http://www.itwire.com/mobility/76372...s-on-hold.html
Ubuntu phone users will be stuck with their current firmware for a while as the company has no plans to issue another over-the-air update until it switches package formats, according to Pat McGowan, an employee of Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu.

The last major update was OTA-14 and there have been questions aplenty as to when OTA-15 would arrive. McGowan has now answered that question.

Security updates would continue to be issued as and when needed, McGowan said in a mailing list post.

The format switch will be from the current click packaging to snap packaging, which Canonical claims is superior and easier to build and install.

It is unclear whether earlier phone models which run Ubuntu Touch will be able to run the new operating system when it is released.

When the snap packaging initiative was announced, it was claimed that a single binary package would work on any Linux server, cloud, desktop or device.

It was also claimed that snap packages worked on many Linux distributions like Arch, Debian, Fedora, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Unity, and Xubuntu.

The Ubuntu phones were first released in February 2015, with the first models being somewhat underpowered.

Later models like the Meizu Pro-5 have earned better reviews, as the hardware has plenty of grunt.

There are several things which need to be fixed on Ubuntu Touch, the operating system used on the Ubuntu phone.

So it works on Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu, Ubuntu and Ubuntu. Great compatibility.

Now that's a F U to customers if I've ever seen one..

Probably not because there are entirely too many dependencies on blobs.

That conflicts with the architecture dependencies we observe in Snap packages being made available on uappexplorer.
...'several' fails to indicate just how impossible those things are.
When the decision to replace xorg was made it moved the goalposts by decades.

Ubuntu phone is basically dead

Canonical released an update just last month, they don't seem to have given up yet.

"The format switch will be from the current click packaging to snap packaging, which Canonical claims is superior and easier to build and install."

Srsly? Ubuntu users don't want clicks. They don't want snaps. They want to apt-get install whatever the heck they want. Why is canonical hell-bent on making ubuntu touch incompatible with Ubuntu?

The biggest problems with ubuntu touch are lack of apps, and lack of users. If they just made it easy for users to use the vast library of software already in the ubuntu repos, maybe people would actually use it?

Respectfully, Canonical is in no way trying to make UT incompatible with Ubuntu desktop or on any other form-factor. They are in fact converging the distro, same software, different platforms. AFAIK, all Ubuntu will be snap based, but apt installing will be available, perhaps not by default, just as it is now on UT.

With screen casting, MHL etc then using applications for a desktop environment on a phone will make sense. By and large, none of the GUI desktop apps are usable in phone mode - shitty scaling etc.

But, UT may well be dead, as one poster stated. Canonical has shown a cavalier disregard for PR, so frankly no-one really knows and in a vacuum, negativity will prevail. Some would say, reality.

I find it difficult to take seriously your claim of unusability.

I've used xmir on utouch and it sucked. However, there is no requirement for it to be horrible.

From my own expirience having used easydebian on n900 for years, for the most part, it's usable. The main problem was the n900's 800x480 display. Some programs expect at least 768 vertical pixels. Inadequate RAM was a bummer, too.

From my own experience using xWayland on SFOS (and x11-xsdl on android), it's usable on my Nexus 4's 768x1280 screen if I use a sensible DPI setting. The only usability problem is xwayland's inability to rotate. 768 horizontal pixels is inadequate for programs like libreoffice.

A company with develpoment resources like Canonical could certainly make this elegantly usable if they wanted to do so. Just look at what volunteers on these forums have achieved in their spare time.

I think it varies among individuals. On my mx4 under xmir I struggled with Libreoffice, firefox etc and yes, fiddling the DPI may well have helped (as would a fine-stylus). I guess, as one ages, one's tolerance for small fonts decreases :-) hence a non-optimal experience. That is a better way of describing it. MHL etc take care of such to a large extent, lag aside.