12-11-2020, 10:00 AM
I'm just throwing out theories, but I think the UBPorts team is focusing on other things for a couple reasons:
I think the pinephone is different enough from other phones that getting 100% compatibility is a huge ordeal for their small team. A good chunk of what's getting in the way (at least at first) is/was proper hardware support. While other distros focus on hardware drivers, I'm guessing their skills were best put to use focusing on fine tuning the OS itself (rebasing on a more recent version of Ubuntu, better dev tools, etc) and to keep income flowing to support this they're also focusing on porting new devices.
Earlier this year I tried looking into how to make an app for Ubuntu touch, and the docs were confusing, they were in the middle of this huge transition from the tools Canonical made (and abandoned), switching to new tools (I think "clickable"?). UBPorts isn't a huge team from what I can tell, and they're spread a little thin.
That's not to say what they're doing isn't really impressive, they just have a huge backlog they're trying to tackle from *before* the pinephone. I think Ubuntu Touch on the pinephone runs pretty well already, but it's not going to change much anytime soon until the UBPorts team finishes some other big hurdles or finds more volunteers.
(This is all just what I think so far, please set me straight if I'm wrong)
I think the pinephone is different enough from other phones that getting 100% compatibility is a huge ordeal for their small team. A good chunk of what's getting in the way (at least at first) is/was proper hardware support. While other distros focus on hardware drivers, I'm guessing their skills were best put to use focusing on fine tuning the OS itself (rebasing on a more recent version of Ubuntu, better dev tools, etc) and to keep income flowing to support this they're also focusing on porting new devices.
Earlier this year I tried looking into how to make an app for Ubuntu touch, and the docs were confusing, they were in the middle of this huge transition from the tools Canonical made (and abandoned), switching to new tools (I think "clickable"?). UBPorts isn't a huge team from what I can tell, and they're spread a little thin.
That's not to say what they're doing isn't really impressive, they just have a huge backlog they're trying to tackle from *before* the pinephone. I think Ubuntu Touch on the pinephone runs pretty well already, but it's not going to change much anytime soon until the UBPorts team finishes some other big hurdles or finds more volunteers.
(This is all just what I think so far, please set me straight if I'm wrong)