From 88d4dd29232197d71e7e9550af6898f18eb571e9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Gregory Hellings Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2021 23:08:43 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] Add PinePhone post --- content/posts/pinephone.md | 139 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 139 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/posts/pinephone.md diff --git a/content/posts/pinephone.md b/content/posts/pinephone.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a3b9c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/posts/pinephone.md @@ -0,0 +1,139 @@ +--- +title: "Pinephone" +date: 2021-10-15T10:20:44-05:00 +draft: false +--- + +So I recently grabbed a [PinePhone](http://www.pine64.org/pinephone), +because my old Galaxy S9+ has been dying +a slow death. The old one started out being finnicky about docking to the +car, then charging became an intermittent hassle, then the screen started +to die slowly. So it was time to get a replacement. Might as well go with something +very different and out of place, eh? Why not take a look at the only generally +available smartphone that was running an upstream version of Linux? + +So I grabbed a PinePhone back at the end of August. It took until late September +for delivery to go out. Pine64 is shipping them out to the US in batches. +But waiting a month isn't so bad when it's a device you've been wanting. + +## First Boot + +So the phone arrives, I promptly pop out my nano SIM, place it into the +micro SIM adapter, and slide it into the phone. I boot up, connect Manjaro +to my home Wifi, and am ready to upadte. But... I have no idea how to do that. +I'm a Fedora user, and Manjaro is not built on the same technology. OK, so +I finally figure that out. + +`sudo pacman -Syyu` + +Boom, everything is up to date. I disable Wifi, and try to bring up a browser +to test out mobile data. No luck. I'm not getting anything. + +As an AT&T customer, I stopped by the local AT&T store and got them to register +the phone's IMEI and get a new SIM just in case there's an incompatibility +there. Nope, there's nothing. But I'm able to make a phone call. So that's +promising. + +After a week of back and forth between Fedora and Manjaro, I did finally get +data working, sometimes, in Manjaro after I ran `sudo pinephone-modem-setup.sh` +from the terminal. It's still more flaky than in Fedora, but it does get +the job done some of the time. + +## Fedora? + +As I mentioned above, I'm a Fedora user. So I went and grabbed the +[Fedora image](https://github.com/nikhiljha/pp-fedora-sdsetup/releases) +based on Btrfs. I burned it to a spare SD card I have, and dropped that +into the back of the PinePhone. One nice thing about the PinePhone is that +it will boot off the SD card if there is a bootable one in place before +it drops back to the internal ROM. This allows me to test out as many +different distros as I want, easily, without needing to walk through the +slightly more complicated process of burning the images to the internal +memory or losing the step there. + +So I boot up Fedora and run its updates. + +`sudo dnf update -y` + +Error. There is an existing package, `pinephone-helpers`, that cannot +update from 0.2.0 to 0.3.0 because it is... conflicting with itself? OK, +that's weird. But we can work around that very easily. + +```bash +sudo dnf remove pinephone-helpers +sudo dnf update -y +sudo dnf install pinephone-helpers +``` + +Now, my system is fully updated (as of time of writing, these images are +in Fedora Rawhide, which will become Fedora 36; 35 is about to land in +stable). Immediately I noticed an improvement over Manajaro's Plasma +Mobile. + +First, and immediately obvious to me, [Phosh](https://github.com/agx/phosh) +has a button in the lower right +that makes it easy to toggle the on screen keyboard on and off. This is +a huge boost to usability. In Plamsa Mobile the keyboard will sometimes +fail to appear when tapping into a text box, most frequently in the +browser. This little button in Phosh, though, allows me to quickly bring +up the keyboard without having to blur/focus/blur/focus until the phone +brings up the keyboard of its own volition. HUGE usability bonus that +Plasma KDE would do well to emulate. + +Secondly, and maybe more significantly, Fedora quickly brought up mobile +data on AT&T's network without a hiccup. No switches, no changes, no +questions to ask or forms to fill out. It just comes up and works! So, +that big issue is resolved. + +## Fedora's Woes + +Except for one thing. I need to chat with my wife, so I gave her a ring +from the phone. No audio. She can't hear me, I can't hear her. Huh, that +seems a bit strange. Phone can do everything but make calls? So I pop +into the settings menu and bring up the sound page. Fedora can't even +see the audio hardware in the device. That sounds like the root of the +problem. + +Lots of other people are over in the IRC room for #fedora-mobility are +having issues with their audio switching between calls and playback +when the phone app starts, but no one else is having absolutely no luck +in the audio department. But it's not a hardware problem, as the audio +works just fine in Manjaro. + +Based on the discussions in the room, I swap out pipewire-pulseaudio for +plain pulseaudio, then reboot. + +`sudo dnf swap pipewire-pulseaudio pulseaudio` + +Suddenly my audio is working great, and the Settings app can see the audio +devices on the phone! Huzzah! But it won't switch to call audio unless +you do some finagling on the command line after every reboot. Developers +are working on that. + +# Bring the experience together + +So here I am, on the one hand I have Fedora + +* Audio only working with pulseaudio (funcitonal but laggy) +* Call audio still won't go through, without some finagling +* Data works marvelously +* Phosh is a delight + +While on Manjaro + +* Audio works fine, including with calls +* Data started working after I ran the helper scripts, but is flaky +* Plasma Mobile is still tough to navigate with + +Overall, I prefer the keyboard on Plasma Mobile more, I just wish it was easier to control like the one in +Phosh is. I admit that I'm much more accustomed to Gnome and its apps and navigation than I am to KDE, as I +have exclusively been in Gnome for most of the past decade. So there is a familiarity there. The same goes +for Fedora versus the Arch world that I'm not really familiar with. + +I haven't come to a final conclusion which operating system I will use. Some of me wants to stick with Fedora, +both because of their upstream first mentality, and because I am already intimately familiar with their +systems and setup. + +Anyway, that's a whole lot of stream of consciousness of what I've been thinking regarding my Pine Phone, +and of course the Pro is now recently announced and I would love to get my hands on that, too, if the existing +one proves to be a reasonable daily driver.