Hello internet,

what is the current state of re-locking bootloaders on devices that previously ran Android?

Any implementations? How does that work?

It looks like ubuntu touch on the fairphone 4 is nearly perfect, and the features that don't work I won't miss. I'm very tempted to buy a second hand fairphone 4, but I can't really find much on the experience of ubuntu touch. How do you install apps? Are there repo's that I can look at? And is it just branded ubuntu touch, or will any ubuntu apps made for arm work on ubuntu touch? If anybody has some links or personal experiences they could share, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance!

I want to buy a mobile phone that would be great for linux mobile (ubuntu touch or postmarket os), fairphone 4 would be almost ideal if it wasn't so big (i'm currently using pixel 8 + GrapheneOS). What do you recommend for my desire to use a compact mobile for linux + a solid camera? Thanks for the answers.

As Google Chrome warns uBlock Origin may soon be disabled in the future. They’re going to eventually ban adblockers for chromium. We need to quickly respond with alternatives to android, we must end this market consolidation.

This is a follow-up to my earlier post: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/12809764

(I re-used the photo as it was quicker and because the UI still looks the same, anyway, five months later.)

Time for an update on where I got with the Pixel 3a / 3a XL so far:

I Am Getting There.

There isn't that much missing anymore. Will probably soon try this out as my daily driver, just did not yet have the time to configure all the applications I need. :)

This Works

• booting
• display
• touch
• modem
• plymouth
• battery/charging
• mobile data
• wifi
• torch
• suspend
• SMS (only receiving was tested, but I don't have reason to believe sending wouldn't work)
• vibration (udev rule needs to be added to the corresponding package)
• audio (ALSA config not packaged, but I'll get to that...)
• Bluetooth™ (mac address has to be set after each boot, one single command, should probably package a script, still thinking about the right path)
• eSIM (supported, but needs a bit more testing)
• camera (front camera buggy, back camera works but patches not in git yet)
• GPS (needs some improvements to accuracy)

This Does Not Work (Soon)

• USB host mode
• call audio (requires packaging q6voiced to get audio from the modem, but of course VoIP would already work)
• full disk encryption (no installer images yet, once the other stuff is done this will magically be there)

This Has An Unknown Status

• Fingerprint Sensor
• NFC (no idea what software I could use for testing, but should work, does so on pmOS)

This Is Missing And Will Come Later

• accelerometer
• magnetometer
• ambient light sensor
• barometer

The Main Issues That Prevail

• A systemd unit with a hard-coded value, that has to be manually edited for now
• ALSA config not yet packaged, has to be manually copied for now
• few things to do for kernel packaging and then submitting that to Mobian
• no call audio yet, as the daemon (q6voiced) is not yet packaged, but can be manually added for now (I'm considering just using VoIP until I can get to that :D)
• simple script that brings up Bluetooth has to be added somewhere

Other than that, I cannot think of anything else that would be missing.

The Sources (Use The Source, Luke)

• My efforts of packaging a device-specific kernel: https://salsa.debian.org/erebion/sdm-670-linux (which will be used until all patches are part of upstream Linux and we can finally use a regular mainline kernel)
• mobian-recipes, which is used to build images: https://salsa.debian.org/Mobian-team/mobian-recipes
• droid-juicer, which retrieves some important files from some partitions: https://gitlab.com/mobian1/droid-juicer
• https://wiki.postmarketos.org (lovely folks, thanks for sharing everything you found out the hard way :D)

Thanks For All The Fish

Huge thanks to be sdm670-linux project and flamingradian who runs the project (just one person!) to make sure the Kernel works on those devices! :)

I don't know how Kernel development works, so I would have never started porting without this project.

Find that here: https://gitlab.com/sdm670-mainline/linux

Questions Accepted / Ask Me Anything About The Project

I will gladly answer all questions, I hope that more people will start porting if it becomes clear that this is not arcane magic. It's mostly just arcane. And a community of friendly people that try to be helpful.#

I personally don't use it, but I often see people complaining that they cannot use it on their Linux phone and that might help.

I stumbled across a project which implements the client connection, like the app does, for WhatsApp: https://github.com/WhiskeySockets/Baileys

That would allow building a third-party WhatsApp client.

That should also be relatively simple to integrate into a Matrix bridge such as mautrix-whatsapp. Apparently it uses the same API as the app, but it authenticates as a web client. If someone were to implement the authentication of the app, people could start using WhatsApp without the app and also comfortably bridged to Matrix.

