"every ending is new beginning"

Dearest Community

Dearest community,

You know the saying that "every ending is new beginning"...

We reached the end of 16.04 with the last ota-25. But with the release of OTA-1 for Ubuntu Touch 20.04, there was a beginning of a new cycle - and much more will happen in the future! In this newsletter we cover both of them in the Development Update. But we also cover some other interesting stuff that happened over the last period.

Know that you can always reach out to our team: socials@ubports.com.

Enjoy the read!

Have a good rest of the day,

Your Newsletter Team

Development updates

A new beginning: 20.04 OTA1 is out!

In March the OTA-1 was released for Ubunty Touch 20.04. In case you missed the blog, here is the link: (https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-1-focal-release-3888)

The OTA-1 was released as an Opt-In for our reference devices Fairphone 4, Google Pixel 3a and the Volla devices.

More about release notes you can read here:

(https://gitlab.com/ubports/development/core/ubuntu-touch-meta/-/blob/ubports/focal/changelogs/)

The work has already begun on OTA-2 Focal. Probably in our next newsletter you'll learn more about it!

Goodbye to 16.04 with OTA-25

The last and final OTA release for Ubuntu Touch 16.04 happened. The blog post about that you can find here: (https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-25-release-3890). (Something to file in our archives ;-).

This also means that except for a dire incident, there will be no more updates for 16.04. This might feel a bit like a goodbye because 16.04 has been the main stay of UT for so long. But at the same time this is also the start of bright future! A new chapter for Ubuntu Touch to be written by UBports with the release of OTA-1 Focal 20.04. We couldn't be more excited!

We advise you to update channels

20.04:

We will have channels for Development Snapshots / Release Candidates and Stable.

16.04:

The plan for now is that all 16.04 channels will remain available on both the installer and through System Settings. But that may change in the future.

Other Development Updates

PinePhone and PinePhonePro 20.04

Oren Klopfer has lead some great work on the Pine devices. Thank you Oren for sharing your story with us!

Quick about me: my name is Oren Klopfer, I'm a college student living in the US, and I spent a lot of last year doing Raspberry Pi projects, so I ended up getting a PinePhone Pro. From the start, I was disappointed by the lack of UT on the Pro, and at first made a mini-port of mainline Ubuntu to the Pro in the fall; then this winter, I took on the task to port UT to the Pro, and after a few weeks of success with that, I was able to bring the original PinePhone up with the same port.

For details on how to install and update UT 20.04 please see this blog:

https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/pinephone-and-pinephone-pro-3889#

Are you curious to read more about Ubuntu Touch and Pine? Yo can read and subscribe to the Pine newsletter. Here is the link: https://www.pine64.org/2023/03/01/february-update-things-are-taking-shape/

Search with filter on Devices Page

Something many of us has anticipated: searching by filter. Why is this useful?

Suppose you are looking for a new phone. But you really want one that has at least the basic features working. In this case, you can filter your search. Devices that are still in development will be automatically hidden from view (although you can check out the status if you want).

Know that you can also filter on Focal-ported devices by selecting the Focal release filter.

https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/

Publish your Focal port on the devices page

Maintainers, when you have an UT 20.04 enabled device please create a focal.md release page for your device. Check it out here:

https://gitlab.com/ubports/infrastructure/devices.ubuntu-touch.io/-/tree/main/data/devices

/[device-name]/releases/focal.md

This way we can include your 20.04 enabled device on the page [devices.ubuntu-touch.io] . Thanks!

Official: Lomiri desktop now runs on Debian

Converged environment - formerly known as Unity 8 – breaks free from Ubuntu. And indeed, from tablets...

In the last three years, the team worked hard to disconnect Lomiri and decouple it altogether from Ubuntu. Now Lomiri runs in other distributions as well. It was especially important to have Lomori running in Debian because this is the source of Ubuntu.

This fantastic work has reached the ears and eyes of the Register who wrote an extensive article you don't want to miss.

Check it out here:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/27/lomiri_desktop_on_debian/

Why Ubuntu Touch is sustainable: OnePlus1 ported Halium 9+ and runs Ubuntu Touch 20.04

Thanks to Muhammad, who ported Halium 9+ to the OnePlus1 phone which now runs Ubuntu Touch 20.04.

The OnePlus1 is an old phone (April 2014) but very popular, reliable, and generally runs well.

Work is close now for OPO 20.04 to be in the installer. Latest updates include Bluetooth working, double tap to wake, potential WayDroid and updated to AppArmor 3.0-rc in kernel 3.4 a bug remains to be fixed then the OPO 20.04 port will be working from UBports Installer.

This is super good news for many people who own this device!

UBports Installer

New UBports Installer is also available with 20.04 channels fully available and no longer hidden

https://github.com/ubports/ubports-installer/releases/tag/0.9.10

Free dozens of Gigabytes with Clickable 7.12

Clickable now has an image clean-up command. This can free dozens of Gigabytes on a developer machine.

It requires at least Clickable 7.12.

Run the following commands:

To untag outdated images: clickable clean-images

To free the space: docker system prune

News From The Community

Watch Alfred Neumayer and Alan Griffiths at Ubuntu Desktop Team Indaba

UBports Alfred and Alan Griffiths have been invited at the previous episode of 'Ubuntu Desktop Team Indaba' on March 31 https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-desktop-team-indaba-ama-march-31-2023-4pm-utc/34595.

Indaba is a term from South Africa that means "a conference or consultation between people. Alfred has been around in the community for quite a while. And as it uses Mir, a resident Mir expert (Alan) was also invited. In this episode, they discuss the work they've done for UBports over the years.

Like to learn more about UBports and Mir? View the recorded live stream here:

You can view this recorded live stream on:

(UbuntuOnAir - YouTube) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pES9LfKCttA]

(UbuntuOnAir - Twitch) [https://www.twitch.tv/ubuntuonair]

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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!

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