

The New Aquaris E5 HD Ubuntu Edition - reddotX
http://www.bq.com/gb/aquaris-e5-ubuntu-edition

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ubuntuphoneuser
I have a Aquaris BQ E4.5

This phone, which I assume is not too different than the E5: * ships with
openssh (not enabled by default). * ships with the phablet user account as a
sudoer * has a terminal app in the Ubuntu App Store * BQ publishes all their
source on their github repo

You will need to change the rootfs to rw or else apt-get fails. This breaks
the OS image diff update mechanism. It comes with the ubuntu-touch repo, which
is accessed via the standard dpkg apt-get and aptitude tools. Strangely, there
is no git in this repo, which I built from source. Ships with a standard
toolchain in the repo also. From this I was able to compile nmap and other
tools I needed.

The OS is in its very early days. Overall its a great platform and hope that
it becomes a major player. It won't replace my iphone just yet (it lacks any
kind of block based encryption to protect the phone contents).

~~~
bnastic
I have a 4.5 as well. Not yet had a chance to look at the dev side of things,
but for a typical phone user Ubuntu is very far from being ready for
primetime. (Which I don't particularly mind, as I bought the phone for its
hacking potential; for everything else there is iPhone).

~~~
ipedrazas
I think you're extremely kind saying "far from being ready for primetime".
Let's face it, as a phone is pretty useless.

As a hacking mobile platform... it's a nice toy :)

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cturner
The usage that would make devices like these attractive to me is if they
allowed me to carry my data around, doing most of my work by ssh, but with
ability to access/edit data while I was mobile. Then I wouldn't need to carry
a bag around.

I doubt I'm in major market segment, but I'll ask all the same: can you ssh
into these devices and run standard unix tools? Can you plug a USB-to-ethernet
adapter into them?

~~~
rlpb
> can you ssh into these devices

Yes: [http://askubuntu.com/q/348714/7808](http://askubuntu.com/q/348714/7808)

> run standard unix tools

Yes. What you get is a shell prompt that pretty much matches what you'd
expect. bash and readline, GNU coreutils, tab completion, etc. The ssh client
is available.

> Can you plug a USB-to-ethernet adapter into them?

No idea. This might be tougher as it would involve some level of interfacing
with the kernel (which is a bit special as it's Android-based) and perhaps
interference with the phone's network management UI (Network Manager based).

Also, you don't get working apt-get unless you remount the root filesystem
read-write, in which case you lose image-based updates (the only supported
update mechanism). But your home directory is read-write and you can do what
you like in there.

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zyrthofar
> Only available in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland

Is there a reason for this, or is this simply to slow down the demand until
they make it available in other countries?

It seems to me the "official" Ubuntu phones (from Meizu and BQ) are reluctant
to come to the North American market.

~~~
Htsthbjig
Probably it has something to do with software patents.

The cost of litigation in the US is very expensive, and players like Microsoft
and Apple have legal teams that could litigate forever into destroying any
small competitor.

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Buetol
Sorry for sidetracking but: I'm really interrested in how the "NearBy" feature
works. Anyone knows how to find the source code ?

~~~
Buetol
For history: Looks like it's closed-source. Makes me a bit sad.

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realusername
I don't know how it looks in other languages in the list (my basic German is
not good enough to assess this) but the French version of the website is quite
atrocious. It looks like someone ran everything to Google Translate and put it
on the website after. (it's just barely understandable). I hope they will come
up with a better website if they want to sell to non-english markets...

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tfb
This is very cool. I wonder if I could put this on my old prepaid Android. I'm
sure I could but how easy would it be?

------
wodenokoto
Not to be confused with Sharps smartphone brand "Aquos"

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frik
1 GB RAM? 2012 is calling. Why not 3+GB RAM?

~~~
Sanddancer
Because it's using a bargain-level chip from 2013 that doesn't even have
support for LTE, let alone a decent amount of memory.

