With Google closing up Android at a rapid pace, there’s some renewed interest in mobile platforms that aren’t either iOS or Android, and one of those is Ubuntu Touch. It’s been steadily improving over the years under the stewardship of the UBports Foundation, and today they released Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0.
Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 is the first release of Ubuntu Touch which is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, a major upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04. This might not be as big compared to our last upgrade from Ubuntu 16.04 to 20.04, but this still brings newer software stack to Ubuntu Touch (such as Qt 5.15).
↫ Ubuntu Touch 24.04-1.0 release announcement
In this release, aside from the upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, there’s now also a light mode for the shell, including experimental support for switching themes on the fly. Applications already supported a light theme since the previous releases, so adding support for it in the main shell is a welcome improvement. We’ve also got experimental support for encrypting personal data, which needs to be enabled per device, which I think indicates not all devices support it. On top of that, there’s some changes to the phone application, and a slew of smaller fixes and improvements as well.
The list of supported devices has grown as well, with the Fairphone 5 as the newcomer this release. The list is still relatively small, but to be fair to the project, it includes a number of popular devices, as well as a few that are still readily available. If you want to opt for running Ubuntu Touch as your smartphone platform, there’s definitely plenty of devices to choose from.
Oh by “popular devices” you mean devices which were popular “before the pandemic”, “during the first term of that orange lunatic”, “in times when we thought elon was not crazy”, or “when windows was still usable”. I see.
I happen to have an old Redmi that is supported, I will try it.
Regarding the usability of Windows, I’m quite happy version 11!
Well, I’m guessing you’ll deny it being a “popular” device, but I’m the happy owner of a Fairphone 5. I’d love to slap Ubuntu Touch on it, but like what is probably a huge part of the people who would love to but likely won’t, the problem I’m facing is that I need my banking apps to run on the device.
I might look into recycling a “pre-pandemic” phone just for running banking apps, though, which would certainly solve that, but force me to carry (and charge) another device…
Librem 5 user here. My bank application works fine under Waydroid.
Maybe take an image of your phone and try Ubuntu Touch. Install Waydroid and see if your banking app works. If it doesn’t, you can flash back.
As someone with a device on the supported list, it almost looks usable. Maybe it’ll hit usability for me before Google manages to find a way to kill downstream projects like LineageOS, which I’ve been using since the very early CyanogenMod days.
Looking very useable, My phone needs are modest (Anything in the last 10 years or so will cover my needs) and I think by the time my current phone is ready for swapping (only had it a year) one of these Ubuntu ones might be worth a look at.
I am very glad Ubuntu Touch is still going. I used it for a couple of years back when it was being developed by Canonical. Unfortunately, without WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, it’s of limited use to me.
People still use the abomination that is facebook messenger? crazy.
There are far too many services like Facebook where the single thing tying down users who know better is network effect. Why people insist on the privacy-invading apps over the website in a locked-down browser mystifies me, but maybe I’d know more about the coping mechanisms in this case if I used FB.
(All spoken as someone who loathes Google’s actions and is tied to their messenger service by network effect. Good luck getting people to move to anything else, ever.)
I haven’t touched FB since 2017 so maybe it has changed since then, but you basically can’t access Messenger via the web interface if you have a secure browser with proper privacy settings, it simply fails to work. At least, that was my experience back then. You had to allow location access, cookies, JS, cross-site scripting (FB Messenger is hosted from a different server than the main FB interface) before it would load the interface and work. It’s not the direct reason I stopped using FB but it was a major influence in that decision.
Can anybody shine some light on the mobile Linux ecosystem? I know there’s Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS and Postmarket OS as some “big players”, but there’s also many more, including “normal” desktop distros that can be installed with a mobile UI. I think the default distro for the Pinephone was Manjaro for example.
Are these all compatible with each other? Will an “Ubuntu Touch app” run on Sailfish OS and PostmarketOS and on, let’s say, the Fedora KDE Mobile Desktop Spin? Will a desktop Linux app run on the mobile Linux or not?
Have there been some “winners” distros that everyone uses on smartphones or is it completely splintered?
Sailfish is its own creature so set that one aside. Postmarket is about trying to be a Linux for Phones distro, it has all the “desktop environment” options like Phosh and Plasma Mobile and has a large community trying to fit various devices trees with the goal of booting a mostly normal linux system. The app selection is in an odd spot though, a lot of Gnome/LinAdwaita apps work fine on a phone screen but KDEs got a much spottier selection that does keep improving as the years go on. Ubuntu Touch is an more specific phone OS, its not trying to be Linux as much as its doing its own thing using linux as a base much like Android. Or at least thats how it started, it does still have its own app format and HIG but can run normal desktop apps well enough. So either Ubuntu Touch or Postmarket are fine, which you go with is probably dependant on which UI you like best and if you get into the weeds of the politics around Ubuntu Touches creation
I see people are talking about themes and apps, but can anyone confirm that making calls and sending sms work on these linux phones?
By the way, what happened to convergence?
Unfortunately, I find a balkanization of Android more likely, evolving to something similar to the Symbian hell, with manufacturers ditching Google in favor of their own Android forks, stores, and APIs, than an alternative mobile OS gaining ground.
CapEnt,
The problem is without google play apps & services, many of them can’t get off the ground. Yet as a google partner, they’re required to go by google’s terms and OEM requirements.
So we’re looking at the following possibilities:
1) these forks need a legal win against google
2) or else they’ll have to grow under a competitive disadvantage because google can literally tax and control the apps in 3rd party stores
3) or else alternative Android forks will have to do away with google apps & services altogether.
In theory #1 might happen some day, but I don’t think investors going into business want to bank on that.
#2 is the most likely outcome barring new events. but it’s not great to be in the situation of running a business/project where your competitor (ie google) holds the keys over your users and developers.
Historically the network effect severely cripples those who try #3 to go on their own. Some consumers like me may be ok boycotting google, but the majority of consumer are going to sour on it once they realize many of their apps/services aren’t there.
I got into trouble when a company I worked for required me to use two factor authentication software that was hard coded to use google play services, which I didn’t have on my phone. I raised the issue with the company, telling them at the very least to provide a compatible phone, but they put the onus on myself to spend my own money on a google phone so that I could work. I didn’t cave when I couldn’t run banking apps, streaming apps, and other apps, but shamefully I did cave when my job demanded it. I failed and hated it so much, but I say this to highlight how much pressure network effects can have on people.