The tenth update of the UBports firmware, which replaced Ubuntu Touch

Project ubports, who took over the development of the mobile platform Ubuntu Touch, after pulled back canonical company, опубликовал firmware update OTA-10 (over-the-air) for all officially supported smartphones and tablets, which were bundled with Ubuntu-based firmware. Update formed 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 also develops experimental desktop port Unity 8available in assemblies for Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04.

The release is based on Ubuntu 16.04 (the OTA-3 build was based on Ubuntu 15.04, and since OTA-4 it has moved to Ubuntu 16.04). As with the previous release, OTA-10 was focused on fixing bugs and improving stability. The transition to new releases of Mir and the Unity 8 shell has been postponed yet again. Testing the build with Mir 1.1, qtcontacts-sqlite (from Sailfish) and the new Unity 8 is done in a separate experimental branch "edge". The transition to the new Unity 8 will lead to the termination of support for smart areas (Scope) and the integration of the new App Launcher application launcher interface. In the future, full-featured support for the environment for launching Android applications based on the developments of the project is also expected. anbox.

Major changes:

• Support for preparing draft messages has been added to the application for sending SMS and MMS - now you can leave the chat while writing the text, and after returning, finish and send the message. Improved insertion of phone numbers in the recipient field. Fixed an issue with random switching between displaying username and phone number in the header. An option has been added to the settings to select a dark or light theme;
• Added feature to Libertine Application Manager to search for packages in repo.ubports.com archive (previously search was limited to PPA stable-phone-overlay) and proceed to install selected packages from the list with search results;
• Implemented PulseAudio modules that provide basic audio support for devices based on Android 7.1;
• Added truncated implementation of composite manager SurfaceFlinger to use the camera on some devices with Android 7.1;
• Added new splash screens for Fairphone 2 and Nexus 5 devices;
  

• Improved compatibility with Nexus 5, Fairphone 2 and Oneplus One smartphones. For Fairphone 2, the correct detection of the camera orientation and the assignment of audio channels has been implemented (problems with a flipped selfie and swapping the right and left audio channels are a thing of the past);
• In the address book, the "Label" field has been added, which makes it easier to sort contacts by the first letter of the name;
• Implemented display of 4G and 5G icons for networks that support these technologies;
• The "Back to safety" button has been added to the built-in morph browser, displayed in case of errors with certificates;
  

• The "espoo" and "wolfpack" backends used to determine the approximate location based on the Wi-Fi access point address database from the HERE and Geoclue2 services have been removed from the delivery. The backends were unstable, resulting in erroneous location information. After removing the backends, location is limited to GPS and information from the mobile network, but the service began to work accurately and predictably. Future use is being considered as a replacement for the wolfpack Mozilla Location Service.

Source: opennet.ru