Status update 2020-06-15

[a-wai]

Hi all,

It's been quite some time since I last updated you on Mobian's status, and just over a month since the first Mobian release, so it's time for a short summary of what happened during that time 

The latest nightly build has been promoted to a reference release, as it brings quite a few improvements:

• Wake up on incoming call now also works on the CE
  
• GPS is automatically activated on boot
  
• /boot is now on a separate partition (this will be helpful if and when we decide to implement disk encryption)
  
• lots of packaged software have been upgraded to the latest available versions
  
• the image now includes a couple more useful software, as these have been improved for use on mobile phones:
  • Eye of Gnome (image viewer)
    
  • GNOME Authenticator (2FA)
    
  • GNOME Sound recorder
    
  • GNOME Todo (still WIP, UX is not perfect, but it's mostly usable, and can sync with Nextcloud)
    

As always, it can be downloaded from our server.

The project also has its dedicated wiki. Anyone can register and edit or create pages, so feel free to contribute, any help will be greatly appreciated

Nothing to report regarding hardware support or power management, as we didn't make progress on these topics lately.
However, the team has been quite busy, and a growing number of packages are currently making their way into Debian, which is nice for both us and the Greater Good.

We might also offer more "desktop" environments in the future (sorry, no plasma mobile as we lack time to work on it, but if you're interested in helping us in this regard, please contact us on Matrix), so stay tuned for future updates!

[devrtz]

Great work, as always a-wai

Note for the authenticator app:
Clicking the Provider dropdown menu crashes the app currently, but entering the Provider by hand works.

[chris_02]

thank you all for this work!



@+

[bcnaz]

@a-wai

Is there a GUI to turn the GPS on & off  ?

  ( I downloaded the latest, but I have not flashed it yet)

Thanks,  for everything !

B.C.

[a-wai]

Is there a GUI to turn the GPS on & off  ?

Not really: there's the Settings app, but for now GPS is always on (at the modem level), more work is needed to make this work

[wibble]

Is there a GUI to turn the GPS on & off  ?

Not really: there's the Settings app, but for now GPS is always on (at the modem level), more work is needed to make this work

The pmOS approach is to supply the /etc/gpsd/device-hook script and let gpsd enable and disable the GPS on the modem as necessary. I suppose a gui could start and stop the gpsd service.

[a-wai]

We're not using gpsd, ModemManager is in charge here.
The plan is to hook up to the system settings through d-bus and forward commands to ModemManager as needed.

[arturo2bodegas]

I'm getting an error when I try to update or browse software through the "Software" store. "Sorry, something went wrong: The name org.freedesktop.fwupd was not provided by any .service files"

I've taken care of the GPG key for the repo, and when I run apt update/upgrade it doesn't give me any problems...why am I getting this error when browsing the store?

Also, I'm getting occasional random lockscreens/blackscreens...not system freezes or reboots, but it will kick me out to the lockscreen randomly.

[rico]

Missing fwupd :
https://gitlab.com/mobian1/issues/-/issues/10

This issue is closed and fwupd should not missing.
Did you remove something ?

Anyway,
sudo apt-get install fwupd

Will fix your issue.

[wibble]

We're not using gpsd, ModemManager is in charge here.
The plan is to hook up to the system settings through d-bus and forward commands to ModemManager as needed.

I hadn't realised ModemManager included that capability - will have to look into it. In trying it without a SIM i ran into #163 when trying to send:

Code:

mmcli -m 0 --command='AT+QGPS=1'

I guess that fix will make its way into the release version in due course. And #183 will need a similar patch in the location interface.


Is there a plan to support apps like foxtrotgps and navit that use gpsd? IIRC FSO solved a similar issue (gpsd vs gypsy) with a daemon to translate from one to the other. Is there any coordination between the different OS flavours as to how location APIs should be standardized?