Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

http://www.itwire.com/mobility/76372...s-on-hold.html
Ubuntu phone users will be stuck with their current firmware for a while as the company has no plans to issue another over-the-air update until it switches package formats, according to Pat McGowan, an employee of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu.

The last major update was OTA-14 and there have been questions aplenty as to when OTA-15 would arrive. McGowan has now answered that question.

Security updates would continue to be issued as and when needed, McGowan said in a mailing list post.

The format switch will be from the current click packaging to snap packaging, which Canonical claims is superior and easier to build and install.

It is unclear whether earlier phone models which run Ubuntu Touch will be able to run the new operating system when it is released.

When the snap packaging initiative was announced, it was claimed that a single binary package would work on any Linux server, cloud, desktop or device.

It was also claimed that snap packages worked on many Linux distributions like Arch, Debian, Fedora, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Unity, and Xubuntu.

The Ubuntu phones were first released in February 2015, with the first models being somewhat underpowered.

Later models like the Meizu Pro-5 have earned better reviews, as the hardware has plenty of grunt.

There are several things which need to be fixed on Ubuntu Touch, the operating system used on the Ubuntu phone.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

So it works on Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu and Ubuntu. Great compatibility.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Now that's a F U to customers if I've ever seen one..

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Probably not because there are entirely too many dependencies on blobs.

That conflicts with the architecture dependencies we observe in Snap packages being made available on uappexplorer.
...'several' fails to indicate just how impossible those things are.
When the decision to replace xorg was made it moved the goalposts by decades.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Ubuntu phone is basically dead

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Canonical released an update just last month, they don't seem to have given up yet.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

"The format switch will be from the current click packaging to snap packaging, which Canonical claims is superior and easier to build and install."

Srsly? Ubuntu users don't want clicks. They don't want snaps. They want to apt-get install whatever the heck they want. Why is canonical hell-bent on making ubuntu touch incompatible with Ubuntu?

The biggest problems with ubuntu touch are lack of apps, and lack of users. If they just made it easy for users to use the vast library of software already in the ubuntu repos, maybe people would actually use it?

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Respectfully, Canonical is in no way trying to make UT incompatible with Ubuntu desktop or on any other form-factor. They are in fact converging the distro, same software, different platforms. AFAIK, all Ubuntu will be snap based, but apt installing will be available, perhaps not by default, just as it is now on UT.

With screen casting, MHL etc then using applications for a desktop environment on a phone will make sense. By and large, none of the GUI desktop apps are usable in phone mode - shitty scaling etc.

But, UT may well be dead, as one poster stated. Canonical has shown a cavalier disregard for PR, so frankly no-one really knows and in a vacuum, negativity will prevail. Some would say, reality.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

I find it difficult to take seriously your claim of unusability.

I've used xmir on utouch and it sucked. However, there is no requirement for it to be horrible.

From my own expirience having used easydebian on n900 for years, for the most part, it's usable. The main problem was the n900's 800x480 display. Some programs expect at least 768 vertical pixels. Inadequate RAM was a bummer, too.

From my own experience using xWayland on SFOS (and x11-xsdl on android), it's usable on my Nexus 4's 768x1280 screen if I use a sensible DPI setting. The only usability problem is xwayland's inability to rotate. 768 horizontal pixels is inadequate for programs like libreoffice.

A company with develpoment resources like Canonical could certainly make this elegantly usable if they wanted to do so. Just look at what volunteers on these forums have achieved in their spare time.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

I think it varies among individuals. On my mx4 under xmir I struggled with Libreoffice, firefox etc and yes, fiddling the DPI may well have helped (as would a fine-stylus). I guess, as one ages, one's tolerance for small fonts decreases :-) hence a non-optimal experience. That is a better way of describing it. MHL etc take care of such to a large extent, lag aside.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

For what it is worth: insider chat says that Canonical is unlikely to devote considerable resources to UT. Ubuntu personal (with Unity 8, Mir and snaps) will be the thing, and where that is compatible with phones, so well and good. Community can move forward from that base.

Focus is IoT, Server and Cloud. Desktop likely is going to diminish in input, that is my best guess. It never made money...

Remember, this is not official. Canonical remains mum.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

If they are moving their emphasis away from configurations with a UI (ie. mobile/desktop), then will that also mean that Mir won't be a priority any more? How long before they bin it and go with Wayland?

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

They have entirely too much FACE invested in MIR.
Anticipate the exquisitely slow strangulation of the entire ecosystem,
dragged out over a decade, rather than any kind of reconciliation.

#Abandonware

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

How much work is required on specific UT stuff now, I mean once we get that vanishing mythical unicorn of a mainlined Linux kernel which serves both Android and GNU Linux. Then we can all have horrible bin drivers for at least one kernel version of everything. Kinda like the situation we have with the Maemo tablets and phones.
AFAIK the mess of UT is mostly due to android specific video drivers requiring surfaceflinger and whatever does android sound and having to do a localhost VNC for video kludge/hack to (badly) run normal x11 apps.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

They're defaulting back to Gnome for next year's LTS, and it sounds more ominous for UT.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/04/u...ktop-not-unity

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Ubuntu on a phone was a bad decision to me to begin with. Other bad decisions were made and it seems as if the user will ultimately lose an option due to these decisions.

