Hi all,

In order to help people to install WayDroid on their device, (enabling the use of Android apps in Ubuntu Touch), I've wrote a simple step by step installation guide & tips.

WayDroid is an LXC container implementing currently LineageOS 17.1 (Android 10) within desktop or mobile Linux distributions.

!!! Caution!! WayDroid is still in an early alpha development stage and runs only on some Halium 9 and up devices
Run WayDroid at your own risk!!!

At the moment, according to some users feedback, the compatible phones are the following: (Please feed and correct this list by sending your experience)

Full functionality:

. Fairephone 3/3+
. JingPad A1/C1
. MI A2 (No WiFi if used with Google Apps)
. OnePlus 5/5T
. Pixel / Pixel XL
. Pixel 2 XL
. Pixel 3a
. Poco F1
. Redmi Note 7
. Redmi Note 7 Pro
. Redmi Note 9 Pro
. Redmi Note 9 Pro Max
. Samsung Galaxy S10
. SHIFT6mq
. Vollaphone
. VollaX

Partial functionality:

. Pinephone (Unstable due to the immature porting of the device).
. Pixel 3a XL (Video playback doesn't work on WayDroid)
. Redmi 9 (No external storage)
. Redmi Note 9 S (Some UT apps are broken, see post https://forums.ubports.com/topic/7201/segmentation-fault-after-apt-upgrade-on-rw-system/10)

Working with manual steps:

. Redmi Note 8 Pro:

See details in https://t.me/waydroidonut (search Redmi Note 8 Pro, 24/12/2021 21h30 UTC)

Upcoming / Work in progress:

. Volla Phone 22
. Fairphone 4

Not working:

. All Halium <9 devices
. Cosmo Communicator
. Lenovo Tab M10 X605F
. OnePlus6 T
. Pixel 2
. Redmi 7 (Onclite)
. Samsung S9+
. You tell me

WayDroid installation may cancel your Notch fix (if you have installed any). You will need to reinstall it afterward. But it should resist to most UBports OTA updates (No guarantee though)

As Google Play Store is currently unstable and buggy, we recommend to use Micro-G opensource Google's library implementation instead. (see below). Moreover, it offers a much better privacy than the standard Google frame services.

By now, around 80% of the Android apps should work correctly in WayDroid on UT. (see limitations and constraints below).

First, check that your device porting is built under Halium 9 or higher and has the appropriate kernel patches. The best choice for running WayDroid now is certainly the Vollaphone.

!!This method has been successfully tested on the Vollaphone!!

You can install WayDroid as follow: (Choose A or B variant)

A ) Easy installation:

Go in the OpenStore and install "WayDroid Helper" app:

https://open-store.io/app/waydroidhelper.aaronhafer

From this app, find "WayDroid install" and run the automatic installation.

You can choose either a classic installation, or with Google Apps.

Note that Google Apps method has not be fully tested yet and may have some issues. (Please send your feedback)

Once done, enter in the terminal and type:

sudo mount -o remount,rw /
sudo sed -i '/aidl/s/2/3/' /etc/gbinder.d/anbox.conf

Then restart the device.

If you have a Vollaphone, you will need to add the following command in the terminal app when the installation process is complete:

waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.height_padding 70

Then restart the device.

B ) Manual installation

#Open Ubuntu Touch terminal (or a shell session on your host computer) and run:

sudo -s
sudo mount -o remount,rw /
apt update
apt install waydroid -y
waydroid init 
sudo sed -i '/aidl/s/2/3/' /etc/gbinder.d/anbox.conf

alternatively, to install Google Apps, replace the line

waydroid init

with:

waydroid init -s GAPPS

#For Vollaphone, add:

waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.height_padding 70

Then restart device.

WayDroid is now installed on your device.

If you didn't choose the Google Apps installation variant, follow carefully the following instructions:

Click on the "WayDroid" icon and open the web browser. Now, from the WayDroid browser, navigate to F-Droid website: https://f-droid.org/ and install F-Droid app.

