LINux on MOBile - libhandyLINMOB.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.Zola2022-03-19T22:00:00+00:00https://linmob.net/tags/libhandy/feed.xmlWeekly Update (11/2022): A RISC-V handheld, Fedora on the PinePhone Pro, Precursor shipping and new releases of SailfishOS, libhandy and libadwaita2022-03-19T22:00:00+00:002022-03-19T22:00:00+00:00https://linmob.net/weekly-update-11-2022/<p>Eight days of news, and still not a lot that's super Linux on Mobile specific. At least there's been another Ubuntu Touch Q&A, another postmarketOS Service Pack, and it looks like that really need to find the time to have a look at Capyloon.</p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span>
<p><em>Commentary in italics.</em></p>
<h3 id="hardware">Hardware</h3>
<h4 id="amazingly-well-thought-out-raspberry-pi-based-hardware">Amazingly well thought out Raspberry Pi based hardware</h4>
<ul>
<li>Liliputing: <a href="https://liliputing.com/2022/03/pockit-is-a-tiny-modular-computer-with-dozens-of-blocks-that-snap-into-place-to-add-functionality.html">Pockit is a tiny, modular computer with dozens of blocks that snap into place to add functionality</a>. <em>This is so well made. Amazing.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="risc-v-handheld-device">RISC-V handheld device</h4>
<ul>
<li>CNX Software: <a href="https://www.cnx-software.com/2022/03/16/devterm-modular-linux-terminal-risc-v-module-raspberry-pi-cm3/">DevTerm modular Linux terminal gets a RISC-V module compatible with Raspberry Pi CM3</a>. <em>It's powered by an <a href="https://linux-sunxi.org/D1">AllWinner D1 SoC</a>, which is powered by a XuanTie C906 core. ClockworkPi also offer their Raspberry Pi 3 Compute module compatible SOM quite affordably, but the D1 might not be the RISC-V chip you want for reasons <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30689030">discussed on Hacker News</a>.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="crowdfunded-devices-shipping">Crowdfunded devices shipping</h4>
<ul>
<li>Liliputing: <a href="https://liliputing.com/2022/03/precursor-open-hardware-mobile-device-with-an-fpga-is-now-shipping-crowdfunding.html">Precursor open hardware mobile device with an FPGA is now shipping (crowdfunding)</a>. <em>Nice to see it shipping, it was <a href="https://linmob.net/linbits11-weekly-pinephone-news-week38/#other-hardware">announced in September 2020</a>.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="hardware-enablement">Hardware enablement</h3>
<ul>
<li>Liliputing: <a href="https://liliputing.com/2022/03/ubuntu-touch-could-breathe-new-life-into-the-troubled-jingpad-a1-linux-tablet.html">Ubuntu Touch could breathe new life into the troubled JingPad A1 Linux tablet</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="firmware">Firmware</h4>
<ul>
<li>U-Boot fixes for the PinePhone Pro have landed, <a href="https://twitter.com/DanctNIX/status/1504660410200629253#m">which enable the proximity and light sensor to work</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="gnome-ecosystem">GNOME ecosystem</h4>
<ul>
<li>Alexander Mikhaylenko: <a href="https://blogs.gnome.org/alexm/2022/03/19/libadwaita-1-1-libhandy-1-6/">Libadwaita 1.1, Libhandy 1.6</a>. <em>Great new releases!</em></li>
<li>This Week in GNOME: <a href="https://thisweek.gnome.org/posts/2022/03/twig-35/">#35 Software Reviews</a>. <em>I wonder how well Symphony works on a phone...</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="plasma-maui-ecosystem">Plasma/Maui ecosystem</h4>
<ul>
<li>Nate Graham: <a href="https://pointieststick.com/2022/03/11/this-week-in-kde-fewer-korners-more-multi-cursor-better-apps/">This week in KDE: fewer korners, more multi-cursor, better apps</a>.</li>
<li>Nate Graham: <a href="https://pointieststick.com/2022/03/18/this-week-in-kde-back-to-those-15-minute-bugs/">This week in KDE: Back to those 15-minute bugs</a>.</li>
<li>Volker Krause: <a href="https://www.volkerkrause.eu/2022/03/12/kde-itinerary-wikidata-data-reuse-days-2022.html">KDE Itinerary @ Wikidata Data Reuse Days 2022</a>.</li>
<li>KDE Eco: <a href="https://eco.kde.org/blog/2022-03-16-press-release-okular-blue-angel/">First Ever Eco-Certified Computer Program: KDE's Popular PDF Reader Okular</a>.</li>
<li>Qt blog: <a href="https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-for-webassembly-on-mobile-devices">Qt for WebAssembly on mobile devices</a>. <em>WebAssembly is a way to make use of Qt 6* on devices where it's hard or impossible to use Qt otherwise, e.g. iOS devices.</em></li>
<li>Nitrux: <a href="https://nxos.org/weekly-summaries/maui-shell-dev-diaries/">Maui Shell Dev Diaries</a>. <em>I am really looking forward to Maui Shell!</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="distro-releases">Distro releases</h4>
<ul>
<li>An unofficial <a href="https://github.com/nikhiljha/pp-fedora-sdsetup/releases/tag/ppp-0">Fedora image for the PinePhone Pro</a> has been released.</li>
<li><a href="https://postmarketos.org/blog/2022/03/13/v21.12.3-release/">postmarketOS 21.12 Service Pack 3</a> has been released, featuring new builds Dino, Portfolio and kernel updates for a few devices.</li>
<li>Dan Johansen: <a href="https://blog.strits.dk/this-month-in-manjaro-february-2022/">This month in Manjaro (February 2022)</a>. <em>Nice progress!</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="sailfish-os">Sailfish OS</h4>
<ul>
<li>jovirkku: <a href="https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/release-notes-vanha-rauma-4-4-0/10656">[Release notes] Vanha Rauma 4.4.0 </a>. <em>Notable browser and camera improvements, and a bunch of bug and CVE fixes. Make sure to watch Leszek's video below!</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="ubports">UBports</h4>
<ul>
<li>UBports: <a href="http://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/your-biweekly-ubports-news-with-a-buggy-new-design-3840">Your biweekly UBports news with a (buggy) new design</a>. <em>Foundation Elections, a UBports Teach team, new apps, and more.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="capyloon">Capyloon</h4>
<ul>
<li>Capyloon (B2G/Firefox OS reboot) has also had <a href="https://capyloon.org/releases.html">another release</a>, featuring a number of changes important for privacy.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-noting">Worth noting</h3>
<ul>
<li>If you're tired of customizing your GSettings on your Linux Phone by over and over again, <a href="https://twitter.com/jistr/status/1502774618784165888">you can now use Ansible</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/TheJackiMonster/status/1502771537253912577/">GNUnet messenger is getting closer to release</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-reading">Worth reading</h3>
<h4 id="pine64-community-update">PINE64 Community Update</h4>
<ul>
<li>PINE64: <a href="https://www.pine64.org/2022/03/15/march-update-introducing-the-quartzpro64/">March Update: Introducing the QuartzPro64</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="first-impressions-of-linux-phones">First Impressions of Linux Phones</h4>
<ul>
<li>Nirik: <a href="https://www.scrye.com/wordpress/nirik/2022/03/17/pinephone-pro/">Pinephone pro</a>. <em>Nice first impressions with a focus on upstreamability!</em></li>
<li>etbe: <a href="https://etbe.coker.com.au/2022/03/15/librem-5-first-impression/">Librem 5 First Impression</a>. <em>I have been pondering writing a follow-up post on how the Librem 5 is doing now (I've been using it for the past week,<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#1">1</a></sup> and it did good enough for me to not go back to the PinePhone), and that GNOME Keyring thing is something I'd spend a paragraph or two on as well.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="powervr-mesa-driver">PowerVR Mesa Driver</h4>
<ul>
<li>TuxPhones: <a href="https://tuxphones.com/what-does-the-new-powervr-driver-mean-for-mobile/">What the new PowerVR driver means for mobile</a>. <em>Great post by Martijn!</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="not-a-new-device-just-a-cellular-plan">Not a new device, just a cellular plan</h4>
<ul>
<li>Purism: <a href="https://puri.sm/posts/purism-launches-librem-simple/">Purism Launches Librem SIMple: A Cellular Service that Protects Digital Privacy</a>. <em>Affordability, like so many things in life, is a relative term.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-watching">Worth watching</h3>
<h4 id="pinephone-pro-impressions">PinePhone (Pro) Impressions</h4>
<ul>
<li>Yomen Tohmaz: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbiObOy3YsA">PinePhone Review: Half a Year In</a>.</li>
<li>Canadian Bitcoiners: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z7oaTLBfsI">PinePhone Pro Update - Almost Ready For Daily Driver</a>. <em>Minor nitpick: The front camera changed since the original announcement to a different part that should be better, but is unsupported in Linux.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="pine64-community-update-1">PINE64 Community Update</h4>
<ul>
<li>PINE64: <a href="https://tilvids.com/w/5nAaa47kxv82MU3kAFsnKE">March Update: Introducing the QuartzPro64</a>. <em>Nice video synopsis by PizzaLovingNerd!</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="ubuntu-touch">Ubuntu Touch</h4>
<ul>
