The UBports project, which took over the development of the Ubuntu Touch mobile platform, after Canonical withdrew from it, I recently released the OTA-7 (over-the-air) firmware update.
This new release It is compatible with all supported smartphones and tablets with the official Ubuntu endorsement.
About UBports
Lhe UBports community, is the one that continues to maintain Ubuntu Touch for a variety of mobile devices. For those who were left with the idea that Ubuntu Touch had been abandoned for good, it really was not.
After the abandonment of Ubuntu Touch development by Canonical, the UBports team led by Marius Gripsgard was the one who took over the reins to continue with the project.
Ubports is basically a foundation whose mission is to support the collaborative development of Ubuntu Touch and promote the widespread use of Ubuntu Touch. The foundation provides legal, financial and organizational support to the entire community.
It also serves as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding, and other resources, with the knowledge that their contributions will be kept for the public benefit.
About the seventh update of UBports
It is important to mention that this release is based on Ubuntu 16.04 (The OTA-3 build was based on Ubuntu 15.04, and from OTA-4, transitioned to Ubuntu 16.04).
De the important changes that were generated with this new release we can highlight that added the ability to change on-screen keyboard themes.
Including there are 9 themes to choose from, built in light and dark colors with an explicit selection of keys and no borders. To change the themes, the option "Settings -> Language and text -> Keyboard theme" is added to the settings.
Also in this release the Morph Browser web browser continued to be updated, based on the current Chromium codebase.
The new version adds the ability to close the current tab when viewing the list of open tabs, adds protection so you don't fall asleep when watching videos, implemented option to set default zoom level and define individual zoom settings for individual pages.
The libhybris library has been updated with an implementation of the layer to interact with the computer, allowing the use of drivers created for the Android 7.1 platform.
A component has been added that allows you to use the Mir display server on devices with Qualcomm chips, for which the graphics drivers for Android 7.1 are available.
Other changes
Thanks to the new versions of libhybris and Mir, converting Ubuntu Touch to new devices has been significantly simplified using the Halium platform.
On the other hand, added support for installing this project on Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 devices 2013 (models with wifi), originally supplied with Android 5.1.
The interface for connecting to online accounts has been transferred from Oxide's web engine (outdated QtQuick WebView) to QtWebEngine.
And finally the added keyboard layout for Lithuanian.
How to get this new OTA?
In the next OTA-8 update, the transition to the new version of Mir 1.1 and the latest version of Unity 8 shell, prepared by Canonical, is expected.
The transition to the new Unity 8 will result in the end of support for Smart Areas (Scope) and the integration of the new Application Launcher application launch interface.
In the future, full compatibility of the Anbox environment is expected to launch Android applications.
The update is generated for OnePlus One, Fairphone 2, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus 7 2013, Meizu MX4 / PRO 5, Bq Aquaris E5 / E4.5 / M10 smartphones. The project is also developing an experimental Unity 8 desktop port, available in Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04 versions.
Existing Ubuntu Touch users on the stable channel (which is selected by default in the UBports installer) will receive the OTA-7 update through the “Updates” screen of the System Settings.