Ubuntu Touch is the privacy and freedom-respecting mobile operating system by UBports. Today we are happy to announce the release of Ubuntu Touch OTA-20, our twentieth stable update to the system! OTA-20 will become available for the following supported Ubuntu Touch devices over the next week:
BQ E4.5 Ubuntu Edition
BQ E5 HD Ubuntu Edition
BQ M10 (F)HD Ubuntu Edition
BQ U Plus
Cosmo Communicator
F(x)tec Pro1
Fairphone 2
Fairphone 3
Google Pixel 2XL
Google Pixel 3a
Huawei Nexus 6P
LG Nexus 4
LG Nexus 5
Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition
Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition
Nexus 7 2013 (Wi-Fi and LTE models)
OnePlus 2
OnePlus 3 and 3T
Oneplus 5 and 5T
OnePlus 6 and 6T
OnePlus One
Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (910F, 910P, 910T)
Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo+ (GT-I9301I)
Sony Xperia X
Sony Xperia X Compact
Sony Xperia X Performance
Sony Xperia XZ
Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet (LTE or Wi-fi only)
Vollaphone
Vollaphone X
Xiaomi Mi A2
Xiaomi Mi A3
Xiaomi Mi MIX 3
Xiaomi Poco F1
Xiaomi Redmi 3s/3x/3sp (land)
Xiaomi Redmi 4X
Xiaomi Redmi 7
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and 7 Pro
Xiaomi Redmi 9 and 9 Prime
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro Max and 9S
The Pine64 PinePhone and PineTab are updated independently of the rest of these devices. The stable channel for the PinePhone and PineTab will not receive an update labeled "OTA-20".
What's new?
This release of Ubuntu Touch is still based on Ubuntu 16.04.
We implemented notification LED support for devices with Halium 9 base. If your device is still not blinking, keep in mind that many recent devices do not have a notification LED anymore: Vollaphone and Pixel 3a cannot blink physically for example. Also vibration works now for incoming notifications on those devices.
We added support for Khmer and Bengali fonts to support users from these locales a bit better.
It is now possible to define a custom notification sound. Like with ringtones one can now select any accessible audio file to be played when a new notification arrives. Let's annoy our co-workers with style!
A few new devices were added to the range of installable devices again: Xiaomi Redmi 9 and 9 Prime (lancelot), Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 (merlin), Note 9 Pro (joyuese), Note 9 Pro Max (excalibur), Note 9S (curtana), Xiaomi Poco M2 Pro (gram) and Pixel 2 (walleye). The Pixel 2 has some battery lifetime issues though, so it might not be fully ready for your daily drive.
Bugs and issues fixed
A regression bug prevented the so-called trust prompts to appear when an App requested certain hardware access for the first time: Microphone, location, camera access should now pop the usual dialogs. Note that the camera-app itself currently has always access to the camera, as this trust prompt needs fixes in the Halium/Android layer, and that has been postponed for the moment.
A bug in our CalDAV layer prevented sync with servers that used a Let´s Encrypt certificate due to their recent cert revocation in their cert chain. That's now fixed.
A rare and weird telephony bug: Users of the Vollaphone could not reject a second incoming call without terminating the current one also. Thanks to HalloWelt Systeme for fixing that for us!
How to get OTA-20
Existing Ubuntu Touch users
Existing users of Ubuntu Touch on Stable channel (which is selected by default in the UBports Installer) will receive the OTA-20 upgrade by using the Updates screen of System Settings. Devices will randomly be allocated the update from today and through the next week. This spread is to give us a breathing space to stop the rollout of any bad update (should that ever become necessary), and is not to accommodate any bandwidth restrictions.
If however you would like to receive the update immediately, turn on ADB access and issue the following command over `adb shell`:
sudo system-image-cli -v -p 0 --progress dots
Your device should then download the update and install it. This process may take a while, depending on your download speed.
New Ubuntu Touch users
"I found an issue!"
Have you found a bug? We want to know! Quickly!
You can follow our Bug Reporting document to learn how to present the information we'll need to confirm and fix your issue. Every bit helps. The best way to improve Ubuntu Touch is to use it and then tell us about the experience.
You should always check to see whether your bug has already been reported on ubports/ubuntu-touch on Github. Browsing open bugs is worth doing, even if you have nothing to report. This ensures that you can watch for any of the open issues and help fix them by providing more information. 