Unfortunately, there is currently no native, working Signal client for UT and this is unlikely to change soon. But if that's a problem that impacts you, read on! I found a solution that works well for me and maybe it will work for you, too.

My solution consists of several parts:

• Signal for Android, running in Waydroid. You can download it from their webpage or from F-Droid or Aurora Store.
• Signal Desktop running on several computers, and linked to the first Signal, which is the primary device. All others are secondary devices. You can have only one primary.
• Cinny, running on UT, using a Matrix bridge to connect to Signal. This is very new to me and yet it was easy.

I followed these instructions given by Danfro:

For everyone here who is looking for an alternative to use Signal on Ubuntu Touch.
There is a matrix signal bridge hosted here: https://tchncs.de/matrix.
This can be used with Cinny or any other Matrix client. Instructions are given on the website there.
Note: Some things do still not work. Image download is fine, but right now no other file types. I am working on it...

• Open Cinny (or another matrix client)
• create a new room
• invite the bridge bot @signalbot:tchncs.de
• open your primary signal device and head for settings, linked devices
• add new device
• got to chat with bridge bot and type "login" as message
• scan the qr code with your primary device, it should now link them
  Done.

I had an extra step because my primary is running in Waydroid and it's a pain generating and scanning a QR code on one and the same device, plus it refused to work. So I installed the latest Cinny on a spare phone and used that to link Cinny to Signal. It worked fine.

I hope this is useful to anyone else!

I was one of the volunteers humanning the stand, and it was great. We were able to answer a lot of questions, we showed many different devices on our stand, and people were quite enthousiastic about what we had to show and say. It was an inspiring day and we helped promote UT and make contact with organisations for possible collaboration. Time well spent!

@libremax Thanks for posting! I'm still at Bornhack, and beside the talk, there are so many folks here who are interested in Ubuntu Touch. Now that people know that I'm using it, lots of people want to talk to me about it and ask me questions, and I answer as many as I can.
My show-and-tell device (BQ Aquaris E4.5) goes from hand to hand (yes, we use sanitizer) and people are amazed by the smooth operation, and more when I tell them how old it is.

I'm hoping to be causing a small influx of interest in our OS and community. I'm certainly doing my best to do so!

@grenudi said in We Drop Ubuntu Touch Entirely:

I did. No one even replied to my post about a year ago

I saw your post and I did not understand it, it was clearly above my level of understanding.

I don't think anyone is patting each other on the back here. This is a project that's mostly run by volunteers and it's smaller than you may think. Our (barely a handful of) core devs are mostly busy getting VoLTE to run and fixing bugs in the new Noble release.

Most of the apps are made by volunteers who don't know enough about OS development to help with that, but still want to help. I'm grateful for their time.

I'm not sure what could be done better here. On a personal level, I enjoy the OS and it works for me.

In the end, we should all be using the OS that we like best. It's fine that you are choosing to use something else than UT. But why the whole song and dance?

YESSS
It's working! I have zoom, autofocus and flash! This is the last thing that was missing for me to be able to say that the phone is fully functional under UT!

Excuse me while I dance the happy dance...

@grenudi said in We Drop Ubuntu Touch Entirely:

at the same time, the OS doesn't even ship a decent resource monitor. htop isn't even available by default, and users have to ask why it's not included.

You know, I've never ever even realised there wasn't one. This shows you that we are very different users. I'm a rather average user with a small dash of power user. You sound the other way around.

And clearly you seem to know a lot. It makes me wonder whether or not there really isn't a way you could help. You seem generally motivated to make things better, there is an energy present in your frustration and maybe that energy could find a constructive outlet.

I'm wondering about something else. Who is the 'we' in "We Drop Ubuntu Touch Entirely"? You're making it sound as if we should care deeply, when the reality is that people stop and start using mobile OSses all the time. Just this week I helped two users switch to UT and they both like it.

