Manjaro Phosh vs. Manjaro Plasma on Pinephone Pro?

[danimations]

I was using Manjaro Phosh on a regular Pinephone until I recently received my Pinephone Pro. I decided to install Manjaro Phosh on the PPP, but am disappointed with the lack of battery life. Does Plasma perform better in this regard? Can anyone with experience with both share their observations about the pro's and con's of these two OS? Thanks in advance.

[grinzie]

I was using Manjaro Phosh on a regular Pinephone until I recently received my Pinephone Pro. I decided to install Manjaro Phosh on the PPP, but am disappointed with the lack of battery life. Does Plasma perform better in this regard? Can anyone with experience with both share their observations about the pro's and con's of these two OS? Thanks in advance.

I switched to Arch (Phosh) and I seem to get better battery life.

[danimations]

I was using Manjaro Phosh on a regular Pinephone until I recently received my Pinephone Pro. I decided to install Manjaro Phosh on the PPP, but am disappointed with the lack of battery life. Does Plasma perform better in this regard? Can anyone with experience with both share their observations about the pro's and con's of these two OS? Thanks in advance.

I switched to Arch (Phosh) and I seem to get better battery life.

Thanks Grinzie. What are the other pros and cons of switching to Arch?

Was installing Tow-Boot straight forward? And is that process easily reversible?

[grinzie]

I was using Manjaro Phosh on a regular Pinephone until I recently received my Pinephone Pro. I decided to install Manjaro Phosh on the PPP, but am disappointed with the lack of battery life. Does Plasma perform better in this regard? Can anyone with experience with both share their observations about the pro's and con's of these two OS? Thanks in advance.

I switched to Arch (Phosh) and I seem to get better battery life.

Thanks Grinzie. What are the other pros and cons of switching to Arch?

Was installing Tow-Boot straight forward? And is that process easily reversible?

I also meant to say that I never noticed much difference between Phosh and Plasma as far as battery is concerned.

Tow-boot was completely straightforward, as I recall, and I have not tried to reverse it. If you do not hold down any keys during boot, the phone acts as if Tow-Boot is not installed, so there is not much to reverse. Because of Tow-Boot I was able to install Arch to SD and boot from that without touching MMC.

As for modem firmware, I upgraded to biktorgj's 0.6.3 (just realized I need to upgrade again) and ADSP firmware 01.003.01.003. My PPP came with ADSP 01.001.01.001, and even Pine64 recommends running at least 01.002.01.002 (not sure why they shipped a lower version then). Upgrading ADSP is the most nerve-wracking because there is no way to recover the original firmware -- the recovery firmware is 01.002.01.002 -- and this, as I understand it, is the least open firmware. In preparation for this task, I reviewed the recovery instructions thoroughly and made sure I had a couple of paper clips handy in case I had to short the test contacts, but I did not.

Pros:
No more chasing, downloading and flashing images. I have been doing full upgrades regularly with "sudo pacman -Syyu" and have had no problems.
As I mentioned elsewhere, Manjaro and Arch/pmOS implement different strategies for accessing Phosh top and bottom menus (swipe vs. tap, respectively), and I prefer the Arch/pmOS tap approach -- except when I am typing a text and I hit the arrow instead of the space bar; that gets really annoying. My problem with the Manjaro swipe method is that you have to swipe half the screen or the pulldown goes away.

I don't have any Cons for Arch relative to Manjaro, but when pmOS has things working and I don't have to flash it to upgrade it, I plan to switch back.

[expant]

I have found with my PPP any phosh distro glitches or hangs with just a slight knock of the phone, very strange but haven't seen it happen with plasma.

[hockleyj]

Regarding Towboot  it was rather straightforward to install  and it would also be similar if removing it...      its the first thing one should do before installing other OS's or even playing with keyboard accessory etc...    as it sort of safe guards against the dead battery loop issue.  

in relation to battery life  i have found   danctnix  arch/posh  good for phone only use  and  danctnix arch/plasma for multiple screen / lapdock use.

tried mobian but its pretty much same experience as  danctnix arch/phosh putting aside the  debian / arch differences.  

i found  on phosh  installing kde apps like  tokodon  easier to get working then  trying   gnome/phosh apps to get working on  plasma for example...

as for power  somwhere between 10-20 % per hour in  web browser use  but  everyone's usage will vary...   after all  screen brightness speaker volume  watching video vs not  or even heavy webpages etc  will make for a very variable response...

install htop  and see whats doing what with  cpu and mem etc....

[danimations]

"Regarding Towboot  it was rather straightforward to install... it sort of safe guards against the dead battery loop issue."

Ah, now you have my attention! So are you saying that by replacing U-boot with Towboot as the bootloader that the problem whereby a fully drained battery needs to be charge via PC in Maskrom mode is solved? That was the main reason I abandoned PPP as a daily driver candidate.

Thanks for your replies, everyone. 

[Airdale]

"Regarding Towboot  it was rather straightforward to install... it sort of safe guards against the dead battery loop issue."

Ah, now you have my attention! So are you saying that by replacing U-boot with Towboot as the bootloader that the problem whereby a fully drained battery needs to be charge via PC in Maskrom mode is solved? That was the main reason I abandoned PPP as a daily driver candidate.

Thanks for your replies, everyone. 

I could be wrong.... but I'm pretty sure that Tow Boot doesn't fix that problem on the Pro. Towboot really helps most distros with the waking from suspend problem though.

[danimations]

I could be wrong.... but I'm pretty sure that Tow Boot doesn't fix that problem on the Pro. Towboot really helps most distros with the waking from suspend problem though.

Yeah, I figured that if it has solved the problem, it would be more widely and clearly documented as such. Gonna park my pinephone until that problem is fixed. What is the actual problem then, if not the bootloader and apparently, not the OS either? Does someone have a clear view of the problem and how to approach solving it? 

[tckosvic]

I could be wrong.... but I'm pretty sure that Tow Boot doesn't fix that problem on the Pro. Towboot really helps most distros with the waking from suspend problem though.

Yeah, I figured that if it has solved the problem, it would be more widely and clearly documented as such. Gonna park my pinephone until that problem is fixed. What is the actual problem then, if not the bootloader and apparently, not the OS either? Does someone have a clear view of the problem and how to approach solving it? 

Towbooot is only a means of loading an OS/desktop as to whether it is done from the eMMC or an sd card.  Only the OS/desktop that towboot gets loaded has any effect on the operation of the phone, e.g., battery operations, suspend/wake operations, etc.    Someone correct me if I am wrong.

tom kosvic