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PinePhone – KDE Community edition

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Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#121

Post by megous »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #87

I would happily pay an extra $100-$200 for them to get a better processor, wifi, and bluetooth in there if it were possible. All the performance of everything running just looks so slow. I really do want to support these things, but even opening up a text editor took seconds on videos I've seen.

SD card interface vs eMMC makes a difference in startup speed. eMMC is basically 4x as fast.

Though I think many GNU/Linux desktop apps are not well optimized for startup speed. And it shows on slower HW.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#122

Post by jraph »

adamczi wrote: post #27
ognarb wrote: post #3

I'm one of the Plasma Mobile developer and I would be happy to answer questions.

Hi! What is the state of running regular Android apps on Plasma? I heard of Anbox, but does this actually work? I'm interested in running my bank's app on PinePhone.

Anbox "works" on the Pinephone, but takes ages to boot (several minutes), is really slow and eventually crashes the phone, in my experience (tried on Neon and Manjaro). I haven't managed to do anything useful with it.

I wonder if we'll reach a point where Anbox runs okay on the Pinephone, it seems super heavy. Anbox emulates a complete Android system after all...

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#123

Post by megous »

intricatedetail wrote: post #91

Does pine phone record calls? Seems like most new phones have this disabled and I am looking for a phone that can record calls.

The HW allows any combination of recording, playback - to/from modem and to/from speaker/mic at the same time. It's possible to implement a lot of interesting features that way, like DTMF menu system on incoming calls, with or without monitoring of the other side, etc.

I have it documented here:

https://xnux.eu/devices/feature/audio-pp.html

So it's certainly possible.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#124

Post by messe »

fsflover wrote: post #120
messe wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's OS is endorsed by the FSF as truly free. To meet the FSF's definitions of free, they had to make the (still required) proprietary firmware read-only instead of allowing it to be loadable by the user. EDIT: see below.

It’s not read-only. You can reflash it if it’s really necessary: https://forums.puri.sm/t/does-respects-your-freedom-certific...

Ah, I stand corrected. But it's still a silly distinction. It's utterly bizarre to me that something that a device that allows everything to be modified from the CPU is considered non-free if any of that code is non-free, but if that same non-free code is used on a chip that's only flashable using a more difficult method, the device can be considered freedom respecting.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#125

Post by jraph »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #107
jraph wrote: post #25

I just received a Pinephone Manjaro Comunity edition. 10€ is given to the project edition. Had I known KDE was next, I would have waited a bit! I already use Plasma on my laptop, it is a great desktop environment. I replaced Manjaro by Mobian, it works way better for me. KDE Neon did not work too well, unfortunately (it could not turn off the phone screen, and it didn't work correctly with an external screen), but I…

I tried Neon briefly on my PinePhone. Plasma Mobile is QML-based, and is less polished/working than Plasma Desktop. Performance is no better than Mobian. I don't think you get draggable title bars on Plasma Mobile either.

Indeed, this is matches my observations. Things will hopefully improve rapidly though.

Plasmashell on the desktop is also QML-based as far as I know.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#127

Post by squarefoot »

izacus wrote: post #80
tluyben2 wrote: post #35

I got my pinephone (Manjaro) last week and tried all OSs there are for it; I really love the idea of having a real Linux device in my pocket (that's why I have the Pandora, Pyra + GPD pocket 1 as well); it is such a difference having full control and being able to change whatever how you work instead of having large corps decide. Also shows, by the 'missing apps' between ecosystems, how much we need replacements for…

I wonder if making a shell on top of Android (for compatiblity with other devices) would make community larger and get more software contributions. Not sure how technically feasible it is though.

Pretty much all Linux installs on Android phones are chroot jails on top of Android. They run at decent speed because everything is native, but they're forced to use Android's kernel and device drivers which are non free, closed and therefore not trustworthy, and cannot protect themselves by malicious Android apps and/or backdoors. I would rather have a truly free and open operating system in which I can set up one or more sandboxes containing all stuff I don't trust (closed apps, Android emulation etc), that is essentially the other way around. The Pinephone ideally is trying to be a step in this direction.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#128

Post by alexmcc81 »

jraph wrote: post #119
_underfl0w_ wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might be confusing the Linux distribution with the desktop environment . "Plasma" and "Plasma Mobile" are examples of the latter, while "Ubuntu" is the former. One can switch desktop environments with a Linux distribution to customize its look and feel - e.g. if I install Ubuntu on my PC, I can choose Plasma (KDE's offering), Gnome, or XFCE to be my desktop environment. OTOH, I could also choose to instal…

I don't think the parent is confusing these notions. I don't know what distribution will be pre-installed on the KDE community edition, but the KDE project provides pre-built images based on Neon, which is Ubuntu with up to date KDE things on it. Plasma mobile also runs on Postmarket OS and Manjaro, and also Arch I think. When I briefly tried Neon on Wednesday, it was based on Ubuntu 20.04 and the 5.7 kernel if I rem…

>I don't think the parent is confusing these notions.

I'm not (I've even maintained distro spins). I am at a loss how anyone could read my question and think otherwise ;).

> I hope the pre-installed distribution will have an up to date kernel with latest patches.

That's precisely what I want to find out. I've seen so many blog posts and forum threads about different PinePhone builds. It's like the best and worst of Android ROM development from the XDA forums.

Different people seem to be hacking on different thing (which is fun) and many are attempting to get things upstreamed but the development seems to be all over the place. It's not clear what builds have safety features like the Power IC limits enabled for example.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#129

Post by alexmcc81 »

_underfl0w_ wrote: post #93
alexmcc81 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plasma Mobile is the desktop and related components (open to correction). There are apparently different distributions (based on Arch, Ubuntu and others [1]). My question is what the Plasma Mobile PinePhone ships with and if it maintained by the Plasma Mobile team themselves. The Plasma Mobile says that the Ubuntu Neon based one is "official" with confusing double quotes. The blog [2] says that image has been rebased…

I think you might be confusing the Linux distribution with the desktop environment . "Plasma" and "Plasma Mobile" are examples of the latter, while "Ubuntu" is the former. One can switch desktop environments with a Linux distribution to customize its look and feel - e.g. if I install Ubuntu on my PC, I can choose Plasma (KDE's offering), Gnome, or XFCE to be my desktop environment. OTOH, I could also choose to instal…

>I think you might be confusing the Linux distribution with the desktop environment.

I'm definitely not ;). Please reread my comment. If you know the answer to the question, please let me know.

Re: PinePhone – KDE Community edition

#130

Post by fsflover »

ronilav wrote: post #92

It's clear that closed source device makers will never want to prove that there are no HW backdoor, or even monitoring chip in their products, but for a device like this one, is there a will to provide such guarantee?

If you want hard proofs consider Precursor: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor.
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