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For those that are interested in development of Noble-based Ubuntu Touch, we've now published a new system-image channel devel/arm64/android9plus/daily, available on most devices which has 20.04 devel image [1]. You can switch to it using the following command:

sudo system-image-cli -v --progress=dots --switch=devel/arm64/android9plus/daily

The channel has actually been existed for some time. However, up until today images are available only on a handful of devices due to system-image server configuration limitation. Note that I haven't tested the images on devices other than a handful of devices I have, so please make sure you have a way to recover your phone before trying this.

Note that at the time of posting, the Noble-based images are still missing quite a number of functionalities. At the moment, the following features are either known to be not working, or is not tested but is likely not to be working:

• Web browser
• Media playback
• Camera
• Libertine
• Sensor
• Push notification
• Dialer, Messaging UI
• Hotspot

If you're interested in helping bringing up these features to Noble-based images, please ping me either here or on Telegram.

Do not install this image on your daily driving phone. Things will be broken. You have been warned.

[1]: more specifically, devices with 64-bit ARM architecture and Halium 9 or newer.

This is the followup from my previous call-for-testing. This time, in addition to updated PulseAudio from 16.04, this also includes:

• a fix to Bluez which should improve the experience for users that use a Bluetooth headset for calling.
• an update to the modern pulseaudio-module-droid to make sure they work with the updated version.

All devices are welcome to participate in the test.

How to test:

Make sure your device runs the latest devel image. Run the following command in the ADB shell or SSH session:

# Mount a tmpfs so apt can breathe
sudo mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/cache/apt/archives 
# Prevent Bluez from restarting & get stuck.
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo tee /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d >/dev/null <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
exit 101
EOF
sudo chmod +x /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d
# Actually install the packages.
sudo ubports-qa install xenial_-_pulseaudio-updates-to-0ubuntu3.10
# Reboot the phone.
sudo reboot; exit

What to test:

See if there's any regression in both built-in speaker, wired headset, and Bluetooth headset. If possible, use a Bluetooth headset that can be in both music mode (hi-fidelity audio) and call mode (low-latency 2-way audio).

Two possible regressions that can happen are

• issue #528 ([xenial] Sound does not go to bluetooth headset)
• a call via Bluetooth does work but cuts off after a few seconds

I believe they're fixed, but please report if you encountered these issues.

Also, if you have a Bluetooth headset with an accept/hangup button, try pressing the button while in call and see if the call hangs up. Accepting the call or last number redial might not work, and is a known issue.

You may want to also follow this test plan from Canonical if you want to be extra sure there's no issue. However, even in the current version of PulseAudio, not all tests in this test plan pass. Thus, you may want to double-check if it's a regression or not.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Process/Merges/TestPlan/pulseaudio

If you found any issue/regression:

Luckily, someone has written a script that automates enabling, disabling, and collecting debug logs [1]. It's located at https://github.com/bergotorino/bt-debugging-tools

To enable debugging, run ./bt-device-enable.sh -e -p <lockscreen password>. The device will reboot automatically. Then, after reproducing the issue, run ./bt-collect-logs.sh <password>. A tarball will be produced. Please send that to me via PM or Telegram (@peat_psuwit) as it can contain sensitive information. Please also mention the brands of all devices you used to test in the PM; they'll be used to match up with what's in the log.

To disable debugging, run ./bt-device-enable.sh -d -p <password>

[1] For devices with ADB anyway. If you use a Halium 7.1 devices without ADB, you may take a look at the script, or you can ask me.

Known issues:

• The issue that the playing streams won't switch to the headset after a re-connect/connecting another device is issue #1045. The fix requires that this update works first. To workaround, please close and reopen the app playing the sound.
• Even though using the button on the headset to hangup work, using it to accept a call or redial might not work.
• It's been reported that Bluetooth on OnePlus One is unstable in general. Thus, you may want to skip testing Bluetooth on this particular device.

We've just released the RC image for the Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5, which should have version 2024-W30 or newer. Please take some time to switch your spare/development phone to the 20.04 RC channel and test this OTA.

Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 is a maintenance release with only a minimal number of changes. That said, we still have a number of changes in this OTA. Please have a look if:

• The battery life, compared to the previous OTA, doesn't not get worse.
• There's no settings being overwritten (you don't have to be exhaustive. Just report if you remembered a setting being different before receiving this update).
• Morph Browser works as well as it was in the previous OTA (please don't report known website incompatibilities).

Please note that only critical and security fixes will be able to enter Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 as this point. Normal bug fixes and new features will need to wait for our next release. Please do not discuss normal bug fixes and new features here.

Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 is expected to be released on 29 July 2024. We appreciate all testing we will receive.

Hello jEzEk,

There are both technical and societal reasons as to why we have decided to not accept new features into the Xenial line of update anymore, even the ones which is developed against Xenial and is near ready.

First, the technical reason: due to a large number of changes involve in making all Ubuntu Touch components works with the new version of Ubuntu, compound with desire to realize the rename in this release, we've decided early on to have a separated branch of code for almost every component we have. Unfortunately, this resulted in a largely separated development between Xenial and Focal, and while one is busy making a component runs on Focal, another proceeds to add new features onto the existing codebase on Xenial. And because we didn't realize this problem early enough, this means now we have quite a backlog to visit. Also, since the code diverged a lot since we start the branches for Focal, sometimes it's not straight forward to port changes to Focal. So, limiting the amount of changes that enters Xenial directly reduces the amount of work needed to make Ubuntu Touch based on Focal a reality.

Now, the societal reason: as mentioned by many people above, we're a small group of people and unfortunately can't do everything at once. In addition to adding the amount of changes we need to carry to Focal, time spent reviewing changes for Xenial is time not spent developing or reviewing changes for Focal. Given that Xenial has been out of support for over a year at this point, it has become our priority to provide our users with the up-to-date base for the security of our users, and that means we need to reduce as much work as possible.

In addition, many people might consider Focal complete when it reaches feature parity to Xenial. However, if more changes keeps being added to Xenial, it becomes harder to realize that objective. Having to chase a moving target is not fun, and personally I already have that feeling when I realized that the contact backend changes will land in OTA-24. Fortunately that didn't happen in the end, but even for smaller features it can easily be unexpectedly hard to bring to Focal.

So, please accept my apology that we cannot accept more changes into Xenial line of update anymore. We want to have an up-to-date and secure operating system, and we cannot have that with an out-of-date base.

---

On the side of device support, the primary limiting factor at the moment is due to the inevitable change of the init system from Upstart to Systemd. Systemd uses a number of modern features of Linux kernel, and as such requires a (moderately) modern Linux kernel. The version of systemd requires Linux >= 3.13, however the recent version raised that a bit.

It's possible to backport certain changes into an older kernel to make systemd runs, but it's a tedious manual task that has to be done per kernel tree [1]. A rule of thumb is that if the device launches with Android 9 it should be fine, but for older devices one must check the Linux kernel version.

[1] For example, I've done such job on FP2, which allows me to run an old image of Plasma Mobile which uses systemd.

Starting from Monday 18 December 2023, I'll start to brutally archive GitHub projects in ubports group that should have been archived for some time. This includes (but isn't limited to) unity8 and indicator-*, amongst others (probably).

By brutally, I mean I'll archive them without further modifications to the repository. No updating README, no issues & PRs closing, no per-issue notification, and no further migration. The only change I'll make with archiving is modifying the description so that it points to the relevant, migrated repo (our GitLab for most, but AyatanaIndicators when applicable).

We once planned to actually use GitLab's migration tool to migrate those repos over, and then notify each of the issue and PR of the new location of it. However, as we (accidentally?) create a new, corresponding repo on GitLab, migrating the repo from GitHub suddenly becomes more complicated. As such, I've decided that it's no longer worth an effort to do the migration, as code-wise, we're pretty much self-hosted on GitLab now.

Some repository will still live on GitHub and won't yet be archived in this round. This includes installer-config, build-tools, and various Android trees. Efforts are being made to migrate the rest of repositories to GitHub, to avoid confusions in the future.

If you happen to have some issue filed on GitHub that will be archived, I'm sorry for the inconvenience. If it still occurs on Focal, today, please file a new issue on GitLab. We now have a meta-repo for issues, so please go to https://gitlab.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch for new issues.

