A Touch-ing review

From the last post it is published that my OnePlus One currently has Ubuntu Touch installed on it. After using for nearly a month these are my current views.

The new look is really refreshing. It's workings are a little different wanting the user an initial attempt of adjusting. Once comfortable the ease of usage is very much friendly. Initially the absence of hardware buttons for back-home-backgroud apps felt like a handicap but then realized that this independence from the hardware buttons gives one two advantages. One that the orientation does not matter anymore for it is the same this way or that and second that it gives more space for the screen, in case a mobile is manufactured just for Ubuntu Touch.

The ideology of Left-Swipe showing the currently open apps, just as in the OS is very helpful. It also gives a new way to place regularly used apps on a launch bar. The Right-Swipe showing the recently used is much more comfortable than the android version of of long-click a button or a dedicated button for viewing this. This feature could probably be incorporated into android. Even in other screens it is the right and left swipes that provide additional action options that can be performed on that view.

Like for example for SMS on right-swipe option to delete is shown and on left-swipe option to copy/forward is shown. This is really helpful and convenient. Additional the landscape and portrait mode for SMS shows different view. With portrait one can see the preview of the SMS text making it just a question of orientation to view the text.

So from here let me list the problems of the Ubuntu Touch. There are simple ones but many and that's what makes it problematic. Like the one faced during the installation itself. The device is not getting detected. It is the same after flashing Ubuntu Touch, i.e. the mobile is not getting detected. Tried many things from lsusb command to adding the to doing a curl to adb_usb.ini. Yet the mobile would not get detected on Ubuntu, neither in Windows OS was it getting detected so that data could be transferred. So the last option was to use browser to upload / download data from drive.

The state of app support was already known as Ubuntu Touch still needs enough community support to get that app-store piled up but to me it was a surprise that Firefox was not available for Ubuntu Touch. If two great open-source don't team up it, sort of, dampens the enthusiasm. Further more the WhatsApp and Telegram apps are just wrapper apps to the browser ones. For WhatsApp app, the app gives a QR Code that we need to scan from the mobile while it is visible in the same mobile screen. Impossible. Telegram keeps logging-off after every few minutes and so in the app one has to login again and again providing the mobile number and then the SMS verification code etc. Interestingly in the browser Telegram never logs-off and so once logged in, even on restart the session stays.

Similar problem exists with connecting to a hidden network. Once connected, after a restart it would not connect to the same network automatically. On the desktop version of Ubuntu on selecting "Connect to Hidden WiFi Network" there is a drop-down list of already added hidden network but that is missing here. So every time one has to delete the saved hidden network, else it will cry duplicate network, and then add the hidden network which then connects immediately. Was it a generic problem or device specific is still unsure.

There is one more problem of restart. That is of the time update. If you see the home screen, a very innovative look with a sun-dial type of clock that reflects the day of the time, you will notice something interesting. The date is January 1970. In-spite of time setting for automatic update with network operator, it does not get updated on a start / restart. Only on connecting with internet does it get updated, probably using UTC clock.

One of the games tried was called Balls2. It is not a very graphics intensive game and on doing quick operations it would hang, the app and the OS both. The other games seemed migrated version of desktop apps and not modified to use the mobile screen capabilities. But that's different issue, i.e. the availability of proper apps for Ubuntu Touch, again probably due to the lack of community and companies interest for this OS.

Getting on to a different bandwagon

In the previous blog the efforts of rooting and removing bloat-ware was reflected. Now the next lines of discussion on XDA was to install a custom ROM.

Now the deliberation was to find the best one for the purpose. So the search started for the best fit with google searches like "Best ROM for rooted android phones". So there was AOKP, Dirty Unicorn, OmniROM, SlimROMs, Ressurection Remix, Pac-Man ROM, Paranoid Android and several others. Each of these looked very much promising with several different features. Some of them like Dirty Unicorn, Ressurection Remix and Paranoid Android did not support OnePlus One, others like SlimROMs had the build created a long time ago and no update on it so far.