Can't say that I'm surprised.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Curious as to why you thought it was a bad idea? I think it showed promise and was an interesting alternative os for phones, but took too long.

Rich

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

everything took them to loooooooooong. And at the end they didn't deliver anything. And mainly because they wanted Mir while wayland was good enough for everybody else.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

It didn't seem like it was truly their focus. The announcements, the approach all seemed to be a proof of concept; not something that was clearly thought out with the user in mind. It was an unnecessary tech demo.

That's the reasoning behind my statement. No soul was put into this endeavor by the most forward-facing people. I do not doubt the engineers that probably truly wanted it to happen. I just did not get that same sense of purpose from all of the people that handled the PR, announcements and even direction.

Commit, go big, prove the world needs what you're capable of doing, market it or at least announce it well... and then do it. That clearly did not happen. And that sucks... we need more options. Not less.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

It wasn't a bad idea. It was bad execution. Going against the grain of rest of Linux ecosystem (Mir. vs Wayland etc.) will make it much more costly to keep it competitive. Personally more destructive was the architecture decisions to mimic Apple's restrictive application lifecycle model. It strangled pretty much my own interest in the platform.

SailfishOS has a much more sensible approach that I can get behind with true multitasking and fewer restrictions on applications.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Mark Shuttleworth just wrote that he was wrong and that his efforts to create something better were seen as creating fragmentation instead. Could it be? Has he finally realised? Will Canonical start contributing upstream?

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

I see one miracle - Shuttleworth admitting something wrong. I won't expect more.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

Fail.

How I would note to Mark Shuttleworth:

Stated:
This is a flawed perspective in so many ways.

• Community could have been onboarded.
• That alone would have made it possible for
  Industry to have been persuaded.
• Your alpha community is your best sales force.

The mistakes, more than just a single point of failure,
(or even this brief list)
are collectively what ended this effort before it even had a chance.

• Killing Multitasking is like
  amputating your legs before a marathon.
  Easy to arrange, but how daft was that ?
  The lack of multitasking ended interest
  that could have driven much more developer participation.
  
  
• More community is lost because
  the sourcecode was mollycoddled to the point
  where participation requires an act of god.
  We who would help are left standing outside the gate of
  'create yet another login account ++ password and then!
  - establish the credibility of who we are and what we would contribute'.
  That may fit the perversion of opensource you live by,
  but it fails the definition of the opensource others of us strive for:
  
  Quote:

  "The open-source model is a decentralized development model that encourages open collaboration."

• Mir could have succeeded if egos involved had not
  pissed off everyone else in the linux universe with unbridled arrogance.
  

What the Unity8 team has delivered so far is glamorous crippleware
lacking the simple ability to cooperate with anything
created by anyone simply coding for the rest of the linux universe.

Touch was not true-spirited opensource,
Mir does not collaborate,
and UT cannot even chew gum and walk at the same time.


Not wanting to demean Shuttleworth or whoever:
as flawed as the effort was,
the fact that they even made the effort is truly appreciable.
Whatever else they may have earned,
maybe some of us can leave the derision behind now.
( Thanks for showing everyone the way not forward ? )


Posting it here for posterity, :D
knowing that it is safely hidden away :cool:
from the frothing hordes over on ubuntu.com

Edit:
I was wrong (and I am quite okay with admitting it!)
about Ubuntu ignoring their MIR issues,
and that alone gives hope for the future

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

I think this is a good move, it means that MIR is dead. MIR created an unnecessary rift in the Linux ecosystem. In fact we should have started moving to Wayland years ago, the fact that we are just NOW beginning migrating over is pathetic. We should have started earlier and dealt with the 'pain' that such an architectural change brings rather than dealing with it now. In fact MIR probably caused some of this delay due to the uncertainty that it created for driver makers.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

The whole concept of Linux distributions needs to come to an end. There can be different builds to different hardware configurations and needs but having thousands of linux distros is a waste of time and resources. It's unnecessary duplicated effort.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

some people here will tell you that it's great to have a choice...........
becuse it's to difficult to change wallpaper and install some apps :D
and wayland........ well it works on jolla because everything is made with wayland in mind. But on desktops......... I don't see desktop without xwayland for a quite some time.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

There is actually just a handful of "real" full fledged distros - those that are their own entity, with their own infrastructure, robust release process, support for upgrading between releases, actual QA, prompt handling of vulnerabilities, regular tracking of upstream releases, etc.

Then there are also a few specialized distros (embedded, security, forensic, etc.), but those are often variants of the few "real" distros.

Also, if you need something for enterprise use (10+ year release lifetime, professional support, API stability guarantees, software & hardware certification, etc.) - there is basically RHEL, maybe SLES - and that's it. :)

So hardly thousands of actual standalone distros. :)

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

And it's not so much about gazilion of distros, it's about apps that require the whole #%*/# DE as dependency. Or they also pull bunch of development tools.

Re: Ubuntu updates on hold until switch to snap is ready.
 

OR you roll your own. Which is being done, and indeed by large companies. Even to the extremes that there are some very large companies that have three different LFS distributions (not to mention some other OS'es as a sidedish)

Why reinvent the wheel? Well, we are in the wheel-inventing business :D