Ubuntu Touch OTA-1 Focal Released For Ubuntu 20.04 LTS On Smartphones

[equareo]

I tried that. Waydroid is not ready yet, for example the microphone can't be access, so, no call, no voice messages...
Axolotl I contributed to it for 3 months. It was fun, but I am convinced it's a very bad idea in the end, because the security level is much lower and there is nothing telling this to your contacts. So they are writing to you through Signal thinking you are having secure conversations while it's not the case. The codebase is not tested, and it will away lag behind upstream in term of features.
If Matrix has a bridge with Signal, I'm afraid it faces the same problems.

Yes that's true, I didn't think about voice calls. Hopefully waydroid can get it working soon.

[Flaburgan]

You can run signal through waydroid. You can also use Axolotl, but i think it breaks occasionally. Personally i use a matrix bridge to relay messages to the native app Cinny. You can host it yourself on a server or use a paid service like "element one". None of the solutions are ideal, but it's a workaround i can live with for now.

I tried that. Waydroid is not ready yet, for example the microphone can't be access, so, no call, no voice messages...
Axolotl I contributed to it for 3 months. It was fun, but I am convinced it's a very bad idea in the end, because the security level is much lower and there is nothing telling this to your contacts. So they are writing to you through Signal thinking you are having secure conversations while it's not the case. The codebase is not tested, and it will away lag behind upstream in term of features.
If Matrix has a bridge with Signal, I'm afraid it faces the same problems.

[equareo]

I had to switch back to Android with /e/ OS (https://e.foundation by Slackware creator Gael Duval) just because I missed Signal too much. It's a shame...

You can run signal through waydroid. You can also use Axolotl, but i think it breaks occasionally. Personally i use a matrix bridge to relay messages to the native app Cinny. You can host it yourself on a server or use a paid service like "element one". None of the solutions are ideal, but it's a workaround i can live with for now.

[Flaburgan]

I encourage everyone to read the blogpost, there is more in it that what is listed here, especially, many Waydroid improvements, and more to come. I used Ubuntu Touch on my primary device for two years but I had to switch back to Android with /e/ OS (https://e.foundation by Slackware creator Gael Duval) just because I missed Signal too much. It's a shame...

[equareo]

I find sad that even if the OS was totally usable thae lack of apps makes it little more than a Linux toy. I say this as a pinephone owner that likes to test how are the things going every few months.

As a Pinephone and Fairphone 4 owner i must tell you that the difference is night and day. I've been daily driving 20.04 Ubuntu touch on the FP4 for 3 months now and it's very fast, stable, has push notifications and a battery that last the whole day. The lack of apps is a problem, but most android apps can be used through waydroid.

[ServerGarbage]

I find sad that even if the OS was totally usable thae lack of apps makes it little more than a Linux toy. I say this as a pinephone owner that likes to test how are the things going every few months.

[Vistaus]

It's just unfathomable why they work on 20.04 that will be EOL in 2 years, when 22.04 has been out for a year.

Because they started working on 20.04 a long time ago and upgrading to 22.04 will be less work. But aside from that, they have been granted LTR support, so even the 20.04 version won't be EOL for UBports until 2030.

[padraic7a]

It's just unfathomable why they work on 20.04 that will be EOL in 2 years, when 22.04 has been out for a year.

End of Life for 20.04 will be 2030. So that's a lot of time to move. The project estimate that 20.04 to 22.04 and beyond shouldn't be as difficult as the most recent move, which included switching from upstart to systemd.

[stormcrow]

It's just unfathomable why they work on 20.04 that will be EOL in 2 years, when 22.04 has been out for a year.

It's an unfathomable amount of work that goes into a mainstream distribution even one where most of the work is borne by a parent organization, let alone one that targets a very niche market that's further hobbled by access to functional drivers and a lack of open source compatible GPUs and cell modems. Nearly everyone using a cell phone that wants a 3rd party ROM is going to use Android, not a stock Linux distro.

Edit to add: If this were easy and didn't need massive effort and time, Pine Phone and Purism wouldn't be having a bit of trouble getting usable products out the door. You can't just build a kernel, drop it into the software image and call it a day.

[dreamcat4]

well it seems there are a few alternatives, for example mobian (debian based) and postmarketOS (alpine based)

however what i would also like to see is better smartphones support ontop of a base of void linux too. as another option. because: reasons