The Triple F 'February-Focal-Fosdem' Newsletter edition!

Dearest Community,

We know, it’s been a while! First, we hope the new year in your part of the world has started well for you.

By the way, our apologies for the last time that we sent you a faulty version of the newsletter. We hope this one will arrive in your mailbox as it supposed to be!

What to find in this edition of the UBports Newsletter?

As you can guess already, much of our focus is on the development of 20.04. Another huge thing on top of our mind is the Fosdem ‘23 event taking place this weekend. Also another important project we want to highlight here is the translating of UT components and applications into various languages. We mean, don’t you think that everyone should have access to a safe alternative Linux OS? We need all the help to achieve this goal!

Alright, we won’t keep you much longer. If in mean time there is something you want to share, contact us via;socials@ubports.com.

Have a nice read!

Greetings from the UBports Newsletter Team

Here is everything you need to know about 20.04

Ubuntu Touch is a large system containing a high number of complex connected systems. Day-by-day we are getting closer to our goal to offer a fully supported Linux OS for a wide range of devices.

At this point in time, the core team and the community are working hard to fix small, as ‘not so small’, issues with 20.04. In general, we see that a few more features are still missing but people are working around the clock to get this fixed. .

While it seems that much information about the project is scattered among different channels, we decided that here in the newsletter we want to inform app developers, device porters and users about the changes.

The newsletter team had a quick talk with Ratchanan who always seems to have a bigger picture in his mind…

App developers: Start testing your applications on focal (20.04).

Good to know that clickable is not perfect (yet) but it’s mature enough to have people getting started with testing.

We renamed the APIs to allow for Lomiri to be packaged in other distributions such as Debian. This way our stack is available on other distro’s. Renaming APIs without a compatibility layer in place, breaks down applications. We know that not every developer can afford to migrate their applications - although some already do that. That is why we built a compatibility layer that allows for most of QML APIs to work on 20.04. We expect that this works fine, but we advise you to test this rather sooner than later! Especially the more complex ones.

There is a forum post with guideline that explains how applications can be updated to be compatible with the new APIs. That instruction is not perfect so if you experience a problem with it, please report this in the forum or in the Telegram group.

Telegram Group

Porters: Update your port.

Not much is changed here, but some changes did happen:

Most notable one is that we need to change the init system from Upstart to Systemd, and the way porters can “overlay” files in the system.
There has been a change in USB support.

In this summary guideline.
https://docs.ubports.com/en/latest/porting/UpdatePortsFor2004.html you can read what you need to do to update your port to 20.04. Because each port is unique, we wrote this guideline to help you get started. If you have questions or experience problems, fear not to contact us.

Users: Start testing right away but make a back-up first!

While much has changed in the deeper ‘invisible’ layers of the system, on the front-end users probably won’t notice big changes in 20.04.

We want to invite our users to start trying out 20.04 today because it has major benefits. The main benefit is a more stable operation system because Canonical provides security support. Right now, we have the primary functions of the phones available on several ports such as Fairphone 4, Volla 22, Sony Xperia X and Pixel 3a. You can make phone calls, switch on mobile data and WIFI should work steadily.

But some caution here: Make a back-up before!

Want to know more about the development planning and milestones?

In the Next Newsletter we will share some more news on development plans for UT. In mean time, have a look at the Gitlab page: Gitlab

The world of UT: Call for translation

We believe that everyone around the world, no matter what place they live in or what language they speak, should have access to UT. This is an important mission but it means a huge task lies ahead of us translating UT’s components and applications into (all) different languages.

How can you help?

The UBports team moved the UT localization workflows from a self-hosted weblate instance to a software-as-a-service Weblate. The UBports community will have less infrastructure-related things to maintain and can tap in to the huge translator community at hosted Weblate. This makes things a lot quicker and easier, and you can start right away!

Everyone who would like to contribute to the internationalization of UT, have a look at our forum where you find all the information: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/8601/call-for-translations

OTA-25 Last Call

From Florian Lieber

“As we need to come to a close with OTA-25 I want to remind everyone to add/ping us stories or issues that need to go into OTA-25 **until end of this week*. Everything else will have to wait for first (actually kinda second) OTA for focal -

To see what’s onboard so far check this link: Link

Testing a Bluetooth device? Put it on the list!

For everyone who is currently testing Bluetooth devices compatibility with 20.04, there is a list out there where the status of Bluetooth testing is tracked. Make sure yours is on the list as well. Check the table here: Table

Here is some Pine News

A mainline Linux smartphone without UT? Impossible.Good news that Oren started the porting process together with the help of our porters community. They are far ahead in the process! Many features are working already as you can witness yourself by watching this movie: https://youtu.be/xCjAXx9EsSg Gitlab

Lomiri on Lunar Lobster

Marius opened a personal package archive for Lomiri on Lunar Lobster (the next Ubuntu 23.04 release). Package flows from Debian to Ubuntu and arrived in Ubuntu 23.04. It’s an opportunity to bring more Touch components in Ubuntu! And with newer libraries, we no longer need to support the old ones that were only used for UT. These new libraries that are maintained by Ubuntu and other distro’s. You can follow Marius via this link: Link

Call for testers: TELEports Proxy servers

A while ago, Telegram was blocked in countries such as Russia, China and Iran. Telegram developers responded to this very effectively: They used quite comprehensive spoofing of SSL/HTTPS connections which will fall through the firewall filter. So here is the great news: TELEports will now support proxy servers! Importantly, you can enter a proxy server without adding a phone number.

Florian is working on this project and needs testers. Because it is a bigger feature, the chance for bugs is real. Here is how you can help:

Grab the build for your architecture from this CI pipeline: https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/apps/teleports/-/pipelines/756937071. In the lower part you find the green TELEports button. Browse into the artifacts folders and find the click!

The devices website is updated

Capsia updated the page with the supported devices and new filter options. Have a look here:Have a look here: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/
https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-19/post/devices-website-updated-3874

News From The Community

Q&A “The Fosdem Edition”- Sunday 5th Feb 17-18 UTC.

Yay! Another Q&A session coming up. Lots of Fosdem talk (no doubt). Tune in this Sunday at 17:00 UTC.

https://forums.ubports.com/topic/8620/ubuntu-touch-q-a-122-live-from-fosdem-sunday-5th-feb

Contribute to our mission by donating

There are many ways you can help and support UT and UBports.One of these is our Merchandise store. You can buy yourself or someone else a gift from our store

Another is by making a donation. One at a time or on a more regular basis. No matter how large or small, please remember they are very much appreciated and that you are helping directly the development of UT! https://ubports.com/donate