As announced on the blog, we will start creating ubports/focal on our git repositories. I intend to start creating these branches on 14 February 2024, 18:00 UTC.

This post serves as an FAQ for both the announcement and for the upcoming branching, as well as the place to ask additional questions.

What is the scope of this branch creation?

For this round, it will include most Git repositories under ubports/development/core GitLab group. Since I expect that most applications, including core apps, should not require much changes for 24.04 base upgrade, I've decided that I won't create branches for core apps for now. Should the need arise, we can decide later.

Also excluded in this round is repositories under ubports/development/core/packaging, which contains ubports/focal branch but not ubports/latest. Since this usually means the packaging is not applicable if the base changes, we will probably want to start a new ubports/latest from scratch instead of forking from current ubports/focal.

What will happen with the CI after branching?

At the moment of branching, hopefully nothing. I will config Jenkins so that it ignore new branches, so new builds should not be triggered because of this. I will actively monitor Jenkins to ensure this, and will cancel any excess jobs that happen because of branch creation.

After that, new commits added to ubports/focal will be built & published to the Focal APT archive on repo.ubports.com as expected. However, new commits added to main will fail to build with No distro is included in multidist. Maybe "main" shouldn't exist?. This is expected, since our CI code isn't yet updated to support new branching scheme. Updating CI code is the next on my agenda.

What about focal_-_<extension> branches? What do you mean by "explicit dependency declaration"?

Since the "branch extension" concept doesn't translate well into the new branching model, it was decided to drop this out of the specification. While the old ubports/focal_-_<extension> will continue to work (grandfathered), do not expect this to be the case for future releases.

As for "explicit dependency declaration", the plan is to let you specify the dependent MRs in the MR description, and the CI will read that description and pull in that MR's APT archive. I will work on this as part of CI code work. Long term, I would prefer that we also get GitLab's MR dependencies, but GitLab is still figuring out how to expose that via API.

How will you create all the branches across all repositories?

The creation of the branches is automated using this Python script. It talks to GitLab API to fetch the current status of all repositories, then decides what branch to create (and from what branch). It then asks for confirmation, and when confirmed, create all the branches. The script is designed to be idempotent, and take into account that some repositories have ubports/focal branch but not main.

What will happen with the devel system-image channel?

At the moment, nothing. Since our devel channels are already prefixed, the 20.04/*/*/devel channels will continue to receive Focal-based images, which subsequently will continue to be built from focal APT archive.

I have not decided the new system-image channel to publish the noble-based images yet.

The new CI code is now fully functional, and will build packages against both Ubuntu Noble and Debian testing. So we can now accept MRs again!

Note that since I start the new APT archive here, a few dependencies are still missing and your MR may still fail. I'm working to bootstrap the most important dependencies. Also, I've configured the CI so that the failure against Debian testing is not fatal (but will show up as "unstable"). However, due to GitLab's limitation it may show up in GitLab as failure. Please take Jenkin's comment in the MR as it gives more detailed status.

The rule that everything must land in main branch first still apply. After an MR is merged, we can have the MR backported to the ubports/focal branch if wanted. I'm working on wiring up the backport automation, but in the mean time I can also run the backport automation manually.

I'll work to document everything up by this week. In the mean time, if you have any questions or the CI is not working as expected, please ping me on Telegram. Also, if you have a fix that you want to land into Focal image quickly, please also ping me so that I prioritize fixing that component's dependencies.

This is a Halium 7.1 based port for Fairphone 2. The current port is based on Android 5.1 and has quite a few band-aids and workarounds. This port is completely new and isn't based on the current port.

Sources:
Kernel: https://github.com/Halium/android_kernel_fairphone_msm8974/tree/halium-7.1
Device: https://github.com/Halium/android_device_fairphone_FP2/tree/halium-7.1_ubuntu
Manifest: https://github.com/Halium/halium-devices/blob/halium-7.1/manifests/fairphone_FP2.xml (This manifest doesn't point to the Ubuntu Touch additions. Add revision="refs/heads/halium-7.1_ubuntu" to the device tree tag to retrieve them.)

