Hello everyone,

I’d like to share my experience as a user of the PinePhone beta running Manjaro.
Despite a few imperfections – which I fully expect from a device that’s still close to a prototype – I’m actually very happy with it overall. It’s an exciting project, and I want to sincerely thank and congratulate the developers for the great work they’ve done so far.

If I may add a small remark: a slightly smaller screen might have helped improve battery life.
I understand that large screens are the trend nowadays, but some users like me mainly look for a more compact device, focused on basic daily features.
For me, the essential functions are:

• making calls,
  
• saving contacts,
  
• sending text messages.
  
  

Hi all,

Recently I made the brave attempt to upgrade my PPP bought before 2023, with RK2AW.

The point with installing RK2AW is to get decent behavior in case of battery depletion - before RK2AW, if you deplete the battery, the phone would go into a battery-depleting perpetual loop and the only way to get the phone working again was to remove the USB and battery, push the Maskrom/RE PIN, and then boot the phone, and leave it like that for 10-20 hours.


For RK2AW distribution, I took this archive https://xff.cz/kernels/bootloaders-2024.04/ppp.tar.gz , as suggested by the Pine wiki https://pine64.org/documentation/PinePho...ion_image/ and also by Megi in his blog https://xnux.eu/log/098.html .


The installation steps were really only:

Apologies for starting in this sub-forum, I didn't see an "introductions" section.....

I'm a Linux user since 1998, but admittedly not a real "power user", every computer I own is Linux based, but I have to use an abomination at work like most people.

 I have several years experience with SBC's and a healthy collection of them. As far as coding goes I know some C++, and know enough to do fun stuff, but I'm not a developer by any stretch of the imagination.

I'd like to order a PinePhone, and use it as my daily but I really need to know a few things before I do. I read through the forum some, and watched some YouTube videos but we all know how quickly things change and I didn't see anything super recent about my concerns.

It's understood that PinePhone is under development, and there are going to be quirks and plain old "don't work for that" scenarios (like everything Linux), so I'd like to see a baseline of what IS happening before I commit....

I'm not only open to trying different distros, but enthusiastic about it, so if one is better at giving me the capabilities I need than the others that's great!

The things I need from a phone are:

1) 5G phone service on T-Mobile (USA)

2) RCS chat

3) WhatsApp

4) FireFox, or a secure browser that isn't going to get blocked by places like my bank, preferably NOT chrome

-------------------

Also I'm curious what development environments can run, my go-to is Geany, and I've also just barely started dabbling in front ends so I'm curious what's supported, QT or something?

And I'm assuming there's a way to encrypt a folder and make a safe place for sensitive storage like LUKS?

Thank you for reading, I'm really excited to get some feedback, if I can do the 4 things above I'm ordering a Beta,I've looked at the Pro, but it's out of stock.

https://redlib.perennialte.ch/r/linux/co...ding_2026/   (Reddit scraped)

Quote:Given what Google just announced, I think that Linux phones are going to get very very popular very very soon. Does anyone here have experience moving from Android over to the pine phone? I use a lot of FOSS that Google really doesn't like and their policy changes coming in 2026 don't bode well for me. App developers on GitHub, F-droid anything not officially verified by Google or rather the developers of those apps are effectively going to be banned off of the ecosystem.

Just looking to pack a parachute.

does anyone have a part number for the keyboard pogo pins?

For those who have a PPP gathering dust in a drawer somewhere, what's stopping you from daily driving it? When I got mine earlier this year, I tried it out and made a list of things that stopped me from ditching my Android for it, which was:

• Need physical protection (cover). I looked around for other phone covers that could work for the PPP, but eventually got the PPP TPU cover. I wish it had the corner bumpers as well as extending over the front screen for better protection, so I'll keep looking for alternative covers.
  
• The biggest issue was battery life. Using Mobian, suspend worked, which helped, but I could barely browse the web for 1 hour before the battery meter dropped from 100% to less than 30%. YouTube went from 100% to 5% in under 30 mins! Luckily I discovered this is a software problem rather than hardware, hence my efforts to patch the kernel to fix the battery meter (see other threads), which is now working quite reasonably for me.
  
• A semi-working camera so I can document things or scan QR codes (not worried too much about quality). This is working now.
  
• Less of an issue: an offline GPS app for my camping/hiking trips. There are some options now (not all mobile optimized yet) like Organic Maps.
  

• Calls and SMS
  
• Bluetooth audio playback
  
• Bluetooth keyboard for some terminal usage
  
• Software updates (and some great apps on Flathub like Foliate, Cozy, Papers, Telegram, Delta Chat)
  
• Web browsing with Firefox + uBlock Origin
  
• Media playback (videos, audiobooks, podcasts)
  
• Reading e-books
  
• Contacts/Calendar sync with my Nextcloud
  
• Alarms work even when the phone is suspended
  
• General reliability, i.e. phone doesn't randomly reboot or heat up in my pocket, etc.
  

Good afternoon everyone,
I'm working on a project that requires six NEMA 17 stepper motors. I can use the standard A4988 or the more powerful DRV8825 driver, but both are 5V devices, while the Teensy 4.0 is a 3.3V device.

Can these drivers be used directly with the Teensy without damaging it?
Do they require a logic level converter?
Are there other compatible 3.3V stepper drivers?

Hey!

The hinge on my Pinebook Pro has broken and I don't feel like fixing it. And since I'd hate to throw this thing away for just that reason, I'm willing to give it away for free.

I'm shipping from Germany near Hamburg, just send me a message here or on IRC (same username as here) if you're interested. You would however have to pay for shipment, after successfully receiving the Pinebook Pro.

Fixing that hinge apparenly involves gluing it, for more info post a message in the #pinebook channel on the Pine64 IRC, it appears to be pretty repairable using the correct type of glue.

Tell me what you're going to use the PBP for!
This is how I'm going to rank this:
 1. Developers - reputable developers in the Pinebook Pro community who need some extra hardware to play with and don't necessarily need a working hinge.
 2. Newbies - people interested in buying a Pinebook Pro and in fixing that hinge.
 3. Enthusiasts - existing Pinebook Pro users interested in spare parts and willing to distribute remaining spare parts further.

If you're a developer, send me a link of some sort to a list of previous contributions.

Tuxifan

Hello,

I would like to boot a bare metal program (that just starts and enters in an infinite loop) (asm+c) on my ppp thank to U-Boot, but U-Boot don't boot my program and blinks the multicolor led in red, and then shut down. What's wrong in my code ? 

start.S

Dear all, 

I was hoping to brain storm the community on how to fix the pinephone keyboard mainboard rather than just replacing it when the charging chip overheats and gets fried as it seems to do every 4-9 months for me. 

I must have at least 6-7 mainboards in my possession now (only one of which is working sadly). 

I have never soldered before, but would be willing to learn, particularly if the replacement charging chip could be bought for very cheap and it just needed desoldering the old one and soldering on the new one. This would be a good reason to start my soldering journey...

Glad for anyone's tips on this. 

BW