In F-Droid settings, enable all repositories.
Add Micro-G repo: https://microg.org/fdroid/repo

and, still from F-Droid store, search and install:

• microG Service Core
• FakeStore
• Microg Services Framework Proxy
• MozillaNlpBackend

Open Micro-G app, go in Micro-G settings, check that the device is well registered, (self check-on), and enable and check everything you can. (all boxes should be activated).
Allow Google cloud services and notifications.
In the location module services, activate MozillaNlpBackend

Still in F-droid store, search and install "Aurora Store".

Now you will have 3 stores:

• OpenStore: Ubuntu Touch default store
• F-Droid: Android store giving access to thousands opensource apps (only opensource apps are available)
• Aurora Store: All Android Apps (similar to Google play store, but without Google frame services that are now replaced with Micro-G)

Then, open "WayDroid helper" app (https://open-store.io/app/waydroidhelper.aaronhafer) and hide all duplicate apps you don't need (calculator, contacts, calendar, camera, files, settings, gallery, etc...). Swipe right the app you want to hide and click on the "trash". To show it again, do the same but swipe left and click on "+".

Now you should be able to use both Ubuntu Touch and Android apps on your device.

To uninstall an application, use the store that has installed the app, but note that an issue avoid the icon to be erase from the app launcher.
So you might use the following workaround:

#Open terminal

cd /home/phablet/.local/share/applications
rm 'APPLICATION NAME'

To check if WayDroid is running well, run:

waydroid status

To upgrade WayDroid to a newer version run:

sudo waydroid upgrade

Other WayDroid commands are available in WayDroid helper app.

To activate the automatic rotation of Android applications, you can get the "Rotation Control" application. (Available in Aurora Store / Google Play Store):

https://github.com/sudhirkk/rotation-control

Warnings:

Note that WayDroid and it's integration in Ubuntu Touch is still in an early alpha development stage and may be unstable.

Currently Direct WiFi and Bluetooth do not work in WayDroid, so you can't use applications to control IoT devices (ex: Irobot Home, Garmin JR connect, Smart watches, etc...), nor wireless printing services.

WayDroid does not yet support fingerprints reader, so you can not login to a bank account (or any secured app) using your fingerprints, but still able to connect using a standard password.

WayDroid seems to not support NFC yet.

WayDroid does NOT have access to Ubuntu Touch files and medias content. It's currently not possible to send medias stored in Ubuntu Touch using an Android app.

There's NO easy way to backup anything on WayDroid now. It's recommended to keep a copy of all files that you may store in WayDroid.

Sometimes, apps that have just been installed do not displayed on the app launcher, just wait a few minutes (sometimes few hours), or open it through Aurora Store.
(Reboot doesn't seem to fix the issue)

Apps are NOT automatically updated, please check regularly your stores to update them manually.

If WayDroid icon appears twice, just refresh the launcher by pulling it down et release it.

Open WayDroid app gives you access to the full LineageOS GUI. (including all notifications, Trebuchet app launcher, Lineage settings, etc...).

Note that you must open WayDroid app to access to your Android notifications, as they won't appear in Ubuntu Touch.

When you close an Android app, you will see a point at the bottom of the dock, don't mind, it disappears as soon as you open a standard UT app.

Possible issue in the default Ubuntu Touch music app:
If you select the "Titles" music category, when you scroll down the list, it goes back to the top by itself.
Impossible to reach the music titles at the bottom of the list.
Workaround: Stop the WayDroid container and try again.
(Defect found on Vollaphone, OTA-20 stable).

Known issue: When WayDroid is started, GPS does not work in Ubuntu Touch, even if WayDroid is stopped. Only way to use GPS in Ubuntu Touch is to reboot the device.
Follow the latest developments here:
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/7248/waydroid-does-not-release-gps

Apart from that WayDroid works remarkably well. No critical bug has occurred.

To uninstall WayDroid, use the "uninstall WayDroid" option in WayDroid app.

Documentation & Support:

Official documentation is available at www.waydro.id

Telegram main WayDroid user group support: https://t.me/WayDroid

Telegram WayDroid on Ubuntu Touch user group: https://t.me/waydroidonut

To report a bug: https://github.com/waydroid/waydroid/issues

Credit and thanks to Rudi Timmermans for his support.

