Being a porter myself, albeit not a very experienced one, but a porter none the less, I wanted to see UT on my device, nobody was working on it, so I took it apon myself to try and do it. I feel that was probably the hardest part of this whole thing for me. I have zero coding skills (unless you count BASIC) and I have been able to get a half working port so far, it took many hours spanned over 18 months to get where I am now, and so many questions I lost track, but if you show that you are trying to do it yourself, and say "I need help" the community will step up and help you as much as possible. I'd be glad to help you get started, just let me know if you would like to. I believe if I can get a half working port done, anyone with basic Linux skills could, asking questions like this generally only serve to frustrate some, annoy some, and overall negatively impact others that are involved. I understand the reasoning behind asking it, but at the end of the day if you want to know answers to things like this, look at the porting guide, that has a running list of ports for the people who have been doing the documentation for their ports, as well as the devices that have been ported, then if not sure asking on a public forum like this. I do apologize if I upset anyone, and I do encourage anyone reading this post to check the guide and try porting an old phone or tablet that may be laying in your desk drawer, cause while you may find that device to be "old and worthless" to you, someone else might still be using it and want to try UT on it, besides if you break an old device trying to port it, it just goes back into the drawer does it not?

@doniks I have News, I finally got the device to go past the spinner, it was a combo of my udev rules and the 32011 stuff, I now have a fully working GUI, working touchscreen, and working file access, thats about it though, the wifi is detected but it isnt finding the wifi network for some reason, Ill have to play with it in terminal I guess, as for the rest, any idea where I could start with getting the rest to work?

I actually brought a UT device to my cell carriers local store, they were very interested when I was just talking about it, and when I gave them a hands on experience, they were very receptive to it.

@libremax at the time of this writing,

what works:
Audio
GPS
Status LED
Video Acceleration

what works with quirks:
BT (if disabled requires reboot to enable again)
SMS/MMS (seems to work overall, but sometimes there is no notifications for recieved SMS/MMS, Sometimes won't send SMS/MMS either)
Auto-Brightness (Sometimes has to be toggled off then on after a reboot)
Camera (GStreamer camera is needed for Camera to not crash the device, otherwise view finder shows then device crashes after a few seconds)

what doesn't work:
In Call Audio (Logs show it is working but it does not actually work, mic nor sound work)
S-Pen (detected by kernel, mir/unity does not handle styli input currently)
Sensors (they are detected, but no values are added)
Fingerprint Sensor (halium needs a repo for biometry services)

I think that's everything, if I missed anything I'm sure someone will chime in and ask, I also welcome anyone who'd like to try and help, to please do so.

So my Galaxy Note 4 port has come a long way with help from other community members, I can confidently say it would be ready for a daily device if I didn't have these last little bits that, while aren't important to UT use, are annoyances that I know I've seen a solution for before but can no longer find. I have managed to get everything but the sensors and the stylus to work on my device, the sensors show up with "test_sensors" and the stylus works with libinput but mir or unity do not handle those events yet, I tried to look into the code for mir, but it goes over my head honestly as I am not a coder. I know Marius has briefly talked about sensorfw for sensors coming down the pipeline (which I'd love to test and give feedback) but for now, I accept that both those things are beyond my capabilities so I will just have to wait till I can get there or till the code gets there on its own. I have yet to get a working recovery with my source, and to be honest, I haven't really played with it in a while. Now for the annoyances I know I've seen a solution for (whether it was for ubports 5.1 or another version), the list overall I think is manageable, but here it goes:

WiFi doesnt re-connect after a reboot

BT sometimes crashes device

Camera loads the viewfinder, sometimes takes a picture or two, and ultimately crashes the whole device

On CDMA networks (Sprint and Verizon) I have to downgrade ofono to get a cellular signal (not UT's fault as most of the world has moved on from CDMA and EVdO)

Charge indicator only works if device is plugged in to charger on boot

Audio works for everything that isn't Youtube, or sound from a app that stores sounds locally (D-Bus error)

I started this post in hopes of being able to have a centralized location for all the ports facing these issues, and possibly have a healthy discussion about things like D-Bus errors and how to fix them as there is not much info for D-Bus in regards to Ubuntu Touch. I know dbus-monitor works (how I found out I have a D-Bus error with localized audio vs audio from the web)

I also welcome constructive criticism as long as it remains respectful and family friendly.

I do apologize to mods if this is in wrong spot or anything of the like.

I look forward to the healthy discussion and hopefully solutions to some of the lesser known issues

So I have an update for anyone following this that isn't on telegram or IRC, there are now a couple people working with me on the Note 4 port, the devices are the Sprint, the T-Mobile, and the Trltexx. We have managed to get audio somewhat working, all the hardware as far as we can tell is seen by the kernel, and we are now just trying to get everything working on the GUI side. I have switched to telegram as the primary communication method so dont expect many updates on here, if you have a galaxy note 4 and would like to contribute, you can find me on telegram in the UBPorts group, the UBPorts porting group, and the halium group.