<li>UBports: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bMOb3xtXFA">Ubuntu Touch Q&A 117</a>. <em>Florian and Alfred talk about what's new in Ubuntu Touch: A new installer release, three new devices supported (Lenovo Tab M10 X605, the JingPad, and the ShiftPhones 6mq), VSCodium on the Open-Store and Community Questions.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="sailfish-4-4">Sailfish 4.4</h4>
<ul>
<li>Leszek Lesner: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmgPeK156Yg">SailfishOS 4.4 - What's new!?</a>. <em>Like with every new SailfishOS release, Leszek did a video to show off what's new.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="spanish-talks">Spanish talks</h4>
<ul>
<li>Nucleo Linux Bolivio: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IME7w7CZhQ4&t=289s">Webinar Comparando Celulares de Linux</a>. <em>I don't speak spanish, but I know that Amos Batto is knowledgable when it comes to Linux on Phones.</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="shorts">Shorts</h4>
<ul>
<li>NOT A FBI Honey Pot: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sPQg9wHrxKk">watch anime from The CLI on your Pinephone!!!!!!</a></li>
<li>Jozef Mlich: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq14LUck4e8">glacier-contacts demo</a>. <em>Nemo Mobile progress!</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="something-missing">Something missing?</h3>
<p>If your projects' cool story (or your awesome video or nifty blog post or ...) is missing and you don't want that to happen again, please get in touch via social media or email!</p>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="1"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">1</sup>
<p>I did not do so, as <a href="https://twitter.com/linuxphoneapps/status/1504817846622298140">working on getting LinuxPhoneApps.org launched</a> is just way more important.</p>
</div>
My Linux Phone Setup (November 2021)2021-11-06T20:32:18+00:002021-11-12T14:31:00+00:00https://linmob.net/my-linux-phone-setup-november-2021/<p>I wrote up what I did then use in <a href="https://linmob.net/my-setup-with-danctnix-archlinuxarm/">January</a>. Back then I thought I would update this at the latest after six months, but … well, let's update it now. Back then I only wrote about the PinePhone, and as it's the Linux Phone I use most regularly (and I likely would not use different apps on another device), I'll limit my post to my PinePhone's DanctNIX install again.</p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span><h2 id="what-changed">What changed?</h2>
<p>When I started to write this post, I thought that my setup did not change that much – writing it made me realize this is not true, and a lot of changes have accumulated. But that perception also was not entirely wrong: If I had not had a brief stint with postmarketOS Edge, it would have even still been the very same DanctNIX install, since it just does not break despite me trying hard with all the software I try for LinuxPhoneApps.org. I stopped using Flatpaks, as it had somehow started to use more than 7 Gigabytes on my phone. This did not bother me too much until I required more space to try out <a href="https://linmob.net/my-linux-phone-setup-november-2021/#waydroid">WayDroid</a>, but then I had to do something and removing Flatpaks was the easiest option.</p>
<h3 id="gnome-web-as-default-web-browser-and-as-web-app-runner">GNOME Web as default web browser (and as web app runner)</h3>
<p>Let's start with a big change, as browsers are apps I think we all use a lot: I made <strong><a href="https://apps.gnome.org/app/org.gnome.Epiphany/">GNOME Web</a></strong> (epiphany) my default browser: It's still slower than Firefox (which I still have installed), but it got faster enough with the past releases<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#1">1</a></sup> so that using it is bearable, mainly because it's faster at starting up, which is a welcome benefit. Since I try to mostly use light-weight websites on my PinePhone if possible, it's good enough. Another nice benefit of GNOME Web is gesture navigation to go back and forth. </p>
<p>Also, with Firefox dropping the SSB feature, my Matrix client <strong><a href="https://hydrogen.element.io">Hydrogen</a></strong> is now running as GNOME Web web app (<a href="https://linmob.net/my-linux-phone-setup-november-2021/#matrix-hydrogen">more on that below</a>).</p>
<p><em>The following is the mostly the old post, but ordered into categories.</em></p>
<h3 id="secondary-browsers">Secondary browsers</h3>
<h4 id="angelfish">Angelfish</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Angelfish</strong> (plasma-angelfish, AUR): The Plasma Mobile browser that I use a lot.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I still have <a href="https://apps.kde.org/angelfish/">Angelfish</a> installed, but I use it less often these days. It progressed nicely though, its adblocker is great, and on Plasma Mobile it can be used to turn websites into web apps.</p>
<h4 id="firefox">Firefox</h4>
<p>Regarding Firefox, you may remember <a href="https://gitlab.com/1peter10/mobile-config-firefox/-/tree/proton-tab-hack">my adjusted configuration of mobile-config-firefox</a>, which I still use. Also, I am using two plugins in Firefox:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/">uBlock origin</a> (duh!), and</li>
<li><a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-redirect/">Privacy Redirect</a>, to avoid slowly loading, JavaScript-heavy social media websites and get to the content faster.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="calendaring-tasks-and-email">Calendaring, tasks and email</h3>
<h4 id="calindori">Calindori</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Calindori</strong> (calindori-git (AUR)): Plasma Mobile calendar. I am going to <a href="https://dimitris.cc/kde/2020/12/30/Online_Calendars.html">set it up to sync</a>, but I didn't not get around to that yet.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I never got around to setting up sync, and these days Calindori is <a href="https://invent.kde.org/plasma-mobile/calindori/-/issues/18">looking for a new maintainer</a>.</p>
<h4 id="now-gnome-calendar-adaptive">Now: GNOME Calendar (adaptive)</h4>
<p>I switched to the <a href="https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/debs/gnome-calendar">adaptive downstream</a> build of GNOME Calendar, as that integrates seamlessly with Phosh and GNOME Online Accounts. To install it, I used <a href="https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/community/phosh/gnome-calendar-mobile">Manjaro's PKGBUILD</a> — these days it's also packaged in DanctNIX (gnome-calendar-mobile). Now, this adaptation build of GNOME Calendar is not perfect, e.g. it lacks a day view (just like upstream GNOME Calendar does, where GNOME Shell somewhat delivers a day view), which is something you'd really want on a phone. Also, it does not fit the screen perfectly without <code>scale-to-fit org.gnome.calendar on</code> yet. We'll get there, and being able to sync calendars with my Nextcloud is great! </p>
<h4 id="other-option-kalendar">Other option: Kalendar</h4>
<p>If I knew how to integrate my Nextcloud calendar set up for it (namely which settings app I have to install) or if I ran Plasma Mobile (which I will certainly give another shot once Modem Manager lands), I would likely use <a href="https://invent.kde.org/pim/kalendar">Kalendar</a> instead, as it has that neat day view. I have it installed (AUR: kalendar-git) and try to monitor its progression.</p>
<h4 id="evolution">Evolution</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Evolution</strong> (evolution): Mail client. This is not adjusted for the mobile form factor at all, but once a few elements are hidden, it works ok. I mainly use it, because I had serious bad luck with Geary, which sometimes would not fetch my mails.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>While Geary has since improved and Geary upstream works great on phones since GNOME 40, I am still using Evolution with scale-to-fit. I just like to have an option for plain text email and GPG.</p>
<h4 id="gnome-to-do">GNOME To Do</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>To Do</strong> (gnome-to-do-mobile, Manjaro package): This is the mobile-friendly downstream of Gnome To Do which basically is a simple To Do manager that integrates nicely with Nextcloud. I had to steal Manjaro's package here, I would have prefered to just steal their PKGBUILD but was unable to find it on their GitLab.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I still use GNOME To Do, but switched to the regular package, and made it work with <code>scale-to-fit org.gnome.Todo on</code>. </p>
<h3 id="image-viewing">Image viewing</h3>
<h4 id="image-viewer-eog">Image Viewer (eog)</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Image Viewer</strong> (eog): This really should be preinstalled.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="now-image-roll">Now: Image Roll</h4>
<p>I am no longer using <code>eog</code>, but switched to <a href="https://github.com/weclaw1/image-roll">Image Roll</a> (AUR: image-roll) instead, as it just has a few more features that are nice to have. Also, it is written in Rust.<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#2">2</a></sup></p>
<h3 id="video">Video</h3>
