UBPorts 16.04 updates + feature tests

Discuss The Products
,
90

Updated using the updater app on the phone to version 16.04 (2018-12-16 or r660)

What works for me

  • call / be called
  • send SMS / receive SMS
  • internet via WiFi
  • internet via mobile network (4G)
  • USB connection to PC / MTP
    • it takes some time before folder contents are shown (used to be faster)
  • USB OTG
    • Logitech K400 Wireless Touch Keyboard + Mouse works
    • changing to correct physical keyboard from the status bar works
  • keeping the time zone after reboot
  • screenshot (press + hold Vol-up and Vol-down)
  • external sd card
    • access existing photos with the gallery app
    • navigate through the existing folders with the file manager app
  • shutting down the phone
    • for Android >= 7 this only causes reboot instead of shutdown with the new camera module
  • location (GPS)
  • openstore
  • camera (new camera module)
  • bluetooth
    • audio speaker: MusicMan BT-X2
  • alarm (incl. swiping it off)
  • automatic screen rotation
  • calendar app
    • using my CalDav calendar (via adding online calender in the app)
  • contacts app
    • using CardDav (via syncevolution script)
  • email (Dekko2 community edition)
  • gallery app
  • file manager app
  • terminal app
  • media app
  • music app
  • notes app
  • calculator app
  • weather app
  • logviewer app
  • telegram app
  • enabling ssh
  • external monitor via WiFi direct
  • the syncevolution script to set up my owncloud account
  • Adding an owncloud account (in settings > accounts)
    • note for people who use HTTPS with self-signed certificates: needs to be set up as described in this earlier post about the syncevolution script: March 4th
  • running desktop apps with libertine (can be configured/packages can be installed via settings app)
    • initial container setup took roughly 1h, so be patient
    • tried these desktop apps so far
      • aisleriot: seems to work
      • claws-mail: starts, needs USB keyboard + mouse to be usable, but some dialogs can’t be operated properly
      • frozen-bubble: starts, but it uses only one small corner of the display which makes it unusable
      • xskat: doesn’t even start

What doesn’t work for me

  • flash (new camera module; known issue)
  • compass (known issue)
    • both Xompass and SensorStatus apps don’t show any reading as if there was no compass (but the FP2 has one)
  • Spotify
    • web player has no way to login on a mobile phone
    • no app available for xenial; CuteSpotify vivid app doesn’t work

Some more points

  • I get a few random reboots that usually don’t happen on LineageOS; but not as many as other UT users report (but then, I don’t use it as daily driver…)

Running android apps vie Anbox (emulates 7.1.1)

  • This is still experimental and needs to be enabled manually (again after each system update)
  • Installation
  • Installing android apps
    • Simply copy the APK file(s) to the phone and do adb install <name of the file>.apk
    • if you want to use app from another android phone, you can pull the APKs as described in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4032960/how-do-i-get-an-apk-file-from-an-android-device#18003462
      • connect the android phone with USB cable and USB debugging enabled
      • list all packages with adb shell pm list packages
      • get the full path for the package name you’re interested in: adb shell pm path com.example.someapp
      • pull the APK using the output of the last command: adb pull /data/app/com.example.someapp /path/to/desired/destination/com.example.someapp.apk

Out of the box there is no file access between UT and anbox; to access the anbox files from UT do

mkdir -p /home/phablet/AnboxHome
sudo chmod -R 777 /home/phablet/anbox-data/data/media/0
sudo mount --bind /home/phablet/anbox-data/data/media/0 /home/phablet/AnboxHome

Finally, these are the apps that work for me

  • CatLog
  • Onleihe
  • Spotify
  • Threema (Polling instead of Push notifications)
  • WhatsApp (probably also polling)
  • my banking app

But please take note: I haven’t tested those in depth and am not using them on my daily driver, so maybe some problems went unnoticed so far.

What didn’t work

  • Opening developer options crashes the settings app
  • AdAway (needs root)
  • Bücherhallen (doesn’t run without gapps; managing wish list works)
  • car2go (doesn’t run without gapps)
  • DB Navigator (crashes immediately on start)
  • Drive Now (doesn’t run without gapps)
  • Firefox (looks as if it works, but web pages are rendered entirely black)
  • iButtons (simply doesn’t start)
  • Real Drum (simply doesn’t start)
  • Stadtrad (doesn’t run without gapps)
  • vlc (upper third of screen remains black, the app window seems shifted down and lower part is not visible)
4 Likes