Megapixels (app) post-processing for fun and profit better photos.
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neat. I wonder if the openCV can be accelerated by the GPU. Anyone know if the GPU actually does any video decode or 3d acceleration on PinePhone currently? Or is it all CPU still?
Sounds like the PinePhone open-sourced modem firmware has gotten really good and easier to install. Maybe time to give it a spin.
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You should be good to go here on postmarketos/ubports - both just should have packages for GCC/LLVM AFAIK(And a lot of other packages). Not sure about Nim, but assuming it just uses GCC/LLVM for codegen it should be "fine"™.
Actually, if that’s all you’re after, you might have a look at termux or the various chroot applications in the various app stores. They install a “desktop” Linux userland in a chroot on Android, allowing you to use such tools from the regular ARM repositories of your favorite distribution.
That works pretty well, even though you don’t really have a lot of access to the hardware of your phone from the chroot(Termux does not use a chroot and does a little better by providing some applications to use “phone hardware”)
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Hm, that’s very cool. Although that has been possible for a while now, I think the Asus Zenfone 2(Runs an Intel x86 core which probably helped) could run Windows in a KVM VM, probably with a modified kernel.
I think the KVM support on ARM64 isn’t mature enough yet, but it seems like Google hired an ARM64 kernel maintainers to fix that soon!
Very exiting article! I want GKI+KVM NOW!
I love my PinePhone and it’s architecture, but I’d also like to use a modern SoC with a reasonable kernel and userland.
And of course, it was possible to use PC emulators to run the x86-versions of Windows on Android-devices since basically forever - Which is also how long it takes to boot.
Seriously, I remember booting Windows 95 on a 1GHz single-core armhf(not arm64!) phone once. Fun, but only if you like pain and suffering waiting. Makes for a nice pocket warmer though. 
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Have you given this one a shot?
not yet, but probably will shortly.
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super interested in how you go… my PPP is out of action at the moment but hoping to dive back in soon
will report back
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I went ahead and flashed the latest Manjaro Phosh image that came out this week, then installed the Gnome firmware app and upgraded the modem firmware to the open source image. So easy even I can do it. PinePhone UBPorts edition. Test call worked fine.
I did have a bit of quirkiness with the UI of Gnome firmware, I think because I had my phone in a dock connected to a monitor. Probably would have been fine if I was just plugged into power.
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that great to hear… can’t wait to get mine working again
Community update!
Most of the news is on the new RK3588 SBC, but here’s the phone relevant stuff:
- Pinephone Pro orders should be caught up from Chinese New Year.
- Tow-Boot, an opinionated distro of u-boot, now supports Pinephone and Pinephone Pro in addition to other Pine devices.
- LibreELEC on Pinephone can achieve 1080p@50-60hz
- FexEMU aims to be faster than Box86 and is actively targeting fully Steam and Proton capability. Not there yet, but rapidly improving.
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thanks, I had overlooked the Fex Emu mention. I had just begun to look at Box64, but perhaps I should check out fex instead.
not a phone, but mobile Linux open source goodness… Portable microcomputer ClockWork DevTerm adds RISC-V SKU to Cortex offerings
Should hopefully get my replacement bits next week and off to the races once again.
Anyone got tow-boot running on their pinephone pro? simple process?
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Okay bit of post here atm.
Firstly… I’ve been a bit quiet here as on day 1 my screen got a crack in it… It got suuuuuper hot and i believe it did so causing the LCD to crack. I had no damage to the outer glass, etc.
Lodged an issue ticket with Pine64… lucky me it was Chinese new year and i basically got ghosted till that was over. I had to raise a further ticket highlighting my ignored ticket and then it was decided on their end that they would offer a new screen.
I accepted the new screen and watched a bunch of the youtube video on how to swap it over on the original pinephone…
Screen was posted on March 3 and finally arrived in australis today… 21st…
I set about swapping everything over. I would say it took me about 30 minutes having never done it before. I used a decent toolkit and a plastic lever style tool to get most of it out and into the new screen. Be careful with the ribbon cable tabs…
I managed to get the USB C daughterboard and speaker assembly out using a hair drier to loosen the glue… it didn’t take a lot of heat but i was worried about just peeling it off as it seemed fairly stuck in…
Got the phone together and it booted, with the screen working as new 
Managed to get tow boot installed using a fresh sd card flashed with the spi installer using etcher.
Got into the emmc partition by holding vol up and power… There will be no screen however the LED with stay blue… plug into PC and this exposes the EMMC to the PC. Flashed manjaro ARM Phosh over my non updating broken Majnaro ARM Plasma build… Unplug and reboot… Success!!
I’m back baby… (as bender would say)
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glad to hear you’re back in business.
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