On the list provided on several different websites that are found on the search, the top one is almost always CynogenMod. It is really sad story to hear of the end such a happening ROM that dates  back as old as Android itself. So then next contender in line seems naturally LineageOS.

But from there a digression occurred when it was informed that Ubuntu OS has been migrated for OnePlus One. Now this is called Ubuntu Touch with all its resources available online.  After Ubuntu stopped support for the mobile OS UBPorts took it up. One can see that here that OnePlus One is a core device for this OS. Now with a purpose to try tinkering with mobile OS, this offer was enough tempting.

So from there started the quest to get the perfect installer. The first problem was to get the mobile detected on the mobile. For this tried different cables & different drivers (including the one from OnePlus website). After finding the perfect combination the efforts started to get Touch using the installer from here.

Now because my current machine was windows attempt was to use the installer to get it installed. Now this installer seemed not to detect the mobile when connected in fastboot mode as instructed by the installer even though. fastboot command itself was able to detect the device but not the installer. Multiple machines, multiple drivers and multiple cables all yielded to similar results.

Then used the CPT-Installer which was able to detect the device. That was a relief after all the efforts but the exuberance was short lived. The installer did detect the mobile and started the process. It formatted the data on the phone and then started the download-install process that was stuck for hours without any progress. At the end all that was left was a half-baked phone that would not boot as it had no OS in it. After checking that fastboot is still working it was ascertained that it was a soft-brick.

So the last option was to follow the steps provided for the devices from the project site itself either by the magic-tool or by the system-image server. On finding the machine with Ubuntu installed the process went very smooth and the process completed in minutes. In case of any issues the Wiki too could be consulted. So very soon the colorful screen of Touch OS launched on OnePlus One
successfully.

They are the same but different

Wanting to try to break out from the imposed dependence by mobile vendors wanted to try experimenting with rooting. I currently owned Alcatel Flash 2 device which had a screen problem. As you can see from the image, the screen was a little broken. 😊

So then started the quest for the perfect mobile that could be used for my experimentation. For that started using OLX. The process was simple. Find a sale post within budget (10K), then find the original cost of the mobile to see if the deal is realistic, then find the features are to be satisfying, and finally browse XDA-Forum to find if there is enough support for this model so as to be able to root and flavor it differently.

People on OLX are sometimes very unrealistic. They ask an amount close to the new one when it is clear that on OLX one is always looking for seconds. Sometimes it feels like a shop guy is selling a new mobile as "box-piece" on OLX. Anyways after lots of scouting, messaging, negotiating, calling and rejecting (reducing in number in that order) finally decided to visit one of the seller. It was OnePlus One. Though the cost was a little more than what was in my mind but still decided to give a visit. Several factors, including the fact that I was tired of further looking etc. I decided to get it.

After initial usage figured that there was hell lot of bloatware in this mobile. There was Cortona installed as a personal assistant, which was not corresponding with OnePlus. A Chinese company with Google OS adding Microsoft software as personal assistant!

So the first task that I embarked upon is to root it using this. Now the installation of custom recovery went smooth, but from there when choosen to install the SuperSu inbuilt in the TWRP the mobile would boot no-more. Only recently discovered that if we unroot things will move back to working state and then we can go ahead and root again with a different software. But at that time \ thought it had gone into a boot-loop and tried different solutions like running makefs command, which actually sent it into a boot-loop. After lots of failed experimentation of trying get recover it back decided to install stock-ROM got from OnePlus website. Directly working with TWRP did not work and hence had to run the script given with the bundle and ended up loosing the custom recovery.

More than loosing custom recovery the fact that the original OS of the mobile was lost was a little disheartening. Mainly because the stock-ROM  got from OnePlus website was nothing like the first original one. It had none of those huge bloatwares and no Cortona. It looked like the stripped-down version of original software made consciously for those who tinker with their mobile OS.