The UBports project (which took over the development of the Ubuntu Touch mobile platform after Canonical retired) recently released the release of the new firmware update OTA-16. According to the developers, OTA-16 It has become one of the largest releases in the history of the project, behind only OTA-4 in terms of the importance of the changes, which went from Ubuntu 15.04 to 16.04.
The frame Qt has been updated to version 5.12.9 (version 5.9.5 shipped earlier), which caused a change in about a third of the binary packages, even in relation to the update of the packages that Qt components depend on or that are linked to outdated features of old QT branches move to a new version of Qt allows developers to move to the next significant milestone: upgrading the base environment from Ubuntu 16.04 to Ubuntu 20.04.
The Qt update also brought the necessary functionality to integrate gst-droid, a GStreamer plugin for Android.
This plugin made it possible to use hardware acceleration in the camera app (viewer) on PinePhone devices and provided support for video recording on 32-bit devices originally shipped with the Android 7 platform, such as the Sony Xperia X.
Another important innovation was the inclusion of default Anbox environment installer, which provides the ability to run Android applications. The devices that support Anbox installation include Meizu PRO 5, Fairphone 2, OnePlus One, Nexus 5, BQ Aquaris M10 HD and BQ Aquaris M10 FHD. The installation of the Anbox environment is done without changing the Ubuntu Touch root file system and without being tied to Ubuntu Touch versions.
The web browser Morph default has been significantly updated with a full overhaul how downloads are handled. Instead of the interface lock dialog displayed at the beginning and end of the download, the dashboard has an indicator that reflects the progress of the download.
In addition to the general list of downloads, the "Recent Downloads" panel has been added, showing only the downloads started in the current session.
It is also mentioned that a button has been added to the tab management screen to reopen recently closed tabs. The ability to customize the identifier passed in the user agent header has been returned. Added option to permanently block access to location data. Fixed issues with scale settings. Simplified with Morph on tablets and desktops.
Support for the obsolete Oxide web engine has been discontinued (based on QtQuick WebView, not updated since 2017), which has long been superseded by an engine based on QtWebEngine, to which all the basic Ubuntu Touch applications have been transferred. Rust removal will cause legacy applications to stop working.
Get OTA-16
Ubuntu Touch OTA-16 update is made for the following devices OnePlus One, Fairphone 2, Nexus 4, Nexus 5, Nexus July 2013, Meizu MX4 / PRO 5, VollaPhone, Bq Aquaris E5 / E4.5 / M10, Sony Xperia X / XZ, OnePlus 3 / 3T, Xiaomi Redmi 4X, Huawei Nexus 6P, Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet, Google Pixel 3a, OnePlus Two, F (x) tec Pro1 / Pro1 X, Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and also compared to the past the launch began the formation of stable assemblies for Xiaomi Mi A2 and Samsung Galaxy S3 Neo + devices (GT-I9301I. Separately, without the label «OTA-16», updates will be prepared for Pine64 PinePhone devices and PineTab.
For existing Ubuntu Touch users on the stable channel they will receive the OTA update through the System Configuration Updates screen.
While, in order to receive the update immediately, just enable ADB access and run the following command on 'adb shell':
sudo system-image-cli -v -p 0 --progress dots
With this the device will download the update and install it. This process may take a while, depending on your download speed.
Source: https://ubports.com