Status:

• Working:
  • Display, Wi-Fi, Audio, Battery indicator, Bluetooth, Video playback, Vibration, GPS, Accelerometer
  • Camera (Needs gst-droid, see the instruction in another post.)
  • Audio (Headphone detection now works correctly.)
  • Cellular (Both SIM slots work. Voice call, SMS, MMS, mobile data works.)
  • Front LED (fixed in the rootfs)
• Not working:
  • Flashlight
  • Abysmal battery life with the Wi-Fi on.

Install:
No prebuilt image has been made yet. Thus, you're required to build the image from source.

As you might already know, I'm currently making GStreamer-droid works properly in Ubuntu Touch as a replacement for qtubuntu-camera. This will make video recording works for Halium 7.1 based port, as otherwise a set of custom patches on the Android side (which isn't easy to forward-port) is required.

How can you test this out?

If you're interested in testing this out, please follow these instructions:

Halium side preparation

Due to breaking API change in droidmedia, you'll need to make sure you have a recently-built Halium image. If you build your own Android image, make sure your Halium tree is recently synced as of 8 June 2020. Otherwise, please make sure you have the latest image built on or after that date.

Install GStreamer-droid

1. Make sure you're running the latest devel or edge channel image. If you're interested in testing video recording too, please make sure that audio for your port works correctly.
2. Run sudo umount /lib/udev/rules.d/70-android.rules. This prevents failure in the following step.
3. Run sudo ubports-qa install xenial_-_gst-droid to add the repository containing the packages. UBports-qa will upgrade the already installed packages to the latest version and install the new packages.
   • If you encountered unable to make backup link of '<a path>' before installing new version: Invalid cross-device link error, unmount it by running sudo umount <path without the prepending dot> it and try again.
   • The error ERROR:ubports-qa:Failed to remount root filesystem read-only. is normal and expected. Proceed to the next step.
4. Reboot your phone to make sure everything is in place.

Install updated camera-app

You'll also need the updated camera-app. To install, grab the correct binary for armhf or arm64, then install with pkcon install-local --allow-untrusted <file name>. UPDATED to version 3.1.3.

If you're interested in the changes I've made, take a look here.

How to debug

If things don't go as it should, you can add additional debug information by running the camera-app from the command line.

(cd /opt/click.ubuntu.com/com.ubuntu.camera/current && GST_DEBUG=droidcamsrc:4 ./camera-app --desktop_file_hint=com.ubuntu.camera_camera)

About the upgrading

Please note that by installing packages via ubports-qa or apt, you should not install system updates via the system settings app anymore (you'll overwrite this change otherwise). Instead, you'll need to use sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade like on the desktop. This is temporary, and won't be required after this is merged into the proper xenial branch.

Also, even though this procedure works on devices on the stable channel, note that following this procedure essentially upgrades the entire device to devel channel. Please test responsibly and don't use it on your daily driver. This will be merged to the xenial branch soon and testing should be easier when that happens.

@Fla We're working towards that goal, but the base system requires more changes to support Halium 7.1 ports better before we can release any Halium 7.1 port as an official port.

I've (re-)imported the changes made to Pulseaudio in Ubuntu 16.04. This primarily improves the experience of using Bluetooth headsets with the phone. However, there's a report of regression due to these changes before. I've fixed that one specific regression, but I'm not sure if there's any other regression due to these changes.

Please only test this change on a device running the latest images from the devel channel, and test responsibly! In other words, try it on a spare device or when you know you'll be near a computer you can use for reflashing. [1]

To test, please follow the instruction:

1. Mount a tmpfs so apt can breathe: sudo mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/cache/apt/archives
2. Install the repository: sudo ubports-qa install xenial_-_pulseaudio-updates-to-0ubuntu3.10
3. Reboot your phone.

See if there's any regression in both built-in speaker, wired headset and Bluetooth headset. If possible, use a Bluetooth headset that can be in both music mode (hi-fidelity audio) and call mode (low-latency 2-way audio).

You may want to also follow this test plan from Canonical if you want to be extra sure there's no regression: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Process/Merges/TestPlan/pulseaudio

Note for OnePlus One users: It's been reported that Bluetooth on OnePlus One is unstable in general. Thus, you may want to skip testing Bluetooth on this particular device.