<h4 id="mpv">mpv</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>mpv</strong> (mpv): Always good to have this one around.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Still true. Admittedly, I don't really watch video on my PinePhone (or any other phone), which is something that might change once I have the keyboard dock (to have better battery life) or after GStreamer 1.20 lands, which will help with hardware accelerated video playback.</p>
<h4 id="purism-stream">Purism Stream</h4>
<p>Another app I used while it worked was <a href="https://source.puri.sm/todd/Stream">Purism's work-in-progress Stream app</a>, which is a YouTube app that makes use of invidious instances to preserve user privacy. Currently, it seems to have issues in finding a suitable instance, which sounds fixable – but sadly not for me.</p>
<h3 id="music-streaming">Music streaming</h3>
<h4 id="youtube-audio-youplay">YouTube audio: YouPlay</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>YouPlay</strong> (not packaged): A simple YouTube music downloader. I rarely use it, but it was fun to try to write a stupid local installer. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I did not reinstall <a href="https://codeberg.org/ralfhersel/youplay">YouPlay</a>, since I don't listen to music often and when I do, YouTube is not typically the place I go for music. If you are looking for a YouTube app for Music, I'd still recommend it or <a href="https://invent.kde.org/plasma-mobile/audiotube">AudioTube</a>.</p>
<h4 id="new-spot">New: Spot</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://github.com/xou816/spot">Spot</a></strong> (AUR: spot-client) is an excellent app for Spotify Premium subscribers, built in GTK4 and libadwaita. I know, it doesn't make sense to subscribe given I rarely listen to music, but since I am currently subscribed to that service, I use Spot.</p>
<h3 id="file-sync">File sync</h3>
<h4 id="nextcloud-client">Nextcloud Client</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Nextcloud</strong> (nextcloud-client): Works terribly (scale-to-fit com.nextcloud.desktopclient.nextcloud on helps with initial setup), but I had to start using this as Notes (gnome-notes) would take ages to sync my Notes folder because it does not seem to cache locally. The good thing is: It only has to be setup once.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Still using this for an always reliable file option sync for whenever WebDAV is not working because of bad connectivity.</p>
<h3 id="note-taking">Note taking</h3>
<h4 id="notorious">Notorious</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Notorious</strong> (notorious-git(AUR)): Replaced Gnome Notes as my editor when I switched over to the above sync solution. It's fine, but I might try ThiefMD (AUR: thiefmd) as well soon.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Same here, in conjunction with Nextcloud Client this is an important tool for collecting items I might otherwise forget for LinBits or LINMOBapps.</p>
<h3 id="passwords-and-authentication">Passwords and authentication</h3>
<h4 id="gnome-password-safe">GNOME Password Safe</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Password Safe</strong> (gnome-passwordsafe): Client to use KeePass databases. While it was dreadfully slow with my database earlier, this improved lately, so that I now longer need to use KeePassXC on my phone.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I am still happy with Password Safe. I would like it to be faster, but it works well enough.</p>
<h4 id="otpclient">OTPClient</h4>
<p>For OTP, I have added <a href="https://github.com/paolostivanin/OTPClient">OTPClient</a> (AUR: otpclient), which works well and is a decent and seemingly often overlooked app in the OTP space. Given Numberstations new import and export feature, I might switch to Numberstation eventually though for its integration with Megapixels.</p>
<h3 id="messaging">Messaging</h3>
<h4 id="multi-protocol-pidgin">Multi protocol (Pidgin)</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Pidgin</strong> (pidgin): This is a piece of really old GTK2-software, but as its <em>libpurple</em> is what Chatty is building upon, I decided to add it to my setup. For it to run, Chatty has to be killed, which is why I had to add a script and a launcher to easily do this. Pidgin is interesting as it supports many services such as Discord, Signal, Threema etc. via plugin. I'll report back on this once I've set up some of these services.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Sadly, I never got to a point to share a success story - while I got Discord and Signal to a somewhat workable state, it did not work well enough: Receiving messages and finding chats was hit and miss. Therefore, I no longer have Pidgin installed.</p>
<h4 id="matrix-hydrogen">Matrix: Hydrogen</h4>
<p>While I was using <a href="https://hydrogen.element.io">Hydrogen</a> (in Firefox) in January and I am using it now again, this has not been the case for the entire time. I have dabbled with <strong><a href="https://nheko-reborn.github.io/">Nheko</a></strong>, which is pretty great since their 0.8.2 release, and <strong><a href="https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/fractal/-/tree/fractal-next">Fractal Next</a></strong>, the GTK4/libadwaita future of Fractal (which is not really ready yet), which is perfectly alright for unreleased software.
There's only one reason I switched away from Nheko and went back to Hydrogen: Nheko is only available on the AUR, and requires a (time-intensive) rebuild whenever one of its dependencies gets upgraded, which is happening quite often on Arch Linux ARM.</p>
<h4 id="new-axolotl-signal-client">New: Axolotl (Signal client)</h4>
<p>Instead of dabbling with Pidgin to obtain a working Signal client, I ended up installing <a href="https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl">Axolotl</a> (AUR: axolotl-bin). Installing it is easy enough from the AUR, which is recycling the <a href="https://github.com/nuehm-arno/axolotl-mobian-package">excellent Debian package work done by Arno Nühm</a>. <del>Sadly, anything Electron still comes with some XWayland blurriness by default,</del>While Axolotl from 1.0.7 going forward is no longer blurry (thanks Ferenc for your <a href="https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl/pull/619">great work</a> and telling me about it!), I opted to go with a GNOME Web based setup to interface with it. To do so I downloaded the <a href="https://github.com/nuehm-arno/axolotl-mobian-package/blob/main/axolotl-server.desktop">axolotl-server.desktop</a> file from Arno's repo and put it into <code>/etc/xdg/autostart/</code>, opened <code>127.0.0.1:9080</code> in GNOME Web and tapped "Install Site as Web Application". This way, Axolotl is always running, and I don't need to toggle Squeekboard in order to type something. Also, once I use the phone, I'll get a notification if I have new Signal messages.<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#3">3</a></sup></p>
<h4 id="new-xmpp-dino-feature-handy-branch">New: XMPP: Dino (feature/handy branch)</h4>
<p>For XMPP I am relying on the <a href="https://github.com/dino/dino/tree/feature/handy">adaptive/mobile-friendly libhandy-enabled branch of Dino</a>, which I also use on my desktop. The main reason for this is OMEMO encryption and interoperability with my other clients - while Chatty can support XMPP and also OMEMO, it did not play well with my Dino install on desktop, so that I did not see messages I wrote in Chatty on Dino and vice versa.<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#4">4</a></sup></p>
<h4 id="new-kdeltachat-deltachat-clients">New: KDeltaChat (DeltaChat clients)</h4>
<p><a href="https://git.sr.ht/~link2xt/kdeltachat">KDeltaChat</a> (kdeltachat-git) is a Kirigami client for DeltaChat, the email-based messenger, so that you don't have to use the Electron-based DeltaChat desktop app (which also works on mobile). I recommend giving it a try, I'm at delta@linmob.net.</p>
<h4 id="telegram-desktop">Telegram Desktop</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Telegram desktop</strong> (telegram-desktop): I am not a massive fan of this service, but there are activities in my life that basically require using this. While I also have Telegram set up in Chatty (and thus Pidgin, which is way more useful as an interface than Chatty currently is), I sometimes start this app to browse Telegram. With a <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/desktop-files/fixes/telegramdesktop.desktop">modified .desktop file</a> it works just fine.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="now-telegrand">Now: Telegrand</h4>
<p>I am no longer running Telegram desktop, but use a git-build of <a href="https://github.com/melix99/telegrand">Telegrand</a> (a GTK4/libadwaita telegram client; AUR: telegrand-git), which I would only recommend if you don't use Telegram a lot for now.</p>
<h3 id="news-and-podcasts">News and Podcasts</h3>
<h4 id="newsflash">NewsFlash</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>NewsFlash</strong> (newsflash-git (AUR)): I use this to follow the news, as I am an RSS addict since I was first told about RSS. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I removed NewsFlash (I just did not use it a lot and only realized I still had it installed during updates) and just use <a href="https://miniflux.app">Miniflux</a>'s web interface in GNOME Web these days. This does not mean that NewsFlash is not a great app, it definitely is - and you can get it from the Arch Linux ARM community repo these days, the package name is <code>newsflash</code>.</p>
