UBports Continues Work On Moving From Ubuntu 15.04 Base To 16.04

[phoronix]

Phoronix: UBports Continues Work On Moving From Ubuntu 15.04 Base To 16.04

For those still holding out the dream for Ubuntu on phones/tablets, the UBports community continues their work in updating their Ubuntu Touch fork to riding off a 16.04 Xenial base rather than the existing Ubuntu 15.04...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=UBports-Road-To-16.04

[tzui]

If Ubuntu would restart any mobile efforts they would use GNOME, like Purism.

Hopefully they won't do that.

[Vistaus]

They're doing a good job, but since 18.04 is already on the horizon, wouldn't it be better to start working towards porting it to 18.04 instead?

[tzui]

They're doing a good job, but since 18.04 is already on the horizon, wouldn't it be better to start working towards porting it to 18.04 instead?

You just need to read the article.

[Guest]

Hopefully they won't do that.

Why? Or is this another "DAE hate Ubuntu/GNOME/Canonical too lol?"

I'd love to be using Ubuntu Touch currently, but there's no builds available for the Nexus 5X. Really I'd like to try anything that's polished to some extent that isn't Android would be nice; Plasma Mobile as I understand doesn't have any up-to-date builds available, and SailfishOS isn't polished and is hacked-together by someone for the N5X.

[GizmoChicken]

They're doing a good job, but since 18.04 is already on the horizon, wouldn't it be better to start working towards porting it to 18.04 instead?

Regarding why UT will first be ported to 16.04, and then later ported to 18.04, in addition to what's discussed in the article, you can find more discussion at about 24:06 in the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 25.

Also, for those interested, the reason for the delay in bringing Unity8 to the 18.04 desktop is discussed at about 21:22 in the Ubuntu Touch Q&A 25.

[tzui]

Why? Or is this another "DAE hate Ubuntu/GNOME/Canonical too lol?"

I'd love to be using Ubuntu Touch currently, but there's no builds available for the Nexus 5X. Really I'd like to try anything that's polished to some extent that isn't Android would be nice; Plasma Mobile as I understand doesn't have any up-to-date builds available, and SailfishOS isn't polished and is hacked-together by someone for the N5X.

Creating a new smartphone-ui based on Gnome is a huge task and I doubt that Purism is able to achieve this goal withing the next 2-3 years (based on what I saw from the other projects). Instead of re-inventing the wheel again they should stop this NIH bullshit and help Plasma Mobile or UBports. Just my two cents.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

They're doing a good job, but since 18.04 is already on the horizon, wouldn't it be better to start working towards porting it to 18.04 instead?

They are not a really big team of all volunteers and 16.04 is a lot closer to the current vivid base which means a lot less problems when porting. For example, 16.04 still has the option to use upstart, which was what ubuntu-touch used on 15.04, and there are other things like library version which make the transition easier than to jump directly to 18.04 but it is already a lot of work. Check the milestones if you want to see the details: https://github.com/ubports/ubuntu-touch/milestones

The problem is that the current base 15.04 does not get any updates for packages for ages, so the need to move is urgent. With 16.04 which is an LTS there is still 3 years of support left, so once the port stands they have some room to breath again and first steps for moving to 18.04 and systemd can be planed.

[Vistaus]

Creating a new smartphone-ui based on Gnome is a huge task and I doubt that Purism is able to achieve this goal withing the next 2-3 years (based on what I saw from the other projects). Instead of re-inventing the wheel again they should stop this NIH bullshit and help Plasma Mobile or UBports. Just my two cents.

GNOME is also helping by making some of their core apps mobile-friendly. So in that regard, it's doing just as well as Plasma Mobile. And UBPorts is an even smaller team than Purism and GNOME combined (not to mention the fact that UBPorts only has volunteers, while GNOME and most likely Purism as well also have full-time developers).