หลายปีก่อน ผมเป็นหนึ่งในผู้ที่ถูกพัดพาไปด้วยความหวังและอารมณ์อูฟอเรียว่า Ubuntu Phone จะทำให้ใหญ่ และกลายเป็นคู่แข่งที่นับถือของผู้เล่นดังๆ ผมแม้แต่รัน contest ให้ผู้อ่านเว็บลองร่วมชนะ Ubuntu Phone - supposed to be Edge แต่ไม่ได้เกิดขึ้น long story short ใช้โทรศัพท์ไปพักหนึ่ง แต่กลายเป็น chore หลังจากนั้น turned Ubuntu Phone into Android one firmware flash done แต่即使如此 ยกเว้น occasionally powering on test connectivity as part of Linux reviews ไม่ได้ใช้ Aquaris สำหรับอะไร serious Android OS offers more functionality than Ubuntu Phone did but with old image และ lackluster performance Aquaris slid into obscurity but not into oblivion
Kept thinking about it now and then how it got better more refined over time how it was quite useful with elderly folks and that it had charm and soul that go beyond sum of its pixels and lines of code as luck would have it just few days ago noticed announcement from UBports team which picked up development maintenance since official project axed that they released new update Ubuntu Touch OTA-12 so thought what the hell let's rev the Aquaris one more time
Firmware flash, to Mordor and back
To get OTA-12 must have running (and supported) Ubuntu Phone if happen to have Android then must first "unlock" phone by installing old Android image then upgrade phone to OTA-12 latter can be done conveniently with official UBports installer software former requires separate firmware flashing utility
Remember what I had to do last time? had to use SP Flash Tool ... erm tool had to do same thing here official UBports documentation outlines what I had to do: grab ROM image install SP Flash Tool upgrade phone then set up UBports Installer upgrade phone once more to OTA-12
This is where my problems started ... and entire effort almost died
Couldn't get SP Flash Tool to run
Flash, oh-oh, savior of the firmware...
Won't go into too many details but issues true four years ago still apply SP Flash Tool wouldn't start on various flavors of Debian or Ubuntu complaining alternating between missing libpng and segfaults caused by errors in libQtGui.so.4 library
./flash_tool: error while loading shared libraries: libpng12.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
sudo ./flash_tool.sh
Floating point exception (core dumped)
[ 110.640840] traps: flash_tool[2778] trap divide error ip:7f3ae6ff7568 sp:7ffcc1edc5c0 error:0 in libQtGui.so.4[7f3ae6ada000+b39000]
Tried to solve issue many ways tried what worked for me back with M10 tablet and E4.5 later on which was to manually install the libpng deb this didn't work package could not be installed at all
Then extracted library added it to LD_LIBRARY_PATH btw flash_tool.sh script that runs flash utility is a shell script that sets up environment for actual software but this didn't help either
dpkg -x libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb "somepath"/libpng12
...
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$dirname:$dirname/lib:"add here the libpng12 path"
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
...
Tried forcing SP Flash Tool to use different version of Qt libraries except:
./flash_tool: symbol lookup error: lib/libQtGui.so.4: undefined symbol: _ZN27QEventDispatcherUNIXPrivate16initThreadWakeUpEv
In the end rebooted into Fedora 32 and here it ran without any issues
UBports installer
Now could finally proceed fairly straightforward process biggest issue was to get to Aquaris bootloader installer instructions aren't correct need to press Volume Down and power button until phone cycles (red light turns on and off) and then need to release only power button and arrow animations while firmware image being written to device are annoying can turn them off
Finally, presenting OTA-12
Aquaris booted just fine after about minute or two had Ubuntu Touch first-run setup load created my account (just a name no email or number needed) and that's pretty much that time to explore
New Ubuntu Touch based on 16.04 (Xenial) visually similar to old version but also some fresh touches improvements most notably Unity8 work UI also more responsive than it was in past and significantly faster than Android on Aquaris E4.5 as this is low-end device every little bit counts
Have to say interface quite pleasant less rounded than it was - good thing more square angles more stackenblochen system settings cover all basics but if used to Android things will look super simple bare one thing missing - device encryption rest there easy simple access and use
Store and applications
One cardinal issue OTA-12 cannot solve is lack of support for ecosystem just aren't enough high-profile mainstream applications available to make this community-supported Ubuntu Phone relevant in modern world browser revamped so does job well utilities bundled by default also function well again broad improvement across entire spectrum but just isn't enough to dent need pyramid of general user
Tried searching for something easily identify really wasn't much for instance Firefox or VLC aren't there for navigation have Pure Maps and uNav but these aren't necessarily first choice huge limiting factor remains without straightforward answer in 2020 then again knew this when started fun endeavor all meant to be moment of simple innocent joy
Music and video
Loaded bunch HD videos on Youtube no issues music pretty solid no issues
Modern connectivity
Not entirely locked in past can hook up various accounts into Ubuntu Touch system including Evernote, Nextcloud, generic calDAV (not sure what this is), ownCloud, and Google not overwhelming set but not bad either can also import contacts from Google account if recall my contact import saga from Lumia 950 to Motorola One Zoom then will realize OTA-12 offers fairly reasonable set here
Libertine
OTA-12 comes with Libertine container-based solution lets you run standard Armhf-based software from Xenial repositories intended for ordinary Ubuntu desktop thought this would be good way replenish app stock work around dearth of software in OpenStore
Unfortunately this didn't work - greatest disappointment throughout this review tried to install VLC after few minutes installation failed Firefox setup would start fail and then start again in a loop in the end had to open terminal application and manually delete containers got no app installed or configured if this ever works reliably robustly would be awesome thing
สรุป
Happy with little experiment even if serves no higher purpose on M10 tablet won't repeat exercise fairly capable device there Android 6 does pretty good job marked improvement over Android 5 that was on Aquaris E4.5 indeed Android has significantly improved over time but on phone OTA-12 works quite well and offers fast if limited experience but for novelty sake going to take this as far as it goes either UBports project or lifespan of device
Community-supported continuation Ubuntu Phone effort UBports Ubuntu Touch commendable project given its resources manages to deliver fairly robust and fun product with OTA-12 as latest incarnation solid usable to an extent but also secure updated and with solid privacy if need basic smartphone this is a solution that offers reasonable compromise never really expected to be using Ubuntu Touch again but now glad I did this if only to see how far one's passion can stretch but on serious emotionless note really if you don't need much if not hooked into social media and if your hardware supports OTA-12 image you might want to give this a try if anything it's more mature than it ever was and in privacy-focused world it makes perfect sense from Nostalgia Avenue Dedoimedo out
Cheers.