<h4 id="gnome-podcasts">GNOME Podcasts</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Podcasts</strong> (gnome-podcasts): I recommend importing an OPML file you exported from your previous Podcast client for this app, as you would have to hunt for feed URLs (which for some podcasts is unacceptably hard) otherwise.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="now-kasts">Now: Kasts</h4>
<p>These days I am using <strong><a href="https://invent.kde.org/plasma-mobile/kasts">Kasts</a></strong> (AUR: kasts-git) instead, as it has tons of neat features, including Podcast discovery via podcastindex.org or chapter markers. Also, it manages to inhibit PinePhone suspend, so that you can actually listen to full episodes. IMHO, Kasts is one of the best apps for the PinePhone, period.</p>
<h3 id="social-media">Social Media</h3>
<h4 id="twitter-cawbird">Twitter: Cawbird</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Cawbird</strong> (cawbird-git (AUR)): Twitter client. I switched to git when the 1.3.x release appeared.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I am now running the normal package from the community repository (currently 1.4.2), and it's still great and quite got a bit smoother.</p>
<h4 id="reddit-quickddit">Reddit: Quickddit</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Quickddit</strong> (quickddit (AUR)): Reddit client, originally developed for Ubuntu Touch. It's quite nice, and I just prefer it's wider feature set to Giara, which would be more native on Phosh.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="now-headlines-previously-gtkeddit">Now: Headlines (previously Gtkeddit)</h4>
<p>No longer installed. For a while I went with <a href="https://giara.gabmus.org/">Giara</a>, these days I am using <strong><a href="https://gitlab.com/caveman250/Headlines">Headlines</a></strong>, a GTK4/libadwaita Reddit client written in C++, which does not match the feature set, but is smoother enough to give up on Multireddits.</p>
<h4 id="mastodon-tootle">Mastodon: Tootle</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Tootle</strong> (tootle-git (AUR)): Mobile friendly Mastodon client. It's not perfect, but good enough for some light Mastodon interactions.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I am still using Tootle. For a while I was using the 2.0-alpha1 GTK4/libadwaita variant of it, but since then libadwaita development has outrun Tootle. Also, with Arch shipping Vala 0.54.3 currently, it's generally difficult to build Tootle on Arch Linux ARM.</p>
<p>I also use <a href="https://pinafore.social">Pinafore.social</a> as a GNOME Web app from time to time, as it allows to differentiate between all notifications and mentions. </p>
<h3 id="utilities">Utilities</h3>
<h4 id="backups">Backups</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Backups</strong> (deja-dup): To restore my backup and to backup my current setup. An alternative to this would be "Pika Backup", which is based on borg instead of duplicity.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I am still running deja-dup, having upgraded it to the deja-dup-git AUR package a while ago, which uses GTK4 and libadwaita and fits the screen perfectly. Once the release happens (likely around the time GNOME 42 gets release, but I am just guessing here), I'll add it to <a href="https://linuxphoneapps.org">LinuxPhoneApps</a>.</p>
<h4 id="gnome-weather">GNOME Weather</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Weather</strong> (gnome-weather-git (AUR)): The mobile patches that have been available in Gnome Weather for PureOS and Mobian in a while seem to be making it upstream. The current version has issues when you install.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>Still using Weather (now <code>gnome-weather</code> from the extra repo).</p>
<h4 id="new-birdie">New: Birdie</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://github.com/Dejvino/birdie">Birdie</a></strong> is a simple alarm clock.</p>
<h4 id="new-gnome-disks">New: GNOME Disks</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-disk-utility/">Disks</a></strong> (gnome-disk-utility) is fully mobile friendly. I rarely use it, but I keep it installed for these rare use-cases.</p>
<h4 id="new-gnome-maps">New: GNOME Maps</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://apps.gnome.org/app/org.gnome.Maps/">GNOME Maps</a></strong> (gnome-maps) is one of these apps, that's partially there – if I required navigation, it would not work well for me, as that part does not fit mobile screens well. I am just using it to check were I am if I ever get lost or to plan my routes manually, and for that it's more than adequate.</p>
<h4 id="new-kde-itinerary">New: KDE Itinerary</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://apps.kde.org/itinerary/">KDE Itinerary</a></strong> (itinerary) is a digital travel assistant supporting many features, including importing bookings and tickets. I used to it to travel by train in Germany successfully. It's great.</p>
<h4 id="new-ktrip">New: KTrip</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://apps.kde.org/ktrip/">KTrip</a></strong> is the matching travel companion app, that allows you to find journeys between specified locations. I used the <a href="https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/community/plamo-gear/ktrip">Manjaro PKGBUILD</a> to install it.</p>
<h4 id="new-pinephone-compass">New: PinePhone Compass</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://gitlab.com/lgtrombetta/pinephone-compass">PinePhone Compass</a></strong> is just a compass app. I mostly use it for fun.</p>
<h4 id="new-phosh-antispam-and-visual-voicemail">New: Phosh Antispam and Visual Voicemail</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://gitlab.com/kop316/phosh-antispam">Phosh Antispam</a></strong> and <strong><a href="https://gitlab.com/kop316/vvmplayer">Visual Voicemail</a></strong> are two great utilities developed by <em>kop316</em> that do just what their name suggests. I have them mainly installed to check them out, as my cellular carrier does not even support Visual Voicemail. For Antispam I would like to have a Blacklist, as I am to lazy to reformat all phone numbers in my contacts to make sure white listing works - spam calls are way less of a problem in Germany and are limited to a handful of reoccuring numbers in my case.</p>
<h4 id="new-siglo-infinitime-client">New: Siglo (InfiniTime client)</h4>
<p><strong><a href="https://github.com/alexr4535/siglo">Siglo</a></strong> (siglo) is an app I only use when something went wrong, or, to be more precise, when I managed to not charge my PineTime in too long, so that it turned off. Connecting it with Siglo sets the time, which is quite an important feature on a watch, right?</p>
<h3 id="no-longer-installed-and-not-replaced">No longer installed and not replaced</h3>
<h4 id="sip-and-more-jami">SIP and more: Jami</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>Jami</strong> (jami-gnome): <a href="https://jami.net/">Jami</a> is an interesting service (you may know it under its previous name GNU Ring); unfortunately I don't know anyone who uses it. It can also be a SIP app, altough calls did not work out-of-the-box for me (and I did not have the time to tinker yet).</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I removed Jami after GNOME Calls shipped working SIP support.</p>
<h4 id="games-supertuxkart">Games: SuperTuxKart</h4>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><strong>SuperTuxKart</strong> (supertuxkart): Once <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/config/supertuxkart/config.xml"><code>~/.config/supertuxkart/config-0.10/</code></a> and the <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/desktop-files/fixes/supertuxkart.desktop">launcher</a> are adjusted, the game works ok, at least with the less graphically challenging maps. I think it's just running on the CPU and not using the GPU, but I am not sure about that. Also, the proximity sensor interferes with it, which is annoying, but there seems to be a <a href="https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11168&pid=77588#pid77588">simple way to fix this</a>. </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>No longer installed. Sorry, I just don't game.</p>
<h4 id="display-tweaks">Display tweaks</h4>
<blockquote>
<p>Also, I installed:</p>
<ul>
<li>wlr-randr and yad to use <a href="https://puri.sm/posts/easy-librem-5-app-development-scale-the-screen/">the script in this old blog post by Purism</a>. The script is quite helpful, and I look forward to doing more with yad in the future. Also, tor and tor-socks are installed, but that will follow later.</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This script is no longer necessary, as the GNOME Control Center app (settings) now has a similar feature.</p>
<h3 id="waydroid">WayDroid</h3>
<p>As mentioned above, I have <a href="https://waydro.id/">WayDroid</a> (waydroid) installed. I use it in single window mode - when I use it, which is quite rare. Aside from its startup time, WayDroid is quite fast once it's running. Sadly, it's also good at depleting the battery.
