[26/09/2019] /e/ on pinebook, lineage derivative
#11
@Phie I thought I'd follow up, after charging up the PB and booting this last night, that this new image has major improvements!

I didn't play with the camera at all, mostly because I saw on your site that it's still a WIP.

So far the only things that have stood out to me are:

1. When I was on your site, reading the post about /e/ for the Pinebook and phone, you should a screenshot of the PB1080 with a Taskbar setup for the home screen, but the image uses the original launcher (which works much better with the trackpad now!) If the use of Taskbar is more of a "down-the-road" intention, I full-heartedly back this!

2. MicroG still has a problem somewhere. When going through settings to add my Google account into MicroG, it gets stuck at the last step, after signin and authorization. I did see a few emails go to my recovery email, and another to my Gmail, telling me I was now logged into my Samsung Galaxy 9, and ready to go. I didn't see any references in the system info to the Galaxy 9, but figured it was related to the image.

Regardless of the email, I let the PB sit on the screen, "trying," for several hours, but it did not complete. I backed out of it later on, and despite the emails from Google, MicroG showed no account linked.

I haven't had much time to play on it otherwise, but cursory impression is that it's a good build!

Question: will you, or are you, considering including root for the user in any future builds? I know it's available to adb, but I think for the PB1080 it will drastically increase the usability as an Android laptop.
#12
(09-18-2019, 06:37 AM)Phie Wrote: Thanks for this feedback !
blisslauncher is part of /e/ but will get better for laptops
I will look at other things you've mentionned !

@Luke
Thank you, I will send a mail !
By the way now our official repo for the pinebook is here
https://gitlab.e.foundation/a64/

I build and maintain a non-supported image of /e/ for US variants of the Samsung S6 Edge, so this is really of interest to me.
I won't touch ChromeOS or AndroidTV, because of the Play On libraries, but having microG built in as a replacement is fantastic.
Between this and the advancement of a Debian Buster bootstrap build, I will have too many things to do once my PBP arrives. Thank you.

— Jeremiah

(09-17-2019, 12:09 PM)tophneal Wrote: After using this quite a bit since posted, I thought I'd give some impressions for anyone interested in this img.

After installing Nova Launcher, this quickly became the best (in my opinion) OS option for the Pinebook, as far as usability!

I've been getting great battery life, easily double that of Manjaro. Since Manjaro lacks suspending still, it would constantly drain the battery when closed. Often times I'd have to leave it charging when idle, so I could use it at whatever point. Today, I brought the PB to work (w/o the charger) and left it on my desk for about 3 hours. When I opened it up to search something, Android reported it having 99% battery left. [ADDENDUM:] I left the PB closed overnight on my coffee table (wihtout charging,) and brought it to work with me again. When I opened it, Android reported 75% battery remaining, and Settings estimated another 3 days of charge remaining!

As with every instance of Android with a mouse, there are certainly somethings that take getting used to. The notifications drawer can be hard to scroll through when a lot of notifications start piling up. (I'm sure we all know how much fun click-and-dragging can be with the PB trackpad.) In my efforts to alleviate an abundance of notifications, I found that Notification preferences do not hold the settings for notifications display. For that, you'll want to long click on a notification from the drawer.

I suggest replacing the Bliss launcher with another option, mostly due to the app drawer. It has one located on the main page, but my attempts to scroll through it continually changed to the next home screen page and not the next page of the app drawer. Bliss didn't seem to offer any alternate app drawer options, such as in the dock. Another reason I chose to change launchers is the dock in Bliss. It was extremely easy to remove apps from the dock, but would not let me drag new apps into it.

If you use a Gmail address, I don't suggest the included email app. Every time it tries to contact Google for the server info, after giving it my email address, the app crashes. (This is an established issue for microG. Looking further into it, on my install FakeStore is not making any permissions requests and is thus not spoofing the Play Store. Digging around some more I found the solution to the lack of permissions for spoofing, Using Terminal emulator, type:
Code:
su
pm grant com.android.vending android.permission.FAKE_PACKAGE_SIGNATURE
then go back to mircoG settings > Self-Check. This resolved the spoofing permissions in microG, but not the ability to log into any Google apps. Attempting to do so afterward will cause the app to crash. However, I did start receiving notifications from Hangouts. This nightly build of GmsCore is reported to resolve this issue, but currently I'm having issues getting it to install. (I added the FDroid repo for microG, but my last attempt to downgrade to a previous version failed.)

