Linux Phone Hub

New postmarketOS v21.06 just dropped. postmarketOS // Download

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Finally picked up an SD card and loaded jumpstart since my last update to my stock OS bricked my system. Now running Arch Phosh and it’s much more responsive. I am getting cell+SMS but data still doesn’t work for my carrier.

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I’ve been meaning to try out Arch but haven’t yet. I saw Danct on twitter mentioned they’ve got Phosh 0.12 available as an update now. I’ll probably wait for the next build/image release to give it a go, rather than starting on phosh 0.11 then updating.

re: cool stuff in the pinephone dev world. Not really something the enduser will appreciate, but the hardware/kernel sleuthing to compensate for A64 hardware crumminess is really inspiring and admirable. Harkens back to your video with GKH on computers being a mess of broken stuff that barely works.
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=13786

New Pine Podcast episode. For those who prefer text, here’s some phone-relevant stuff.


http://briandaniels.me/2021/06/27/hardware-accelerated-video-playback-on-the-pinephone.html

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I’ve finally done it. I’ve posted my review for the Pixel 3a.

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I’m curious why you say the Pixel 3a can be “dailyed” given the list of cons you’ve mention.

Lack of paste, unreliable input, lack of MMS/SMS, and inconsistent Bluetooth all seem like a step backwards compared to Phosh on the Pinephone, for instance.

The only thing the Pixel 3a seems to do well is take pictures. What am I missing?

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Pinephone News Summary

  • Final keyboard pre-production units now being made, production to start immediately after final review

  • PinePhone now playing back accelerated video, Clapper app now available

  • Wireless charging and fingerprint reader back cases being tested and reviewed in coming days; LoRa back case awaiting I2C driver
  • Arch Linux with Plasma Mobile now available to download; a SXMO build coming later this month
  • postmarketOS gets an update with quick suspend/resume support
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New arch release came out a couple days ago for the pinephone.

There is a guide for updating modem firmware I think I will attempt.

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i just installed that arch+phosh image on the emmc last night. The updates to phosh are super nice, it’s very smooth. I definitely want to hear how the modem firmware upgrade goes.

Can’t wait to try out the arch+sxmo build also. Seems perfect to run from an sdcard. If I can figure out p-boot I want to set it up for read-only boot and use it like tails.

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Do the Arch images have encryption? So far I’ve only seen postmarketOS ship with encryption, and I’m curious to know if any other distros are porting over that work.

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The images don’t but this install script (what i actually used to install last night) will work. I increased the pbkdf memory value on line 166 because the default was too low imo.

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Interesting, I’ll poke around at it. Thanks!

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The (experimental) Debian installer for the pinephone also supports encryption.

Pinetime sealed units are back in stock. Anyone here use one with the pinephone? I just bought one on a whim, it’s hard to argue with the ~$25 price.

Well, the first part of that firmware procedure is to check if it’s complaining about out of date firmware, and mine isn’t. I don’t know how, as I’ve never wittingly updated it on my UBports edition. But I didn’t go forward with flashing until I can figure out how to check what firmware version is on my modem currently.

Also I was a bit disappointed with Arch. No particular reason. I just didn’t get the impression that it was any better than Manjaro, so I went back to that.

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On Mobian, running Phosh, I can get the Modem Firmware version in the settings, under “Mobile” → “Modem Details”.

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Could you provide a screenshot or transcription of what it says there, Max? I have that in Manjaro Phosh, but it basically is just the generic part of the firmware identifier saying it is for this modem, but it doesn’t have the actual version/revision number. ie mine says version EG25GGBR07A08M2G, but omits the part I’m interested in which would be something like 1.002.05

Mine says the same in arch+phosh. It looks like that is what you should get when using AT commands to query the modem directly so I have no idea how we could see specific versions.

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I wonder what the “MT Firmware” is.

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