Start with installing gimp package in your Libertine Container.
Screenshot is GIMP running in Libertine Container using the Color 48 theme to make icons usable on a mobile device - https://bitbucket.org/paynekj/paynekj-gimp-scripts/raw/2e8e87faf5eaaf6036e0d8b68ff9f6f37a3f0421/themes/Color-48.7z

In order to install this theme I had to extract the 7z archive on my computer and upload the folder to the phone. Then I had to go into home/phablet/cache/libertine-container/xenial/rootfs/usr/share/gimp/2.0/themes rename the "Default" theme folder as "Old Default" - and then paste in the Color 48 theme folder renamed as "Default" (because trying to change the theme from Gimp's gui would just crash it)

Also to get the GTK menus to be sized to be useable on phone it is important to: create a file named .Xdefaults in a text editor (tedit is a good Ubuntu Touch native one for this) with a single line Xft.dpi: 280 - or whatever other dpi value which you prefer. Save this to the home directory of your chroot environment - usually .local/share/libertine-container/user-data/xenial/ in your normal home directory.

You also still need to use an external bluetooth keyboard for GIMP on the phone in order to have the gui respond.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Given that the current "promoted/supported devices" are now all discontinued and at least 4 years old (with the Nexus 5 now 7 years old) - doesn't it make sense to change both the website as well as support priorities to a new set of "promoted devices"? Seems to me Volla Phone, PinePhone, OnePlus 3/3T, Sony Xperia X series, PineTab, perhaps Google Pixel 3A, and whatever Xiaomi/Redmi device is looking to be easiest to fully support, would all make sense to change the focuses to as far as what is "promoted"- with the understanding that some devices (e.g. PinePhone, PineTab) need a bit more development before placing into this category.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Given that Dekko2 was recently updated for the 2.x version from using the Oxide engine to the QtWebEngine - to the best of my knowledge no critical UT native apps are using Oxide anymore. Is there a timeline to remove Oxide support from UT (from my understanding, a step that will be necessary at some point in order to free up space in the UT image for future enhancements) - and is there a way to check whether our webapps will be effected by this? Am I correct in believing that any webapp made using Webapp Creators "Ogra container" will not work once Oxide support is removed - so that these webapps will have to be updated once the change is made? And is this change expected to be made in OTA-12, OTA-13 or later?

Best regards,
Steve Berson

• What improvements and fixes for the Morph Browser are marked as "definitely will happen" for OTA-6? Biggest requests I have myself is to be able to sign into sites like Dropbox, and be able to upload files to various services via the browser itself.
• Any chance that camera zoom for the OnePlus One will get fixed in OTA-6 - or is this just a serious brickwall of an issue that will likely take much longer, if ever, to fix?
• Would UBports consider hosting crowd sourcing drives for specific native apps? E.g. on the Telegram channel there were two of us that were willing to put up $80 to help fund coding for a native Wire app - and I would be willing to donate $200 myself towards a native Lyft app. Seems to me if there was a place hosted on the UBports site where people could donate towards funding specific apps they desired - with any funds held in escrow by UBports itself - then greater funds could be raised, and the donors would have the confidence that their money would not be sent without a functional app getting delivered, and the coders would have the confidence that they would get all pledged monies as soon as they delivered the functional app.
• Has the UBports team received the Purism Librem 5 developer boards yet - and based on specs known so far, does it seem realistic that it will end up being a fully convergence capable device?

Best regards,
Steve Berson

The following desktop apps are working ok in OTA12 via Libertine in my tests (meaning that they launch and can, with some work arounds and patience with the clunkiness of their guis when used on mobile devices, generally made to function), and all offer some amount of functionality that is not necessarily already found with UT native apps.
For apps that much more suited for desktop, like AbiWord and GIMP, I would suggest using them with an external keyboard/mouse/trackpad and/or external display.

abiword - word processor
file-roller - archive manager
evince - pdf viewer
firefox - web browser
gimp - image editor
gthumb - image gallery & editor
gedit - text editor
medit - text editor
gtick - metronome for musicians
youtube-dl - command line YouTube video downloader - run in Terminal app
hardinfo - system information & benchmark tester
xournal - note taking via touch, stylus or text; pdf annotator
mypaint - illustration - note it is somewhat laggy and crash prone though
easytag - id3 tag editor for audio files
p7zip-full - command line archive manager for 7zip files
p7zip-rar' - command line archive manager for rar files
mpv - media player - open files into it from the File Manager app

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Some screen shots

There is a functional native Signal client (Axolotl) now in the Open Store, and there is a beta for TELEports available that allows the UT device to initiate an encrypted "secret chat" for Telegram, and there is a clunky but functional webapp available for Wire - so there is in fact a number of ways to send and receive encrypted messages from a UT device currently.

Also - if one needs to have end to end encrypted notes, the Standard Notes UT webapp allows to access these online with an option for them to be password protected.

But it would be great if encrypting our home folders was made much easier to do in the future - hopefully a developer will take on this task at some point.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@MarkG_108 - yeah - uNav is a bit clunky in usage in my experience - but I think offline maps for Pure Maps should end up happening within a month or two - I've been really encouraged by how well it works, and it was just ported to Ubuntu Touch a couple weeks ago.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

I will note that for those that like a slightly cleaner look for their lock screen, that you can disable the circle thingy that displays usage stats by going into Settings and then Security & Privacy and unchecking Stats on welcome screen.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@Aury88 said in New badge for Yumi?:

here some iterations..!

