Volla Phone and SFOS

Hi all,
I just received my Volla Phone and I installed SFOS on it (with UBTouch installer) ! And it works perfectly !
My question is: will it be possible in the future to purchase an SFOS license to take advantage of all the functionalities of the OS ?
Thanks for your answer,
Best regards, Emmanuel.

9 Likes

Unless Volla pays Jolla for a license its only community support.

Other than android excange and text prediction (there was/is community work to fix that) support there isn’t much more to it. Community phones are usable.

1 Like

I think Volla wanted to offer the device with SFOS in the beginning but the licence fees Jolla wanted to collect had been too much for a startup.

4 Likes

I don’t get why Jolla prefers to sell licenses for phones that are almost outdated when a SFOS image for that specific model becomes available and where the user has to flash SFOS on the phone himself.

Wouldn’t it be better and easier for all parties if there was the opportunity to have a phone the user could simply buy in a (WEB-)shop with SFOS pre-installed by the vendor even if SFOS would come as community editions with the opportunity for the user to purchase a SFOS X license (at Jolla Store and/or Volla store)?

I think the Volla phone is a great chance for Volla, UBTouch and for users who want to have a phone with a linux operating system pre-installed on a european phone, too.
It could have been great chance for SFOS, too.

6 Likes

well, to be fair. The volla phone is outdated already as well. Then in the beginning you just could order it in europe and the first kickstarter campaign wasn’t quite successful.

But I think it would be good for people who don’t want to flash the OS by themselves, to offer a device with SFOS pre-installed.

3 Likes

So you think, Vollas business model is to sell the phone for at least 2 or 3 months and then stop selling this phone?

That’s the situation customers of SFOS X on XPeria models had to deal with when SFOS images where available.
And I think if it comes to SFOS X on XPeria 10 II this will be the situation, too.

1 Like

No, I dont think that, but Gigaset already released the GS4 and Volla at the end will have to offer more than one device.

2 Likes

Vollas SoC is even older than the SD 630.

1 Like

First I thought the GS4 was the successor of the GS290 and was a little surprised because the specs and features of GS4 and GS290 look almost the same. Just a little advantage in processor, replaceable battery and real Dual-SIM.
Then I read that Gigaset positions the GS4 as successor of the GS195 (what is a huge advantage).

So the GS290 has no successor yet.
Anyway, the GS290 is about 1 year old and Gigaset will surely bring up a successor within the next months.
So Volla wil have to bring up a new model in the furture, too. But I think the availability will be much longer than of any XPeria.

1 Like

Hi !
Thank you for all your answers.

@ApB the only feature that interests me is the possibility of having android applications. It would be great if the community succeded to implement this. Do you have any news on progress about community port of android in SFOS ?

@makarch The installation is really not complicated thanks to the work of the Ubtouch community. The only prerequisite is to start in fastboot mode.

The Volla Phone is not a really fast smarphone and the hardware is not the best. But I wanted to support the initiative and not playing on my smartphone, its power is more than sufficient for my use.

There is Anbox but i have no idea if anyone is working on it for SFOS. And imo its pointless. If you want android apps you get an android phone the same way that if you want iOS apps you get an iPhone.

4 Likes

@Ehermellin Thanks for the feedback, it’s interesting to see such alternatives, I wish too that it could become officially supported, especially if there is an installer that could make Sailfish more easier to install for everyone! :slightly_smiling_face:
(Officially supported would also means OTA updates, I don’t know if it’s supported in Community editions?)

Don’t try to restart that debate once again :man_facepalming: :smirk:

2 Likes

Maybe there is a place where i can get a list of apps to use on SailfishOS (for navigation / GPS for example) ?

I was talking about android app because I only need one or two apps to actually use my smartphone “in the same way” as an android phone but the goal is of course to get rid of all these useless applications.

(I always try to convince my contacts to go on telegram instead of whatsapp :sweat_smile:)

@Sthocs I will come back here to tell you if the OTA update is working.

@Ehermellin for navigation you should try Pure maps and https://openrepos.net/content/karry/osm-scout

Here you can find list of many useful native apps https://together.jolla.com/question/200148/native-apps-i-love/

@Sthocs apparently the OTA updates work and can be installed in the following ways:

devel-su
ssu release <the latest OS version>
version --dup
reboot

or (from @adampigg)

devel-su
ssu re <release>;
ssu ur;
zypper ref;
zypper dup
5 Likes

Please correct me if I am wrong. Sailfish for Volla will be a community port and not an official version such as Sailfish X free or Sailfish X. Are you sure that OTA is generally supported? I am aware of some older ports for Sony and Motorola phones. Neither of them received an update via OTA. I can imagine that a version adapted for Volla will become unusable after an original update. One exception I know is the Gemini PDA. Volla would have to go the same way.

1 Like

Ports receiving OTA updates is up to the developers behind that port. Updates are done via cmd line, but you can do OTA on multiple ports. If port is in good standing, you should be fine. There are several ports providing OTA updates just fine.

3 Likes

Hi! I’m an old Jolla user (who misses Sailfish!) who just received is Volla ! Sadly, I could not get sailfish installed with Ubports.

Ubuntu touch worked without a big wait.

Did you have to wait a long time (10+) or do something from recovery? I got success messages and the screen of the volla showed a sailfish logo … but never got anywhere…

In any case, I’ve only managed to get ubuntu touch running on the volla

1 Like

Bootmanager for Volla Phone is now able to boot Sailfish and UBTouch from SD-Card.
More information at Telegram channel: https://t.me/andbootmgr

It’s amazing running three OS’es (Android, UBPorts and SFOS) on one phone. And all are working fine +1:

2 Likes

did you buy the one with volla os or the one with ubuntu ?