Your basic understanding is a little off, step 0 is right, after that you get source code following the docs, configure it with the docs (adjusting for any device specific items) then compile it and flash to your device and test. That is a very very generalized rundown of the process, if you attempt it, we are here to help, and there's no such thing as a stupid question, so good luck if you go for it.

@rvan that is a great question, my porting experience as of this writing is limited as I have a half finished port for a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I saw you mention that unlocking the bootloader might be a requirement, that is purely based on a device to device basis cause not all android devices are created equal, my Note 4 doesn't have an unlocked bootloader (at least I never unlocked it) but my Asus tf201 tablet does cause I had to unlock it for installing Custom ROMs. I believe the realistic view would be (setup device for custom ROMs) cause as I said, each device is different. I do apologize for that but on to the main part of your question, what makes a device a good/great candidate for porting, I believe this may vary depending on who you ask, but for me a great candidate device is any device that can run Lineage OS14.1 with any reliability and speed, cause if its not reliable on LOS its likely not going to improve if you port UT to it, and if its slow as a tortoise, same thing, other than that if you have something that meets that criteria and you'd like to see UT then by all means, try porting it. My Note 4 runs both Lineage and UT in a somewhat manual dual boot method done with TWRP, let me know if you would like to discuss this further as this could be a great topic of discussion.

Since we are fresh out of FOSDEM are there plans to be attending a tech show like FOSDEM as vendors rather than guests? I think having some publicity for UTs features like convergence would generate some good interest for the project.

Hello, my name is Rick, or tygerpro, I am currently unemployed but I have been doing manual labor or IT based jobs in the past. I first tried Ubuntu touch many years ago on a Asus tf201, and loved it, even though it was a half finished port. I have a Note 4 that I thought would be a good candidate for UT since it is a workhorse and has a stylus (a key reason ingot the note 4) and since I didn't see anyone working on it, I decided to start my contribution to something I personally would like on all my devices. I am willing to learn and help others where possible, and I am always open to a discussion if it pertains to UT or Ubuntu in general.

@mastersezer the note 4 versions you have mentioned are all exynos variants, when I made the port for my device, I made it to cover most (if not all) of the snapdragon variants, I was trying to make a exynos port, but I have since started a new job that takes up 14 to 16 hours of my day, and I do need to balance in my personal life as well as sleep somewhere in that remaining time. I may try and get a exynos port working again at some point, but it may be faster if someone who has more time available to try and do the porting rather than waiting on me.

@flohack I recall my Note 4 saying anbox was 7.1, could it possibly be based on halium version?

@tomcic81 to get UT on your GS290, you will likely have to use SP Flash as I did, I can make a how-to if I have a few minutes free in the coming days, every time I have tried with the ubports installer I have resulted in a bootloop unless Im updating whats already on the device (UT to UT, Sailfish to Sailfish, etc) but I have also tried every ROM/Distro made for the Volla/GS290 that I have been able to get my hands on, so that may have something to do with it.

@thanasis the best thing I can suggest is seeing what is needed (can find that in telegram and documentation) and see if there is a piece of that puzzle missing on note 4, logs will be very beneficial for this

@thanasis well when I started my port I had zero coding skills, I still consider myself to be a coding noob if Im honest, cause I dont know C at all really, through troubleshooting Ive learned a couple things, but not enough to see a log and just go "oh its this" and fix it like some of the other devs around here.

@tomcic81 I actually got /e/ to run on my Volla phone, you have to flash the GS290 Android 10 update, then flash /e/, as far as hardware the Volla is nearly identical to GS290, I believe the key difference is the battery. I will give full disclosure and say that I used SP Flashtool to get /e/ running rather than an installer, but everything worked and I had zero isssues (the Volla/GS290 modem doesnt like my carrier so I cant say for the call or MMS/SMS functionality)

@thanasis the camera crashing the device is a problem with a lot of the 7.1 ports, the morph browser crashing the device I have seen as an issue on a couple other devices, that could be related to a recent update, Im not really sure as I havent had time to do much of anything with my new job (working 14 hour days with 2 hours for commuting back and forth and I need to sleep at some point)

@thanasis that is how I started out, if you would like to contribute to fixing it, there is a wealth of knowledge available in the telegram group, as well as in the documentation

@livingwells this is a known issue with the 910 series, I have not had a chance to try debugging it lately as I have been busy with my personal life things, I hope someone can pick up where I left off with this port until I have a chance to come back to it, otherwise there may not be a fix in the immediate future. I also know that if you press a number on the dial pad while connexted on a phone call, the tone will go out, so there is at least a partial working route for call audio.

@totalrando I myself like elive for older hardware, but that sometimes has a couple hurdles to make it work