We had a little chat with Fedor Boiarchukov, also known as Yellobus or purplevvay in the UBports community. He talks about his discovery of Ubuntu Touch and about how easy it was to create his first app with Clickable.

How did you become involved in the UBports community?

I like to have a unique experience on my phone. I feel like there should be more systems, environments and software features available for mobile devices. That’s why I’m interested in phone operating systems.

One day I searched on YouTube to terms like “linux on phone” and “all phone operating systems”, just for fun. I discovered a lot that day. I had never heard of any of these systems except for a couple of them.

I was really upset when I realized that most of them had been discontinued, but when I discovered that some of them were still maintained I was happy. I started looking for more information about all those systems, I wanted to know as much as possible about all of them. I especially liked that nicely looking Lomiri environment.

So that’s when you tried Ubuntu Touch?

Yes, a couple of days later I visited the official UBports website and devices.ubuntu-touch.io, and I found out that my device, a Xiaomi Mi A2, was supported. That was great news for me, because I really wanted to try this system.

But there was a problem. That device was my daily driver and the only working phone I had. It was also a gift for Christmas 2020, so I found installing Ubuntu Touch on it risky. But I felt like I would never know how good or bad it is if I don’t try it. So after a couple of attempts I installed the operating system successfully.

How has your experience been?

It has been a great experience, especially the Lomiri environment is so good. I can proudly say that I have a daily driver device running Ubuntu Touch that meets all my needs. I really enjoy using Ubuntu Touch!

I also quickly realized how important open source mobile systems are. So I started being active on the UBports forum, because I wanted to be useful in the development of free and open source software for mobile. I guess and hope I’m slowly becoming a part of the community.

Are you also developing for the Ubuntu Touch platform?

Yes, I really wanted to create apps, but every time I started thinking about it, I got disappointed realizing what a huge knowledge and experience I should have just to start. Kotlin, Java, C, C#, Swift, Ruby, Rust and many more!

But one day I discovered Clickable. I just opened the terminal on my computer, typed clickable create, and here comes the most epic moment — choosing the templates. And you know what? There was HTML5! I was delighted.

I answered all the questions about my new app. After finishing the creation of the necessary items I entered the directory created for my app, then opened the www directory and wrote some basic HTML and CSS code. Then I connected my phone via USB (with developer mode enabled), opened the command on my computer again, moved to my app directory and typed clickable.

After that my phone unexpectedly opened the app I wrote a couple of minutes ago! And done. My first app was created. Clickable compiled the HTML and CSS code and sent it to my device!

That’s a great experience! Do you have any tips for others who want to develop apps for Ubuntu Touch?

You don’t need to be a programmer to be able to develop apps for Ubuntu Touch. You are able to create apps using only HTML and CSS! Isn’t that insane? You won’t find it anywhere else! So what are you waiting for? Join the UBports project and make some apps!

I guess HTML5 isn’t the best way to create apps, but in my opinion it’s a great way to get started with app development.

Which apps do you miss on Ubuntu Touch?

A radio app based on the radio-browser API would be nice, as well as an Audius client. There are also no photo or video editors, but I guess creating them using HTML, CSS and JavaScript isn’t a good idea.