Josef Söntgen
Quote:So un-using it before the reboot prevents any component from accessing the file-system during the reboot procedure. Now that should not be a problem in general and it probably will not have any effect on the issue you encountered - but its something that is simple to try out.
Ding...ding...ding...ding! Toggling "USE" off did the trick. Going forward, it may be a good idea to make that an automatic part of the ReBoot & Shutdown process for those who forget that step before turning off their device running Genode OS or at the very least add a nag screen "You need to turn off 'USE' before shutting this device down."
Quote:Again, I have to confess not having used the convergence pack yet so I am not sure if that makes a difference. I will give that a try.
Power supply charging through the convergence pack worked this time with a "+" sign added to the power percentage.
More fixes/features to note:
6) Because the software is triggered by hitting the left side of the screen, you may want to move the "1" box under the STORAGE section to the right side along with making the box a little larger so it's easier to press.
7) I like the browser keyboard featuring all the common buttons up front. Similar to #6, maybe add a button feature above the keyboard that increases the size of the keyboard so it takes up half the screen with larger buttons for easier typing of long messages and then hit the button again to shrink down the screen for typing shorter messages.
8) I really like the browser. Is it similar to Brave in that it blocks all cookies running in the background which cuts battery draw in half since the other half typically processes trackers on the back end? If not, that's fine, it's just a nice feature of the Brave browser which is also a fork of Chrome.
9) This is probably already on the "last things to do before launch" list, but a screen saver feature would be nice since I left the phone alone to fetch/extract multiple software pieces that takes about 20-30 minutes and came back to find the screen still lit up. Not sure how much power that draws, but I assume a screen saver would help.
@ nfeske @ Josef Söntgen
The Reticulum API Is Complete
https://unsigned.io/articles/2023_06_03_...plete.html
I've mentioned previously the possible benefit of incorporating Reticulum's Nomadnet and/or Sideband apps into Genode/Sculpt OS as a native application since it's a TCP/IP alternative that might make Genode more attractive for adoption. It's basically a new internet that carries packets through the internet, radio, and their own LoRa rnode devices flashed to LilyGo's, RaspPi's, etc through a mesh network should the other carrier options not be available.
RNS is currently in python, but C# and Java versions are in development. They even have their own version of SSH.
The link above is their announcement about finishing up their API after 6 months of fine tuning and that they're now able to focus on other projects (like possibly a Genode application).
It might be worth reaching out to see if a collaboration can get set up.
I have just published a new Sculpt OS image for the PinePhone that includes a screensaver mode to increase battery time. You can download the image with version 2023-06-30 at https://depot.genode.org/nfeske/image, or use Sculpt's built-in system update feature, selecting me (nfeske) as image provider, and download and install the latest entry of my index.
The screensaver kicks in after ten seconds of user inactivity in the administrative user interface. It also can be manually activated by pressing the power button. While the screen is blanked, a press of the power button enables the display again.
Under the hood, Sculpt completely removes the drivers for the display and the touchscreen while the screen is blanked, which considerably reduces the power draw. The system also switches the CPU to economic mode while the screen is blanked. Here are some illustrative data points:
Max brightness in performance mode: 2.8 W
Max brightness in economic mode: 2.6 W
Low brightness in economic mode: 1.7 W
Screensaver with modem enabled: 1.0 W
As a caveat, I noticed that the screen-flickering issue, we sporadically observed in the past, occurs quite often when returning from the screensaver (aka after restarting the drivers). The flickering disappears after a while. However, maybe this way of reproducing the issue gives us the chance to eventually solve it.
Have fun with trying out the new image!
(06-30-2023, 08:39 AM)nfeske Wrote: You can download the image with version 2023-06-30 at https://depot.genode.org/nfeske/image, or use Sculpt's built-in system update feature, selecting me (nfeske) as image provider, and download and install the latest entry of my index.
Thank you for this latest and greatest test version. I'll test it out over the next couple days and report back on the performance.
Looking forward to the official August release when texting is added and I can make Genode OS my go to Operating System.
(06-30-2023, 08:39 AM)nfeske Wrote: The screensaver kicks in after ten seconds of user inactivity in the administrative user interface. It also can be manually activated by pressing the power button. While the screen is blanked, a press of the power button enables the display again.
As a caveat, I noticed that the screen-flickering issue, we sporadically observed in the past, occurs quite often when returning from the screensaver (aka after restarting the drivers). The flickering disappears after a while. However, maybe this way of reproducing the issue gives us the chance to eventually solve it.
10 seconds to blank screen and screen-flickering are there as you mentioned, but getting the screen to reappear by pressing the power button is very buggy.
I could not consistently turn the screen back on the same way. Sometimes it took pressing the power button once, twice, thrice, etc. and waiting 5 seconds. Other times the same thing was done using the volume buttons (up and down) to get the screen to return not pressing the power button at all. I use Arch that relies on hitting the power button once to reenable the screen and that was working fine before switching out the OS via SD card.