Here's what I installed on WayDroid:</p>
<ul>
<li>FDroid,</li>
<li>Aurora Store (a front-end for Google Play),</li>
<li>Discord (I wish there Web app was somewhat responsive).</li>
</ul>
<p>I rarely use WayDroid though. Native apps are what works better, and what's necessary for an attractive platform.<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#5">5</a></sup></p>
<h2 id="further-modifications">Further modifications</h2>
<p>Let's keep this short:</p>
<ul>
<li>I am running <a href="https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk">Biktorgj's Modem firmware</a>,</li>
<li>this <a href="https://github.com/1peter10/linuxphone-tweaks/blob/main/etc/environment">is my /etc/environment</a>, </li>
<li>and I use <a href="https://git.kescher.at/jeremy.kescher/kescher-archpp/src/branch/testing/eg25-autorestart">this</a> to make the modem more reliable. </li>
</ul>
<p>I also replaced <code>gstreamer</code> with <code>gstreamer-git</code>.</p>
<h2 id="what-s-keeping-me-from-using-the-pinephone-as-a-daily-driver">What's keeping me from using the PinePhone as a daily driver?</h2>
<p>Aside from occasional reliability issues, and a few non-essential proprietary services (but that might even work with <a href="https://microg.org/">microG</a> on WayDroid), I might miss<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#6">6</a></sup>, it's mostly three things:</p>
<ul>
<li>Battery life, and</li>
<li>Speed,<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#7">7</a></sup></li>
<li>Camera.</li>
</ul>
<p>While general PinePhone battery life is okay, screen on time is just not long enough for my use - charging throughout the day would be necessary, but is not always possible. I hope that the PinePhone Pro is going to be better with regards to battery life, but even if it does not, it will at least most likely fix my other issues. The PinePhone Keyboard accessory shows that an external battery case is possible, so a fix is nigh, if not available yet.</p>
<p>To conclude: <em>We're getting there!</em></p>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="1"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">1</sup>
<p>GNOME Web 40.3 powered by WebKitGTK 2.34.1 is what I am currently using.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="2"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">2</sup>
<p><em>Please note:</em> I stopped compiling Rust apps (like image-roll, telegrand, fractal-next, spot-client or gnome-podcasts and libraries like libdeltachat on the PinePhone and instead compile them on my <a href="https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv8/rockchip/asus-chromebook-flip-c101pa">ARM Chromebook</a>, which also runs Arch Linux ARM. The same goes for everything Electron (mainly for disk size reasons), or large libraries like <a href="https://github.com/tdlib/td">tdlib</a>. If you want to know how to setup the Arch User Repository (AUR) and ZRAM (which is also necessary on my Chromebook), see <a href="https://linmob.net/pinephone-building-plasma-mobile-apps-from-the-aur/">this old post of mine</a>.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="3"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">3</sup>
<p>Tapping the notification does not open the Web App, sadly - but that's okay. If you are depending on push notifications: Those are a hard challenge (just look at Google-free AOSP ROMs) and are unlikely to happen soon. That said, if you are as much as an phone addict as I am, you're looking at that screen multiple times per hour anyway, so do you really need push notifications?</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="4"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">4</sup>
<p>If you want to run Dino, you can use <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/pkgbuilds/-/tree/main/dino-mobile-git">my PKGBUILD script</a> to install it.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="5"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">5</sup>
<p>Make no mistake, I am very happy that Waydroid is a thing - for phones and also the Linux desktop. I contributed to their fundraiser, and you should too.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="6"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">6</sup>
<p>I acknowledge I am privileged here since I don't need MMS or banking apps to work, which many other people do need.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="7"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">7</sup>
<p>With regard to speed: PinePhone feels faster and smoother than it did in January, and in theory I could attempt the <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@PINE64/107233869420315079">eMMC hardware modification</a> by symmetrist (<a href="https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/PINE64_PinePhone_(pine64-pinephone)#eMMC">documented on the postmarketOS wiki</a>) that's being discussed currently.</p>
</div>
My current setup with ArchLinuxARM/DanctNIX mobile2021-01-09T00:30:00+00:002021-01-09T00:30:00+00:00https://linmob.net/my-setup-with-danctnix-archlinuxarm/<p><em>I promised to write about it in last <a href="https://linmob.net/2021/01/03/linbits26-weekly-linux-phone-news-week53.html">LinBits</a>, so here you go.</em></p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span>
<p>Recently, I decided to re-do my months old eMMC install of ArchLinuxARM/DanctNIX mobile, which has been my main PinePhone OS for quite a while now. I wanted to switch to the F2FS file system, and loose some clutter that had accumulated in various attempts to try out software for <a href="https://linmobapps.frama.io">LINMOBapps</a>, where I had neglected to write a PKGBUILD, but had just build and installed the program from source, making uninstall a tedious process. </p>
<h3 id="choosing-default-apps">Choosing default apps</h3>
<p>I tried to be considerate and only install the programs I really need and use.</p>
<p>In particular, I installed:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Angelfish</strong> (plasma-angelfish, AUR): The Plasma Mobile browser that I use a lot.</li>
<li><strong>Backups</strong> (deja-dup): To restore my backup and to backup my current setup. An alternative to this would be "Pika Backup", which is based on borg instead of duplicity.</li>
<li><strong>Calindori</strong> (calindori-git (AUR)): Plasma Mobile calendar. I am going to <a href="https://dimitris.cc/kde/2020/12/30/Online_Calendars.html">set it up to sync</a>, but I didn't not get around to that yet.</li>
<li><strong>Cawbird</strong> (cawbird-git (AUR)): Twitter client. I switched to git when the 1.3.x release appeared.</li>
<li><strong>Evolution</strong> (evolution): Mail client. This is not adjusted for the mobile form factor at all, but once a few elements are hidden, it works ok. I mainly use it, because I had serious bad luck with Geary, which sometimes would not fetch my mails.</li>
<li><strong>Image Viewer</strong> (eog): This really should be preinstalled.</li>
<li><strong>Jami</strong> (jami-gnome): <a href="https://jami.net/">Jami</a> is an interesting service (you may know it under its previous name GNU Ring); unfortunately I don't know anyone who uses it. It can also be a SIP app, altough calls did not work out-of-the-box for me (and I did not have the time to tinker yet).</li>
<li><strong>mpv</strong> (mpv): Always good to have this one around.</li>
<li><strong>NewsFlash</strong> (newsflash-git (AUR)): I use this to follow the news, as I am an RSS addict since I was first told about RSS. It's a Rust app, you can download my build <a href="https://linmob.uber.space/pkgs/newsflash-git-731.9f4b901-1-any.pkg.tar.xz">here</a> (pacman -U filename) to install.</li>
<li><strong>Nextcloud</strong> (nextcloud-client): Works terribly (scale-to-fit com.nextcloud.desktopclient.nextcloud on helps with initial setup), but I had to start using this as Notes (gnome-notes) would take ages to sync my Notes folder because it does not seem to cache locally. The good thing is: It only has to be setup once.</li>
<li><strong>Notorious</strong> (notorious-git(AUR)): Replaced Gnome Notes as my editor when I switched over to the above sync solution. It's fine, but I might try ThiefMD (AUR: thiefmd) as well soon.</li>
<li><strong>Password Safe</strong> (gnome-passwordsafe): Client to use KeePass databases. While it was dreadfully slow with my database earlier, this improved lately, so that I now longer need to use KeePassXC on my phone.</li>
<li><strong>Pidgin</strong> (pidgin): This is a piece of really old GTK2-software, but as its <em>libpurple</em> is what Chatty is building upon, I decided to add it to my setup. For it to run, Chatty has to be killed, which is why I had to add a script and a launcher to easily do this. Pidgin is interesting as it supports many services such as Discord, Signal, Threema etc. via plugin. I'll report back on this once I've set up some of these services.</li>
<li><strong>Podcasts</strong> (gnome-podcasts): I recommend importing an OPML file you exported from your previous Podcast client for this app, as you would have to hunt for feed URLs (which for some podcasts is unacceptably hard) otherwise.</li>
<li><strong>Quickddit</strong> (quickddit (AUR)): Reddit client, originally developed for Ubuntu Touch. It's quite nice, and I just prefer it's wider feature set to Giara, which would be more native on Phosh.</li>
<li><strong>SuperTuxKart</strong> (supertuxkart): Once <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/config/supertuxkart/config.xml"><code>~/.config/supertuxkart/config-0.10/</code></a> and the <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/desktop-files/fixes/supertuxkart.desktop">launcher</a> are adjusted, the game works ok, at least with the less graphically challenging maps. I think it's just running on the CPU and not using the GPU, but I am not sure about that. Also, the proximity sensor interferes with it, which is annoying, but there seems to be a <a href="https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11168&pid=77588#pid77588">simple way to fix this</a>. </li>
<li><strong>Telegram desktop</strong> (telegram-desktop): I am not a massive fan of this service, but there are activities in my life that basically require using this. While I also have Telegram set up in Chatty (and thus Pidgin, which is way more useful as an interface than Chatty currently is), I sometimes start this app to browse Telegram. With a <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/desktop-files/fixes/telegramdesktop.desktop">modified .desktop file</a> it works just fine.</li>
<li><strong>To Do</strong> (gnome-to-do-mobile, Manjaro package): This is the mobile-friendly downstream of Gnome To Do which basically is a simple To Do manager that integrates nicely with Nextcloud. I had to steal Manjaro's package here, I would have prefered to just steal their PKGBUILD but was unable to find it on their gitlab.</li>
<li><strong>Tootle</strong> (tootle-git (AUR)): Mobile friendly Mastodon client. It's not perfect, but good enough for some light Mastodon interactions.</li>
<li><strong>Weather</strong> (gnome-weather-git (AUR)): The mobile patches that have been available in Gnome Weather for PureOS and Mobian in a while seem to be making it upstream. The current version has issues when you install </li>
<li><strong>YouPlay</strong> (not packaged, <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/scripts/youplay-installer.sh">install script</a>): A simple YouTube music downloader. I rarely use it, but it was fun to try to write a stupid local installer.
