1.8-2mm, which starts to be easier to read.

Not everyone has super sharp eyes to read the back of a mobile charger print or the ingredient list on the back of a small product. If Ubuntu Touch should be usable by those who use reading glasses, it has to, by force be able to scale all the different text sizes and icon sizes individually. Android phones have this global adjustable font setting with biggest size around 6-7mm. Doro phones even bigger sizes, and big icons for clumsy fingers. Children tend to like bigger buttons as well. Look at the Gameboy Emulator. It has big buttons even on Fairphone 4.

The default scaling 21 allows for 4 app columns in the drawer portrait mode. This should be good for most people, but it is too small. Medium size on Android is bigger.

On Android you usually have 3 steps from medium to the extreme, which is where Ubuntu Touch is default. So, medium size is 3 steps up from where it is now, at 21 scaling, and HUGE is 6 steps up from now.

Scaling 24 allows for 3 app columns in the drawer. But the text is still too small.

Scaling 27-30 allows 2 columns in app drawer portrait mode. But headings in Ubuntu Touch start to fall outside screen to the right for scaling above 25. The PPI of a screen (400) correlates with the scaling I guess and the result is a font height in pt or mm. Most text in LibreOffice documents is 10-14pt big. Firefox text has to almost always be scaled 1.2-1.33 on 1920x1080 monitors 15 inch big. An older laptop with lower screen resolution does not always need to scale the text in Firefox. The text is automatically bigger if the resolution is smaller. Ubuntu GNOME out of the box on a 4K display has small text. Usually everything has to be scaled 2x on 4K monitors.

The worse eyes need a bigger text, sometimes a medium font thickness (600). Bookerly font versus Times illustrates this need. Thin font with small size is difficult for worse eyes. We want our grandmas to use Ubuntu Touch, so... we have to re-program Ubuntu Touch to allow global font settings => qt font settings. I am afraid it is absolutely necessary to adress the font size adjustment need.

I managed to click on a cog wheel and on the right side, there is a box zoom: 100%. It does not work and it is difficult to even see the settings. Pulling out a PS2 keyboard and connecting it via USB, Ctrl ++ twice usually make the text a bit bigger. One should not have to connect a keyboard to zoom. So the scaling is already there, its just difficult to do it via the cog wheel in Signal (Settings).

I purposely use everything default on Ubuntu Touch to see how things scale. Terminal allows to have a big font for instance. But many apps just stick to default set by the system, which is too small. I use Fairphone 4 because it has USB3 for external wired monitor. It has a great screen PPI of 400. I cannot change that. But I wish to be able to read the text in Ubuntu Touch and be able to scale it up when needed.