Other issues I've mentioned before are still there which may already be in the works for the official August Launch version:
1. Can't access Voicemail typing pin code because the carrier service doesn't respond to buttons pressed during a live call (in addition to the # not being enabled yet per previous comments).
2. Keyup still doesn't seem to work. You can see for yourself by visiting this site with Sculpt's browser where the background color doesn't turn pink on Keyup like it should: https://www.w3schools.com/jquery/tryit.a...down_keyup
3. Still lose the Sculpt OS on reboot after clicking Storage "USE" off requiring reburning the image, reloading the OS, and redownloading the Presets. I did this without looking at previous notes which may have the correct procedure listed, but this is still way to much work to cleanly power down/restart the OS on the PinePhone.
If the reboot can't be simplified where whatever Storage connection is automatically deactivated on power down/restart, at least add a nag screen that prevents the user from hitting reboot/power down until the list of shut down procedures are manually completed.
4. Review my previous posts in this thread for the rest of the list.
#1 is the only real deal breaker to switching to Sculpt since I use the PP mostly for phone, voicemail retrieval, and text (#3 can be tolerated once I memorize the reboot/power down steps). I can get by without full browser functionality and the other bells and whistles.
Let me know if I missed something/followed wrong procedure, etc.
Thank you for the welcome feedback and for keeping track of the issues that concern you most.
Quote:I could not consistently turn the screen back on the same way. Sometimes it took pressing the power button once, twice, thrice, etc. and waiting 5 seconds. Other times the same thing was done using the volume buttons (up and down) to get the screen to return not pressing the power button at all.
It takes a second until the screen re-appears (the drivers need a bit of time to start again). When pressing the button during this second, the press is interpreted as command to enter the screensaver again (we may better discard those events in this intermediate phase).
Does the bad behavior still happens when tapping the power button (just once) and giving the screen two seconds to re-appear? If the screen stays blanked, I need to contemplate how to get more diagnostic information out of your specific device in order to see what's going wrong. The volume buttons can in principle (at least according to my understanding) not have any effect on the screensaver.
Quote:3. Still lose the Sculpt OS on reboot after clicking Storage "USE" off requiring reburning the image, reloading the OS, and redownloading the Presets. I did this without looking at previous notes which may have the correct procedure listed, but this is still way to much work to cleanly power down/restart the OS on the PinePhone.
That toggling of the "Use" button does not make any sense to me. I never do this and think that the advise earlier in this thread was misguided. The file system issues a sync request every 10 seconds. So it should be fine to merely wait a few seconds after installing a system update before invoking the Device -> Reset. By toggling the "Use" button, you effectively kill the file system by force. This is fine when everything is synced after the last write operation, but it can leave the file system in an inconsistent state when doing it shortly after a write. In short, the use-button dance is not needed or may even be counterproductive.
I wonder, does the corruption still occur for you when you delay the reset for 10 seconds after the last write? If not, it would be fair to at least add a safeguard ("nag screen") for the reset/power-off function.
(07-12-2023, 05:52 AM)nfeske Wrote: Thank you for the welcome feedback and for keeping track of the issues that concern you most.
SCREEN SAVER
I started giving the phone a few seconds after pressing the power button for the Screen to return and that seemed to work. However, I can still bring back the screen by pressing the up or down volume buttons as well.
REBOOTING
Finished the screen saver test, did some test searching with the morph browser, did NOT click "USE" under storage, opened the device menu and hit "Reboot" waiting a full minute before clicking "Confirm" and.... same problem with it wiping the SD card defaulting to the outdated Manjaro OS that came with the phone.
If you've got specific step by step instructions to follow from starting the OS to rebooting it that works without this issue, feel free to let me know for another test.
One suggestion is to provide instructions on how to overwrite/replace the outdated Manjaro OS on the PinePhone itself with Sculpt OS so it loads directly on the phone without booting from an SD card. Maybe this is a different solution with a better outcome because I get the SD card back for data storage instead of needing it to run an OS on the phone.
SIGNAL STRENGTH
It occurred to me while doing a test call that there isn't any visual for how much signal strength the phone has. Arch has the signal meter along with details about it currently pinging 2G, 4G, etc. which is nice, but a simple signal strength meter or numerical indicator (scale of 1-10 signal strength) in Sculpt OS is enough.
Quote:Finished the screen saver test, did some test searching with the morph browser, did NOT click "USE" under storage, opened the device menu and hit "Reboot" waiting a full minute before clicking "Confirm" and.... same problem with it wiping the SD card defaulting to the outdated Manjaro OS that came with the phone.
