LINux on MOBile - Game EmulationLINMOB.net is a blog about LINux on MOBile devices. With the PinePhone (Pro) and Librem 5 shipping it is back to report on GNU+Linux on mobile devices.Zola2020-07-26T16:00:18+00:00https://linmob.net/tags/game-emulation/feed.xmlLinBits 3: Weekly PinePhone news / media roundup (week 30)2020-07-26T16:00:18+00:002020-07-26T16:00:18+00:00https://linmob.net/linbits3-weekly-pinephone-news-week30/<p><em>It's sunday, it's Linbits time!</em></p>
<p>This is some the best stuff that happened around the PinePhone this week. <em>Commentary in italics.</em></p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span><h3 id="software-releases-and-improvements">Software: releases and improvements</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-arm/storage/pinephone/phosh/">Manjaro has released newer images with phosh.</a> <em>I am still waiting for an alpha image with Lomiri.</em></li>
<li><a href="https://mirror.alefnode.com/#browse/browse:opensuse-pinephone-images:openSUSE-Pinephone-0.0.2-1.img">Also, new OpenSUSE images!</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phosh/-/releases/v0.4.2">Phosh 0.4.2 has been released.</a>. Features include a restart option and new translations.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-reading">Worth reading</h3>
<ul>
<li>HomebrewXS: <a href="http://homebrewx.bplaced.net/pinephoneub.html">PinePhone UBports edition</a>. <em>Just a little review.</em></li>
<li>Kevin's musings: <a href="https://www.scrye.com/wordpress/nirik/2020/07/25/pinephone-initial-thoughts/">pinephone: initial thoughts.</a> <em>Another collection of experiences with the PinePhone — by a Fedora user.</em></li>
<li>Liliputing: <a href="https://liliputing.com/2020/07/dragonbox-pyra-handheld-computer-inches-closer-to-release.html"> DragonBox Pyra handheld computer inches closer to release </a>. <em>The Pyra is one of these community built devices, that just is taking ages until it will hopefully finally ship to the people that ordered one. The heart of it is a TI OMAP 5, Cortex A15, ARMv7 CPU, which was still bleeding edge when it was originally announced.</em> </li>
<li>Pine64: <a href="https://www.pine64.org/2020/07/24/all-about-the-pinetab-update/">All about the PineTab</a>. <em>The PineTab, which is basically a PinePhone without the EG25-G and a 10" display, will ship soon to the people that ordered one.</em> </li>
<li><strong>Special: <a href="https://events.gnome.org/event/1/">GUADEC 2020</a></strong>: Due to COVID-19, the yearly GNOME users and developers conference is a virtual event this year. The overall <a href="https://events.gnome.org/event/1/timetable/">schedule</a> has been quite interesting, so check it out. Hopefully recordings will be made available later. Here are a few slide decks that might be of interest:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://events.gnome.org/event/1/contributions/77/">Matthias Clasen: Port your widgets to GTK 4</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://events.gnome.org/event/1/contributions/79/">Philip Withnall: How can I make my project more environmentally friendly?</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://events.gnome.org/event/1/contributions/86/">State Of The Shell</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Added 07/28/2020</strong> (meant to include it, but forgot): Madaidans-insecurities: <a href="https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux-phones.html">Linux Phones — Comparison with Other Phones</a>. <em>This is a critique of the claim that the new Linux phones were more secure than iOS or Android. <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@linmob/104565130213304275">I partially agree, as you can read on fosstodon</a>.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-watching">Worth watching</h3>
<ul>
<li>Tyler's Tech: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUBXNJRZ5aE&feature=youtu.be">Mobian — The Best Mobile Linux Distro</a>. <em>A nice review of Mobian.</em></li>
<li>Howto: Privacy & Infosec: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oIF9z6Bwzw">Pinephone Manjaro Linux: Working SMS/Calls/Cell Data/WiFi/Cam! Demo</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Zhb5nb9XU">Pinephone Mobian (Debian) - Termshark Sniffer Working, Apps, Firefox Tor Setup</a>. <em>This channel might be one to watch.</em></li>
<li>Dalton Durst: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqOb45N2sMc">Fixing the PinePhone USB-C VCONN issue the equally stupid way</a>. <em>A long stream which is fun to watch. Also, <a href="https://twitter.com/Mariogrip/status/1286430885085155329">UBports is supporting convergence now</a> (well, soon).</em></li>
<li>PizzaLovingNerd: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBqFiUjM5OY">Answering Your PinePhone Questions</a> <em>Maybe this video answers some of your questions, too.</em></li>
<li>Duncan Bayne: <a href="https://vimeo.com/439433113">Firefox, YouTube, and Bluetooth on the PinePhone!</a></li>