...my screen is filling with friendship...
Here the link to the svg:
https://mega.nz/#!UN0SDA7J!njORZM45c7EuA5DotnT8eW3KKdTD36mN9HL_iYIsmEo

I really like the bottom logo on this one a lot, far superior to the others in my opinion.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@breizhat - are you able to setup your Gmail account with Dekko2? I set mine up a while ago, but have no problems accessing it from there.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@popop51 - documentation on how to port your device is at http://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/first-steps.html
and
http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/Intro.html
Also http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/halium_9/Halium_9_GSI_porting.html

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Does QT 5.15 LTS becoming closed source effect UT developement?
Info at https://devclass.com/2021/01/05/qt-lts-5_15/

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@ubuntutouchfan said in Ubuntu Touch - questions about apps:

My phone is not listed here https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/. Can I still install this OS or I must buy one of those phones?

Only on devices that are listed can UT be reliably installed. Any other devices would need to be ported first - info on how to do this is at http://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/first-steps.html
and
http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/Intro.html
and
http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/halium_9/Halium_9_GSI_porting.html

Questions about apps:
I might need to use SOME android-only apps once in a while, so:

Is it possible to run Android apps on Ubuntu Touch?

Yes, in an Anbox container. Anbox is currently in alpha state on UT though, and development has been slow for this. Currently only a few Android apps work, and battery drain tends to be heavier when it is enabled, and it also unstable or not usable on some devices. But if you want to try it out you can find info at http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/userguide/dailyuse/anbox.html

Is it possible to install Android OS along Ubuntu Touch and choose the OS in startup menu?

The only device that has some third party options to enable this is the PinePhone - all other devices dual boot and multi-boot is not currently supported.

Other questions about apps:

I see that Uber app is not available at https://open-store.io - is it planned to be developed?

No, there are no plans from any current developers that I am aware of, but if someone was wanting to to take on this task (or for Lyft) I would certainly be willing to contribute a bounty to help compensate them in some small way for their time. The developer would likely need the cooperation of Uber in order to get this going - info towards this is at https://developer.uber.com/ and https://eng.uber.com/uber-api/ - and without cooperation from Uber it would not likely to be able to develop anything beyond an interface to interact with their current desktop ride request functions.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@ubuntutouchfan said in Ubuntu Touch - questions about apps:

Questions about safety/privacy:

Is my understanding correct that Ubuntu Touch is "Google-free in terms of its background services etc?

Yes, you are correct. There are options you can enable to link a Google account for syncing of calendar events and to import contacts, and it is possible to add a gmail account into the UT native email client Dekko2, but Google services are not enabled by default, and the default search engine for the UT native Morph browser is DuckDuckGo.

Does Ubuntu Touch have included phone call recording application OR do developers plan to release such app OR is there any way to record phone calls?

There is no included phone call recording app or anyway to do that currently that I am aware of. There is a Recorder app that might be able to pick up a phone call placed to speaker ok though - https://open-store.io/app/audio-recorder.luksus

I know that this has been already mentioned e.g. here
https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/788
is there any way I could help the community in developing such app? Its very, very much needed by me!

There is documentation on how to get started with app development for Ubuntu Touch here - http://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/appdev/

Best regards
Steve Berson

@ubuntutouchfan said in Ubuntu Touch - questions about apps:
Uber
There is no UT app available for Uber. You can use UT's Morph browser to request a ride from Uber with your UT device by going to a bookmark for https://m.uber.com/looking (info at https://www.uber.com/en-GB/blog/request-uber-online-without-app/ )

Messaging (WhatsApp/Telegram)
There is a very good native UT Telegram client available from the Open Store called "TELEports"
For WhatsApp, there is a webapp available for it from the Open Store, but it is somewhat clumsy to use.
For other alternatives, for Matrix there is a very good client called "Fluffy Chat", and for Signal there is a good client in development now called "Axolotl"

YouTube player
There is a very good YouTube webapp available in the Open Store at https://open-store.io/app/youtube-web.mateo-salta , and it works well in the Morph web browser as well.

Camera
The UT native Camera app is very basic in its features, but performs fine on most of the devices. Some devices have bugs where zooming and/or flash on the camera is not enabled yet - check on the device list to see its status for any of the devices you are considering.
There is a UT native photo enhancing app called "InstantPho" that is worth installing to get the most out of your photos as well.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@molehill - there is no button for syncing to Evernote accounts n the Notes app, it should happen automatically in the background after it is setup, and can be refreshed when the app is re-opened.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@molehill - are you on the Pinephone? Online Accounts are currently not working correctly with it. Otherwise, I am not sure why things aren't working correctly for you.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@x-dub - I use https://open-store.io/app/sailbook.sailbook without a problem for sending text and attachments on my Meizu Pro 5 running OTA-15 RC.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

@x-dub - The Sailfish webapp available in the Open Store allows you to read and send text and attachments for Facebook Messenger on UT.

Best regards,
Steve Berson