Dear all,

We're happy to provide you the latest Anbox-Halium developments, that have been achieved the latest 14 days:

. Initial support for multi windows
. Create gbinder python binding lib
. Fix browser into Anbox

The next large work will be to improve Anbox server. Erfan is already working on this stuff.

One more time, thank you very much for your support and Erfan's involvement!

Thank you for donate and share our fundraising campaign: https://www.whydonate.eu/fundraising/anbox

See you soon for a next exciting statement!

Cheers, Rudi and Steve

Dear all,

After the Great unexpected success of our fundraising campaign to allow the creation of this project, it is time for us to put an end to this support drive.

Indeed, on the one hand the amount collected (8942 Euros) is sufficient to allow us to finish the development of WayDroid, and on the other hand the taxes, fees and campaign emoluments make it unprofitable to continue.

For this reason, we inform you that we are leaving the management of this project. The dedicated web page has been closed.

We would like to thank every donor for their indispensable support.
We are happy to have made this event possible and it is with a touch of emotion that we are stepping down...

The work continues.... As today Erfan is taking over the operational management of the program, and he will be the point person for your questions.
We invite you to join the official Telegram group of the project: https://t.me/anbox_halium
and we would be delighted if you would come and provide us with regular updates on the progress of WayDroid.

Once again, thank you for your trust and support.

Goodbye and see you soon!

Rudi and Steve

It's a known issue currently.
It should be fixed in next OTA-14.
In the meantime, you can try this workaround: (worked perfectly well for me as well as dozen users)

. Start to enable the access of "less secured apps" in your Google account. Than run as following:

1. From your device, download this plugin: https://github.com/rubencarneiro/account-plugins/releases
2. Open the terminal application (tap on ENTER key after each following command)
3. Type: cd Downloads
4. Type: sudo -s
5. Type: sudo mount -o remount,rw /
6. Type: sudo dpkg -i account-plugin-google_0.15.0ubports1local.1586944513_all.deb
7. Type: cd
8. Type: exit
9. Reboot your device
10. Open settings => accounts => select Google
11. Enter your e-mail address
12. Enter your password
13. Without enlarging the screen with your fingers, select: "Allow all actions"

Here you should be well connected to your Google account, which will automatically sync your calendar & contacts on your device

Dear all,

The participatory funding campaign is coming to an end. First of all, we would like to warmly thank all donors for their support. We have raised the unimaginable sum of 7'120 Euros.

This amount allowed us to pay a qualified developer, Erfan, who did a fantastic job on the creation of "Anbox-Halium".
Erfan will continue to work and develop the project until it is usable by Ubuntu Touch users on a daily basis. We hope to have a viable version by the end of the year.

Future updates of the project will be published here on the UBports Foundation forum:
https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5907/open-ubuntu-touch-to-all-android-applications/56

We are happy to have been able to contribute to this project and warmly thank Erfan and the community members who helped him.

The GoFundMe campaign (https://gofund.me/acb31504) will be taken offline on 14 June 2021. The remaining funds will be donated to Erfan to continue his work.

We are confident that this achievement will be a big step forward in the popularity of Ubuntu Touch. Indeed, many potential users are looking forward to being able to use their Android applications in Ubuntu Touch in an efficient way.

See you soon for more exciting news!

Rudi & Steve

Maybe there is a funding of 30 open source projects per year until maximum 500.000 Euro per project. The related Sovereign Tech Fund is waiting to be approved by the German parliament. But it will be approved most likely. They are looking for projects which cover crucial basic technology and provides digital sovereignty.

So maybe the UBports Foundation itself or related projects could apply for funding?

Web page of the fund in English: https://sovereigntechfund.de/en

German news article about it:
https://www.heise.de/news/Souvereign-Tech-Fund-Foerderprogramm-fuer-Open-Source-geplant-6268558.html

Dear everyone,

Here's a fresh new update:

We are pleased to announce that our developer now has a fully working device. It's a Xiaomi Redmi Note 7, which she received from a member of this community right here! (Thank you @mardy )

As for the Vollaphone, it has been returned to the sender for legal customs reasons. Nevertheless, a new shipment will be sent to the developer's business address.