Also, I installed:</li>
<li>wlr-randr and yad to use <a href="https://puri.sm/posts/easy-librem-5-app-development-scale-the-screen/">the script in this old blog post by Purism</a>. The script is quite helpful, and I look forward to doing more with yad in the future. Also, tor and tor-socks are installed, but that will follow later.</li>
</ul>
<p>I removed:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Geary</strong> (geary-mobile): I use Evolution, see above.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="but-how-do-you-use-matrix">But how do you use Matrix?</h3>
<p>While I can sometimes shut up about how and why <a href="https://matrix.org/">Matrix</a> is great, I am an avid user of the platform. With this new setup, I decided to just go with Firefox webapps. I was using chromium before, but even with ozone and wayland I had keyboard issues — the keyboard would not pop up automatically, and worse, the o and k key would not work on every keyboard layout, thus rendering me unable to type my blogs URL (unacceptable!). Therefore, I decided to use Firefox, which is available in the current release (as opposed to ESR on PureOS or Mobian) on ArchLinuxARM.
In order to use Firefox for this, I opted to create a seperate profile.</p>
<p>Setting up new profiles is relatively easy. Just navigate to <code>about:profiles</code> and click <strong>Create a New Profiles</strong> to add a new one. Notice that you can not only name your profile, but that you can also choose the location where you want to safe it. I deciced to save my additional profiles under "ssb.default" and tor.default" in <code>~/.mozilla/firefox/</code>, in order to make the creation of launchers easier than it is if you have Firefox assign random names to the profile folders.
The main benefit of this is, aside from having a seperate profile for "Site specific browsers", which is a feature that you need to enable in <code>about:config</code> (set <code>browser.ssb.enabled</code> to <code>true</code>, is that you can customize many of the other settings, e.g.</p>
<ul>
<li>the user-agent: general.useragent.override in <code>about:config</code>, maybe to avoid the Android user-agent that comes with <code>firefox-mobile-config</code> and leads to many unsoliceted "use our Android app" recommendations;</li>
<li>customize the proxy, be it for VPN or Tor; </li>
<li>enable specific plugins that you might not want to use all the time, but for certain use cases, e.g. <em>NoScript</em> (which is handy, but hard to configure on the mobilized desktop Firefox on the PinePhone.</li>
</ul>
<p>For Matrix, I created two launchers: One for <a href="https://hydrogen.element.io">Hydrogen</a>, which is an official mobile front-end supporting a limited featureset (<a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/raw/master/desktop-files/ssb/hydrogen.desktop">desktop file</a>); the other for the proper, full featured <a href="https://app.element.io">Element app</a>, which does not work too well on the default dpi, but is fine once scaling is set to 1.75 or 1.5.<sup class="footnote-reference"><a href="#1">1</a></sup>
The main reason for this is compatibility and to have less different interfaces for Matrix. While Fractal and NeoChat are both great and native on Phosh and Plasma Mobile respectively, neither of them supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) without hacks like <a href="https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=fractal#how-to-install">Pantalaimon</a>, which does not perform to well once you use many chats. <a href="https://github.com/mirukana/mirage">Mirage</a> thus is currently the best option, and I like it a lot, but I ran into issues with accessing encrypted conversations that I hope to avoid by using first party clients and only these.</p>
<h3 id="thoughts-and-conclusions">Thoughts and Conclusions</h3>
<p>This setup is not perfect, but it mostly works for now. I would really like to have Full Disk Encryption, a feature that's not easily available on Arch Linux ARM yet. I thought about switching to Mobian for that, but then I would have to miss out Plasma Mobile, Calindori and Quickddit — or at least have a harder time obtaining these apps. Also, if I were to travel, I could switch Gnome Maps for <a href="https://www.flathub.org/apps/details/io.github.rinigus.PureMaps">Pure Maps</a> and add <a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/ktrip">KTrip</a> and <a href="https://invent.kde.org/pim/itinerary">Itinerary</a>. <a href="https://invent.kde.org/network/kdeconnect-kde">KDE Connect</a> could also be a handy addition (it works well), but my desktop getting battery warnings from the PinePhone at 85% charge let me to not install it again without needing it. For FOSDEM, I am going to re-install <a href="https://confy.kirgroup.net/">Confy</a> (confy-git); if I should be running Plasma Mobile by then, I would instead opt for <a href="https://invent.kde.org/utilities/kongress">Kongress</a>.</p>
<p>Looking at what I <a href="https://linmob.net/2020/06/27/41-minutes-of-PinePhone-content.html">considered necessary early on</a>, I would say that we're pretty close:</p>
<ul>
<li>I could run Org-Mode in Emacs (although Emacs with it's modifier-heavy commands is difficult to use with a software keyboard), </li>
<li>were I less lazy, I would have already set up GPG email with Evolution,</li>
<li>Threema, Signal can both be "solved" via Anbox, but I will try to explore the possibilities around <code>libpurple</code> for now,</li>
<li>quassel-client should work fine at a 150% scaling once the chat list is in its own window.</li>
</ul>
<p>I'd wish that Phosh would crash less often, and the kernel itself could also loose a few small bugs. All things considered though, I must say that I am quite happy with the current state of the PinePhone.</p>
<div class="footnote-definition" id="1"><sup class="footnote-definition-label">1</sup>
<p>For more information on scaling, see <a href="https://linmob.net/2021/02/13/pinephone-setup-scaling-in-phosh.html">this blog post</a>.</p>
</div>
LinBits 26: Weekly Linux Phone news / media roundup (week 53)2021-01-03T22:35:00+00:002021-01-03T22:35:00+00:00https://linmob.net/linbits26-weekly-linux-phone-news-week53/<p><em>It's sunday. Now what happened since last sunday?</em></p>
<p>A quiet week: Conference talks, Maemo Leste Update, App Showcases and more! <em>Commentary in italics.</em></p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span><h3 id="software-development-and-releases">Software development and releases</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/CawbirdClient/status/1344690581931495425#m">Cawbird v1.3</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/CawbirdClient/status/1345838296342130691#m">1.3.1</a> have been released, working a lot better on the PinePhone.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-reading">Worth reading</h3>
<ul>
<li>TuxPhones: <a href="https://tuxphones.com/2021-everything-running-linux-smartphone-guide/">Running Linux on your smartphone: everything you need to know in 2021</a>. <em>Great post by Raffaele, don't know how I missed it for last LinBits!</em></li>
<li>Guido Günther: <a href="https://honk.sigxcpu.org/con/phosh_overview.html">phosh overview</a>. <em>Who better to write a overview of Phosh?</em></li>
<li>Maemo Leste: <a href="https://maemo-leste.github.io/maemo-leste-fourteenth-update-july-august-september-october-november-december-2020.html">Fourteenth Update (July, August, September, October, November, December) 2020</a>. <em>Great update blog post by the Maemo Leste project.</em></li>
<li>dimitris.cc: <a href="https://dimitris.cc/kde/2020/12/30/Online_Calendars.html">Calindori and online calendars</a>. <em>Nice workaround to get sync working for Calindori. This makes the PinePhone one step closer to being a daily driver.</em></li>
<li>Pixls.us: <a href="https://discuss.pixls.us/t/gmic-experiments-on-manjaro-arm-pinephone/22120">G’MIC experiments on Manjaro ARM Pinephone</a>. <em>If you want to play more with your camera, this should be worth a read.</em></li>
<li>Purism App Showcase:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://puri.sm/posts/app-showcase-password-safe/">PasswordSafe</a></li>
