Game in the Brain

In the 186th episode of the Ubuntu Touch Q&A, developers Alfred and Raoul (from UBports) shared exciting news regarding the underlying technologies powering the OS, a plethora of new and updated apps in the OpenStore, and answered burning questions from the community.

Here is a breakdown of everything you need to know from the latest update!

🛠️ Core Development & GitLab Updates

The core team has been incredibly busy pushing major architectural updates that will pave the way for a more modern Ubuntu Touch experience:

• Ubuntu 26.04 Bootstrapping [00:50]: Marius has begun preparing the repository to build UT 26.04 images! While still an early experiment, the OS is already booting, which gives a solid first impression of what’s to come.
• Wayland Application Support [02:09]: Alfred added a feature to QtMir to better support Wayland and Mir client applications that don’t expose a desktop file hint. Wayland apps now start as expected, making it possible to effortlessly launch apps like pavucontrol in an LXD container natively.
• Morph Web App Container fixed for Qt 6 [04:02]: A major missing piece for providing a Qt 6 rootfs has been solved. Web applications can now be used with Qt 6, which is fantastic news for web apps relying on newer HTML, CSS, and JavaScript standards.
• Fairphone 5 Rootfs Expansion [05:22]: The Fairphone 5 received a recovery update to allow the root filesystem to be merged with an LVM instance and resized. This lays the groundwork to allow older devices with small rootfs partitions to run modern, larger versions of Ubuntu Touch!
• Mir 2 Proof of Concept [06:47]: The team successfully booted an Xperia X with a mixed environment: Mir 1 managing the screen and Mir 2 handling the shell. This hybrid approach will allow developers to bring Mir 2 to UT phones seamlessly without having to rewrite everything in one go.
• NexDock & Convergence Fixes [09:04]: NexDock trackpad functionalities (tap-to-click, tap-to-drag, and two-finger right-click) have been fixed! Alfred noted that he has been successfully using his Fairphone 5 in desktop mode as a daily laptop replacement for a week.

📱 OpenStore App Highlights

The developer community has been highly active over the last two weeks with a large batch of new and updated applications:

• New Apps: * Coconut: A project leveraging ntfy.sh for push notifications.
  • Hydronium: A Proton Mail bridge for Ubuntu Touch.
  • Prospect Mail: An Outlook / Office 365 client.
  • Bluetooth File Transfer: An app to seamlessly send and receive files across devices via Bluetooth.
  • Fairman AI: A new AI assistant currently in development.
• Updated Apps: Account Book, UPower Indicator, M-Flow (Crypto/Euro manager), KeePass, Signal UT, Hangman, Amazfish (smartwatch companion app), G Forecast, and LR (a Gemini AI client).

🗣️ Community Q&A

The hosts also took some time to address questions from the community:

• Notification Area Redesign [24:59]: When asked about grouping notification bar icons (like USB, Bluetooth, etc.), the team explained that this would require a major rewrite of how Ayatana indicators work. While not currently planned, they are open to community merge requests.
• Microphone Privacy UI [30:41]: Addressing privacy concerns, developers discussed the possibility of adding a visual indicator (like on Android or iOS) whenever an app accesses the microphone.
• Background Services & AppArmor [33:08]: For confined apps, the team’s future goal is to create a “click hook” that would allow developers to safely run background daemons managed directly by the system without compromising user security.
• Desktop Integration [45:30]: When asked about top features for Ubuntu Touch and Desktop integration, the team highlighted UB Connect (a KDE Connect implementation for UT), ISO Drive (using your phone as a bootable USB stick), and the powerful SSH capabilities natively available.

🤝 How You Can Help

The UBports team put out a call for non-technical volunteers to help manage their social media pages (Mastodon, LinkedIn, X). If you are interested in helping grow the Ubuntu Touch presence, reach out to them on the main Telegram channel!

(You can watch the full Q&A stream here.)