Anyone gotten latest Ubuntu Touch to work on PinePhone Pro?

[dchang0]

Hi, everyone!

Today I had trouble with my upgrade of Mobian from bookwork to trixie with no call audio after the upgrade (and poor/inconsistent call audio before the upgrade). So I figured I'd try flashing some of the latest OS images.

I tried Ubuntu Touch for the first time, and I love the GUI--it is super-slick! But it did not register my SIM with the network, and thus I could not use it as a phone. At least Mobian trixie was able to register my SIM with the network (US Mobile "Dark Star" on AT&T network).

Ubuntu Touch does seem to see the modem, since it sees and reports the IMEI number correctly.

The website for Ubuntu Touch claims that it can make and receive calls on the PinePhone Pro, but I can't.

Has anyone figured out how to make Ubuntu Touch work properly (at least as far as they promise on their website, which includes calls and SMS texts but not some other features)?

Meanwhile, I'll try flashing some other OSes, but I'd love to get Ubuntu Touch working, primarily because of the GUI, but also because I use Ubuntu with touch support on my Starlabs StarLite Mk. V tablet as a daily driver. It would be really nice having a fairly uniform user experience across my devices.

Thanks in advance! Any tips/advice are welcome!

UPDATE: Weird--I just noticed that after booting to Ubuntu Touch on the microSD, it registered the SIM correctly. It seems like (but I haven't proven yet) that every time I boot from Ubuntu Touch on the internal eMMC it doesn't register the SIM correctly...

I will try re-imaging the eMMC, but after I flash a few other OSes to see how far along they're coming.

[dchang0]

Follow up: I re-imaged Ubuntu Touch, and for whatever reason, it was able to register the SIM on the network. It was also able to start a call (dialing out), but it would fail every time before the receiving phone rang even once.

I checked the APN setting and set the cellular mode to 2G/3G/4G. I could not turn on 4G VoLTE (it wouldn't let me--permanently greyed out--but this is no surprise).

I gave up and tried two different PostmarketOS images, the one with sxmo and another with Plasma. Both were able to register the SIM and make calls, AND the audio was acceptable (unlike Mobian bookworm, which did have call audio but awful quality, and unlike Mobian trixie, which had zero call audio at all).

I am going to stick with PostmarketOS for a bit. I really liked the sxmo version but it is a bit hard to operate with the text being so small.

So, unless someone posts here that they got Ubuntu Touch working and how to do it, I'll give up on Ubuntu Touch for now. Too bad--I really like the interface!

[biketool]

Follow up: I re-imaged Ubuntu Touch, and for whatever reason, it was able to register the SIM on the network. It was also able to start a call (dialing out), but it would fail every time before the receiving phone rang even once.

I checked the APN setting and set the cellular mode to 2G/3G/4G. I could not turn on 4G VoLTE (it wouldn't let me--permanently greyed out--but this is no surprise).

I gave up and tried two different PostmarketOS images, the one with sxmo and another with Plasma. Both were able to register the SIM and make calls, AND the audio was acceptable (unlike Mobian bookworm, which did have call audio but awful quality, and unlike Mobian trixie, which had zero call audio at all).

I am going to stick with PostmarketOS for a bit. I really liked the sxmo version but it is a bit hard to operate with the text being so small.

So, unless someone posts here that they got Ubuntu Touch working and how to do it, I'll give up on Ubuntu Touch for now. Too bad--I really like the interface!

can you give a comparison of battery % burn per 10 min on each OS/distro you mentioned?
I find mobian trixie burns about 10-15% per 10 min on the pinephone pro when in active use.
I use my PPp as a daily phone but unless I have it in suspend mode I need to be plugged in, even listening to an audiobook burns most of a full battery in an hour even with the screen blank/dark.

[dchang0]

Follow up: I re-imaged Ubuntu Touch, and for whatever reason, it was able to register the SIM on the network. It was also able to start a call (dialing out), but it would fail every time before the receiving phone rang even once.

I checked the APN setting and set the cellular mode to 2G/3G/4G. I could not turn on 4G VoLTE (it wouldn't let me--permanently greyed out--but this is no surprise).

I gave up and tried two different PostmarketOS images, the one with sxmo and another with Plasma. Both were able to register the SIM and make calls, AND the audio was acceptable (unlike Mobian bookworm, which did have call audio but awful quality, and unlike Mobian trixie, which had zero call audio at all).

I am going to stick with PostmarketOS for a bit. I really liked the sxmo version but it is a bit hard to operate with the text being so small.

So, unless someone posts here that they got Ubuntu Touch working and how to do it, I'll give up on Ubuntu Touch for now. Too bad--I really like the interface!

can you give a comparison of battery % burn per 10 min on each OS/distro you mentioned?
I find mobian trixie burns about 10-15% per 10 min on the pinephone pro when in active use.
I use my PPp as a daily phone but unless I have it in suspend mode I need to be plugged in, even listening to an audiobook burns most of a full battery in an hour even with the screen blank/dark.

Good idea! I haven't been measuring so far (been focused only on testing call audio functionality). I'll start paying attention now.
I do remember that Mobian bookworm's battery life was pretty good overall (I was running it for months, it would last at most 5 hours on a full charge on a pretty new battery, just walking around with it asleep in my pocket, browsing the web at the coffee shop while waiting in line). I did not stick with trixie long enough to note the battery life or burn rate. Mobian bookworm was not capable of running more than an hour if I was downloading tons of updates on Wifi and keeping the display lit. For that I had to bring along a USB power bank to assist.

Note that I have been using stock Quectel firmwares the whole time, so I could have gotten better battery life with Biktorgj's custom firmware with its lower modem clock rate.

Also, note that battery life can vary wildly based on cellular signal strength. If you spend most of your time in an area where the cell signal is poor, it will chew up your battery super-fast. In my city, signal strength is good until one crosses a particular street, and then it drops down to 1 bar. Keeping any phone battery going a long time in the poor signal area is difficult, especially during a call.

I am currently running PostmarketOS with SXMO-de-Sway, and it seems to have better battery life than Mobian bookworm did, but that's only my impression--I'm not measuring/timing yet.

[dchang0]

Follow up: I re-imaged Ubuntu Touch, and for whatever reason, it was able to register the SIM on the network. It was also able to start a call (dialing out), but it would fail every time before the receiving phone rang even once.

I checked the APN setting and set the cellular mode to 2G/3G/4G. I could not turn on 4G VoLTE (it wouldn't let me--permanently greyed out--but this is no surprise).

I gave up and tried two different PostmarketOS images, the one with sxmo and another with Plasma. Both were able to register the SIM and make calls, AND the audio was acceptable (unlike Mobian bookworm, which did have call audio but awful quality, and unlike Mobian trixie, which had zero call audio at all).

I am going to stick with PostmarketOS for a bit. I really liked the sxmo version but it is a bit hard to operate with the text being so small.

So, unless someone posts here that they got Ubuntu Touch working and how to do it, I'll give up on Ubuntu Touch for now. Too bad--I really like the interface!

can you give a comparison of battery % burn per 10 min on each OS/distro you mentioned?
I find mobian trixie burns about 10-15% per 10 min on the pinephone pro when in active use.
I use my PPp as a daily phone but unless I have it in suspend mode I need to be plugged in, even listening to an audiobook burns most of a full battery in an hour even with the screen blank/dark.

Thinking about this further, there is probably a LINUX utility that we can find and modify that graphs the battery life of our PinePhone Pros over time, possibly even recording a history of what processes or even which hardware components are using the most battery at each minute.

This would give us a clear, objective way to compare distros and also begin to optimize battery life in any specific distro.