Ubuntu Touch is the privacy and freedom respecting linux phone operating system by UBports. Today we are happy to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-14, our fourteenth stable update to the system! OTA-14 will be available for the following supported Ubuntu Touch devices over the next week:
LG Nexus 5
OnePlus One
FairPhone 2
LG Nexus 4
BQ E5 HD Ubuntu Edition
BQ E4.5 Ubuntu Edition
Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition
Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition
BQ M10 (F)HD Ubuntu Edition
Nexus 7 2013 (Wi-Fi and LTE models)
Sony Xperia X
Sony Xperia X Compact
Sony Xperia X Performance
Sony Xperia XZ
Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet
Huawei Nexus 6P
OnePlus 3 and 3T
Xiaomi Redmi 4X
New devices this cycle
With this update we have new devices officially joining the release cadence! This means that these devices will now have a "Stable" update channel available in System Settings -> Updates -> Update Settings -> Channels. You can install Ubuntu Touch on these devices using the UBports Installer:
Xiaomi Redmi 4X (Maintained by Danct12)
Huawei Nexus 6P (Maintained by Florian Leeber)
Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet (Maintained by Guf)
If you're a device maintainer and your device is not on this list, this may be because it has not been added to the UBports Installer or it is an Android 9 device.
What's new?
At the beginning of each development cycle, we decide what our main focus for the cycle is going to be. For OTA-14, we chose to focus on Android 9 support. We believe this will help power the launch of our sponsor's Volla Phone delivering itas a daily driver into thehands of its new recipients.
This was largely a success: We were able to fix issues with swiping apps away to close them, Ratchanan did quite a number on camera support, and external display support with HardwareComposer2 now works.
Given the OTA-14 development cycle was only 34 days, we believe this was a huge success.
That's not all,
though: Outside of our team's "new development" commitments, we also
merged many changes and translations from our volunteer community.
Lionel(D) made a number of new changes to the Contacts and Messaging apps to make them easier to use.
Luca of postmarketOS fame contributed a number of fixes for compiling Ubuntu Touch software on newer distributions.
Joan made the
splash screen for External Drives match most of the other default
applications' style. Michele fixed dark theme support in Lomiri UI
Toolkit Dialogs.
Kevin
added a "Screenshot" button to the Lomiri power menu. This makes it
possible to take a screenshot when you don't have a keyboard with a
Print Screen key or if your device's volume buttons can't be pressed at
the same time (like on the PinePhone).
And
most exciting for me, this release *finally* fixes routing media to
your Bluetooth headset or car kit on its disconnection and reconnection.
If you're playing a podcast in the car and leave to go to the shop,
your device will reconnect and you can continue playing audio on the car
system when you get back. Bluetooth calls were not remedied and are still broken on most devices. Car kit compatibility was not affected either way.
What's next?
Goodbye, Oxide!
App developers please note:
there are changes coming to Ubuntu Touch in OTA-16 that you must be
aware of! OTA-16 will be the first release of Ubuntu Touch which does
not include the old, outdated Oxide web rendering engine. If you are
developing an app which uses Oxide, it will cease to function on users'
devices in OTA-16.
Users
of old apps beware: the removal of Oxide may affect you too. Many apps
from the Canonical app store used Oxide directly. These
include closed-source apps like Cut the Rope. If you're a user of one
of these very old proprietary apps, now is the time to request that the app developer updates it. Otherwise, you may need to find another solution.
The
removal of Oxide will be the end of an era, but a much-needed one: the
engine hasn't seen an official update since 2017. It is unsafe to
continue using the engine on the untrusted web, and has only been kept
around for those offline rendering applications such as Dekko 2 and the Notes app, which needed it. Most of these offline applications have moved away from Oxide, so it is time to say goodbye.
Given our 6-8 week release cycle, OTA-16 will appear between the final week of January and the final week of February 2021.
Qt 5.12
If our work of the past few months finally comes to completion, OTA-15 will be the update where we upgrade from Qt 5.9 to 5.12. This will improve app startup times and memory use, make it easier to provide smaller and faster packages of apps and system software, and bring us in line with our next targeted Ubuntu release: Ubuntu 20.04. With our components matched like this, upgrading from our 16.04 base becomes much simpler.
More devices!
Community development has led us to many advances in the past three and a half years. The most significant of these may be the Android 9 effort. Between Volla's sponsorship and Erfan's creation of the Ubuntu Touch Generic System Image (or GSI), our community has been able to bring on new devices faster than ever before. Watch this space, more and more newer devices will have unofficial or official Ubuntu Touch builds available for them as time goes on.
How to get OTA-14
Existing Ubuntu Touch users
Existing users of Ubuntu Touch in the `stable` channel (which is selected by default in the UBports Installer) will receive the OTA-14 upgrade through the Updates screen of System Settings. Devices will randomly receive the update starting today through November 11. This spread is to give us time to interrupt a bad update in the future (should that ever become necessary), not to accommodate any bandwidth restrictions.
If you would like to receive the update immediately, turn on ADB access and issue the following command over 'adb shell':
sudo system-image-cli -v -p 0 --progress dots
Your device will download the update and install it. This process may take a while, depending on your download speed.
New Ubuntu Touch users
You will find instructions for installing Ubuntu Touch on your device at devices.ubuntu-touch.io.
"I found an issue!"
Have you found a bug? We want to know!
You can follow our Bug reporting document to learn how to present the information we'll need to confirm and fix your issue. Every bit helps. The best way to improve Ubuntu Touch is to use it and then tell us about the experience.
You should always check to see whether your bug has already been reported on ubports/ubuntu-touch on GitHub. Browsing open bugs is worth doing, even if you have nothing to report. This ensures that you can watch for any of the open issues and help fix them by providing more information.