Customizing colors for parts of this build can be frustrating or downright impossible, if you do change launchers. (I didn't notice these settings in Bliss, but is very noticeable with Nova.) There seems to be a lack of a color picker, so any attempt so far to choose a color has resulted in a dimmed screen with a bar just above the nav bar, with just "✓ Background Color" and no options to actually choose any colors.

The preview in OpenCamera is a bit bluer than reality. I haven't done enough digging yet to see if there's a setting I can change to help correct it, though.

Overall, for anyone looking for an OS that will allow their Pinebook to be a viable laptop for basic use (surfing, videos, streaming,) I highly recommend this Android build. It's incredibly fast (I've been running it from an SD card the whole time.) The 3rd party app store has almost every app the Play Store has (that I've searched for.) And though they are not installed as part of the build, Aptoide and FDroid have done well to fill the gaps. Did I mention this incredible battery life? (3 hours of off-and-on use today, and I still have 93% left!) Everything has been very snappy so far, and this build has all the major bases covered. If I wasn't planning to sell my PB when my PBP arrives, I'd happily erase Manjaro and install this onto the emmc.

@Phie this build is great! I'm sure plenty of people will love this option if brought to the PinePhone, too!

I maintain a phone build for /e/, and I'm pretty confident that you can't upgrade builtin apps and libraries like microG or the Camera app, without building a new image from source and specifying your customization in /srv/local_manifests/roomservice.xml of your build tree.

That doesn't prevent alternatives from being installed on an existing image for apps, and changing the default handler actions. But microG would obviously need alternative sources provided on Github for an earlier version. The branch you pull from would also have to be labeled with the right version "lineageXX" tag, so you probably have to fork your own branch.

A side note, /e/ and the foundation are headed by @gael_duval, who many may remember as the founder and original maintainer of Mandrake/Mandriva Linux, originally intended as a RedHat fork with full default KDE v1 desktop. He has a great Open Source ethic, and I'm glad for this vision being driven for a fully supported AOSP effort.

— Jeremiah
— Jeremiah Cornelius
"Be the first person not to do some­thing, that no one has thought of not doing before’’
— Brian Eno, "Oblique Strategies"
#13
Thanks for that insight to why i couldnt do get microg to work. I didnt feel like messing with it much more on the more recent build, so im going to try pushing the play store over.

I saw in your post what looked like potentially mistaking this image for the Pinebook Pro. Its not, Pinebook only. Just wanted to make sure it didnt get your hopes up and not work, since youve got a PBP on the way.

One more question for @Phie , of the 2 USB ports on the PB1080, which should be used for adb access? I've got the debugging over USB enabled, but adb devices does not show the PB1080.
#14
Hi all.

There is a new (March 2020) version of /e/ available on their web site.
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/pinebook/

(Dont't forget to edit the file for your pinebook version (batch1, batch2, 1080p)

I use it from a micrSD card and it works really well. There are ocasional glitches with the display driver, but it seems this is just inconvenient and not a ign of immediate doom.

In standard /e/ Bliss launcer only shows one page of apps, so all the other apps that are actually there can only be accessed via search screen and then type the name of the app. e.g. camera or task

The Bliss launcher does not usilise the whole screen yet, but I guess that might come in later releases ?

The app store works nicely and you can also add F-Droid as an additional pure open source app store.

All in all this version is quite usable, the camera works and so the OG Pinebook is a super Jitsi conference computer. There is a bit lag though.

All in ll it works surprisingly well.  Android does not provide many keyboard shortcuts out if the box, but it is usable.

Great update

EDIT: For first time users, the first boot takes quite some time to come up. You will be looking at a blank screen for a while (depending on the speed of your SD card). This is the same behavior as other /e/ first boots have on mobile phones and seems to be normal for /e/. Next boot is faster.
#15
(03-22-2020, 07:50 AM)Surehand53 Wrote: Hi all.

There is a new (March 2020) version of /e/ available on their web site.
https://doc.e.foundation/devices/pinebook/

(Dont't forget to edit the file for your pinebook version (batch1, batch2, 1080p)

I use it from a micrSD card and it works really well. There are ocasional glitches with the display driver, but it seems this is just inconvenient and not a ign of immediate doom.

