Ubuntu Touch Q&A 26
Yumi, events, Halium development & more

 
 

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Show Notes

[00:01:00] Why we skipped our last scheduled date
[00:01:54] Ubucon Europe! http://ubucon.org/en/events/ubucon-europe/
[00:03:55] More of why we skipped the last date
[00:07:55] What we've been working on
[00:07:55] Dalton
[00:09:45] Marius
[00:16:00] Florian
[00:23:10] What is the name of the UBports mascot?
[00:23:40] New stickers
[00:24:52] Is Unity8 for desktop the second highest priority?
[00:27:40] Can I get Anbox working with mobile data?
[00:30:30] Does the browser support WebAssembly?
[00:34:25] Has anyone from the project talked with OpenWhisperSystems about Signal for Ubuntu Touch?
[00:42:00] Flo Hacks
[00:49:45] Oneplus Three ???
[00:51:08] Halium talk

We missed the last scheduled Q&A date, here's why

All of the normal hosts for the Ubuntu Touch Q&A were not available for our last regularly scheduled Q&A on the 31st of March. Marius explained why he was not available at 00:03:35.

We're going to Ubucon Europe 2018!

That's right, we're going to be at Ubucon Europe on April 27th, 28th, and 29th. We'd love if you came down to meet us, have a chat, and maybe you'd even like to listen to one of our talks? Jan will be giving "One year after the world ended - Ubuntu Touch today" and Marius will be running a "Live Ubuntu Touch/Halium porting" workshop.

What the hosts have been working on

Dalton

Dalton has been working on halium-boot, the new super-shiny (and to most people, super-boring) boot software for Halium. He's also written a standards document for what is required to make a replacment.

More talk about Halium happens starting at 00:51:08 if you'd like to see how our brainstorming goes.

Marius

Marius "kinda fixed Unity8 in some sort". He's been working on making Unity8 run under GDM or lightdm without Mir, running applictions with QtWayland rather than QtMir, and he's been messing with some Qt web browsers. Also on his list was getting X applications running under XWayland rather than XMir.

Alan Griffiths pinged us since the last Q&A to let us know that he had worked with Marius' Mir Wayland Platform driver. This is a work-in-progress tool to run a Mir server on a Wayland server. It's a bit intense, but all those who are interested should check out MirServer/mir-platform-wayland on GitHub.

Florian

Florian has been working with making a few "Hacks" (more to come) and has been making life a lot better for translators. He's also been working with Dalton on the translation of our documentation, which is a constant problem.

If anybody out there has information on translating Sphinx documentation with Weblate, please post an issue on our GitHub repository.

Unfortunately there is no new progress on the Telegram app for Ubuntu Touch. The team is working hard on getting it to compile with clickable so that it can be easily rebuilt for 16.04 and beyond.

What is the name of the UBports mascot?

The UBports Robot's name is Yumi.

Also, we have new stickers which do not actually include Yumi. They'll be available first at Ubucon. ;)

Is Unity8 for desktop the second highest priority (after the phone)?

The two are being worked on in parallel, but yes, Unity8 is definitely after the phone on our list of to-dos.

Can I get Anbox working with mobile data?

This issue should have been fixed with the Binder namespacing patches. If you're experiencing issues after installing Anbox on your device, please file a bug.

Does the browser support WebAssembly?

Not currently. That will probably not work until we update to a new browser engine that supports WebAssembly.

Speaking of which, Marius has created an experimental browser based on QtWebKit. It may not look like much (and has no build documentation, which makes Dalton upset), but it is a nice test of a different browser engine.

Has anyone from the project talked with OpenWhisperSystems about Signal for Ubuntu Touch?

Not too long ago we asked if anyone would be willing to pick up the TextSecure / Signal messenger for Ubuntu Touch. That has now been done, and the Signal app is looking great!

Florian has contacted OpenWhisperSystems about the app becoming more official or at least getting push notifications from the Signal servers working. The discussion is ongoing.

Flo Hacks

If you've been around the community for long, you know that Florian's username is Flohack. You also know that he likes to make posts for "testing" or "in-development" things that you can do with your device. Or, to say it another way, he posts hacks.

We've created the tag Flo Hacks on our forum so you can keep up with the (sometimes strange) things that Flo is working on.

Fairphone owners, this one is important for you! Florian has posted information on updating your device's firmware! By performing these steps, you should get better stability from your phone. There is a similar post for Nexus 5 owners.

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