Projects:PinePhone Daily Driver

Project: Using PinePhone as my daily driver smartphone, running Linux fulfilling Goal:Technology.

(!) All the current OS images are crashing (apart from Megous' kernel on Arch Linux ARM) on my PinePhone.

It seems they have DRAM frequency set way too high: 624 MHz instead of 552 MHz. See this thread.

Hardware Setup

• PinePhone
  • Initial testing is done with PinePhone 1.1.
  • Once PinePhone 1.2 becomes available, this will be the daily driven device.
• Battery
  • Factory-provided at first
  • Replaceable with any Samsung J7 form-factor battery[1]
    • TODO: Find out more and look for a shop selling this (once needed)
• Screen protector
  • Factory-provided at first
  • Replacement source
    • Pine64 store? Currently doesn't seem to sell it.
    • Supposedly some iPhone screen protector is usable
      • TODO: Find out more and look for a shop selling this (once needed)
• Protective case
  • TODO: Temporary solution: similar form factor of other devices on the market?
  • TODO: Source from Pine64 store

Software Wishlist

1. Solid base Linux distribution
   • lightweight, customizable
   • community-supported with continuous updates
   • large package repository
2. One day of battery life
   • ability to enter power-saving mode and leave it in a matter of seconds of user request
   • automatic power-saving after a period of inactivity
3. Convenient and efficient UI - common actions need to be easy to achieve
   • switching between the apps
   • turning the screen on and off
   • ability to kill apps
4. Support for essential apps & workflows
   1. Terminal
   2. Web browser (Firefox)
   3. Passwords manager (Keepass))
   4. Personal Information Manager with WebDAV sync support for calendar, contacts
   5. Email client
   6. Calculator, Alarm
   7. IM client (XMPP, Matrix, Slack)
   8. Music player
   9. Camera & Video recorder
   10. VPN client
5. Support for non-essential apps & workflows
   • RSS client
   • OTP generator
   • Ebook reader
   • Weather forecast
   • Maps, navigation
   • Calls & Texts

Software Setup

• OS located on the internal eMMC flash storage (to make some use of it, plus it is faster than the SD card)
  • accessible as an external storage from a computer via Jumpdrive which may be flashed to a tiny SD Card (128 MB in my case)
  • maintenance or distro-hopping can still be done by plugging in an SD Card with a system installed (since it takes precedence over the eMMC storage)
• non-essential data (photos, videos, etc.) on an SD Card with larger capacity (currently 32 GB Samsung EVO Plus)

Components

• Custom-built postmarketOS
• swayWM for UI
• additional packages:
  • vim
  • firefox
  • networkmanager
  • termite, termite-terminfo
  • bluez
  • TODO: Keyboard etc.

Setup

⚠ Warning: serial console is required to properly setup the device with swayWM since there is no touch controls by default.

TODO: Move some of this setup into a repository

swayWM

1. Copy /etc/sway/config to ~/.config/sway/config
2. Edit:
   • $term termite

Bluetooth

• Enable the service on boot: rc-update add bluetooth
• Enable the controller by default:

/etc/bluetooth/main.conf[Policy] AutoEnable=true

TODO

TODO: Touch gestures and controls

Distributions Testing

postmarketOS

Pros and Cons

• [+] Alpine Linux

Next Steps

• ☆ Flash a prebuilt image
  • [+] ?
  • [–] ?
• ☐ Build and flash from the repository
• ☐ Try the custom image
• ☐ Try customizing the image

UBports

Pros and Cons

• [+] Ubuntu (almost Debian, could be worse)
• [+] Built via debos from source

Next Steps

• ☆ Flash a prebuilt image
  • [+] ?
  • [–] Crashes during boot.
• ☓ Waiting for a better build... (couldn't use a bootloader with lower DRAM frequency)
• ☐ Build and flash from the repository
• ☐ Try the custom image
• ☐ Try customizing the image

Mobian

Pros and Cons

• [+] Debian (almost as good as Arch Linux)
• [+] Aims to be as upstream as possible, built from source
• [–] Phosh

Next Steps

• ☑ Flash a prebuilt image
  • [+] Boots, serial shell works
  • [–] Bootloader needs to be replaced for lower frequency of DRAM
  • [–] Phosh
    • You can install Gnome, but it is not polished for the device and it is slow.
• ☓ Waiting for a better build...
• ☐ Build and flash from the repository
• ☐ Try the custom image
• ☐ Try customizing the image

Arch Linux ARM

Via Arch Linux ARM for PinePhone Installer.

Pros and Cons

• [+] Arch Linux
• [–] Relies on Megous' kernel image and updates

Next Steps

• ☑ Update to kernel 5.7
• ☓ Try again the current status and progress
  • [i] Tested, boots and works, but the USB network seems broken as of 2020-05-11 --> Reverting to 5.6
  • [i] Kernel 5.6.13 works with USB network as of 2020-05-17

sxmo

Tiling WM dwm based on pmos.

Pros and Cons

• [+] Based on pmos, i.e. Alpine Linux
• [+] Tiling WM is nice to use on a phone.
• [–] Tiling doesn't work completely with all the apps.
• [–] Hard to learn the controls
• [–] No real power saving.

Next Steps

• [i] Waiting for a future release.

Related

• PinePhone Hardware
• PinePhone Software