Some of their applications can run on Waydroid. But most people who are using Ubuntu Touch wish to get away from Google. Personally I want to avoid Android applications and the Google Playstore.

If we are going to do everything that Android does, what would make us special? Why would we even bother?

This was a lot of fun. We had a really simple stand because we didn't bring a lot of equipment, but it was enough: we got plenty of interest, had some good conversations, and answered many questions. It's definitely worth planning for T-Dose 2026 (June 6 and 7)!

Greetings from all the creatures of T-Dose!

Ubuntu Touch:
It's in your hands.

@cliffcoggin said in Ushby have released an official Review on UT.:

I suggest the review is removed until a more objective one can be written.

Let's cut the author a little slack. They're allowed to voice their opinions, even if their opinions are based on a misunderstanding; as for feeling ill, the world would in my view be a better place if everyone was this open and honest about what influenced their mood at a certain time.

@domubpkm said in How are the projects doing?:

we have never been used to such silence

It just shows how much Dalton did, and that he's being missed. I'm sure we will adjust, but it takes a little time.

@messayisto Thank you, it was fun! We were a decent sized group and there was plenty to talk about. I saw lots of animated conversations occur and lots of good questions and answers. It was a lovely little event and I'm glad that I helped facilitate it. And our thanks go out to our friends at Bitlair, who hosted us for no cost at all!
We left them some nice cookies. It was the least we could do.

@moem said in T-Shirt Slogan Competition!!:

Own
your phone

I'm revising this one to:

Ubuntu Touch:
The phone
you own

This would go great with this 'Yumi loves smartphone' image:

@johndoe said in Trying out UT on Pixel 3a XL for review article:

Despite me using and liking UT, I personally do not recommend it as a daily driver for others right now.

This is highly personal. I've been using it exclusively for four years, so it can be done, but it certainly depends on the individual's wants and usercase.

@grenudi You're asking nine questions... don't be surprised if only one or two get answered! It would not be fair to have one user dominate the entire Q&A after all.

Then again, all your questions seem to come down to the same underlying question: why doesn't UT do things the way everyone else does things?

I can think of a great answer: because others are already doing that. To be honest, I don't find your line of questioning very constructive. Are you here to help, or to hinder?

Also, this thread is for the previous Q&A session.

@nero355 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

They need to have some kind of plan when it comes to porting to certain phone models for example!
At the moment it seems all a bit random ?!

Well, most of the porting is done by the community, that means by volunteers, to their abilities and at their leisure. You can't really plan for what volunteers all over the world may or may not be willing and able to do; they're not employees after all. In other words, from its very nature, it will always be a bit random.

On a strictly personal title: can you please refrain from telling the team what they need to do, must do or have to do? It sounds so demanding.
I know you probably don't mean it like that but it does come across that way.

@nero355 said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

@moem said in Life with BQ4.5 after 20.04:

I don't know, I'm not a porter. But it seems likely that there are.

So that's a NO then...

No, it isn't. It's an "I don't know". Again, please read what I wrote and don't put words in my mouth.

The ?! means I am surprised or shocked...

Then it seems you are surprised or shocked most of the time.

Maybe you got used to it step by step over the years ??

No, that can't be it. I've not even had it for half a year.

Have you compared SoT's of your phone against when the phone was new ?

No. I don't really care; it is what it is, and if I don't consider it good enough I will either get a different battery or a different phone.

And now I will take a break from reading your messages and replying to you, because our personal styles aren't very compatible. My own battery needs a recharge, so to speak.

I don't think Nexus 5 is capable of running Waydroid. It needs a port that is based on Halium 9 or 10 to run.

@james-t said in Always boots to fastboot screen:

Though the style is similar to a FastBoot screen, it's actually a warning screen basically saying
"You've been naughty and installed a new OS on the phone, don't blame us if anything goes wrong.",

Completely normal. That is the badge of honour that you were awarded for freeing a device from the clutches of the evil G overlords. At least that's how I see it.

What a fun icon!