Known issue: The issue that the playing streams won't switch to the headset after a re-connect is known, and will be fixed after this [2].

[1] This specific instruction courtesy of Dalton Durst.
[2] https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/1045

The branching is finished. I have to run the script twice since in the first run the script did not take the archived state into account. Luckily, the script is already idempotent, so I can just code that in and re-run the script.

For accountability, these are the log of both runs: https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/3673980

Also, since I noticed it, I also go ahead and delete ubports/focal branch after the fact for these repositories since they are not actually code repositories.

• https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/core/devscripts
• https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/core/focal-projectmanagement-missing-packages

As mentioned, this means CI for main branch will fail for a while, so it's probably not a good idea yet to merge MRs. I'm working on the CI change as we speak. Thank you for your patience.

This is a call for testing the updated Systemd package, imported from Ubuntu 16.04.

Wait, doesn't Ubuntu Touch still run Upstart? Well, systemd is far wider than an init system and includes an essential component (udev) for the system. Besides, some other packages are still installed in the rootfs.

Some of the imported releases are security releases, however, not all of them are related to the components Ubuntu Touch uses. I personally think it's still better to import all of them, as it'll be easier to import those that are related to us in the future.

I also improve our patch a bit by fixing memory leak and improve error handling.

To test out, make sure you're on the devel channel. Then, run:

sudo mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /var/cache/apt/archives
sudo ubports-qa install systemd-packaging 1
sudo reboot; exit

For more information, see the PR: https://github.com/ubports/systemd-packaging/pull/1

@MrT10001 said in Call for testing: Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5:

@karibooooo OnePlus5T, option to tap to wake is there, but it doesn't work.

Do you happen to remember if it has ever worked before? That said, the tap-to-wake system is pretty much device-specific. We have to rely on porters to look into it.

@vince-vs said in Call for testing: Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5:

It says : « only critical and security fixes will be able to enter Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 ; Normal bug fixes and new features will need to wait for our next release »
A few months have passed since ota-4, but ..
Ok, since it's like that, … fixed bugs and new features will come in the next one.

First, we're sorry for the slow rate of bug fixes in the past few months. We're in the middle of bring our Ubuntu Touch stack to be based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, which turns out to take more time than anticipated.

That said, the sentence doesn't mean that non-critical fixes cannot be included in 20.04 OTA's. Rather, it simply means that we're in the freeze period at the moment. There will be at least 1 more 20.04 OTA in the future (to support the change of release system), so it's still possible to get bug fixes in there.

After a slight delay, Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 is released and is now rolling out across devices. Thank you everyone here for testing.

https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-5-focal-release-3933

@Eric-H system-image-cli requires sudo even for channel listing. However --list-channels will list every single one of them, including those that doesn't have your device's image.

A better way is to check this link [1] to see if there's your device's code name in it. A brief look seems to confirm that, yes, your device is available in the channel.

[1]: https://system-image.ubports.com/devel/arm64/android9plus/daily/

We've just released the RC image for the Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-6, which should have version 2024-W41 or newer. Please take some time to switch your spare/development phone to the 20.04 RC channel and test this OTA.

Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-6 is a maintenance release with only a minimal number of changes. That said, we still have a number of changes in this OTA. Please have a special look if:

• Basic phone functionality (call, SMS, MMS and cellular data) works.
• Vibration works.
• If used to work on your device, whether Wireless display works.

Known issue:

• It's a long-standing issue that, with some carrier, you cannot send an MMS while connected to Wi-Fi. This is due to how MMS works in Ubuntu Touch. See this issue for more information.

Please note that only critical and security fixes will be able to enter Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-6 as this point. Normal bug fixes and new features will need to wait for our next release. Please do not discuss normal bug fixes and new features here.

Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-6 is expected to be released on 18 October 2024 8 November 2024. We appreciate all testing we will receive.

Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-6 is released. Thank you everyone involved in testing.

https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-6-focal-release-3942

@Flohack @nanu-c Testing the new camera with GStreamer-droid is highly appreciated. I believe that using 7.1 should solve issues with the new camera modules due to no need for any wrapper.

The root cause has been identified. See https://gitlab.com/ubports/infrastructure/system-image-server/-/issues/7