Got my pinephone convergence version a couple weeks ago, so I decide to see how it goes with gentoo installed on it, I created the pinephone specific packges in my local ebuild repository ( https://gitlab.com/bingch/gentoo-overlay.git ) from various sources and finally I got gentoo running on it.

It turns out pinephone is quite usable as a normal linux desktop too, I installed gdm on it and hooked it up with an external monitor and mouse and keyboard, then launched gnome wayland session, running firefox, watching youtube etc inside gnome shell is quite smooth 

hey y'all,

I received my PBP a few months ago. All has been going well since then - I haven't had any hardware issues. The ARM architecture (mostly the lack of support for many apps I was using with an x86 machine) takes some time to get used to. Zoom hasn't been working, but I'm glad to see that someone else in the forum has found a workaround using firefox/chromium. I'll be trying that soon because I need Zoom for work. Other than that I mostly just need word processing software, so this device works just fine for my needs. :-)

I'm not a tech specialist, actually more of a literary person, but I want to support open source tech for political reasons. I think it's important to have at least some understanding of the tools we use everyday, especially because our tools influence the way in which we interact with and perceive the world. So over the years I've ended up learning some light programming and soldering, just for autonomy's sake. The PBP seems pretty accessible for someone like me, with basic knowledge in linux and electronics. I hope that the new acquisition of ARM won't rain on that parade.

In any case, thanks for making a user-friendly open source laptop. This is my main device right now, and perhaps I'm overly optimistic, but I hope I'll be able to keep it running for years to come. I'll be counting on the community here if I run into roadblocks along the way.

bisous from the alps,

anhinga

Hi, I was attempting to edit a page on installing Lazarus and got this error

My original UBPorts back cover cracked after opening around 10 times.  I have since replaced it with a no-logo back cover, and there have been no issues at all.  

I have a wild theory that the heat treatment from the logo imprint may weaken portions of the back cover.  This is completely unsubstantiated by evidence, just an idea really.

I am posting here just for information purposes only.  If anyone else experiences back cover cracking, feel free to reply to this thread.  

You can see that it it happened right at the right side retainer post, directly under the power button.  So it could also be a simple manufacturing defect.

Two images attached.

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I'd like to set up open VPN which I assusme will work but I don't know what command to use. I tried sudo apt and apt isn't found so that leaves zypper, pacman and dnf. I just don't know which is appropriate for PMOS. I know stupid question but all I've messed with is Debian based distros and can't figure out what PMOS is based off to know which is appropriate package handler. Or maybe there isn't one and I'll have to learn to download directly. This could get interesting!   Any help pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated!

PS  I love this phone so far. It's just a cm taller than my Blackberry Key One or Key2LE and so far I'm adjusting to the differences. I plan to have it as a backup phone and to play around with it as a micro computer for basic forms etc... for work.

I have Mobian installed on my eMMC and use a 128GB SD card to store my music collection. Unfortunately I've had troubles with various music players "losing" my music library after a while and having to re-scan or re-build it when I open the app after a few days (which can take quite a while). I believe I read somewhere that Mobian only mounts the SD card when it's needed, rather than keeping it persistently mounted, and I'm guessing this may be behind my problem.

I've read about the option to mount the SD card as an extended home directory in the tweaks section of the Mobian wiki, but I'm not sure I want to wipe my SD card and follow those directions just to see if this fixes my music problem. Does anyone know if there's a way to persistently mount an SD card without wiping it and setting it as the home directory? Or is this even something I'd want to do? Presumably there's a reason the card isn't persistently mounted in the "stock" Mobian installation. Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated.

Greetings All

After receiving my PMOS edition(2gb,16gb) model and playing around with it for a few days i started to do some distro hopping and found what i was looking for in Mobian. It seems to be a lot more stable and the UI more smooth to use then other distros.

Below is the bugs i have found after about a month of use, further down is my "Wishlist" of features i would love to see added in the future.
And since i don't know programming, i'm hoping this reaches the Mobian Team

Sometimes the menus and apps scaling is off i.e, it gets
cut off on the right side of the screen.
It seems completly random when it happens.

