[Updated] Let's see which applications are compatible with the PinePhone on Manjaro

[kern707]

Hello everyone,

As a continuation to a reply I have made to this post https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?...212&page=2,
about how (or why?) we don't get any applications displayed in Software under the "Explore" tab.

It is still possible to search for applications using the search feature (Under "Explore", on the upper left side of the screen), I think no applications are listed by default because so many of them are not compatible with the PinePhone, or at least not known to be compatible.

What if we could randomly test applications that we like (or need), and see if they are compatible with the PinePhone on Manjaro or not.

Let's use the following scoring system:

0 = not compatible
1 = partially compatible
2 = compatible

The test will contain important test cases  such as:

1. General UI scaling - does the UI (or at least the important parts of it) scale to work with the PinePhone's screen?
2. Functionality - does the application is fully (or partially?) functional on the PinePhone?
3. Performance - does the application perform well on the PinePhone? or maybe it is just too heavy and completely not built to be run on a mobile device?
4. Any other random tests you might like to do.


Then we can write here a reply, with our results which will contain the following information:
0. What version of Manjaro for PinePhone are you using, and with which phone shell (e.g. Phosh)
1. Application name
2. Short description (what is this app, what is it used for)
3. Your compatibility rating (using the system shown above, 0 being the worst scoring, 2 being the best)
4. Optionally a few small comments about how the app performed  in each test case, and possible tweaks to make it better in case it does not perform as expected on the device.

This process can help us achieve a few things:
1. We will document which applications can be installed and used on our PinePhone with Manjaro.
2. The Manjaro-arm team could later look into the list of compatible application, and decide if they are ready to start populating the "Explore" tab with those applications, so the "Explore" tab will no longer be empty by default.
3. We could use our test results, and contact the developers behind the application who got a scoring of being "partially compatible", and ask them if they care to tweak their application to make it compatible with linux-arm phones, potentially helping our inventory of compatible PinePhone applications to grow.

What do you guys think?

[ryo]

Chromium browser
Web browser.
0
White screen on start up, unusable.

Cheese
Webcam app.
1
It runs, but cameras don't get recognized.

Krita and GIMP (different apps, but since they both have the exact same problems, I put them as 1 app)
Image editing app.
0
They runs, but doesn't scale to the phone screen.

Brave browser and Discord (again, same problem; different apps)
Brave is a browser, and Discord is a chat app.
0
No ARM build available.

VLC
Media player.
2
It won't scale, but videos are watchable, and functionality in general works.

OBS
Screen recorder.
0
Screenshot says all:


Camera
Camera app.
Used to be 1.5, now 0
When I first installed Mobian (which was an older build), the preview ran at 2 FPS or something, now the app doesn't even start.

Fcitx
IME software for CJK languages.
1
It runs, gets configured properly, but doesn't get activated whenever I do CTRL + Space on Squeekboard.

[kern707]

* I have a recently delivered PinePhone CE Manjaro (3GB of RAM, convergence package).
* Currently running Manjaro Beta3 for PinePhone with Phosh

Foliate
Description: It is an eBook reader.
Pinephone Compatibility rating: 1 (Partially compatible)
Notes:  
1. I was able to navigate through most screens without problem, I even managed to open an eBook file (downloaded from the internet) and read through it.
2. Main issue: the "Open book" menu item (from the upper right menu) opens a dialog window which does not scale and make choosing an ebook file from this dialog impossible.

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LibreOffice (Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress)
Description: A complete and free office suit for linux.
Pinephone Compatibility rating: 1 (Partially compatible)
Notes:  
1. I have tested the most used applications which are Writer (word processor), Calc (Spreadsheet software), Draw (Draw / PDF editing) and Impress (Presentation software)
2. Most functions work on a scale of from "ok-ish" to "pretty well" on the PinePhone.
3. Most of the UI elements were not optimized for a mobile device, but they seem to be useful even in the way they are.
3. The biggest major issue that I have found is that most dialog windows are not compatible with mobile device screens, they just open too large and are not usable, for some of them you could switch to Portrait mode and get around, but this is not intuitive.

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GNOME Screenshot
Description: Screenshot taking application
Pinephone Compatibility rating: 0 (not compatible)
Notes:  
Unable to make a screenshot, does not work

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System Profiler and Benchmark
Description:  Shows a lot of useful information about your system (hardware and software)
Pinephone Compatibility rating: 1 (partially compatible)
Notes:  
1. Core functionality works, the application is able to identify and display all of the important bits of PinePhone hardware and software, pretty neat.
2. Main-Issue: UI is not mobile-friendly, the screen does not scale or convert to a mobile view, scrolling of the windows overflow is possible but not intuitive.

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** So far, my taking from many application tests that I am making is that the majority of applications that are getting the "Partially compatible" rating (or close to it), are mostly having trouble with the display/scaling/mobilizing of their dialog windows such as file selection dialogs, preferences dialogs, folder tree etc.. 

** I will add more reviews as soon as I get them done.

[deedend]

LibreOffice (Writer, Calc, Draw, Impress)
Description: A complete and free office suit for linux.
Pinephone Compatibility rating: 1 (Partially compatible)
Notes: 
1. I have tested the most used applications which are Writer (word processor), Calc (Spreadsheet software), Draw (Draw / PDF editing) and Impress (Presentation software)
2. Most functions work on a scale of from "ok-ish" to "pretty well" on the PinePhone.
3. Most of the UI elements were not optimized for a mobile device, but they seem to be useful even in the way they are.
3. The biggest major issue that I have found is that most dialog windows are not compatible with mobile device screens, they just open too large and are not usable, for some of them you could switch to Portrait mode and get around, but this is not intuitive.

Have you tried with the scale-to-fit command for the issue with the dialog windows? These instructions are for Mobian but I believe they are applicable to Manjaro as well, it's still phosh after all. I would try myself, but unfortunately I don't have much time

[pacman99]

Theres a really cool website with this information already: https://linmobapps.frama.io/

[kern707]

Theres a really cool website with this information already: https://linmobapps.frama.io/

That's a cool list, however..

From what I understand, the way of how many linux applications will run on your mobile device is most of the times: device, operating system and shell dependent-
and since most linux-arm distros have different versions of different libraries bundled into them, which will result in different results for many applications (e.g. what might run perfectly on a Liberm5 will not run as good on a PinePhone, and vice verse..).
This is exactly my aim with this thread, it was posted under the "Manjaro on PinePhone" forum, which means that what is being discussed, is targeted / tested specifically for PinePhones that are running Manjaro-arm.

Thanks anyway for your contribution

[dthaha]

Bitwarden: 0
Doesn't start. I believe it has to do with HW acceleration, but don't quote me on that one. I just use the Firefox add-on for now.

[ryo]

Another one I can add.

Thunderbird
Email client.
2
Works very well, although I had to take advantage of the scaling bug in order to set up an email account.
Finally a software bug can be put to good use!

I sometimes wonder if Kdenlive works, but it's probably not going to have any meaning considering the specs of the phone.

[patrickmollohan]

Bitwarden: 0
Doesn't start. I believe it has to do with HW acceleration, but don't quote me on that one. I just use the Firefox add-on for now.

 
I haven't used Bitwarden (and still haven't tried Manjaro on the PinePhone), but I read it uses Electron. Maybe try running it via the terminal and adding "--disable-gpu" (no quotes) to the end? This works for GB Studio 2, which is also Electron-based. If that works, you can modify the "Exec=" line in the .desktop file in /usr/share/applications/ to run the command with "--disable-gpu" until HW acceleration is implemented.