Given this description, I sense that you may hit a different problem, which is not related to any data corruption of the SD-card: I noticed that the U-Boot boot loader sporadically fails to detect the SD-card. In this case, U-Boot falls back to booting from eMMC. When seeing the eMMC-installed Linux booting up, I usually kill it with fire (holding the power button for 5 seconds). Once the device is powered off, cold-booting the system via another press of the power button brings up Sculpt OS - at least whenever I had observed this problem. I'm seeing this every now and then, once in about 10 boot cycles. It'd be nice of you to try cold-booting Sculpt w/o touching the SD-card the next time you see the presumed corruption. If U-Boot is indeed the problem in your case, we can at least rule out an file-system issue at the Sculpt-OS level.
Down the road, we should definitely provide a way to install Sculpt on the internal eMMC. It will boost the boot time and file-system access quite a bit. But that's for later.
BTW, do you happen to have a USB-serial cable for your PinePhone (via the audio jack) to glimpse at log messages?
07-13-2023, 11:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-13-2023, 11:13 PM by PineFone.)
(07-13-2023, 05:03 AM)nfeske Wrote: BTW, do you happen to have a USB-serial cable for your PinePhone (via the audio jack) to glimpse at log messages?
Did the following to get a baseline:
1) Turned on Sculpt, enabled phone, hit reboot and it rebooted quickly.
2) On the reboot, I selected the power down option turning off the phone, waited 20 seconds and then hit the power button on the side of the phone and Sculpt popped up quickly.
The issue is when including Storage:
Followed step 1 again except this time clicked Format under Storage and waited until is showed the USE button and hit the reboot button, waited 10 seconds, screen saver popped on, hit volume button, and then hit confirm on the reboot which started the reboot which as before briefly flashed the Sculpt screen and then went black again and finally showed the red light in the upper left and shows the "K" gear logo spinning indicating Manjaro was booting up.
I did the "holding the power button for 5 seconds" option, but the SD card appears to get altered immediately after the red light pops on since the SD card title when checked on a laptop goes from "GENODE" to "16 GB Volume." The folders in the post reboot SD shows depot and inside of that folder multiple folders, probably about a dozen with each of those folders housing a 'download' and 'pubkey' folder with a locked symbol on each one.
I think I know why this is happening. The [1] box on the far left is not popping up after formatting the Storage like with previous Sculpt versions. I recall hitting [1] being an important step to make the formatting complete.
After multiple sequences of hitting "Format", "Check", "USE" on and off, I only saw the [1] box pop up once and when I went to hit it, it triggered a blank screen since clicking the far left screen also triggers the preset options. Still don't know the proper sequence to get [1] to show up consistently to verify if this is indeed the fix.
Mentioned previously it would be great to make the [1] box bigger and moved to the center or right side so it isn't in the same spot as the preset trigger on the left screen.
So I believe that's the issue. If still needed, I can get a hold of a PP socket to USB chord that I can put a flash USB into to send a log file to, but it will be sometime next week and step by step instructions would be nice since I don't know the code to put into the Sculpt terminal to transfer the log file to the USB drive.
The clouds are lifting now. The SD-card image contains a partition table with one partition (the [1] box) featuring a file system with the boot/ directory (containing the base system image as a file). It also features the U-Boot boat loader at a certain block address. All these things are needed to boot Sculpt OS. By using the "Format" option on the entire SD-card, you replaced the entire SD-card content by a fresh formatted file system. At this point, the boot loader and the boot/ directory were gone. Sculpt still continued to run (until reboot) because was already loaded in memory, not needing the SD-card while running the base system.
In short, the "Format" operation is not what you want here. Instead, the "Expand" operation allows you to inflate the existing partition [1] to the extent of the entire SD-card. By expanding the partition (and the file system on the partition), you keep the boot loader, the partition table, and the boot/ directory in tact.
Quote:Mentioned previously it would be great to make the [1] box bigger and moved to the center or right side so it isn't in the same spot as the preset trigger on the left screen.
I have published a new image for you (version 2023-07-14) with the following changes:
- Allowing for the use of * and # characters in phone numbers. The clear button has been moved to the current-call area to make space for the * button. Dial tones during calls are still not supported though.
- Double tapping the power button no longer re-enters the screen saver, which should hopefully avoid confusions caused by the delay of re-enabling the display.
- Mitigated the flickering of the panel when returning from the screen saver. Flickering can still occur right after cold boot but it normally vanishes after a minute, and the screensaver does not make it re-appear anymore.
- Centered the storage dialog to make the partition buttons easier to hit. BTW, you can also touch on the text besides the partition number to select the partition.
Quote:If still needed, I can get a hold of a PP socket to USB chord [...]
I was actually referring to this cable: https://pine64.com/product/pinebook-pine...l-console/. When enabling the dip switch as described at https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePh...al_console you can observe log messages via a plain terminal program like picocom.
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