Weird clicking noise from speaker at random times

When entering sound settings, a high pitch whine and white noise plays.
Sometimes it stops after a few seconds and sometimes it keeps going for a long
time, it can sometimes be stopped by turning off the screen, and sometimes it keeps going.

Heat:
The phone gets very warm no matter what but when charging or transferring
files it gets almost unbearable.

Kings cross app:
Scrolling seems broken, if you run a command like dmesg and scroll
back, the screen snaps back to the start, and after trying that a few times
scrolling stops working and the cursor stops blinking, the app still works.

File transfer:
I tried to transfer some music files but for whatever reason i don't have acess to them.
When i use the "Files" app i have to enter a password when trying to enter the folders i
transferred. And no matter how many i try it does not accept the password of the phone.
This happens wether i transfer to the emmc or sd card, and after transfer some files
to SD card and plug iy back in my PC, i get an acess denied error.
Tried different cables, same result.
Transfering files to SD on pc and inserting it into the phone works.


Wishlist:
LED notifications:
Right now it blinks blue wether i received a call or a text, it would
be nice if color could be chosen based on the notification.

LED charging:
Having the LED on while charging and with color based on charge level

Screen rotation:
There only seems to be 2 options, portraite or landscape.
Could there be an option for automatic?

Being able to change theme in settings(dark mode)

Full disk encryption during first time setup

Controlling flashlight from lockscreen

Volume buttons:
It would be nice to have some feedback while pressing the buttons, both visual
and audio. And also having the popout having individual volume sliders for
alarms, phone and messaging.

Sounds:
Being able to change ring, messaging & alarm tones under settings.

Notifications dropdown:
When pressing the mobile, wifi or bt buttons it opens the settings menu.
Can there be an option that when pressing the buttons simply turn the respective
features on and off?
When pressing the beel icon, silent mode can be turned on and off.

Lollypop:
Back button in the top left corner is greyed out in many menues.
Being able to:
Browse files directy
Create a playlist from folder
Add file to playlist

Alarm:
The LED blinks blue and an alarm sounds.
I wish it would turn on the screen and be able to turn off the alarm from the lock screen.

Power:
When plugging the phone in to a pc/charger, when it's off, the phone boots up.
It would be nice to either have to option, have the phone boot up, or just have the led
come on or maybe even have a battery logo on the screen that indicates charge level.

Maps(Location services):
Even if location services is turned off, when in maps i press the current location button,
it shows my location.
This is being discussed here: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11529
Would it be possible to make it so that the location services menu can turn on and off
the different sources independently?

Hi,
does anyone know how to setup ANSI pinebook pro keyboard on ubuntu? i have appeared to have lost the keyboard setting and have it currently set to US keyboard. Though one half will be numbers and other letters. I currently have to use a wireless keyboard. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi!

Again, a lot has happened under the hood, but there were also quite a few user-visible changes this time

• The kernel was upgraded to version 5.8 and HDMI output was re-enabled
  
• Mobian metapackages have been reworked to use "softer" dependency relationships; this way, users can choose to uninstall most bundled apps without removing the metapackages, and therefore, without risking losing essential packages later
  
• Some important apps have been updated:
  • Firefox ESR is now version 78, and it now uses the mobile config tweaks from our friends at pmOS
    
  • GNOME Maps 3.38 has been released and now has a (mostly) adaptive UI
    
  • GTK, the underlying foundation to every GNOME software, has been updated to version 3.24.22
    
• We also added a couple apps in the default build:
  • GNOME Weather is patched for adaptive UI, and therefore finally usable on the PinePhone
    
  • Thanks to Martijn Braam's fantastic work, Megapixels is the new default camera app. We still hold great hopes for Pinhole, but it just isn't the best option for now.
    

I've been having pretty good luck getting my Pinetab set up as a laptop-like device with the keyboard cover. However, one lingering pain point is the fact that the display always wants to be in vertical mode, and rotating it has to be done manually using various configuration handles. Is there a better way, e.g. some bootloader configuration option, that would set the default screen orientation to be horizontal? It would be really nice to be able to use the device as a plain and simple laptop-like, especially in the bare TTY, without needing to manually change the screen orientation every time.