Announcing the Mobian project

[fdlamotte]

I'm not sure why uname -r doesn't include the .6 but from apt list I understand I'm actually running 5.10.6, right?

You are using the 5.10.6-1 version while the 5.10.6-2 version fixes the issue, I think you can safely get it from the repo and install with dpkg

[dcinoz]

I'm not sure why uname -r doesn't include the .6 but from apt list I understand I'm actually running 5.10.6, right?

You are using the 5.10.6-1 version while the 5.10.6-2 version fixes the issue, I think you can safely get it from the repo and install with dpkg

@fdlamotte 

Thanks, downloaded from https://repo.mobian-project.org/pool/mai...0-sunxi64/ and installed using sudo dpkg -i .
Rebooted and suspend works again!

[someGermanGuy]

since last update i have heavy flickering, but at least the problem with that wierd blue LED and always-on-display seems to be fixed

i noticed when i plug in the device to my pc to load it, it is recognized as usb ethernet device - guess thats not how its supposed to be
thought i uninstall now anbox (as i dont want to install whatsapp anymore) and after opening the terminal, the complete phone crashed

[Braillynn]

Pre-Ordered the Mobian edition of the PinePhone and am very excited to finally get this device and review it for my blog

[dcinoz]

I noticed the vanishing modem issue recently - issue on https://gitlab.com/mobian1/issues/-/issues/251

I've lodged one for the much higher battery drain recently, still seems high, but had drained the battery in a few hours with only modem on:
https://gitlab.com/mobian1/issues/-/issues/252

Modem seems to come back on when I check phone but I think battery drain is still higher than it was.

[dcinoz]

I'm not sure what happened with the high battery drain I experienced a few times.

I tested an up-to-date Mobian today and the news is very good with very low battery use with suspend mode:

Mobile on 4G, no data, no BT, no Wifi. Phone is in suspend mode via systemctl suspend command.

Time    Battery
0900    100%
1000    97% ( -3%  +1h)
1100    95% ( -5%  +2h)
1200    94% ( -6%  +3h)
1300    93% ( -7%  +4h)

Turned Wifi on 1303, can ping when on, no more pings when suspend via systemctl suspend. As a test if leaving Wifi on might have caused excess drain during sleep - no!

1400    92% ( -8%  +5h)
1500    91% ( -9%  +6h)
1600    90% (-10%  +7h)
1700    88% (-12%  +8h)
1800    87% (-13%  +9h)
1900    85% (-15% +10h)
2000    82% (-18% +11h)
2100    79% (-21% +12h)
2200    77% (-23% +13h)

udev rule and usb settings as per https://gitlab.com/mobian1/devices/eg25-...ts/5/diffs


No idea if they make a difference but seems to be recommended by Quectel.

This is a passive mode phone in standby with phone always in suspend (sleep) mode. Still excellent! Guess I can eat my words on high battery drain though I did not make it up and it happened both during the day and overnight (phone in airplane mode overnight, too).

On another note, I saw linux-image-5.11-sunxi64 was there and installed it, but upon reboot I never got the login / unlock screen.

[dcinoz]

Nice improvement for eg25-manager with user configurable file e.g. see https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...9#pid90279

I've installed Manjaro Plasma Mobile on EMMC given the Pine64 announcement.
Running kernel 5.10.17-1, impressed by incoming calls - an incoming call pops up on the screen (even in suspend) *before* I hear the ringing tone on the calling side! I use

Code:

systemctl suspend

to go into sleep, presume it works instantly. I tried without power connected, just in case, same result. Unless for some reason it's not actually in suspend mode, lol.
Note I had to update as incoming calls just woke up the screen and did nothing.

Mobian still is typically 11s (though the first attempt it took a lot longer, strange).

This gives me hope Mobian can benefit from what Manjaro Plasma Mobile have done on the modem / phone resume side.

I'm curious as to the incoming SMS notification issue - not always happening with Mobian - wonder how well Manjaro Plasma Mobile are doing.

[dcinoz]

On another note, I saw linux-image-5.11-sunxi64 was there and installed it, but upon reboot I never got the login / unlock screen.

