UBPorts 16.04 updates + feature tests

Ingo · November 25, 2018, 6:09pm

Small update: in the corresponding github issue about not working external display, someone suggested to add one line to the apparmor config, because the root cause is a “permission denied” on some file.

See: https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/781#issuecomment-423732902

I’ve tried that and now I can connect to my Samsung BD-J5500 Blu-Ray player again.
But, as with 15.04 the external display freezes after a rather short period of time (felt like 10s or so).

oli.sax · November 25, 2018, 10:04pm

Today’s current status:

CardDAV : the existing account from OTA3 was still there but not updated, I re-run the sh script and now I have two CardDAV accounts, so the majority of my contacts are doubled.
To do: understand how to delete one of the two accounts
To check also if the crontab was successfully set-up by the script

CalDAV : strangely the script doesn’t work at all !
[INFO @caldav] @caldav/caldav: log in succeeded, but server refuses access - contact server operator
Workaround = use the interactive method (Open the Calendar app, click on the little calendar icon in the top right corner and select “Add internet calendar > Generic CalDAV”. Enter your calendar URL as well as your username and password to complete the process.) → this works

Anbox:

flash anbox-boot-FP2.img
launch Ingo’s script “install_anbox.sh” (cf Telegram group)
type anbox-tool install (it takes ~25min before saying Install done! Anbox is ready to rock!
adb push whatsapp.apk /home/phablet/Documents
from the phablet-shell : adb install whatsapp.apk

And it is working

Ingo · November 26, 2018, 8:55am

I uploaded the script you mentioned to https://gist.github.com/Ingo-FP-Angel/63927c2d03acddfc89dd5097f5210bbe

Guillauume · November 26, 2018, 9:26am

Thanks a lot for your testings! Unfortunately, I didn’t succeed to install UT through the installer 0.1.21 on Windows 10. I tried the older versions 0.1.20 and 0.1.12 but it’s not working neither. Is there an other way to install it or do I have to try each older version of the installer? (Or is it just Windows 10 related?)

Ingo · November 26, 2018, 10:31am

I can’t give a definitive answer. The older versions of the installer where people reported success were 0.1.9 and 0.1.12. And it is said that mac and windows versions may give more trouble than the linux versions. In the Telegram install group it is suggested to use a Ubuntu 16.04 live USB stick when the win installer doesn’t work.

If you are willing to try this version, it would be nice to hear some feedback: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/mariogrip/ubports-installer/builds/20538515/artifacts

Not sure why it fails for you, so no idea if the above version is of help at all. But it has somewhat more debug output in case of problems. So it might help finding the cause of the failure on windows.

jEzEk · November 26, 2018, 2:30pm

Hello @Ingo ,

in your reviews about what works, and what does not, you don’t mention the compass. I think the fp2 has one built-in. Right? Does your work? Cause mine don’t in every ubports version.

Ingo · November 26, 2018, 3:03pm

Never checked that so far. If I remember I’ll include it in the next large update. Not sure when I will do it, though.
Thanks for the hint!

Ingo · November 27, 2018, 8:45am

I now tried the external display at work with a Polycom videoconferencing system. It must be some kind of Microsoft hardware internally because it shows itself as “MS Display Adapter”.

The good news is: it works without freezing after a while (like with my Samsung BD player)

AnotherElk · November 27, 2018, 10:36am

Two things come to mind … either the “Basic Display Adapter”, which is a fallback driver in Windows used in case there’s no other graphics driver installed (and which oftentimes works more hasslefree for basic needs than Nvidia/ AMD/ Intel drivers) … or the “Wireless Display Adapter”, which is an external hardware adapter.

https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en-us/products/adapters/wireless-display-adapter-2/p3q-00001

Ingo · November 28, 2018, 7:28pm

In Android, when I use some compass app it first instructs me to calibrate it.
So I installed Xompass in UT, but when I tap on “calibrate”, nothing happens.
How did you calibrate/check your compass?

AnotherElk · November 28, 2018, 7:38pm

Calibrating a smartphone compass should be OS-independent … move the smartphone through the air following an imagined “8” (or infinity loop) in different directions (or dimensions) until the respective App doesn’t complain anymore.

Checking OS-independently whether the compass is right is harder … Sun? Stars? Known orientation of nearby streets or railways?

jEzEk · November 28, 2018, 10:31pm

That’s what I’m saying. In Xompass app, the compass is not moving if phone is rotating. Also the SensorStatus app show no numbers in compass tab, so my guess is, that UT is not even avare, that there is an compass in phone.

Ingo · November 29, 2018, 8:31am

Just saw that there is already an issue about it: https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/38

Guillauume · November 30, 2018, 10:38am

I’ve done some testings and with your installer the process went further, until I got this:

It worked with Ubuntu 16.04

jEzEk · November 30, 2018, 2:54pm

Report: Compass issue updated.

AnotherElk · January 8, 2019, 6:49pm

12 posts were merged into an existing topic: State of the Ubports installer

Guillauume · December 3, 2018, 9:35am

I switched back to Fairphone Open some hours later since my device was rebooting randomly. I will wait for this system to be reliable before considering adopting it for good.

oli.sax · December 7, 2018, 7:25pm

The OTA-6 update for Ubuntu Touch is now released, and will be made available to all users progressively through the next five days.
With it you can expect some significant improvements to the Morph Browser, the OnePlus One, and several other fixes.
Find out more at: https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-blog-1/post/ubuntu-touch-ota-6-release-186

A big thank you for all contributors!

#UBports #UbuntuTouch #OTA6 #Shiny #Release

Ingo · December 16, 2018, 3:55pm

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)
- flash does not work; see https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/448
- front camera image is upside down; see https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/370
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
- currently needs manual changes to the apparmor profile described in https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/issues/781#issuecomment-423732902
- A Polycom videconferencing system (don’t know the exact model/type) works flawlessly
- Samsung BD-J5500 Blu-Ray works for like 10s to 20s then freezes
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
- download anbox-boot-FP2.img from https://forums.ubports.com/topic/1676/development-testers-for-anbox
- boot the phone into fastboot mode and flash above image via fastboot flash boot anbox-boot-FP2.img
- boot normally and install anbox; this requires a few steps that I’ve combined into a script
  - download the script at https://gist.github.com/Ingo-FP-Angel/63927c2d03acddfc89dd5097f5210bbe and store it on the phone as /home/phablet/install_anbox.sh + make it executable (required only once)
  - on the phone (via terminal app, adb shell or ssh from a PC), run ./install_anbox.sh; it will free some space on the system image, install anbox and adb on the phone
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)

jEzEk · December 16, 2018, 6:01pm

a few additions:

bluetooth
- audio speaker: JBL Go - not working
- audio speaker: JBL Clip 2 - working