| Hello community!Welcome to the UBports Foundation email newsletter, September 3rd, 2021 |
From your editorWhen Jeroen Baten asked me to join the UBports marketing team as a writer earlier this year, I didn't have to think long for an answer. I have been using Linux and other open source systems on almost any device in my household for more than twenty years, and I'm very passionate about it. However, my mobile phone was the big exception, still running stock Android, and I felt more and more uncomfortable about it. Hence, I really liked the idea of being able to help such an important project as the UBports Foundation. I had already been playing a bit with various Linux distributions on the PinePhone, and I especially liked Mobian. Sadly, Ubuntu Touch didn't run that well on my PinePhone at the time, so I didn't look at it further. Of course this changed when I started writing content for the UBports Foundation. I got a Volla Phone, and after an initial period of getting used to it, I really started to like the intuitive way that Ubuntu Touch works. Eventually I even dared to use the Volla Phone with Ubuntu Touch as a daily driver. And when I recently reinstalled the newest Ubuntu Touch release on my PinePhone, I was amazed at its progress in less than a year. Unfortunately, I dropped my Volla Phone on the ground this week. With a shattered display, this can't function anymore as my daily driver, especially with the gesture-based interface of Ubuntu Touch that now gives me glass splinters in my fingers. So for now I'm back to my old Android phone. I immediately ordered a Volla Phone X, and I hope it will be able to withstand my clumsiness with its rugged design. I can't wait to switch Android for Ubuntu Touch again!
Koen Vervloesem, temporary Head of Publications and Newsletters
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Apps in the spotlight
Here are some new Ubuntu Touch apps to try out, selected by Mateo Salta and presented in the latest Q&A session: HN Reader by David Ventura is a reader for Hacker News. It's a fast QML app that presents itself like the web site. You can read and upvote posts, but you can't add your own posts yet or downvote posts.
Network Speed Test by Francesco Padovani shows your phone's network speed. The app has a nice animation of a cat walking through the rain while the test is running. Piotr Lange has developed some interesting mathematical apps. Have a look at them if you need to convert numbers or do calculations with prime numbers or divisors.
You can find all these apps on the OpenStore.
| Help needed!If you have some spare time, we could use some help in the following domains: There's a new release candidate image for the PinePhone. If you have Ubuntu Touch running on a PinePhone, you can help us by switching to the Release candidate channel in the update settings and test its functionality. The random modem resets appear to have been resolved, although it's with a temporary workaround. Jiho Tadano is developing an Ubuntu Touch app that communicates with smartwatches such as the PineTime. If you want to test his early version, join the conversation on the forum: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/6127/smartwatch-sync-app
If you have trouble sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages with a Halium 9 device on a North American carrier, have a look at Rik's guide and test whether this works for you: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/6655/guide-sms-and-mms-fixes-for-north-america-carriers
Ubuntu Touch for the casual user
UBports community member Moem gave a great talk at BornHack 2021: "Ubuntu Touch for the casual user". We asked Moem about the event and the reactions of the audience.
What was your motivation to give this talk at BornHack?
"I wanted to tell people about my good experience with Ubuntu Touch. The first thing I wanted to let them know was that Ubuntu Touch did not die when Canonical pulled out, and that it is in fact more alive than ever. This is a nice message to bring because it was good news to many people who were present."
How did the audience react after your talk, or maybe later at the event?
"People were very positive. Most of them were pleasantly surprised by what I told them, and interested as well. Several people came to me after the talk, because they missed it or were there but wanted to know more. I showed them the BQ Aquaris that I brought as a show-and-tell device and they were impressed by how smooth it felt!"
Were there specific questions or reactions you didn't expect?
"I didn't expect the question about how easy it apparently was to work as root in the terminal. I personally do not use the terminal if I can avoid it. But fortunately it turned out that the answer I gave (the terminal is unlocked because I unlocked the whole phone, for people to play with) was correct. Of course, if you switch off all basic security, the phone will be insecure. That's a feature, not a bug."
"All in all I'm very happy with how it went, considering that it was my first talk. I will definitely improve it for other events, but I'll keep the low-tech point of view."
You can watch Moem's talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNVcE4EqmzY |
Ubuntu Touch Q&A 107Marius, Dalton, Florian and Alfred were the hosts of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 107 session. Let's talk about two of the topics they discussed: collaboration with other open source projects and support for older devices.
Development of an open source operating system such as Ubuntu Touch never happens in isolation. There's always cooperation going on with other projects and even 'competing' operating systems. For instance, years ago the Maliit project forked Ubuntu Keyboard, and now Rodney has been working to bring both projects together again. This way both projects will benefit from each other, enabling more language plugins and different modes of keyboard entry. Another example is the work Luca has done to borrow features from postmarketOS, which has also used some of our own keyboard tricks.
While Ubuntu Touch is known for still supporting a lot of older phones, everything has an end. At some point support for Android 5 and 7 devices will have to stop. One thing is sure already: a Focal-based Ubuntu Touch isn't able to support the Android 5.1 base. If you have such an old device, it's time to make plans for its retirement.
You can watch the whole session and read our notes here: https://www.ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-q-a-107-3776
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