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

• 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]
    • ☐ 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
      • ☐ Find out more and look for a shop selling this (once needed)
• Protective case
  • ☐ Temporary solution: similar form factor of other devices on the market?
  • ☐ Source from Pine64 store

Software

Wishlist

1. Solid base Linux distribution
   • lightweight, customizable
   • community-supported with continuous updates
   • large package repository
2. 1 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

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