Figured out the problem as have the same problem with Manjaro Plasma Mobile (screen brightness is set too low at least for my v1.2)
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...5#pid90815

[AGGMINING]

Dear all,

It's been a little more than 3 months since I started hacking a Debian image for the PinePhone, by (manually) adding new software and fixing bugs step by step. Others have joined me in this effort, and a small team has gathered and did a great job at allowing the PinePhone to be used as a daily driver, at least as long as you don't have extravagant expectations such as "decent battery life" or "working camera"

We keep moving on as we're announcing the Mobian project, aimed at bringing Debian to mobile devices with as much upstream components as possible. We're focusing first on the PinePhone of course, but we plan to extend support to other devices, the next ones on the list being Purism's Librem5 and the PineTab (that is, as soon as we gets our hands on these )

Still, Mobian is not a distribution, but only an overlay to Debian, bringing you instant access to tons of existing packages, while making things easier for us as we try to keep as few custom packages as possible. This means working with the goal of upstreaming almost all of our work to Debian, and this is already going on quite well, as the base phosh packages (phoc, phosh, squeekboard and a few others) should reach the archive soon, and work on bringing phone-specific apps (such as calls and chatty) to Debian is well under way.

With this focus change in mind, we spent the last few weeks creating an infrastructure for the project, both to ease our work as developers, and to provide better user-facing services. The Mobian project now has:

• its own website
  
• a public Matrix channel
  
• a dedicated Gitlab group, including:
  • a project-wide issue tracker
    
  • a revamped (and mostly under construction atm) Wiki
    

With this announcement comes the first PinePhone image available for download.

Most of the work has been going on under the hood, as nearly all patched software have been updated to their most recent upstream version and rebuilt for several architectures (x86-64, arm32 and arm64) in order to ease porting to other devices in the future. There are also a few (small) cosmetic changes, including renaming the default user from "debian" to "mobian".

This release also enables gnome-initial-setup on first boot, fixes wifi stability by disabling power saving in the driver (which should make your battery a bit unhappy, but greatly improve your connectivity), and brings a whole lot of small bugfixes.

New images will be automatically built on a daily basis starting next week, so you'll see fewer release announcements here as I plan to only highlight when major progress is being made, but the releases will keep rolling, and you'll keep the ability to upgrade your system using apt
(although not this time, as you'll understand switching to this new infrastructure requires you to start from a fresh image)

Of course, we're always welcoming new contributors, as there is still plenty to do: improve hardware support, package new software, improve existing ones to fit the PinePhone's screen, improve the wiki, help with our infrastructure and CI, and so on...

Enjoy!

[AGGMINING]

Dear all,

It's been a little more than 3 months since I started hacking a Debian image for the PinePhone, by (manually) adding new software and fixing bugs step by step. Others have joined me in this effort, and a small team has gathered and did a great job at allowing the PinePhone to be used as a daily driver, at least as long as you don't have extravagant expectations such as "decent battery life" or "working camera"

We keep moving on as we're announcing the Mobian project, aimed at bringing Debian to mobile devices with as much upstream components as possible. We're focusing first on the PinePhone of course, but we plan to extend support to other devices, the next ones on the list being Purism's Librem5 and the PineTab (that is, as soon as we gets our hands on these )

Still, Mobian is not a distribution, but only an overlay to Debian, bringing you instant access to tons of existing packages, while making things easier for us as we try to keep as few custom packages as possible. This means working with the goal of upstreaming almost all of our work to Debian, and this is already going on quite well, as the base phosh packages (phoc, phosh, squeekboard and a few others) should reach the archive soon, and work on bringing phone-specific apps (such as calls and chatty) to Debian is well under way.

With this focus change in mind, we spent the last few weeks creating an infrastructure for the project, both to ease our work as developers, and to provide better user-facing services. The Mobian project now has:

• its own website
  
• a public Matrix channel
  
• a dedicated Gitlab group, including:
  • a project-wide issue tracker
    
  • a revamped (and mostly under construction atm) Wiki
    

With this announcement comes the first PinePhone image available for download.

Most of the work has been going on under the hood, as nearly all patched software have been updated to their most recent upstream version and rebuilt for several architectures (x86-64, arm32 and arm64) in order to ease porting to other devices in the future. There are also a few (small) cosmetic changes, including renaming the default user from "debian" to "mobian".

This release also enables gnome-initial-setup on first boot, fixes wifi stability by disabling power saving in the driver (which should make your battery a bit unhappy, but greatly improve your connectivity), and brings a whole lot of small bugfixes.

New images will be automatically built on a daily basis starting next week, so you'll see fewer release announcements here as I plan to only highlight when major progress is being made, but the releases will keep rolling, and you'll keep the ability to upgrade your system using apt
(although not this time, as you'll understand switching to this new infrastructure requires you to start from a fresh image)

Of course, we're always welcoming new contributors, as there is still plenty to do: improve hardware support, package new software, improve existing ones to fit the PinePhone's screen, improve the wiki, help with our infrastructure and CI, and so on...

Enjoy!