What Pine Phone Operating System For A Daily Driver?
#1
Hello just checking in I need to find a distro for my Pine Phone that is working so I can make a daily driver out of it, my requirements right now is to make calls and use texting and a functional camera for pictures I can live without taking videos.

1. Phone working make receive calls
2. Texting
3. Camera

Be nice to have mp3 player and a video player.

Suggestions ? I need a daily driver as my current phone will no longer work at the end of February so its either get my Pine Phone working or buy a De-Googled Android.

Thanks in advance.
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#2
I'd say:

1. Mobian, maybe Manjaro too, but not sure.
2. Every distro allows you to write documents.
3. Probably none. Mobian used to have a decent camera app, but the first app stopped working and never got fixed ever since, then Megapixel came along, and that too is no longer working with no fix in sight.
母語は日本語ですが、英語も喋れます(ry
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#3
(01-13-2021, 09:32 PM)ryo Wrote: I'd say:

1. Mobian, maybe Manjaro too, but not sure.
2. Every distro allows you to write documents.
3. Probably none. Mobian used to have a decent camera app, but the first app stopped working and never got fixed ever since, then Megapixel came along, and that too is no longer working with no fix in sight.

Hi!
Just a notice that I managed to get Megapixels working in Mobian with sudo apt purge megapixels and sudo apt install megapixels commands. And before that by adding symlink to correct Photo folder. It tried to save the pictures to folder with english name. My UI -language in Mobian is finnish (Pictures = Kuvat).
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#4
(01-13-2021, 09:32 PM)ryo Wrote: 2. Every distro allows you to write documents.


By texting they meant sms/mms
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#5
(01-14-2021, 12:36 AM)tukkonen Wrote: Just a notice that I managed to get Megapixels working in Mobian with sudo apt purge megapixels and sudo apt install megapixels commands.
Thanks!
That solved the crashing problem!

(01-14-2021, 12:36 AM)tukkonen Wrote: And before that by adding symlink to correct Photo folder. It tried to save the pictures to folder with english name. My UI -language in Mobian is finnish (Pictures = Kuvat).
I already did that a long time ago (except in my case Pictures = 画像), so I already know.
However, looking at the source code, it seems like they already fixed that last week:
https://git.sr.ht/~martijnbraam/megapixe...910e4c2136

(01-14-2021, 12:49 AM)evilbunny Wrote:
(01-13-2021, 09:32 PM)ryo Wrote: 2. Every distro allows you to write documents.


By texting they meant sms/mms
Ah, I didn't know that.
Over here we have mobile email that replaces SMS/MMS (technically the same thing, except you can use either mobile email (not the same as PC email, mobile email doesn't work in any mail client, but PC email and mobile email can communicate with one other) or phone number, supports unlimited amount of characters, can supports HTML too).
It's just something that was ported over from the pre-smartphone era, back when every single phone was a garake/flip phone.
母語は日本語ですが、英語も喋れます(ry
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#6
Just curious about video playback, it appears that in Mobian(Debian) the hardware video acceleration is not yet implemented, I am guessing no 3d accel either for SDL? I have tried 760p 1080p MKVs on VLC and get maybe some audio and a key frame here and there. I installed Kodi to try that but the version is so old modern plugins will not install.
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#7
(01-14-2021, 12:36 AM)tukkonen Wrote:
(01-13-2021, 09:32 PM)ryo Wrote: I'd say:

1. Mobian, maybe Manjaro too, but not sure.
2. Every distro allows you to write documents.
3. Probably none. Mobian used to have a decent camera app, but the first app stopped working and never got fixed ever since, then Megapixel came along, and that too is no longer working with no fix in sight.

Hi!
Just a notice that I managed to get Megapixels working in Mobian with sudo apt purge megapixels and sudo apt install megapixels commands. And before that by adding symlink to correct Photo folder. It tried to save the pictures to folder with english name. My UI -language in Mobian is finnish (Pictures = Kuvat).
Wow, many thanks for the tip about Megapixels !
Been without a camera for a couple of weeks, hoping that someday an upgrade wold fix it again.

I had to purge and install twice before Megapixels started working properly, maybe rebooting after each step helped, or maybe it was just phase-of-the-moon dependent, but it was definitely worth the effort !

(01-13-2021, 09:17 PM)K_Research Wrote: Hello just checking in I need to find a distro for my Pine Phone that is working so I can make a daily driver out of it, my requirements right now is to make calls and use texting and a functional camera for pictures I can live without taking videos.

1. Phone working make receive calls
2. Texting
3. Camera

Be nice to have mp3 player and a video player.

Suggestions ? I need a daily driver as my current phone will no longer work at the end of February so its either get my Pine Phone working or buy a De-Googled Android.

Thanks in advance.
Off the top of my head my vote would be for Mobian ... I have been using it since the beginning and it would satisfy all of your requirements.

Can't really say much about the other distros out there, mostly never used them.

If you look over at the Pine Phone General forum there is a post about a 17-in-1 multi-boot image someone has made, this might give you a way of trying them all for best fit to your needs.
BraveHeart running Mobian from SD card.     Daily Driver.
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#8
(01-13-2021, 09:17 PM)K_Research Wrote: Hello just checking in I need to find a distro for my Pine Phone that is working so I can make a daily driver out of it, my requirements right now is to make calls and use texting and a functional camera for pictures I can live without taking videos.

1. Phone working make receive calls
2. Texting
3. Camera

Be nice to have mp3 player and a video player.

Suggestions ? I need a daily driver as my current phone will no longer work at the end of February so its either get my Pine Phone working or buy a De-Googled Android.

Thanks in advance.

My phone came with Manjaro. It had several things at the time that I couldn't live with. So I started using Mobian a couple of weeks ago and it does nearly everything. The latest nightly (as of yesterday) fixed my problem with mobile data not working right. Now it can support itself and also serves as a hotspot (tested and confirmed). Getting the hotspot turned on and off is a little touchy. I sure could use a good navigator, too. But I can live with it like this for now since I can finagle almost everything I need either directly or through the hotspot for another phone.

The music player is a different critter. I didn't need one, so I haven't tried to make what comes with the phone work.

I took it out for a test run about a half hour ago to make sure it's roadworthy. Another successful test and I think I'm ready to try using it to replace my Android.
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#9
(01-13-2021, 09:32 PM)ryo Wrote: I'd say:

1. Mobian, maybe Manjaro too, but not sure.
2. Every distro allows you to write documents.
3. Probably none. Mobian used to have a decent camera app, but the first app stopped working and never got fixed ever since, then Megapixel came along, and that too is no longer working with no fix in sight.
I'm pleased you reported (below) that you fixed Megapixels. It started working again for me after a recent Mobian apt dist-upgrade. Upon first launch of Megapixels, I still need to toggle between the back camera and selfie camera to correct the initially distorted image aspect ratio from the back camera though. After toggling the camera source in Megapixels, the image will be okay until after the next boot.

Sadly, about the same time my camera started working again, my phone program became very unstable and I must toggle the modem off and on to obtain or re-establish a cellular network connection. When I boot the older version Mobian from my Megi multi-boot SD card, the phone program works normally. (My up-to-date Mobian system is on eMMC.)
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#10
(01-19-2021, 01:12 AM)calinb Wrote: my phone program became very unstable and I must toggle the modem off and on to obtain or re-establish a cellular network connection
I had a similar problem last morning after updating.
I solved that by going to Settings → Mobile → Network, then turn "Automatic" off, and back on.
All of the sudden, I got 4G back.
母語は日本語ですが、英語も喋れます(ry
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