Your privacy-focussed and biweekly UBports newsletter is here!

Hello community!

Welcome to the UBports Foundation email newsletter, October 1, 2021

From your editor

Hello dear people! I was recently very happy to see that, during my vacation, Koen Vervloesem did such an excellent job of supplying you all with your biweekly portion of Ubports and Ubuntu Touch news.

So, a big thanks to Koen! At the same time, the development of training materials for UT application development got a boost with a project to create a training course for first time UT developers. In the end it should start with a nice Qml and JavaScript shopping list app, aind increase in complexity by adding things like SQLite, Python code and connecting to a REST interface. As soon as there is something people can test I will mention the URL so people can have a look see.

I also got word that the work on VoLTE support done at Sysmocom Germany is progressing nicely. Great! There is also some really big news coming our way, but unfortunately I can not (yet) tell you more. Oh, if only I could!

What I can share is a very nice email I received recently with the following message:

Hi Jeroen,

good to hear that ubuntu touch is making progress. Unfortunately I have no experience in programing and stuff. So the best I can do to help is to up my donation from 2€ per month to 10€ per month like you suggested in the newsletter. I'm happy to spend my money on things that are important to me and that really make a difference. Ubuntu Touch has had a big impact in my life so far, and I don't feel the need to go back to android at all.

Thank you for your work with the newsletter, Jeroen, and a big shout-out to the team working on ubuntu touch

Kind regards from austria,

To be honest, we are currently running a small fund raising effort. We would really like to increase some of our efforts, like the porting to 20.04 and every bit helps to get us closer to that goal. So, if you can spare a bit, we would love to be on the receiving end of your donations.

As usual we have an edition packed with informational goodies. So, stay safe and keep on hacking.

Till next time,
Jeroen Baten

News hot from the press

The Register mentions our release of OTA-19: https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/22/ubuntu_touch_ota_19/
Of course we have our own blog post about it here: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-19-release-3779
In a recent episode of the Dutch AngryNerds podcast (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvd7Wz2fMH8) there was already some very early anticipation for OTA-40 (UB-40) and of course the answer to the Life, Universe and Everything, OTA-42 (if you are too young to understand this joke, please read the book "the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy")

Apps in the spotlight

Here are some new Ubuntu Touch apps for you to try out:

NUT Bikes (https://open-store.io/app/nutbikes.s60w79), by S60W79, is a client for rental bike systems provided by nextbike. At the moment you have to register with an already existing account.
Tanks (https://open-store.io/app/tanks.arc676), by Alessandro Vinciguerra, is a turn-based combat game with tanks. It's based on @abmyii's Ubuntu Touch port of the Godot game engine.
Autism Planner (https://open-store.io/app/autismplanner.nicktelindert), by Nick te Lindert, is a simple planning app designed to be more friendly for people with autism spectrum disorder.
Game of the Amazons (https://open-store.io/app/amazons.arc676), by Alessandro Vinciguerra, has a new version. The board game now ends if the winner is already decided by the state of the board.

You can find all these apps as usual on the OpenStore site(https://open-store.io/).

Help needed!

If you have some spare time, we could use some help in the following domains:

An operating system is only as good as the bug reporting that goes into it. Everyone, no matter how inexperienced, can contribute to that and we really appreciate all that feedback, which benefits everyone. You can file a bug report by opening an issue on https://gitlab.com/ubports or https://github.com/ubports.
There's a new beta version of the UBports Installer. You can help us test UBports Installer 0.8.9-beta on UBports OPEN-CUTS: https://ubports.open-cuts.org/report?system=5e9d746c6346e112514cfec7.
Lionel Duboeuf implemented the ability to choose custom SMS sounds. If you're running the Release candidate or Development channel on your phone, you can try this with the folowing command:
```
sudo ubports-qa install PR_lomiri-system-settings_304
```

We still can use some help with Ubuntu 20.04

Our UBports community is growing. We have a lot of volunteers, but for some specific tasks we need to hire specialists. The move to the Ubuntu 20.04 base is such a task.

With Ubuntu Touch based on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa), you'll be able to run more applications, especially if they only support the Wayland protocol for its user interface. This will make it easier to port desktop apps to run on your phone.

The move to systemd and the support of Wayland will also make Ubuntu Touch more compatible under the hood with other Linux distributions. This will foster collaboration with other mobile Linux distributions such as Mobian, especially on non-Android devices such as the PinePhone.

The move to 20.04 is a must to keep getting security updates and improvements for the base packages. The sooner the upgrade has happened, the sooner the UBports developers are able to work on new features such as playing videos protected by DRM and video calling with WebRTC in the browser.

If every member donated $10 a month for some time, this would give a major boost to our growing community.

Donate here so we can hire developers for a better Ubuntu Touch: https://ubports.com/donate

In our community

As usual they can always use more people to help out, so if you can structure information into short answers or help out in any other way, just content them through: https://t.me/UTFAQ

Ubuntu Touch Q&A 109

Dalton, Marius and Alfred were the hosts of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 109 session. They talked about a worthy successor of the Nexus 5 and about dual-boot configurations for Android and Ubuntu Touch.

The Google Nexus 5 is a popular phone for Ubuntu Touch, but it was released in 2013 and it may not be supported any more in the future. So the question is what the 'new Nexus 5' would be. According to Alfred, the Google Pixel 3a is a worthy successor. The device is pretty open and widely available. It has attracted quite a user base and so it gets a lot of refinements in Ubuntu Touch through bug reports. If you want a brand new phone, he suggests the Volla Phone, which you can even buy with Ubuntu Touch pre-installed at volla.online.

There was also a question about dual-boot configurations where you could boot your device into Android or Ubuntu Touch. Is this doable? Yes, but it's a challenge. For a stable system you need an Android installer and an Ubuntu Touch installer that only updates their own slot, and you need separate user data partitions. The better way forward seems to be Waydroid, which lets you use the handful of Android apps you really need in Ubuntu Touch.

You can watch the whole session and read our notes here: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-q-a-109-3780

Some tech article

If ever you where wondering if the world needs a phone operating system focussed on privacy, then you should definitely read this article.

Based on research by the Lituanian government (https://kam.lt/lt/naujienos_874/aktualijos_875/ka_daro_ismanusis_telefonas_jums_
nezinant_triju_kinijoje_pagamintu_5g_mobiliuju_irenginiu_tyrimas.html) it seems that at least one Xiaomi phone has a list of "special" words in its operating system.

If you use any of these words some server gets contacted. The list seem to include words like Taiwan and other words not desired by the current Chinese government.

This news got picket up by several large news sites and even Reuters deemed it worth a mention: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/lithuania-says-throw-away-chinese-phones-due-censorship-concerns-2021-09-21/

Clearly this is a practice that violates any morality regarding privacy and needs to be dealt with in the strongest possible way. Thankfully several Xiaomi phones already have a port mentioned on our https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ site.

I doubt Xiaomi itself will join in the porting effort, but seeing how far we as a community already have come, I am convinced that these practices will disappear completely over time.

And... it's a wrap! Stay tuned for our next episode in two weeks. If you want to let me know what you think, write me an email (jeroen@ubports.com).

Thank you for joining us!

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