What types of phone would you pair your smartwatch with?
- [ ] Android
- [ ] Apple
Yeah..
Currently using it with a Linux phone...
erebion
joined 1 year ago
This is huge news for Pebble users! \o/
Exciting times we live in!
I'll definitely buy two watches just because I want to live in a reality where Pebble exists. Then I'll give one to a friend, I guess.
Try Phosh. That one works well.
be sure to not use greeter logins and disk encryption as the on-screen keyboards (OSK) don’t work outside the DE. also, issues with non-US keyboard layouts.
Just set up unl0kr and keep safe, no need to use an installation without encryption. It's not even difficult, mainly just requires installing the package and adding the unlock script path to crypttab.
It's nice to have a device with FDE and Secure Boot, gives peace of mind in case that thing ends up in the wrong hands.
I doubt that. Signal has slow development, there aren't new features all that often.
I just realised I did not link to my most recent post, but the one before it. This one is two months newer: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/22388672
This was the state three months ago. Quite a few things changed, I will definitely post an update once I find the time.
Curious how well existing Android devices with Linux support fare currently.
Better than the Pinephone. See my other post on this thread where I talk about my Mobian port to the Pixel 3a and click the link for some more detailed info on how well it works.
Oh and the Pinephone is just way too slow and the thermal design is not really good and it also does have issues in other parts of the hardware. It's not a good phone, it's a passable development device that easily allows to turn off things such as Bluetooth.
And... an old Android phone such as the Pixel 3a is just a lot cheaper and runs way faster with a far better battery life.
I've been recently porting Mobian to the Pixel 3a and posting about it here*. Now, Mobian is close to being ready, but is not yet. I've been using it as a daily driver for a few months now, but it is not what most people looking for a well-working phone would want, currently. If you want to try a well supported device now, I suggest trying postmarketOS on the Pixel 3a perhaps, they're a bit quicker than I am, mostly because more people are working on it.
The Pixel 3a has recently been called one of the best supported Linux phones with a mainline kernel. Only issue right now is the camera not producing sharp photos, but they're people working on the drivers in the kernel to improve on that.
Other than that, I don't really know what's well supported, as I focus on what I have available here.
* https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/19600671 Please note that this post is somewhat outdated and some of the issue are solved already.
And they've been working on it for years now. :)
I believe they're working on it. :)
It uses a library which currently gets calls added, for example. Once that library supports calls, they can add it for Flare.
This is a follow-up to my earlier posts:
https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/12809764 https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/19600671
We're Getting Closer.
It's just small stuff left that needs a bit of piecing together, though I've now been daily driving my port for the past two weeks already.
This Works
- booting
- display
- touch
- modem <- You might have to switch to the other slot if it does not work:
mmcli -m 0 --set-primary-sim-slot=1, options are1or2. Note that the modem could also be a different number, maybe try-m 1if it is not found as the command will reboot the modem and then it changes. - plymouth
- battery/charging
- mobile data
- wifi
- torch
- suspend
- call audio
- vibration
- Bluetooth™
- full disk encryption
- eSIM (I'm working on the packaging for the tool you need to provision it)
- SMS
- audio (ALSA config not packaged, but can be added manually)
- camera (have taken a few photos, but the kernel driver is still work in progress and sometimes it just does not work)
This Has An Unknown Status
- Fingerprint Sensor
- NFC (should work, does so on pmOS)
This Does Not Work Yet (Soon™)
- GPS
- USB host mode (no Kernel support yet, but apparently this is being worked on)
- Verified Boot (first need to do research whether this is actually feasible)
This Is Missing And Will Come Later
- accelerometer
- magnetometer
- ambient light sensor
- barometer
Project Status
To Do List
- Make installer images work on this device
- Have droid-juicer run on installer images
- Get into the repos:
tinyalsaandq6voiced(I've already packaged both)- ITP for Tinyalsa: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1079473
- ITP for q6voiced: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1080483
- Combine SDM670 kernel patches with those in the Mobian qcom kernel
Done List
- New release of qcom-phone-utils required so that my patches are available from the repo
- https://salsa.debian.org/DebianOnMobile-team/qcom-phone-utils/-/commit/4f77281197c6ba1cfc1a82596157d00e8a7e014b (firmware folders)
- https://salsa.debian.org/DebianOnMobile-team/qcom-phone-utils/-/commit/9aa29a1d0bd2327e9c74317d516a8aeecf820304 (fixes bootimg generation with LUKS)
- https://salsa.debian.org/DebianOnMobile-team/qcom-phone-utils/-/commit/3ddb192b5c78b444065f23647b373ad66ce3617d (fixes on-screen keyboard for LUKS passphrase)
- Remove hard-coded value in the
droid-juicersystemd unit - Make sure my
q6voicedpackage no longer includes a hard-coded config for this device (known solution, need to implement) - add udev rule for the vibration motor to the right package
Misc Issues
- ALSA config for the device has not been upstreamed yet
- Issues with 5 GHz wifi
- Can be worked around by forcing the phone to only use the 2.4 GHz band, for example using
nmtui, the network settings of GNOME/Phosh are bit too simplistic for that
- Can be worked around by forcing the phone to only use the 2.4 GHz band, for example using
- No idea how to get the call audio on Bluetooth, meaning you will have to hold the phone or use a cable, for now
(This is a non-exhaustive list)
Low Priority
- create/find script/tool that brings up Bluetooth & then package it
Other than that... Everything should be there. It's definitely usable already.