<li><a href="https://puri.sm/posts/backups/">Backups</a> <em>Unfortunately, upstream Déjà Dup is not yet mobile compliant (<a href="https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/deja-dup/-/tree/pureos/40.5+2484+git5b578dfa-1pureos0">Purism branched it</a>), so this won't work on every distribution yet.</em></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>/u/bloggerdan: Pinephone as a daily driver? A Week with Mobian: <a href="https://teddit.net/r/PINE64official/comments/kjpyhf/pinephone_as_a_daily_driver_a_week_with_mobian/">Day 1</a>, <a href="https://teddit.net/r/PINE64official/comments/klfuku/pinephone_as_a_daily_driver_a_week_with_mobian/">Day 2</a>, <a href="https://teddit.net/r/PINE64official/comments/kn9wr5/pinephone_as_a_daily_driver_a_week_with_mobian/">Day 4</a>, <a href="https://teddit.net/r/PINE64official/comments/ko1z66/pinephone_as_a_daily_driver_a_week_with_mobian/">Day 5</a>, <a href="https://teddit.net/r/PINE64official/comments/kp4hdi/pinephone_as_a_daily_driver_a_week_with_mobian/">Day 6</a>, <a href="https://teddit.net/r/PINE64official/comments/kpjihb/pinephone_as_a_daily_driver_a_week_with_mobian/">Day 7</a>. <em>Interesting series!</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-watching">Worth watching</h3>
<ul>
<li>Linux Lounge: <a href="https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/de008bd7-ba7e-4dfb-87fa-4fba1e8dd85f">Taking Photos on the PinePhone - PinePhone Camera Review</a></li>
<li>Gardiner Bryant: <a href="https://lbry.tv/@TheLinuxGamer:f/The-Libhandy-INFESTATION:4">The libhandy INFECTION?</a>. <em>A video about the Solus libhandy controversy. I like how nuanced Gardiner goes through this.</em></li>
<li>HackersGame: <a href="https://lbry.tv/@HackersGame:4/the-system-admin-s-multi-tool:2">The System Admin's Multi-tool</a>. <em>Nice video about fun use cases for the Librem 5 or also the PinePhone.</em></li>
<li>/u/redwisdomlight: <a href="https://teddit.net/r/Purism/comments/klt22s/librem_5_encounters_part_13_initial_success_then/">Librem 5 encounters part 13 initial success then turns into a failure 😞</a></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="rc3">rC3</h4>
<ul>
<li>Cathal Mc Daid: <a href="https://media.ccc.de/v/rc3-11511-watching_the_watchers_-_how_surveillance_companies_track_you_using_mobile_networks">Watching the Watchers - How Surveillance Companies track you using Mobile Networks </a>. </li>
<li>jn: <a href="https://media.ccc.de/v/rc3-80571-porting_linux_to_your_favorite_obscure_arm_soc">Porting Linux to your favorite obscure Arm SoC</a>. <em>This does not play for me, I hope that we're going to see a recording (not relive) eventually.</em></li>
<li>jiska, Gerbert and Matthias: <a href="https://media.ccc.de/v/rc3-228534-very_pwnable_network_vpn#t=2328">Very Pwnable Network (VPN)</a>. <em>Beware of closed source VPN client software!</em></li>
</ul>
<h4 id="what-i-forgot-last-year">What I forgot last year:</h4>
<ul>
<li>OpenAlt: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu-3CmRefvc">Martin Botka, AngeloGioacchino Del Regno, Konrad Dybcio: Qualcomm SoC upstreaming adventures in 2020</a>. <em>I somehow missed this. The talk is a bit long, but it's worth it.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="stuff-i-did">Stuff I did</h3>
<h4 id="content">Content</h4>
<p>I have uploaded one new video about installing the PinePhone from the PinePhone. Yes, it can be your only computer. </p>
<ul>
<li>PeerTube: <a href="https://devtube.dev-wiki.de/videos/watch/010aa5d1-ecdf-434e-aa92-ebad781d75af">PinePhone: Flashing the PinePhone from the PinePhone</a></li>
<li>LBRY: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPV024bRZ_4">PinePhone: Flashing the PinePhone from the PinePhone</a></li>
<li>YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPV024bRZ_4">PinePhone: Flashing the PinePhone from the PinePhone</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Also, I finally did something with that old, broken Psion Series 5: <a href="https://devtube.dev-wiki.de/videos/watch/70e4e4bb-291e-42eb-aca7-804763e839ff">PinePhone QWERTY the stupid way</a>.</p>
<h4 id="busywork">Busywork</h4>
<p>I finally went ahead and reinstalled my <a href="http://mobile.danctnix.org">ArchLinuxARM/DanctNIX</a> mobile install. I backed up with Deja-Dup (after scale-to-fit) and was able to successfully restore that backup once I connected to my Lap Dock, as I was unable to choose individual files to be restored with just the touchscreen (there's a "mobilized" version of Deja-Dup by Purism, but no easy way to run it on Arch).
I am going to write a blog post about my setup this week.</p>
<h4 id="linmobapps">LINMOBapps</h4>
<p>Not much happened here, just <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/commits/master">a few additions and some maintenance</a>. Please <a href="https://framagit.org/linmobapps/linmobapps.frama.io/-/blob/master/tasks.md">do contribute</a>!</p>
LinBits 10: Weekly PinePhone news / media roundup (week 37)2020-09-13T12:45:00+00:002020-09-13T12:45:00+00:00https://linmob.net/linbits10-weekly-pinephone-news-week37/<p><em>It's sunday. Now what happened since last sunday?</em></p>
<p>libhandy 1.0, MMS, a new camera app, new Manjaro images and much more. <em>Commentary in italics.</em></p>
<span id="continue-reading"></span><h4 id="software-releases-and-improvements">Software releases and improvements</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://mamot.fr/@KekunPlazas/104829402183664361">libhandy 1.0.0 has been released</a>. </li>
<li><a href="https://mstdn.fr/@bilelmoussaoui/104831255152605311">libhandy-rs 0.7, targetting libhandy 1.0, has also been released</a>. <em>libhandy-rs are the Rust-bindings for libhandy.</em></li>
<li>Alexander Mikhaylenko has been working on libhandy-fying <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/statuses/104818952896282994">Epiphany/GNOME Web</a> and <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/statuses/104831587918208725">Nautilus</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://git.sr.ht/~anteater/vgmms">vgmms</a> is an SMS and MMS client build atop ofono and MMSd with VGTK and Rust. <em>The news item here is <strong>MMS</strong>, which apparently is still being used in some parts of planet earth.</em></li>
<li>Martijn Braam has worked on his camera app, <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~martijnbraam/megapixels">Megapixels</a>. It can be installed on postmarketOS from <a href="http://repo.brixit.nl">his repository</a>. <em>I tested it, and it works — it even felt a bit nicer than Gnome Camera/Pinhole. Please keep in mind that you do need a patched kernel for the front camera currently.</em></li>
<li><a href="https://invent.kde.org/plasma-mobile/calindori">Calindori</a>, the calendar app for Plasma Mobile, has been released in its <a href="https://dimitris.cc/kde/2020/09/11/Calindori_1_2.html">first "stable" version 1.2</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://nemomobile.net/">Nemo Mobile</a> are <a href="https://twitter.com/neochapay/status/1304818781970141186">making</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/neochapay/status/1305035405004353536">progess</a> with their move to a Fedora base.</li>
<li><a href="https://manjaro.org/">Manjaro</a> have published further <a href="https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-arm/storage/pinephone/">PinePhone images</a>, including a <a href="https://osdn.net/projects/manjaro-arm/storage/pinephone/phosh/alpha3-20200913/">third alpha release of their Phosh image today</a>. The Lomiri situation has already improved quite a bit since their first published image.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="other-hardware">Other hardware</h3>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://yarh.io/yarh-io-mki.html">YARH.IO MKI</a>, a "fully hackable and custamizable Raspberry Pi based handheld, running Raspberry Pi OS and supporting all other Operating Systems available for Raspberry Pi" has been announced. <em>It is a little 'meh', but then I don't think it's aiming at the same niche the PinePhone does. If you want a handheld with ports, and love the Raspberry Pi platform, this might be for you.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-reading">Worth reading</h3>
<ul>
