Gemini AI summary: The Ubuntu Touch Q&A, streamed on November 29th, covered updates, new applications, community projects, and answered user questions.
🛠️ System and Development Updates
A major focus of the development team is the migration to Qt6 for core system components and applications.
- System Foundation:
- Rsync has been added to the default image.
- Development on an “increaser” tool by Nikita is underway to expand the root partition size to accommodate new features like the Qt6 web engine, which requires more space.
- Fixes to ADB and writable paths (adding SCOS) were made.
- Updates to snapd and snapd-gibb were released.1
- RC2 releases for OTA 11 (20.04) and 24.04-1.1 were released.
- Qt6 Porting Progress:
- Extensive compile and build tooling fixes for Qt6 have been integrated, improving support for the toolkit and upwards.
- The Morph Browser and Lomiri UI Toolkit Qt6 porting efforts have been merged, marking a significant step.
- Fixes were implemented to allow Qt6 to use OpenGLs (the embedded GL framework) for mobile hardware graphics.
- Bug Fixes: Numerous general bug fixes were made, including crashes in Pulse Audio, SyncEvolution, Media Hub, and fixes to the Telephony Handler.
- Priority: The highest priority remains upgrading the browser to an up-to-date version.
🤝 Potential Collaborations
- Mobian Collaboration: A discussion was held with Arno Ferraris, creator of Mobian, regarding a potential collaboration for mainline support of Ubuntu Touch, as Mobian plus Lomiri is considered a simplified view of Ubuntu Touch. https://blog.mobian.org/
✨ New Applications on the OpenStore
A large number of new and updated apps were released in the preceding two weeks, including a significant influx of new browser options.
- New Apps:
- Simple Calculator (by Pa)
- BlaBlaCar and Airbnb (web applications by Pa)
- IP Print (allows printing on Ubuntu Touch, by Western Award/Alaska Linux User)
- Quick Bib (retrieves BibTeX entry for DOI publications, by Archisman Panigrahi)
- Circles (wallpaper/scaling circles app by Jason Walt)
- H5 Motor (a game)
- Wfrn (a Wfrn client)
- WWWW (an open-source clone of the game VVVVV, by John Cysheps)
- Liquid Fluid Roman (a background animation app)
- Just Not (a simple note-taker app by Pa)
- Google Translate (web application by Pa)
- Reference Zenin (a drawing reference/mood board app by piku-a)
- New Browsers (Three new ones!):
- Marusha Browser (a convergent browser by Nazar Novat, noted to be Electron-based and includes a built-in Torrent client).
- Min Browser (fast, minimal, and privacy-protecting).
- Chromium for Ubuntu Touch.
- Updated Apps: Signal-UT, SOT (speech-to-text server), Time Management App, KeePass RX, SFXR sound generator, Launcher Module, U-Todo, Simplists, Delta Touch, and Raven Downloader.
🚀 “Smooth Edges” Project
A new community-driven project was announced, aimed at making Ubuntu Touch more attractive for the masses and fixing shortcomings and annoyances.
The project defines priority levels for addressing issues:
- Core System Stuff: Low-level issues, crashes, boot failures (e.g., system stability).
- Basic Phone Features: Functionality that makes it a phone—calls, SMS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, notifications, camera (must “just work”).
- Daily Use: Issues that affect daily usage—browser crashing, store problems, keyboard, file management. (Browser instability is considered to fall between P2 and P3).
- Polish: Improving the design language, fixing small buttons, and ensuring consistency for a better user experience, particularly for non-technical users.
- Nice to Have: Everything else, like printing support, Flatpak, or running Wine. The community’s input is crucial to defining these based on real-world usage.
📢 Community and Foundation Announcements
- Trustee Applications: The foundation encourages developers, app creators, and contributors who have provided significant help recently to apply to become a trustee to increase community involvement in decision-making.
- Community Awards: The UBports Community Awards nomination process is open until December 1st. It’s an honorary award (with a prize of a large pizza and a potential webpage mention) to recognize favorite contributors.
❓ User Q&A Highlights
- Alien/Android Version Pros/Cons: A more recent Android/Halium version provides better security patches and more reliable hardware drivers. However, if the older version works fine, it may not be a major issue, but upgrading often requires the porter to restart their work.
- Under-Screen Fingerprint Sensors: There is a developer actively working on this feature, but it’s not trivial due to the difficulty of accessing necessary Linux drivers.
- De-Googled Chromium: The core team has no immediate plans to include a de-Googled Chromium browser, as the existing Qt WebEngine is essentially a non-Googled version of Chromium. However, with the new community-ported Chromium browser, users now have more alternatives.
- Brave Technologies (Brax 3): The Brax 3 device is currently running a development version of Ubuntu Touch. It boots, has Wi-Fi, and can install apps, but phone features (calls, SMS) are not yet functional (a Priority 2 issue). It’s expected to take a few months before it can be a daily-use device.
Would you like me to find the link to the “Smooth Edges” project forum post?
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