In standard /e/ Bliss launcer only shows one page of apps, so all the other apps that are actually there can only be accessed via search screen and then type the name of the app. e.g. camera or task

The Bliss launcher does not usilise the whole screen yet, but I guess that might come in later releases ?

The app store works nicely and you can also add F-Droid as an additional pure open source app store.

All in all this version is quite usable, the camera works and so the OG Pinebook is a super Jitsi conference computer. There is a bit lag though.

All in ll it works surprisingly well.  Android does not provide many keyboard shortcuts out if the box, but it is usable.

Great update

I tried that build yesterday in a sd card but the graphical glitches made the wizard impossible to finish Sad
#16
Hi I had these glitches as well, If it is of any help, just press skip to all questions, you can do everything later.
The only thing I have set up was the localisation. That was a bit messy but eventually worked. I use a 1080 Pinebook.

The only help I can offer is that these graphic glitches are not the first steps of a crash, it sometimes comes and then quickly also goes. I have used /e/ for hours now and there are some problems, mostly because I don't know how to use Android with Keyboard and Mouse, but it hasnever crashed in that time.

So the graphic problem usually only stops you for a few seconds and then goes away. I have not found a pattern yet. Switching apps with Alt-Tab seems to calm things down.

But if you want to try again, it should actually work.
#17
# E on the Pinebook

Here is a short summary for /e/ on the Pinebook 1080p and what works, some glitsches and most importantly, how to navigate /e/ on the Pinebook with touchpad and keyboard.

If anyone else has more shortcuts or mouse gestures that work I would be very interested.

## What works nicely
- Sound
- Video
- Keyboard
- Touchpad
- Camera
- Wifi
- Bluetooth (tested with a loudspeaker)

## Some niggl
- Graphic glitshes, every now and then the screen flickers. However, this seems to always go away without consequences [Issue #1092](https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/management/issues/1092)
- Only one home screen, no additional screens are shown, that means not all apps are directly accessible [Issue 1093](https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/management/issues/1093)
- Menu key has no clear function on home screen, in my case it opens Firefox most of the time. This seems a missed opportunity for more keyboard shortcuts, however I don't even know if Android and /e/ support that.
- SOMETIMES THE KEYBOARD THINKS IT IS IN CAPS LOCK MODE. I have not found out what triggers that or what turns it off. This seems unrelated to the actual Caps Lock key.

## Keyboard shortcuts:

As the touchpad is not a complete substitute for a touchscreen, the keyboard operation of /e/ is more important. Here are the keyboard shortcuts that I have figured out to work so far.

### /e/ Keyboard shortcuts: Navigation

- Alt-Tab : Switch between apps
- Menu button: In a app it activates the App Menu
- Menu button: On the Homescreen (Launcher) the function is less clear, in my case it opens Firefox when you press a bit longer.


### /e/ Keyboard Shortcuts: Typing

- Alt + Del: Delete an entire line
- CTRL + X: Cut text (will cut all text on-screen unless specific characters are highlighted)
- CTRL + C: Copy text to clipboard (will copy all text on-screen unless specific characters are highlighted)
- CTRL + V: Paste text from clipboard
- CTRL + A: Select all text in the current field
- Alt (no other key): Get the menu for emojies

### /e/ Keyboard Shortcuts: Scrolling

- Spacebar: Page down in any Web page/document view
- Shift + Spacebar: Page up in any Web page/document view


## Mouse gestures

The touchpad emulates some touchsreen gestures to use /e/. This is what I have found so far

- Swipe Screens: On the home screen (launcher) click and hold, then swipe left or right to get to different screens on the Bliss Launcher.
- Spell correction: If a word is underlined red, click with one finger to see the context menu
- Two finger scrolling works, however it not natural scrolling, so it feels the wrong way around
- Shift + Touchpad-Left/Right: Highlight text for cutting or copying

## Starting an app

If the app is on the home screen, you can start it from there. However, if your app is not on the Home screen and you cannot see it you can still start it from the Search screen.
To get there double tab  the touchpad to create a left click, keep your finger on the touchpad and move it to the right, so essentially swiping to the Search screen.


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