01-08-2022, 11:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-08-2022, 11:20 PM by Zebulon Walton.)
1. All I'll say about that particular situation is that is truly awful. That kind of software kind of defeats the whole purpose of a phone dedicated to privacy. What do they do for people who don't have smartphones? Surely there must be some other option. There have been posts here indicating that at present Megapixels is the only application that can access the Pinephone camera. It can scan a QR code but I think just puts the data into the desktop paste buffer.
2. For contacts, if you are using Mobian then Evolution contacts are used. If you can export your contacts in a form that Evolution can import you can transfer them. I did this from my old flip phone, I think I used csv format. You can import the contacts into Evolution on a desktop Linux system which are placed in the file ~/.local/share/evolution/addressbook/system/contacts.db. You then copy this file to your Mobian installation at /home/mobian/.local/share/evolution/addressbook/system/contacts.db. Restart the phone and your contacts will be there. (At least at the time I transferred my contacts in late 2020 it was necessary to have the country code included with the phone number, "+1" in my case, or it was not possible to dial out from the contact list.)
3. The hub has been reported to be flakey with HDMI. This is likely one of the many things that still needs more work. I have not tried HDMI video myself but have found the dock works fine for connecting USB devices and connecting to a wired network.
4. I have not really had any problems with WiFi except when I accidentally tapped on the WiFi icon on the top dropdown menu, which toggled it off. That might be something to watch out for. As you're probably aware WiFi support is limited to the 2.4GHz band.
5. Most applications are for standard desktop PC and not adapted for the Pinephone screen. Sometimes if you change to landscape mode that can help. The screen resolution can be adjusted which can also help. I use a script that was posted on the board some time ago for this, but I think now it can also be adjusted in Settings.
6. The Portfolio file manager is very limited. You can install Nemo which has more features and used to be Mobian's default file manager. The problem is that doing cut, paste, etc. operations requires a right-click which you can't really do from the touch screen interface. You can do it if you have a mouse installed or use wayvnc to access the Pinephone screen remotely from a PC that has a mouse.
7. Application icons the screen are associated with *.desktop files in /usr/share/applications. One way to remove icons then would be to move the appropriate .desktop file to a holding location. (Probably best not to delete it.) You can also have your own custom .desktop files in .local/share/applications.
Be sure to check the Mobian wiki, there's a lot of info there. You'll probably find the "Tweaks & Customizations" section of particular interest:
https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=start
2. For contacts, if you are using Mobian then Evolution contacts are used. If you can export your contacts in a form that Evolution can import you can transfer them. I did this from my old flip phone, I think I used csv format. You can import the contacts into Evolution on a desktop Linux system which are placed in the file ~/.local/share/evolution/addressbook/system/contacts.db. You then copy this file to your Mobian installation at /home/mobian/.local/share/evolution/addressbook/system/contacts.db. Restart the phone and your contacts will be there. (At least at the time I transferred my contacts in late 2020 it was necessary to have the country code included with the phone number, "+1" in my case, or it was not possible to dial out from the contact list.)
3. The hub has been reported to be flakey with HDMI. This is likely one of the many things that still needs more work. I have not tried HDMI video myself but have found the dock works fine for connecting USB devices and connecting to a wired network.
4. I have not really had any problems with WiFi except when I accidentally tapped on the WiFi icon on the top dropdown menu, which toggled it off. That might be something to watch out for. As you're probably aware WiFi support is limited to the 2.4GHz band.
5. Most applications are for standard desktop PC and not adapted for the Pinephone screen. Sometimes if you change to landscape mode that can help. The screen resolution can be adjusted which can also help. I use a script that was posted on the board some time ago for this, but I think now it can also be adjusted in Settings.
6. The Portfolio file manager is very limited. You can install Nemo which has more features and used to be Mobian's default file manager. The problem is that doing cut, paste, etc. operations requires a right-click which you can't really do from the touch screen interface. You can do it if you have a mouse installed or use wayvnc to access the Pinephone screen remotely from a PC that has a mouse.
7. Application icons the screen are associated with *.desktop files in /usr/share/applications. One way to remove icons then would be to move the appropriate .desktop file to a holding location. (Probably best not to delete it.) You can also have your own custom .desktop files in .local/share/applications.
Be sure to check the Mobian wiki, there's a lot of info there. You'll probably find the "Tweaks & Customizations" section of particular interest:
https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=start
