A few days ago, UBports (the team that took over the development of Ubuntu Touch after Canonical's withdrawal) announced through a blog post the “Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal” release, which is positioned as the fourth version of Ubuntu Touch based on Ubuntu 20.04.
It is worth mentioning that Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 is a maintenance release within the 20.04 series, so in this release most of the changes are bug fixes, although it also presents some new features, among which the following stand out.
What's new in Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5?
Among the new features presented by Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal, the incorporating an energy consumption profile which allows you to independently manage the constant consumption mode and interactive mode on compatible devices.
In addition, it has been integrated configuration migration, which is especially useful for those still using Ubuntu Touch 16.04, since the configuration migration problem when updating on certain devices has finally been corrected.
The Inotification implementation is another of the new features presented by Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal, these are intended to alert the user when the synchronization of the calendar and the scheduler fails due to authentication problems, offering the option to enter a new password.
Moreover, The list of devices compatible with Ubuntu Touch 20.04 OTA-5 has been updated And among the new additions, it stands out that there is support for the following compatible devices:
- Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1
- F(x)tec Pro1 X
- Fairphone 3 and 3+
- 4 Fairphone
- Google Pixel 3a and 3a XL
- jing pad a1
- OnePlus 5 and 5T
- OnePlus 6 and 6T
- Sony Xperia X
- Vollaphone, Vollaphone X, Vollaphone 22, Vollaphone X23
- Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC / X3
Regarding known problems, it is mentioned that pFor Waydroid Helper app users, the entry icon from the “Waydroid Stop” application it will not work. This is due to an internal change that requires Waydroid Helper to follow.
On some devices (like the Pixel 3a), the double-tap to activate feature the device has been disabled due to a stability issue, It is mentioned that this feature may be re-enabled in the future if the stability issue can be fixed.
Of the Fixes and minor changes implemented:
- Added a patch to expose battery levels and discharge status in DBus.
- Correction in the click service to avoid a failure due to incorrect dereferencing.
- Added missing symbols in GLib compatibility layer.
- Similar to the change in lomiri, overwriting configurations in session migration was avoided.
- Changes to `ButtonStyle` to return to graphical color coding.
- Using the base theme color in `ButtonStyle.qml`.
Checking the `state` property instead of `running`. - Fixed permissions on session migration overlay.
- Configuration to maintain user and network namespaces.
- Added option to switch between binder and RIL plugins.
- Solution to add domains in white/blacklist configurations.
- Patches for vulnerabilities CVE-2023-4234, CVE-2023-4233, and CVE-2023-2794.
- The description field has been treated as a single field.
- Fix for shifted events when handling different time zones.
Finally yes you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details In the following link.
Download and get Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal
For those interested in trying the new version, you should know that the Ubuntu Touch OTA-5 Focal update will be available for several devices, including the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, Fairphone 3/ 4, various Google Pixel models, as well as of the Vollaphone OnePlus One, Sony Xperia X, Samsung Galaxy S7, Xiaomi Poco/Redmi Note/Pro, among others.
For those interested in being able to install the update immediately, they should enable ADB access and run the following command on `adb shell`:
sudo system-image-cli -v -p 0 --progress dots
With this the device should download the update and install it. This process may take a while, depending on your download speed.