<li>nas: <a href="https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/2f49721b-9620-4810-a428-1be8fc855714">AOSP Android 10 demo on Pinephone 2/2</a>, <a href="https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/384dde13-80a5-435e-aefe-fd9655cb83ce">Dreamcast emulation on Pinephone</a> <em>While the first video is more than a week old, I figured to include it anyway; as it's the only video I am aware of that shows how GloDroid 0.3.0 runs. The Dreamcast emulation video is just fun. nas have some more game emulation videos on their channel.</em></li>
<li>Hackers Game: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t4L_QNZ74A">Mobile IP-native Communication</a>. <em>This video shows how to get IP native calls working on the Librem 5 — it should work on the PinePhone, too.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="stuff-i-did">Stuff I did</h3>
<p><em>I had a very busy week at work and as the weekend was kind of busy too, as a new episode of the NerdZoom podcast had to be recorded. Also, as I managed to forget my microSD card box, I couldn't do much PinePhone related stuff this weekend.</em> </p>
<p>I <a href="https://twitter.com/linmobblog/status/1286297854152253441">noticed that incoming calls no longer work for me</a> on any Phosh/modem-manager based distribution (they still work on Plasma Mobile, which uses ofono), and apparently I am at least not totally alone with that issue.</p>
<p>I now run postmarketOS with Phosh on the eMMC. I chose postmarketOS because of their support for full disk encryption and installed using one of their prebuilt images. The installer is really something! </p>
<p>My current secondary OS is Arch Linux ARM Huong Tram Edition. On Arch and pmOS, I mainly experimented with software that is all about reading: RSS readers, Read-it-Later clients and so on. Furthermore, I have played with Qt/Plasma Mobile Apps on Phosh — I am already drafting a blog post on all this, so stay tuned.</p>
<p>PS: <em>If you love the fediverse as much as I do, you can follow me there <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@linmob">@linmob@fosstodon.org</a>.</em></p>
LinBits 2: Weekly PinePhone news / media roundup (week 29)2020-07-19T15:00:18+00:002020-07-19T15:00:18+00:00https://linmob.net/linbits2-weekly-pinephone-news-week29/<p><em>It's sunday, it's Linbits time!</em></p>
<p>This is some the best stuff that happened around the PinePhone this week. <em>Commentary in italics.</em></p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span><h3 id="software-releases-and-improvements">Software: releases and improvements</h3>
<ul>
<li>A new build of <a href="https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/releases/tag/20200715">ArchLinuxARM for the PinePhone</a> was released on July 15th, reaching an important milestone (100th commit merged). _More on this at the bottom of this page.</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/AlexRob12252696/status/1283443658235281408">PureOS bullseye builds</a>. <em><a href="https://www.mobian-project.org">Mobian</a> has been based on "Bullseye" all the time.</em></li>
<li>According to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/bedrocklinux/comments/hrqsat/bedrock_linux_works_on_pine_phone_with_mobian/">redditor InfiniteHawk, BedRock Linux can be used with Mobian on the PinePhone</a>. <em>"Bedrock Linux is a meta Linux distribution which allows users to mix-and-match components from other, typically incompatible distributions."</em> This can e.g. be used to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ht3d4k/blender_runs_on_linux_pinephone/">run Blender on the PinePhone</a>. <em>As different distributions lack different packages you might want or even need, this could prove quite useful. I will likely stick to one distribution using one distribution augmented by flatpaks for now, though. According to InfiniteHawk, <code>rpmfusion</code> has quite a number of packages build for use with Fedora ARM, which certainly makes Fedora more interesting.</em> </li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/fkardame/status/1284270770957570055#m">Manjaro ARM has Lomiri (formerly known as Unity 8) running</a>. <em>See my notes on the UBport Q&A below.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-reading">Worth reading</h3>
<ul>
<li>The obvious first item this week is <a href="https://www.pine64.org/2020/07/15/july-updatepmos-ce-pre-orders-and-new-pinephone-version/">Pine64s July Announcement</a>, published July 15th. PinePhone-related highlights are:
<ul>
<li>PinePhone postmarketOS CE is now on sale,</li>
<li>new PinePhone 3GB/32GB Convergence package with a USB-C hub featuring USB A, video out and LAN for just 50 USD more,</li>
<li>Pine64 work on getting availability of the USB fix for everybody who does not want to do it on their own,</li>
<li>and they have also <em>"approached a vendor and began exploring our options for a slide-out keyboard akin to those used on the Nokia N900."</em>