Just a few smaller quirks to iron out and two packages to get into the repo.
The Sources (Use The Source, Luke)
- My efforts of packaging a device-specific kernel: https://salsa.debian.org/erebion/sdm-670-linux (which will be used until all patches are part of upstream Linux and we can finally use a regular mainline kernel)
- mobian-recipes, which is used to build images: https://salsa.debian.org/Mobian-team/mobian-recipes
- droid-juicer, which retrieves some important files from some partitions: https://gitlab.com/mobian1/droid-juicer
- https://wiki.postmarketos.org (lovely folks, thanks for sharing everything you found out the hard way :D)
Thanks For All The Fish
Huge thanks to be sdm670-linux project and flamingradian who runs the project (just one person!) to make sure the Kernel works on those devices! :)
I don’t know how Kernel development works, so I would have never started porting without this project.
Find that here: https://gitlab.com/sdm670-mainline/linux
Questions Accepted / Ask Me Anything About The Project
I will gladly answer all questions, I hope that more people will start porting if it becomes clear that this is not arcane magic. It’s mostly just arcane. And a community of friendly people that try to be helpful.#
This is a follow-up to my earlier post: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/12809764
(I re-used the photo as it was quicker and because the UI still looks the same, anyway, five months later.)
Time for an update on where I got with the Pixel 3a / 3a XL so far:
I Am Getting There.
There isn't that much missing anymore. Will probably soon try this out as my daily driver, just did not yet have the time to configure all the applications I need. :)
This Works
- booting
- display
- touch
- modem
- plymouth
- battery/charging
- mobile data
- wifi
- torch
- suspend
- SMS (only receiving was tested, but I don't have reason to believe sending wouldn't work)
- vibration (udev rule needs to be added to the corresponding package)
- audio (ALSA config not packaged, but I'll get to that...)
- Bluetooth™ (mac address has to be set after each boot, one single command, should probably package a script, still thinking about the right path)
- eSIM (supported, but needs a bit more testing)
- camera (front camera buggy, back camera works but patches not in git yet)
- GPS (needs some improvements to accuracy)
This Does Not Work (Soon)
- USB host mode
- call audio (requires packaging
q6voicedto get audio from the modem, but of course VoIP would already work) - full disk encryption (no installer images yet, once the other stuff is done this will magically be there)
This Has An Unknown Status
- Fingerprint Sensor
- NFC (no idea what software I could use for testing, but should work, does so on pmOS)
This Is Missing And Will Come Later
- accelerometer
- magnetometer
- ambient light sensor
- barometer
The Main Issues That Prevail
- A systemd unit with a hard-coded value, that has to be manually edited for now
- ALSA config not yet packaged, has to be manually copied for now
- few things to do for kernel packaging and then submitting that to Mobian
- no call audio yet, as the daemon (q6voiced) is not yet packaged, but can be manually added for now (I'm considering just using VoIP until I can get to that :D)
- simple script that brings up Bluetooth has to be added somewhere
Other than that, I cannot think of anything else that would be missing.
The Sources (Use The Source, Luke)
- My efforts of packaging a device-specific kernel: https://salsa.debian.org/erebion/sdm-670-linux (which will be used until all patches are part of upstream Linux and we can finally use a regular mainline kernel)
mobian-recipes, which is used to build images: https://salsa.debian.org/Mobian-team/mobian-recipesdroid-juicer, which retrieves some important files from some partitions: https://gitlab.com/mobian1/droid-juicer- https://wiki.postmarketos.org (lovely folks, thanks for sharing everything you found out the hard way :D)
Thanks For All The Fish
Huge thanks to be sdm670-linux project and flamingradian who runs the project (just one person!) to make sure the Kernel works on those devices! :)
I don't know how Kernel development works, so I would have never started porting without this project.
Find that here: https://gitlab.com/sdm670-mainline/linux
Questions Accepted / Ask Me Anything About The Project
I will gladly answer all questions, I hope that more people will start porting if it becomes clear that this is not arcane magic. It's mostly just arcane. And a community of friendly people that try to be helpful.#
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Found some stuff which might be useful to those that would like WhatsApp on Linux phones
(self.linuxphones)
Most parts work, still not sure why Bluetooth gives me errors in dmesg, audio out works, microphone input not yet... I'm getting there.
But graphics, charging, low standby power consumption, LTE, wifi... those all work already.
The fact that postmarketOS has support and also that there are people working on mainline support, makes this a task that is not as difficult as I thought, as most work was already done for another distro.
Otherwise it runs more fluid than Android ever did on it and it has a great standby time (forgot to turn it off at around 80 % and a few days later it was at 58 %).
For now stuck on merging the Kernel patches from the sdm670-mainline project with those from Mobian, not really something I can do without knowing C. I just hope someone with the right skills does it at some point.
Then I just need to make some smaller merge requests, like one to add a udev rule for vibration support and so on.
Not much missing before I can finally use it as a daily driver.
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Are there other services that offer something similar?