I don't have Ubuntu Touch installed, but I'm trying to find out what packages it has and specifically which versions on which channels (stable, rc, devel). The UBPorts distribution system is really obscure to me though and I couldn't find any info about what's on which channel and what packages are included in the PinePhone image in the first place.
I got so far as to see that packages come from repo.ubports.com, but how do I know which update channel they belong to? I see packages being built in their CI, but where do they go?
I was looking into getting Lomiri running again on Manjaro, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what the currently used package versions are or what commits builds are based on. Does anyone know more about how to find this out?

Someone sent me this link when I mentioned Axolotl wasn't working and claimed this works but I certainly wasn't able to get the debian package to install and can't open an issue on their Github because it is restricted. Anyone else have any luck?

https://github.com/0mniteck/Signal-Desktop-Builder

Is there interest in a satellite one or two way communications capability from a future Pinephone, Pinephone add-on caseback, or connectable networkable peripheral device?

There was recently a clickbait article about an imaginary Apple phone #13 with LEO satcom included in the design, can we/do we want to make it actually happen on pinephone?

Some services need a small tube antenna like Iridium(also Delorne) and can perform 2-way communications including voice, data, and 'sms'.
Others like SPOT/Globalstar can send messages 1-way up to LEO satellites and the sending module is quite small to add to a caseback, you can currently buy a STX3 for about US$100.
Receiving messages from satellite can be done cheaply by leasing a transponder and sending a very tight low bandwidth signal over a loss tolerant protocol to the satellites footprint, the receiver hardware could be built into a phone or caseback or a wireless linked earth station  There is also 2-way and rx only options from

What services would be most desired?(I think 2 way cheap SMS like service when terrestrial telephone or LAN is unavailable)
I doubt we could shoehorn fast data or even phonecalls cheaply even from the forthcoming LEO(low earth orbit) comsats especially since most will be using secret proprietary hardware and encoding and for example the Starlink box is pretty big.

Knowing this community there are probably other options that would fit in a phone I am missing.

Let us hear your pinephone related satellite communications ideas, hopes, and dreams.

My understanding in the PC world is that Manjaro is a version of Arch with a more user friendly installer, and a few weeks lag with packages (and therefore a few weeks more testing).

Basically this would appear to make Manjaro a more stable (due to extra testing) version of Arch.

Is the same true with Pinephone images?  The installer bit is irrelevant because both are just images that flashed on with dd.

If I stick with Manjaro phosh am I just getting what was Arch phosh a few weeks earlier or is it not that simple?

I'm trying to make a mocap setup that relies on being able to capture 60fps video, is the pinecube capable of streaming 720p60fps? It can have some latency if needed.

Ubports has a new release candidate. prominent features are:

1. workaround for the modem resetting itself after sleep (not a fix).
2. audio fixes, headphone jack detection. 
3. allot of newer updates compared to the "stable" image.

To install just change update channel to release candidate.
There's not a standalone image, so you have to start with the stable image here, and then switch to the release candidate channel.

Issues can be posted here

Ubports is still running on 16.04, and their main focus is porting it over to 20.04.

I'm thinking about purchasing a new phone, but in Hong Kong the one I want is and there are no vendors in the United Kingdom. I suppose I have to pay customs duties and all of this, if I order it, but how much am I going to pay and how does it work? All the information I can find on the Internet appears to be very general, I just want to know about the cost.

If this does help at all, the phone is £160 with £13.50.

The latest release from sleepwalker and his PersonalBSD project is working quite well now (there was a previous mouse/keyboard driver issue that has been resolved).

Go through base/installer image from PersonalBSD.org sd-card (if your u-boot supports USB it will also work that way), you can run the PersonalBSD image as your FreeBSD setup, or install it as I did using bsdinstall.

No built in wifi, so I use a rtl8188 based usb adapter which uses the rtwn driver.

just requires modifying /etc/rc.conf:

# wifi setup
wlans_rtwn0="wlan0"
ifconfig_wlan0="WPA SYNCDHCP"

and adding my network to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

network={
    ssid="wifi_ssid_name"
    psk="wifi_password"
}

Desktop Setup/Packages

If you absolutely need packages not in the PersonalBSD repos, modify /usr/local/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf to enable the normal FreeBSD repo.

FreeBSD:  {
    enabled: yes
    priority: 0
}

follow step5 onward for XFCE4 desktop from this walkthrough (https://leonardcucos.com/how-to-install-...ce-4-2021/), and the command ee is your friend if you hate modifying config files with vi.

I did not enable HALD as that has not been necessary for some time, but its in all the older guides.

Caveats:

FreeBSD 13 does not understand big.LITTLE scheduling yet, so worse performance across the board.

There is no ETA on the wifi driver for the built in adapter, given how horribly it performed recently on NetBSD, it will likely be a while if it ever gets supported.

There will not nearly be as much support for FreeBSD as linux distros for the PBP, so unless you're comfortable applying patches to ports yourself this may not be the OS for you (this is above even my pay grade).

The FreeBSD Quarterly Repo has more packages than Latest, so I wouldn't bother switching to it.  Firefox is still only v87, sadly.

Package Conflicts are annoying, some things break when using multiple repos, try building things from ports.

P.S.

Had to use right-ctrl for tmux/screen window switching as the default key map differentiates them.

Edit:

Be ready to compile from ports as package repos are not completely working for all desktop apps.

Hey,

recently while browsing the internet I found an interesting microkernel-based OS called Genode (https://genode.org/ https://genode.org/documentation/general-overview/index).
Its developers planned to implement basic feature-phone functionality (calls, SMS, mobile data connectivity) for the Pinephone by the end of 2021 and get it running with graphic output and web browser by the end of august (https://genode.org/about/road-map).
On NXP's i.MX8 processors it is able to run in ARM TrustZone while executing a Linux or Android VM with native graphics performance. Maybe this would also be possible on the Pinephone so one can easily use Linux applications or even switch between OSes when needed while keeping a secure and lightweight backbone running.
I thought to share it with you, so you might have a look at it and maybe try it when it's ready or even contribute to its development.

I've been running OpenWrt on my RockPro64 for some time - and it works really well!

However, yesterday I had a power outage, and when the electricity came back on again, the device did not power on automatically.

Is it anything I can do to enable and ensure that the device automatically starts after a power outage?

Kind regards, Erik