In my continuing quest to be useful to the Ubuntu Touch community, I recently found that there were about 300 apps made for Xenial, the 16.04 version of UT, that didn’t get updated for the current version of UT, which is Focal (20.04). Of these apps, I went through the list and crossed out all proprietary apps, and removed any that had current forks or were directly replaced by another app, as well as removing many from my list that no longer had a valid link to the source code. I suppose I could find it somewhere, but I didn’t want to waste time hunting. That left me with approximately 200 apps left that were possible candidates for an update to Focal.
Of course, I don’t think I can update all 200 apps, especially as each could be written in different programming languages, like rust, c++, godot, etc…. My skills are just not up to the task. However, for a lot of these apps, they simply need an updated clickable build script and some edits to json files and app armor. Granted, of the remaining apps, some are of poor quality, and some discernment has to be made.
That said, I created a spreadsheet for this task. On the spreadsheet, I have the app name, and a series of check boxes: upgraded, tested, pull request, contacted dev, dev responded, forked, updated on open-store. This allows me to keep track of my progress as I go along. I always start by downloading the code and attempting the upgrade. If it builds, I test it. If it works, I make a pull request and then email/telegram/contact the original developer. At that point I have to wait a few days and see if they respond.
If they do respond, sometimes they just tell me to do anything I want, or that maybe they will review and update the app with the changes. If they don’t respond, I fork the app and upload it as my own app (citing the original dev, and offering to take mine down if they update their app) on the open-store. (open-store.io)
Today’s post I thought I’d mention two that I posted on the open-store today.
Ambient – https://open-store.io/app/ambient.alaskalinuxuser
Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/alaskalinuxuser/ambient-ubuntu-phone
This app is a noise generator, playing sounds like rainfall, the ocean, a city, or pub, with a timer to help people fall asleep. I thought the app was interesting, so I updated it and contacted the developer. In this case, he was not interested in maintaining the app and said I could do as I pleased, so I forked it and posted it.
Sudoku – https://open-store.io/app/sudoku.alaskalinuxuser
Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/alaskalinuxuser/sudoku-app
This app was originally a core app of UT, meaning that the app was one of the default apps shipped with the operating system. Unfortunately, it fell off the radar somewhere along the line, and was not updated to the newer OS releases. I think it is because it has a network function to compare your score with other players. That part doesn’t work anymore, probably because they took down the server that it reached out to. Instead, if you go to that screen in the app, it just shows your score. Either way, it generates nice Sudoku puzzles and works great.
Of course, the credit goes to the original devs and authors, as I just am updating a few snippets of code or config files here and there to make it build on the current release of Ubuntu Touch.
Linux – keep it simple.