I saw older videos of Phosh where you had the ability to close windows using the X button on the top right of each application.
Then they moved it to just the app launcher.
Then they replaced the X button for swipe to close (for people coming from iOS or Android, it makes sense).

Now I did an update, and the home screen is no longer accessible.
You can now only see it for a few seconds between launching an app, and the app being launched.
You can't do much on the home screen, but it's still nice eye candy.
Even Android and iOS let you see the home screen while having apps open!
Why can't Phosh do that?

It's a bit frustrating if you're buying a PC-grade phone, only for it to move towards the smartphone crowds.
Is there a way to re-enable the ability to see the home screen? (gsettings or something?)

Never used Mandrake/Mandriva/OpenMandriva, but maybe we have some fans here.

Read the article here: https://9to5linux.com/openmandriva-lx-4-...nebook-pro

Hi

Been a while since I've tried any distro for the PinePhone.
Wondering if any of the current distributions out there today have good/working modem and audio support? Last time I tried, sound was just to bad and the modem silently stopped working mid day several times excluding my from both calls and messages without notifications. Would love to start using my PinePhone on a daily basis. All I personally need really, is audio and cell-connection to be working.

I am not real sure where to send this request. In late 2019, probably between late November and mid December, I ordered a PineBook Pro. This laptop was selected for a few reasons: Mainly the initial cost of the unit, and also the operating system. I did not, and still do not, know that much about the Manjaro programming language but understand that it is either a subset of Linux or is based on Linux. And I am trying to learn the Linux programming language. My use of the PineBook Pro would be as a study aid to use with a desktop computer that has Linux as the operating system. I plan to have a lesson or problem on the screen of the desktop and work on the solution on the PineBook Pro.


Not very long after my order was placed the first word about the corona virus came out in the news media and the factories in China started shutting down. Then other companies around the world started cutting back on their production because many of the parts that were needed were manufactured in China and were subject to the general shut down. Thus, all shipments of PineBook Pros became delayed. My order was finally shipped sometime between mid April and early May. It was delivered about the middle of May 2020.


The first time I turned the PineBook Pro on, I was able to go completely through the initial setup process. However, that was the only time that laptop even got past the login screen. Since that time, and I have attempted to turn it on and try to use it at least once almost every other week, the PineBook Pro only gets to a state where the power LED shows green and the three security switches (the microphone, the WiFi, and the camera switches) would show any indication of being pressed. The display would be black and would not respond in any way to any keyboard input or command. It seems to me that there is some hardware malfunction or problem that is preventing the PineBook Pro from powering on and becoming fully operational. I am requesting a Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) so that this PineBook Pro can be returned to the distribution location and thoroughly checked out for any and all problems with the hardware inside this laptop. As it is right now, this laptop is and has not been usable for anything.


My email address as shown in the user profile is watched more than the forum so any answers and/or suggestions would be seen quicker if sent in an email than in a forum post.
Thank you,
James Good

When running Kali 2020.4 form an SD it does not detect the EMMC.

It should be displayed as `mmcblk2` when running command `lsblk`but it only displays the sd card which is `mmcblk1`

Any ideas?

I'm preparing an upper-division engineering course in which we will be studying the hardware and full-stack software of the pinephone. I have found the schematics available on the pinephone wiki, but I'm curious whether the actual PCB layout files are available anywhere?

Thanks!

Currently only if I insert an SD Card with JumpDrive installed PinePhone gets detected on my PC, but without it I cannot transfer any files to or from via USB. I have tried both Plasma Mobile and Phosh versions and in both of them USB file transferring didn't work.

How to make USB file transferring work?
Will it be enabled by default in feature?

I've decided to sell my Pinebook Pro. It comes with:

• 128GB EMMC
  
• Two power adaptors (USB & AC)
  
• Extra ISO keyboard (this was the original, I upgraded to an ANSI)
  
• Fresh install of Manjaro/KDE
  

Hi all, if anyone can help me, that would be great!

I am having all sorts of trouble writing to my sdcard on 2 different pinephone ce editions, on two different sdcards (both using mobian, from the encrypted installer).

The most I have been able to achieve it to create a new folder on one, using sudo, but even then I could not copy files into it (even using sudo), getting errors like "you dont have permission..."

As the normal user, there is no hope of anything being written, and I have tried a number of file managers, ie: the console-based midnight commander, nemo, nautilus, Pcmanfm and thunar.

I also, using sudo in the console or to run the others, cannot change the ownership of the folder that I created (root).

Please someone tell me the silly mistake I am making? Thanks!

In case this is helpful to others, I thought I would just provide a "heads up" about what seems to be a surprisingly well-behaved program which has solved my calendar and email needs, -thunderbird.

I have tried several programs for these 2 needs, and always run into problems for my desired use, and had also initially dismissed tb too, but after much trial and error, I finally found that tb is surprisingly suitable for me, if tweaked in certain ways, and also fairly robust.

disclaimer: I am no computer expert, my experiences here are just provided "as-is" and completely at your own risk.

I installed tb from the terminal using:

sudo apt install thunderbird

then, to make if fit the screen:

scale-to-fit thunderbird

then, to increase some text sizes (including my homescreen, which changed to 3 columns):

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface font-name 'Cantarell 15'

(it was previous set to 'Cantarell 11')


I ran tb (from a new icon which appeared), and setup an email account, then setup a calendar (I use caldav).

Here are some tricks I had to discover:

If I cant see an off-screen option, try swapping to landscape to get to it.

If I cant see the keyboard, button at bottom-right will bring it up, and also get it back out of the way.

If my keyboard doesn't have arrow keys visible, press round symbol at bottom, second from left for a few seconds, and a menu pops up, I press the "terminal" option, and then you can access arrows, del, ctrl, alt esc, f1-f10, and many more.

I permanently enabled the menus on tb, as they only take a few millimetres of height.

To get to the menus first time, I bring up keyboard, press second from right bottom button which looks like this >_ and then press F10, -however I then have to navigate the menus via the keyboard arrow keys untill the menus are permanently enabled for the first time (selecting: View-Toolbars-Menubar), as touch wont operate them till then.

On the menu of the email page, I choose View-Layout-Wideview, which make the messages go full width across the screen.

I reduce the width of the folders colunm to the least that it is workable, -this can take patience, and can crash tb, but it seems to recover just fine.

I can increase the size of individual email messages by using CTRL +  (ie: choose numbers on the keyboard, then toggle the Ctrl key to on, then press the + till the text is big enough.) -I have to remember to toggle the Ctrl key off again afterwards, or I cant type anything!!! -that's tricked me a few times...

If I need a right-click menu, I can achieve this via the >_ button of the terminal, where I have found a "Menu" key.

In the "subject" pane, the last tiny option on the right of "Date" gives the option of unticking various symbols on that line, ie: "threads" etc, giving more room to see the subject of emails.

In the calendar tab, I select month view, and strectch the window above it to about a third of the screen height, and set it to display all future events.

I also switch off the long window on the right side which gives an overview of today's appointment, as it takes too much space.

I also go to the preferences menu and choose to display short-dates, and also increas the font size to about 20 or 30.

Regarding the scale-to-fit function, I noticed that it is good to enable the calendar, as this seems to trigger the scaling to fit the screen better, for the email tab as well. The scaling can take a few seconds to catch up when the program is first started.

I find that though the detail is quite small, with the tweaks I make it works pretty well for me, -however I do have quite good sight at close range.

Regards all, hope this is helpful to someone!