Anyway, work can now begin in earnest!

We are proud and happy to have raised over 3'000 Euros in donations at this stage. That said, the campaign continues, each participation brings us a little closer to our goal: Enabling decent use of Android applications in the Ubuntu Touch ecosystem.

All details are available here: https://gofund.me/acb31504

See you soon, for some new exciting updates.

Rudi & Steve

Dear all,

Many of you are waiting for the latest developments this week:

The LXC Anbox container is now created. The debugging tasks as well as the activation of the sensors are in progress. These small adjustments are actually a long part of the work.

A next phase will be the creation of the kernel for each device (long road), which could potentially be integrated into the Ubuntu Touch root and thus distributed through OTAs.

From everyone involved in this project: Thank you for your support.

We look forward to providing you with further updates.

Stay with us: https://gofund.me/acb31504

Dear all, we are pleased to announce that since today, Anbox for Ubuntu Touch is able to run on desktop mode.

A warm thanks to Erfan who has achieved a new amazing step on the development of Anbox.

As you know, the task is substantial, and much work remains to be done.

We will come back here regularly to provide you with news on the progress of the work.

Stay tune and keep updated: https://gofund.me/acb31504

Dear all,

We're pleased to give you some fresh updates on the Anbox-Halium development over the past 2 weeks!

First of all, the name of the project has changed, but the objectives remains more than ever intact:

Anbox- Halium is now called WayDroid, this is to avoid confusion with the "old Anbox" service.
It is a compression of the words "Wayland" and "Android", the system allowing to run a LineageOS container on an Android base in the Wayland environment.
The new naming was chosen via a large community survey.

Also, a few technical improvements have been achieved:

• Make sure anbox-sensord is started anyway
• Use iptables-legacy incase it found
• Provide powervr GPU dependencies

Erfan, helped by a few developers, is continuing to improve the main server.

We are all very excited to test this service. For the more adventurous, a Telegram group is available to guide you through the installation:
https://t.me/anbox_halium

The repos are hosted here:
https://github.com/Anbox-halium

For end users, it is best to wait until a successful installation program is available.
It is also advisable to wait for the publication of some patches from the core team, especially in the wayland environment to avoid a risk of system instability.

Nevertheless, the first feedback from alpha testers is very encouraging!

We take this opportunity to thank Erfan and his contributors for his work as well as the UBports foundation for its encouragement.

Thanks to help us to continuing this great project by supporting our campaign:

https://www.whydonate.eu/fundraising/anbox

See you soon for more news and updates!

Rudi and Steve

@Ashen Yes, in 2021 we started a crowdfunding campaign on Gofundme, then on Whydonate to raise funds to pay for an independent developer to develop a better "Anbox" experience on Ubuntu Touch, that became the WayDroid* project..

The project was (against all odds) a success, but no magic wand...

This was a very exciting challenge, but also an obstacle course.

The ideal is to be 2 people leading the project: One coordinator with technical skills for operational follow-up, and one person with communication skills.

For WayDroid, the campaign lasted 5 months. Then the project was self-managed by its maintainer. (it still is today).

For technical developments on services such as VoWiFi or VoLTE on Ubuntu Touch, one of the biggest challenges would be to find one or more developers with specific technical skills.

I don't know what type of technician or competencies are required for this work. Certainly not a simple application developer on the SDK platform, but rather a specialist in both the Android runtime environment, the Linux Kernel, IMS technology as well as mobile network infrastructures, capable of retroengineering work, hacking code, etc...

The work will mainly consist of reconstituting OEM-specific firmware for integration into the Halium layer, I presume.
Another difficulty lies in the fact that each chipset manufacturer integrates proprietary and closed code (vendor blobs). So it's not a truly standard protocol.
You also need to understand how mobile operators filter handset IMEIs to activate the service in their database, and so on...
Technically, it's complicated. Perhaps easier with brands such as VollaPhone or Fairphone, who can potentially provide us with support (?)

