Distro for writers, k & m, LibreOffice, PostmarketOS?

[Peter Gamma]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I had LibreOffice installed on PostmarketOS, where also the PinePhone keyboard works. I had a very good impression of the PinePhone keyboard. I feels very robust and reliable. I think for typing in LibreOffice it should work fine. I saw that functions of LibreOffice can be controlled by key controls. Unfortunately, the special characters are not implemented yet on the PinePhone keyboard.

Since LibreOffice has drop down menues, I suggest to use a mouse with it. I did some tests with a mouse and it worked fine to drop down these menus on the PinePhone.

There are some demos available for LibreOffice, but there are no very detailed tests yet. I have put these testimonies and demo videos together on my personal website:

https://petergamma.org/demonstrations-of...pinephone/

This needs further testing.

I did also some testing with a Bluetooth mini keyboard and a mini mouse, but they disconnected several times. I had this problem also with old Android custom roms. In newer, I never had any issues with these devices.

Logitech has good support for Linux, and also some unoffical GITHUB projects are available. I have also some old Bluetooth microsoft keyboards and mice on my screed, but I could not find any special Linux driver for those. But I could also not find anyone who said that they do not work with Linux.

I think it is worth testing Bluetooth devices which have Linux drivers with the Pinephone. It might be more reliable than a small usb-c connector to the Pine64 docking bar. I tested thirt party docking bars, and the small connector scared me, and looked not very reliable.

The use case is as I have it with my Android phone. I use the Android phone for writing documents, and also for viewing those. It is great to have a good device which can be used anywhere anytime. But for to revise documents, a large monitor and a large keyboard is much more comfortable.

[wibble]

Like USB, Bluetooth has standard device profiles. If manufacturers stick to the standard then the devices should 'Just Work' with linux. If they don't stick to the standard then someone has to do the reverse engineering work to find out exactly what they've done differently, then do the work to get a quirk to support this into the relevant upstream project (mostly kernel or bluez), or a separate one if the necessary bit is outside their scope. When a new standard version comes out it may take a while for support to be added - things like human interface devices using BLE spring to mind.

IIRC Logitech don't support linux - it's the other way round. They mostly stick to standards where applicable,so base functionality usually works reliably, and they are widely enough used that people have done the reverse engineering where needed for a lot of their products. Requests in their forum for a linux version of their Windows software get a polite "We've forwarded your request to our software team" but no action over many years.

[Peter Gamma]

Thanks Wibble. I came to my statements through a review about «The Best Wireless Mouse for Linux Laptops (Reviews) in 2022»:

https://www.addictivetips.com/buying-gui...use-linux/

The winner of the review is the Logitech M705 Wireless Marathon Mouse for PC:

«works great on Linux right out of the box «

«Logitech enjoys excellent Linux support, and you’ll even be able to customize the buttons with Piper (GTK application to configure gaming devices)»

So it is not genuine Logitech Linux support? If it works great with Linux, who cares?

But for the PinePhone, I would choose a mouse with Bluetooth support, which according to the above review only one reviewed mouse has. But according to info from Logitech, for instance the Logitec M590 mouse has Bluetooth support. Another wireless usb receiver would be unpractical.

I had issues with an Elecom Mini Mouse Bluetooth mouse and the PP. Therefore I thought it would be better to choose a mouse which offers Linux drivers by default.

Is there a recommendation for mouse which works good for the PinePhone?

[wibble]

Some prefer to spend their money with a linux-friendly supplier where possible. In that case the distinction between 'logitech supports linux' and 'linux supports logitech products' matters. Roccat used to actively work with a developer to get support for their products into the upstream kernel, but that's unusual so noteworthy when you find it.

I can't comment on other devices as the Stowaway is the only one I've extended experience with.

[Juergen]

Did you try PMOS Mate?  (window manager X11)

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/MATE

LibreOffice seems to work well.

Additional I changed the font size to 17 and deactivated the login screen.

[Peter Gamma]

I agree with wibble. 

The Stoaway Bluetooth keyboard which was tested for 30 min. by wibble is currently the only keyboard which is available for the Pinephone:

   

Pine64 does not offer the Pinephone keyboard anymore. 

So it's with the Pinephone like about it was 10 years ago when this picture was taken.

Since what are the alternatives?