TheKit

TheKit

Is there a simple way to port Ubuntu Touch to the device?

No shortcuts or simple ways here :). I'm working on it though:

device photo

It's not ready for daily use, but what currently works (with different hacks) is:

Display/Touch screen
Keyboard
Cellular connectivity + outgoing voice calls
Sound
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth

If you want to help with porting or test it, you can ping me in UBPorts Telegram group.

As for desktop Ubuntu, I suppose it's currently on hold with main focus being put on Debian. Those two are going to share adaptation bits (in fact, the current plan is to use some Ubuntu Touch software and middleware on "desktop" Debian to provide, for example, phone application), so it doesn't make sense to duplicate efforts with limited resources just now.

TheKit

@doniks said in Gemini PDA:

That list sounds rather complete. What's missing in your opinion for daily use?

Getting it more polished and stable. Same can be said about UBPorts 16.04 itself, which is still in devel (see https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/milestone/7), and lots of apps would need to be recompiled for it to work properly.

TheKit

@peat_psuwit said in On the subject of Ubuntu Touch versioning scheme:

This 20.04 OTA-x, 24.04 OTA-x, etc. version scheme makes it clear which version of Ubuntu we're based on. However, this will make it harder for us to introduce larger, system-wide changes which takes time to develop and require more comprehensive testing. It also make it harder to offer hotfixes in between OTA releases when changes in the pipeline might not be ready for shipment yet.

Could you please elaborate why this type of version scheme makes it harder to introduce larger changes? We could always have OTA-x.y if needed for smaller changes in-between (and in practice already done so when specific issues/devices needed hotfixes), but I wonder what is the issue for larger ones?

Otherwise, I don't have a strong opinion on this. Keeping the current versioning scheme or doing Ubuntu Touch 24.0.x.y both seem fine to me.

To a developer, being able to recognize the Ubuntu base from the version feels beneficial, but I can also see why complete decoupling was considered before, especially when we were lagging behind too much, like with 16.04 or now with 20.04)

TheKit

I think this issue is related to https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/core/lomiri-app-launch/-/merge_requests/47#note_1567842127. As I understand from the discussion, if lomiri-app-launch is unable to write oom_adj values, it will attempt to spawn an OOM SUID helper, and doing so for every thread takes lot of time/resources.

The easiest workaround for now is to revert Android commits in the device port kernel that made read-only oom_adj (as they had been also discarded upstream):
https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/community-ports/android10/xiaomi-redmi-note-9-pro/kernel-xiaomi-sm6250/-/commit/d13041168eae01e79e9625f280a640ab8f960033
https://gitlab.com/ubports/porting/community-ports/android10/xiaomi-redmi-note-9-pro/kernel-xiaomi-sm6250/-/commit/c45ed3b1cdf7d8e485bb4b50dfd1ec9842b4bd64

TheKit

@zzarr said in Gemini PDA:

I know it's an early question but is it possible to run Android apps via Anbox?
Is it possible to dualboot?
Remember 16.04 will be supported in 3 more years.
Would I be able to install a 18.04 desktop container?

I'm a week late, but I didn't look much into this yet. In theory, Anbox works on "official" MediaTek UBPorts devices, but it needs some kernel patches.

Dualboot works same way as with Android/Debian. As for 18.04 container, that sounds like what Libertine does if you want to run graphical apps. Not sure if it has been ported to 16.04 yet, you can check this in general discussions/project GitHub issues as it's not specific to this device.

TheKit