So recruitment will be a key element of success. Donors expect results. Some can donate sums in excess of $1,000.

It is therefore essential to communicate regularly on the progress of the project, and to be totally transparent in the news you publish. You need to gain and maintain the trust of participants.

For instance, you can follow the history of the WayDroid project on this topic:

https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5907/open-ubuntu-touch-to-all-android-applications

You also need to be aware of the legal aspects, particularly taxes in certain European Union countries.

In the end, it was an incredible and memorable adventure for Rudi and me. (but not easy at all)

*WayDroid: A LXC container that enables to run Android applications on Linux distributions.

ERROR: The critical partitions are not unlocked.
Please refer to our support articles for help.

I don't think your bootloader partitions are unlocked, or at least not the critical directory.

I suggest you type the following 2 commands in the terminal:

fastboot flashing unlock
fastboot flashing unlock_critical

Then the installation process can begin.

The current Android ROM / Custom ROM must be version 11.

Very nice indeed!
I wish I could have attended this conference, as I'm a passionate user of both Ubuntu Touch and /e/OS. (Nexus 5 + Fairphone 4)

It would be very worrying indeed if Hallo Welt System were to get into a dispute with Gigaset (and it seems it is), as this is their only partner supplying them with handsets. (since 2019).

Let's keep our fingers crossed for a favorable outcome soon.

I would be the happiest on earth!

Don't know much about Halium 9.1 port development, but there's a 7.1 port (which would may be running Focal) quite usable.

See discussions here:

https://forums.ubports.com/topic/3614/lge-nexus-5-hammerhead

There are also unofficial (but fully working) LineageOS builds up to version 20 (Android 13) on XDA forum.

Maybe this would help?

@TheVancedGamer said in Not able to install any other OS on FP4:

Yes, maybe try in this order (in fastboot mode)

fastboot flashing unlock
fastboot flashing unlock_critical

The problem is that the "fastboot flash unlock" commands induce a complete deletion of Android data, whether it is the stock ROM or a custom ROM.

The present problem is that there is no Android ROM on this Fairphone.

Moreover, the system is equipped with an "anti rollback" feature that determines not to allow the installation of a ROM for which security patches are older than the previous one.

In addition, Ubuntu Touch uses recovery for OTA updates.

For all these reasons you should never relock a bootloader on a device running Ubuntu Touch.

I hope you'll manage to unbrick your device! If not, I suggest to call the Fairphone community on their dedicated forum. Others have experienced the same problem.

@domubpkm Officially the Nexus 5 will not be ported to Focal because it runs on Halium 5.
The minimum level for Focal is Halium 9.

Although there are unofficial ROMs for the Nexus 5, up to Android 13 (example with this LineageOS 20 ROM https://www.getdroidtips.com/android-13-nexus-5/), we would need a new build of the Halium 9 kernel layer, then patches for Focal.

Currently I have no idea if a porter has taken on this task, but I don't think so, as Nexus 5 is not a core device anymore now.

@Lakotaubp Indeed, as system settings told me that my Nexus 5 was up to date, I did reinstall using UBports installer and now I'm on the latest version.

@fp4_a Indeed, option n° 2 is the good one.

Ensure to NOT relock the bootloader, even after the final Ubuntu Touch installation.

When using UBports installer, check "Wipe Data" and "Bootstrap partition" at the very first installation.

@scottbouch Several users report boot issues on some devices with Stable Xenial OTA-25.

Some people report simple slow start-up, and others a complete inability to start the device.

The core team is aware of this and is investigating what causes those bootloops.

https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/2124

It's not that easy to find clues because no change has been brought to the boot sequences.
Currently - one of the actions underway - is to compare the difference of dpkg -l between the 2 latest images. But you can imagine that these are long lines of code to process, so this might take some time.

When a fix will come it will be possible to reinstall the whole system using UBports Installer (don't check "Wipe data" nor "bootstrap partition).

So don't despair