This community is alive, thanks to you!

socials@ubports.com

Dearest UBports Community,

In this edition: Hackers solved web push notifications in Ubuntu Touch - while eating lots of pizza. And did you know that Nigel Wood runs the UBports Forum next to his gardening business? Maciek, Alfred, Muhammad, Karl, Jeroen and Raoul discovered the people ‘behind the profile picture’ in a meeting about 20.04 on the Fairphone 4.

The UBports community is alive because of the people who participate in it. Never feel obliged to share anything, but it is just wonderful to see how people are continuing their work for the community next to all other responsibilities.

PS We are still looking for help with the newsletter socials@ubports.com.

Enjoy reading and we look forward to hearing from you!

The UBports Newsletter Team

Development updates & news

Towards 20.04: A quick update

As we wrote in the previous newsletter, all development efforts are now directed to the release of Ubuntu Touch 20.04. Recently, Focal (20.04) was brought to the hidden channel in the UBports Installer for the Fairphone 4 and Volla 22. Unfortunately there was an issue because after installation, the phone booted directly back to the boot loader. With the help of the Fairphone 4 User Group and the Volla team, we managed to get the installer working properly.

Focal Forum

Upgrade to 20.04 before December 19th

Developers, please keep in mind that the 20.04 Opt-In Release is set for 19 December 2022. Please upgrade your apps to 20.04 and file your features, issues and fixes to the 20.04 Focal branch as soon as possible.

The OTA-24 release

OTA-24 for 16.04 is released. Many bugs are fixed now, but let us know asap when you find one. For a list of supported devices, fixed issues and more, you can read this blog.
https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-24-release-3872

Getting the Fairphone 4 ready for Ubuntu Touch 20.04

Together with Fairphone, we had a user meeting to share our experiences and tackle the most urgent issues for 20.04 on the Fairphone 4. The members who joined the meeting were were Maciek, Alfred, Muhammad, Karl, Jeroen and Raoul. Wonderful to meet the people behind the profile pictures!

What did we get out of it? Together we managed to figure out what the issue was with the Focal Image and why that didn't work in the UBports Installer. Additionally we talked about the issues we encountered such as volume adjustment, convergence, fingerprint unlocking and notch support. Also Alfred told more about his work on Lomiri desktop mode for 20.04.

But there is still one big issue left (call volume adjustment) that we couldn’t tackle yet. Who can help us out? Find more about this on Gitlab: Gitlab

Do you want to be part of the Fairphone Group? Telegram

Events

The Ubuntu Touch Hackathon in Würzburg

This is the working principle we came up with: We studied the specs, prototyped a Web Push Server Gateway - there we have a rather clear path now, and analysed the QtWebEngine source code. The last part is the most difficult. We found out that a part of what we need was only added in a newer version of QtWebEngine. But we found where we can hook into and implement the necessary parts anyway.

Below you can see a picture of the hackathon’s atmosphere – yes there is the pizza box. Thumbs up!

So, the outcome is that we understood most of the components, protocols and standards involved and came up with a concept. But a rather big challenge was to get the QtWebEngine compiled in the first place, that’s where we need to make changes. Browser Engines are among the most complex pieces of software that exist.

Curious to learn more about it? You can read a summary of the current state here: Learn More

News From The Community

Nice to meet you!

For the coming editions, we want to publish interviews with members of our community. In this edition we start with Nigel Wood: Someone who many of you might already know from his work for the forum - and his membership in the UBports Foundation Board of Directors.

“I want to help pushing the community side. I have a different outlook as a non-technical person. The biggest strength of this project is the people in it. A mix of people, both technical and non-technical. Everyone can contribute. Because you need people who write articles, check websites, test devices… When you work out the monetary price, this is probably worth a lot! Most of the people in the community hang around for a long time. They are very interested and keen.”

Nigel Wood,

Member of the Board at the UBports Foundation

UBports is on the fediverse!

UBports has been present on the fediverse for some time, due to the recent influx of users our social media team has reinforced its activity on our mastodont account. If you're not on the fediverse its time to create an account.

Create Account

But, if you're already on the fediverse, follow us and say ‘hi’ at @ubports@mastodon.social