<li>Liliputing: <a href="https://liliputing.com/2020/09/mobian-linux-is-now-available-for-the-pinetab-as-well-as-the-pinephone.html">Mobian Linux is now available for the PineTab (as well as the PinePhone)</a>. <em>Mobian on the PineTab!</em></li>
<li>eighty-twenty: <a href="https://eighty-twenty.org/2020/09/09/squeak-postmarketos-touchscreen">Squeak-on-a-cellphone update: touchscreen working!</a>.</li>
<li>Purism: <a href="https://puri.sm/posts/your-phone-is-your-castle/">Your Phone Is Your Castle</a>. <em>Purism CSO Kyle Rankin rambles once more about phone security and privacy and why it matters. It's worth a read, but please consider that <a href="https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1304205042724098050">there are voices</a> that don't agree that Purism's security story is all that convincing because of issues like non-upgradable firmware.</em></li>
<li>HackersGame: <a href="https://www.hackers-game.com/2020/09/08/robocalls-fight-bots-with-bots/">Robocalls: Fight Bots with Bots</a>. <em>This is a great idea.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-watching">Worth watching</h3>
<ul>
<li>Purism: <a href="https://youtu.be/yYdJBqm_hKE">Librem 5 Emulators and Controllers</a>. <em>One for the gamers.</em></li>
<li>Roboron: <a href="https://youtu.be/Da1xMKhJBek">Trying Simutrans on a Pinephone</a>. <em>Another one! (I always loved playing simutrans. The main reason I stopped was that would just eat hours without me even noticing.)</em></li>
<li>Howto: Digital Privacy & Infosec: <a href="https://youtu.be/Ar70x44jfTU">Pinephone Linux Smartphone: Sailfish OS Demo</a>. <em>A short demo of Sailfish OS. Unfortunately, shortly after this video was made, support for the modem and all it adds was enabled about a day later.</em></li>
<li>Howto: Digital Privacy & Infosec: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBeJLVShRwg">SXMO (Simple X Mobile) On Pinephone Uses Only 329mb RAM!</a>. </li>
<li>Martijn Braam: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S_8twLnYFA">In depth tutorial: inserting an SD card in a PinePhone</a>. <em>24 seconds. The first thing he puts into the device is called a "microSIM card". It is for telephony.</em></li>
<li>Martijn Braam: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZWD6a703T0">Quick overview of application development on the PinePhone</a></li>
<li>@maeda_: <a href="https://twitter.com/maeda_/status/1304067353139798018/video/1">make sound on #PinePhone #Clojure #Overtone #emacs_pgtk #lispymode #Squeekboard</a>. <em>This uses Jack, btw.</em></li>
<li>UBports: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMKXZQGSUJc">Ubuntu Touch Q&A 84</a>. <em>Topics include the PineTab, OTA 13 (which is for the other devices, not the PinePhone), Qt 5.12, why Marius Gripsgard likes working with Manjaro and more.</em></li>
<li>jacky.wtf: <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/738432719">Talking all things PinePhone and open source hardware/software! !kde !blm</a>. <em>A twitch steam, a first in this list!</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="what-did-i-do">What did I do?</h3>
<p>I played with a few things:</p>
<ul>
<li>I uploaded another video showing Anbox, this time on Arch Linux ARM on sunday evening,</li>
<li>and tried <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/statuses/104825657455498444">a few more Android apps later</a> (Slide would run fine later this week),</li>
<li>I tried the 20200909 Manjaro Lomiri image and was quite impressed with their progress,</li>
<li>I <a href="https://fosstodon.org/@linmob/104837139841987743">liked Megis p-boot image</a>,</li>
<li>I tried to build <a href="https://github.com/accumulator/Quickddit/">Quickddit</a>, a reddit client for Ubuntu Touch, on Arch Linux ARM and <a href="https://fosstodon.org/web/statuses/104847063738455383">made it almost work</a> (I did not manage to login into my Reddit account. I also looked into building other software created for Ubuntu Touch, namely <a href="https://github.com/DannyGB/KeePassTouch">KeePit</a>, <a href="https://github.com/costales/unav">uNav</a> and <a href="https://gitlab.com/dekkan/dekko">Dekko</a>, but these either failed for reasons I could not figure out or have a different build process and require more dependencies. Especially Dekko seems likely to be a tough nut to build. Just check the "clickable.json" files in the project repos to get an idea how the software is actually built.</li>
</ul>
<p>I also spent some time on web development. This blog is going to move to different hosting <em>(suggestions still welcome)</em> in the next two weeks and will switch from Jekyll to <a href="https://gohugo.io">Hugo</a>. With that switch, the <a href="https://linmobapps.frama.io">LINMOBapps app list</a>, which now lists 165 apps, will have it's item in the navbar. The App Directory is also still in its planning phase, and I hope to apply the learnings of moving this website over to Hugo to the process.</p>
LinBits 5: Weekly PinePhone news / media roundup (week 32)2020-08-09T11:15:18+00:002020-08-09T11:15:18+00:00https://linmob.net/linbits5-weekly-pinephone-news-week32/<p><em>It's sunday. Time for a short rounding up of the past week.</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://mamot.fr/@KekunPlazas/104648142113069390">libhandy 0.90 released</a>. <em>This is a bigger deal than the version might suggest: The API is now stable.</em></li>
<li><a href="https://social.librem.one/@agx/104624591847644767">phosh 0.4.3 released</a>. <em>Just a small release, but every release is progress.</em></li>
<li><a href="https://xnux.eu/devices/feature/modem-pp.html">megi has released a modem power management driver</a>. <em>While this effort is apparently unlikely to be upstreamed in this form, it is an important step for better battery life on the PinePhone.</em> </li>
<li><a href="https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-arm-alpha2-with-phosh-pinephone/157249">Manjaro ARM Alpha2 with Phosh</a>. <em>Moving forward, getting better bit by bit. Also: <a href="https://twitter.com/fkardame/status/1291736063682252800">More Lomiri Teasing</a>.</em></li>
<li><a href="https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/releases/tag/20200805">Arch Linux ARM</a>. <em>The big feature for me in this one is <a href="https://twitter.com/linmobblog/status/1290987799135563776">"Fix incoming calls not showing."</a></em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-reading">Worth reading</h3>
<ul>
<li>Purism: <a href="https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-june-2020-software-development-update/">Librem 5 June 2020 Software Development Update</a>. <em>These updates are always late, but still interesting.</em></li>
<li>amosbbatto: <a href="https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/">The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux</a>. <em>This post is long, but definitely worth reading. I think that the many PinePhone distributions and all the GNU/Linux software that works with Phosh show how great Purism's approach is working already.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3 id="worth-watching">Worth watching</h3>
<ul>
<li>anino207: <a href="https://invidious.13ad.de/watch?v=FM2RawI_iE0">Gearboy Color (GBC Emulator) on the PinePhone with Ubuntu Touch</a>. <em>One for the gamers!</em></li>
<li>GeoTech Land: <a href="https://invidious.13ad.de//watch?v=3pj-htOwGjM">Manjaro Phosh Impressions on Pinephone</a>. <em>A quick look at the current state of Manjaro on the PinePhone.</em></li>
<li>N-O-D-E: <a href="https://invidious.13ad.de/watch?v=wiJqUWfR90I">Trying to build the ultimate Raspberry Pi computer (Zero Terminal V3)</a>. <em>While a Raspberry Pi Zero Pocket computer sounds way less interesting to me now that the PinePhone is available, the keyboard build is quite interesting.</em></li>
<li>Purism: <a href="https://invidious.13ad.de/watch?v=rHO43kh6zN8">Librem 5 Web Apps</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="stuff-i-did">Stuff I did</h3>
<p>I was on holiday and took it easy. I played around with some more software on Arch Linux ARM, which now ̣— with incoming calls working — is definitely my favourite distribution. Also, I contributed a bit to the Mobian wiki and played with an Arch Linux ARM chroot on UBports but could not figure out Wayland support in the chroot.</p>