I know this is an old thread, but it seemed the most relevant place to report:
Today I received a cell broadcast! Emergency alert test in Ontario, Canada. Running 20.04 OTA-6 on a Oneplus 5T.
Phone was on silent, so I just heard the vibrations and saw the message.
Way to go team! Many thanks to Lionel and others who've worked on this!
Clarification for future readers of this post that might be considering Ubuntu Touch in Canada: All 3 major Canadian networks have stated that they're maintaining 3G until December 2025. Different story in the USA, where at different points in 2022, the major networks discontinued 3G.
In Canada, Ubuntu Touch is very much usable as a phone. Telephone calls, SMS, MMS photos, audio, and video all work as expected for me. (Group texts do not, and MMS has caused me plenty of headaches in general, though I think I've got a stable setup now.)
Hopefully VOLTE can work soon. I'm much too inept to be of use in that quest other than to keep donating to UBports and crossing my fingers. My enduring gratitude to those working to make UT better. It's already improved considerably since I started using it in late 2020.
Hi @Capsia ,
Thanks to you and any others for the excellent work on the websites!
I hope this is an ok topic to post this in. I didn't find much else pertaining to website discussion.
(TL;DR - I'm suggesting a Donate button next to porter/maintainer names on each Devices page of the website.)
Recently I tried to donate to my device's porter, and found it hard to find how to do so. I tracked down his Paypal eventually, but it took some searching, and it might not be possible to find some porters.
I thought if there were a Donate button on the website, similar to how there's an option on the OpenStore to donate to the app's developer, it might both remind people to donate, and make it easier to do so.
I asked about this idea on Q&A #157 and Alfred and AppLee were both favourable toward it.
But of course this requires work, and I have no skills with websites. I imagine it would require reworking the Contributors section on the Devices pages, and enabling an optional donate button next to the names of any contributors who'd like donations and who provide a link to their patreon/libera/whatever.
It would get more complicated when there are many developers and maintainers. Who will the user donate to? Each of them? And is it weird if some of them request donations and others don't?
But to me, it's still better to have the option, even if there are complications.
Anyway, sorry to be making a suggestion with no way to help bring it about. But I wanted to float the idea out there, to keep our porters supported!
I'm curious how the foundation works. How many employees are there? Does money for the foundation mostly go to paid workers, or to things like hosting costs?
Would more money coming in mean more coders be hired? And is this desired, or is the general preference to keep it mostly community/volunteer based?
Thank you!
Hey @shodan,
Welcome to the community!
I wouldn't give up on the phones you got just yet. After a quick bit of searching, I can't find any such phone as a Oneplus N10 Metro. I don't know much about these things, but could the device be locked to a cell carrier called Metro, and maybe that's coming up in the installer? In searching for a Oneplus N10 Metro, I noticed there's a cell company in the USA called Metro that seems to supply Oneplus N10. Sometimes a device is locked to a carrier, but often it is possible to unlock it. May be worth searching online for how to unlock the phone from Metro? But again, I'm really not sure this is the case.
Also, I see that you have Android 11 installed. In the device page for the OP N10, if you scroll down a ways, it states that you'll need to be using a specific version, Oxygen 10.5.7 or something. The system image or whatever you call it is conveniently linked from the device page. You'll need to download that file and install that version of android before installing Ubuntu Touch.
The other main thing you'll need to do , probably before downgrading, is unlock the bootloader. Search online for how. Takes a bit of doing, but it's all doable.
General installation instructions for Ubuntu Touch are found on the installer page.
Hope it turns out that your devices are what you thought they were, and useable for UT!
Cool! Thanks for the demos, nice to see your progress! This is going to be very useful.
Thanks so much for all your work!
Hi pals, two questions:
Has anyone heard from a company called SageTea, who "makes" something called the Xfone? Do they contribute to Ubports in any way, or just sell phones that they load with Ubuntu Touch?
Are you all aware that there are wild standing ovations going on all over the place when, for example, Marius talks of progress on VoLTE and 5G, Alfred talks of WebKit and Snaps progress, AppLee bravely starts hosting a Q&A show solo, Lionel revamps Contacts, etc? Often you announce very major things and I hope you know how enthusiastically they are received. Thanks a lot for what you do!
Thanks @AppLee, for the reply and for all your work!
Hi all,
At some point I read that some of the money that the UBports Foundation gets may go to providing phones to developers if needed.
Many of us have an old UT-capable device or two around, and many of us non-devs would like to contribute more to the project. To my mind, if there are any aspiring devs out there who might not be able to afford or find a viable phone for UT where they are, getting them a phone is important!
Does it seem feasible and worthwhile for me to try to set up a way for aspiring devs to request a phone and for existing UT users to donate one?
Thanks a zillion for all your work, and for hosting these cheery Q&As!