<em>The new 3GB RAM/32 GB eMMC edition impressed me so much, that I could not help it and ordered one.</em></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23849202">related Hacker News comment thread is interesting, too</a>. </li>
<li>Not much to read, <a href="https://twitter.com/TechShowMX/status/1283926385946484736">just a tweet</a>. <em>#nospoilers</em></li>
<li>lupyuen: <a href="https://lupyuen.github.io/pinetime-rust-mynewt/articles/wayland">Wayland and LVGL on PinePhone with Ubuntu Touch</a> <em>This is quite technical, but nontheless interesting. Also check out <a href="https://twitter.com/MisterTechBlog/status/1282861265547755520">this tweet</a> on what's great about Ubuntu Touch.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-watching">Worth watching</h3>
<ul>
<li>Aral Balkan: <a href="https://ar.al/2020/07/12/live-stream-a-web-site-on-your-phone-with-site.js/">Live Stream: A web site on your phone with Site.js</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/thepine64/status/1283190738516348929">According to Pine64</a>, you should carefully listen around the 14 Minutes mark in order to know what Pine64 is about. <em>This just shows how versatile devices that run "real" Linux can be. Also, <a href="https://www.sitejs.org">site.js</a> and the "Small Web" idea are a lot to my liking.</em></li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2B8FTecVts">Ubuntu Touch Q&A 80</a>. <em>This Q&A is particularly interesting, as the UBports people are joined by some guys from Manjaro, because Lomiri (formerly known as Unity 8) does now run on Manjaro thanks to UBports Marius Gripsgard. Lomiri is without question the most mature mobile Linux shell (Phosh would be second, with Plasma Mobile getting in at a solid third place), so it is great to see it on another distribution that has more and current software packages and is less sandboxed/more tinker friendly than Ubuntu Touch by UBports. Manjaro+Lomiri is one to watch (<a href="https://twitter.com/fkardame/status/1284264730870382594">photos</a>), as even</em> <code>Click</code> <em>is packaged up for Manjaro. Also, the recent Flutter announcement is mentioned.</em></li>
<li>Дмитрий Куртуков: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvsBlW5hvHEsh">pinephone + keyboard + kali linux. Who is your PC now!??</a>. <em>N950 keyboard + PinePhone + Kali Linux = awesome.</em></li>
<li>Carsten Haitzler: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9TkzIKV9gY">PinePhone vs. Z3</a>. <em>This video compares <a href="https://www.enlightenment.org/">Enlightenment</a> on X11 on the PinePhone to <a href="https://www.tizen.org/">Tizen</a> on the Samsung Z3, running the same base libraries. It seems that the binary driver on the Z3 delivers better performance than the open source Lima driver on the Pinephone. In addition to that I think it is worth noting that Enlightenment looks surprisingly good on Mobile; which induced fond memories of <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20191126184404/http://www.shr-project.org/trac">SHR</a>, that featured an UI based on Enlightenment Foundation Libraries (EFL).</em> </li>
<li>middygreen: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT0t4cfQaGo">PureOS on PinePhone - Convergence (sorta)</a>. <em>Self explanatory, isn't it?</em></li>
<li>sadfwesv: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_JuckXcpi4">PinePhone running the latest crust (2020-07-12) capable of 100h standby</a>. <em>PinePhone battery life just keeps getting better.</em></li>
<li>sadfwesv: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce9vZj1r_-E">p-boot seamless display pipeline passover to kernel + some electron fun</a>. <em><a href="https://megous.com/git/p-boot/about/">p-boot</a> looks like the boot loader one would want when playing with more than one distribution at a time. Impressive work by megi!</em></li>
<li>HackersGame: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONLpCiTlTQg">Librem 5 Dogwood Game Emulation</a>. <em>Nice to see some old Nintendo games run on the Librem 5. I wonder how well N64 emulation would work on the PinePhone ...</em></li>
<li>Purism: <a href="https://puri.sm/posts/dogwood-what-to-expect/">Dogwood What to Expect</a>. <em>There are a few people out there that will receive the Librem 5 Dogwood batch — I am in the Evergreen batch — this what they'll get. [added 07/19/2020, 4:45pm CEST]</em> </li>
</ul>
<h3 id="stuff-i-did">Stuff I did</h3>
<p>I have been trying out Manjaro (Phosh) and Huong Tram Linux (aka Arch Linux ARM) and liked the latter better, although both are quite similar adidnd feel faster than Mobian. Receiving phone calls did not work for me — in the beginning of the week, so they might now. Also, <a href="https://linmob.net/2020/07/18/pinephone-daily-driver-challenge-part1-maps-navigation.html">Maps apps</a> got a ton of my attention. I am considering setting up another page for the daily driver challenge, listing my criterias and the software that fulfills these (including information on the state of packaging of these softwares across distributions).</p>