@xixired The normal state of affairs until recently has been that 4G data works, but phone calls wouldn't work over 4G. But on a device without VoLTE (4G phone calls) working, I can still leave my mobile settings with 4G enabled, and it automatically switches to 3G when making/receiving a call.
Interesting that 4G data is lost with VoLTE enabled. It seems that it affects several things. SMS/MMS were also affected as I underatand, and took work to function properly.Note thatI have no technical knowledge or coding skills.
My understanding is that the major system wide work on VoLTE is done, but that it remains for device porters to get it working on their devices. This is easier on some devices than others.
Hi!
Has there ever been talk amongst the devs abvout implementing RCS messaging? I hear it touted as an open standard, but I lack technical knowledge. Would it be as hard to work with as MMS was?
I'm forever grateful to have functional MMS over here in Canada where it's a necessity.
Bravo and thanks for all the recent/upcoming achievements! Really amazing progress!
@xixired Very cool to hear about the 24.04 test build!
Voice over LTE has long been a goal for UT as 2G and 3G cell networks around the world get shut down, but it's now working on dev builds and in 24.04 on some devices, I think including Redmi Note 9?
Anyway, I can't go buy a phone to help test or anything, but felt someone should congratulate you on your progress!
I believe the Telegram channel for porters tends to be more active.
Wow! Sounds like this is very far along indeed! Bravo, and thank you for bringing another device this far!
I don't have one, but hopefully somebody out there does and can try this out.
Looks like you're developing it for 20.04. Are you aware of the upcoming migration to 24.04? And of the newfound progress on VoLTE? My broad impression is that Mediatek devices (which I believe the Redmi Note 8 2021 is) are somewhat easier to get this working on?
In any case, way to go! It's great to have more devices, especially for those of us outside Europe for whom Volla and Fairphone are harder and pricier to get ahold of.
Using Oneplus Nord N10, 20.04 OTA 7:
TL;DR - uNav freezes after location is acquired, Morph freezes upon clicking Allow in Permission Request for location, PureMaps will crash after location acquired the first time, then works well upon re-opening.
-uNav freezes reliably with GPS, seemingly after GPS position is acquired. It will freeze with "Waiting for GPS" still visible, but not immediately, I can still shift from light to dark mode for example, until suddenly I can't click anything in the app.
-Morph freezes reliably after enabling location on navigation websites (tried google maps and waze.) Specifically, I select "Your Location", Morph brings up the UT Permission Request to share location, I click Allow, the website says "Waze/GoogleMaps does not have permission to use your location", I repeat the process, and Morph freezes if I click Allow, with Permission Request still visible.
-in PureMaps' Navigation menu if I use Current Position and wait for the wheel to stop scrolling (position acquired), then click to enter a destination, the app will crash, not freeze. It just closes itself. But then if I re-open the app, I can do the same and it doesn't crash and successfully navigates. I've navigated long distances using PureMaps. I think it may have crashed unexpectedly during navigation once or twice, but generally it works for me. I can't recall it ever freezing.
Not sure why my experience is different, but I've spent some time testing and this all seems to happens consistently for me.
@gn-lin This seems to be the place to start.
https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/introduction/index.html
@gn-lin Welcome to the community!
It's volunteers who port devices, so unless you can port it yourself, which takes some doing, it won't happen for your device.
The easiest way to try out Ubuntu Touch is often to look for an affordable used device that's on the Devices list. But if you want to try your hand at porting, there's documentation available.
Hi @RuaNYC,
Welcome to the forum!
First, in case the NYC in your name means you're from New York City, please note that at present VoLTE doesn't work on this device using UT. Maybe this will change? But at present, if 3G has been sunset in your area, you can't make calls on this device.
Your writeup was good, I'm not sure why it got flagged as spam.
I've only been through that MSM process once, and it just worked for me, so I may not be of a lot of help.
This said, a good place to start is always to make sure you're using a decent quality / newish USB cable.
@MrT10001 mentions also cleaning the USB ports you're using. And make sure you're actually in EDL mode.
He also said that sometimes he's found that either the global or the EU firmware would work where the other didn't.
The gitlab page for this device lists the 10.5.8 T-Mobile as "Unsupported Device/versions/firmware", but the porter has said that you can install and it will work. What's unclear to me is whether you should use the 10.5.8 firmware or install 10.5.7 firmware on your phone even though it would've normally had 10.5.8.
Maybe someone else is more clear on this.
Good luck!
Old post, I know, but if @thedeafenguy or anybody else has bought from that seller, a report might be useful to many of us outside the EU. I've come across that seller before and wondered.
@qnx_guy I have no specific experience with the F(x)etc, but I've had a surprisingly good experience with the Microsoft Miracast V2. It seems to only be available used though, and is expensive.
Mine has latency that seems to be less than 0.5s, which I find quite useable. And yes, the device becomes a touch pad mouse when connected, though you can also connect a BT keyboard and mouse.
But it does seem like most people have a less successful experience than me.