You can still link the bridge to the app currently, but the app needs to be online or the bridge will get disconnected after a few days. And if you don't want to have a phone constantly running, you probably want a VM for the app and then that all gets fiddly.

Also, I recently found a blog post on how to build Matrix bridges, so that should be feasibe if anyone wants to implement that as part of the existing bridge: https://mau.fi/blog/megabridge-twilio/

I don't care how repetitive i am :(
I've waiting for a similar experience since the jornada 720. y'all just don't know how good you have it (not to say there aren't glaring improvements that could be made)

https://0x0.st/XBT5.png

#pinephone #pine64 @linuxphones @linux #jlime #jornada #arch #sway #swayisbae

Via linmob. Apparently the OS it uses is a fork of Droidan (meaning it uses Android kernels with Halium).

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16868638

I was thinking about using graphene OS, but I've read some lemmy users dislike this OS due to perceived misleading advertising and the pixel 7a you're supposed to install graphene on because it's from google (an advertising company).

Another option would be lineage OS, but there is so much false information about this OS, namely compatible phones that simply don't work with this OS and no support.

what works for you? I want a phone with no google, that doesn't force me to use the manufacturer's ecosystem and that won't show the apps I don't want or need (on an asus I own you cannot neither get rid nor hide bloatware)

me seeing the #pinephone haters as a former #openmoko owner.

#pine64 #pinephonepro #sxmo #waybar @linuxphones !linux@lemmy.ml #spotify

I feel like I've crossed some sort of line ...

@linuxphones #pine64 @PINE64 #pinephone

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/12767626

A way to long introduction

I've been toying with the idea of getting a second phone to put postmarket OS on. So out of curiosity I've been going through the available software checking if I could maybe even use such a device as a daily diver. The result: Not yet, but it is very close (purely from an app availability standpoint). Most use cases have functioning apps or apps that are actively worked on. I did however notice some gaps. Now, my programming knowledge is very small and I don't really have the time to learn and then develop/maintain the apps. At least not at the moment. I have been checking out penpot however. Penpot is a browser-based graphic design tool with a focus on UI/UX design tool, similar to figma, but open source. And there is a mostly complete asset pack for gnome/adwaita applications available. (Side note to everyone trying it out: If you are getting weird flickering then it might be a Nvidia/Wayland issue. Switching to X should resolve it)

Long story short: I have cheated some mock-ups for some apps that I am hereby sharing with the world. Some of them are a bit rough around in some places but maybe someone finds themself inspired by it. All of them are mobile first designs but since its Adwaitas design language it shouldn't be too hard to imagine how they would look on a desktop. If you decide to use one of my designs then you don't need to credit me (though it certainly would be appreciated)

I suspect that most people won't be familiar with (2/3 of) the underlying services that my ideas are build upon. Feel free to check them out; I recommend them wholeheartedly.

App 1: Cookbook

There used to be a piece of software called gnome recipes. But development on that app has since been abandoned and I think they had the wrong approach to it anyway. The old project aimed to not only supply the software but also the content, shipping a curated list of community supplied recipes. I am looking for a solution to save recipes from the numerous food blogs and recipe websites, that syncs using a (self hostable) online service. And wouldn't you know it such a service already exists in the form of "Cookbook" a nextcloud add-on. This app would simply act as an additional frontend. Import happens via a schema.org json template that a lot of websites use to store and display their content. That format does also allow to store nutritional information, meaning that nextcloud is also capable of saving that. I did not make place for that because it seemed to clutter the UI and I personally don't care too much about having that information easily accessible, especially since most sources don't include it in my experience. My mockup does include a floating button that allows to quickly jump between the ingredients and your last scroll position.

I was inspired by a Android/iOS app called [körbchen](koerbchen.app], which offers the same service but isn't open source or self hostable. An already hosted instance of nextcloud cookbook is operated for example by murena, the folks behind the /e android rom btw.

Squeeze Remote

The Lyrion Music Server (previously known as Logitech Music Server) allows you to create your own wifi enabled speaker system (for example using a raspberry pi). Accessing music from your NAS, a webradio or steaming service is possible, complete with multiroom support (allowing you to chain multiple speakers together so that they play the same thing at the same time). But to operate such a system one needs a remote. The server offers a web app but that one isn't particularly nice.

Lemmy

Last but not least of course here is my idea how a gtk client could look like. I know there are already two projects which tried to build such an app, but development seems to have stalled or been outright abandoned. I tried to build !thunder_app@lemmy.world for Linux a couple of weeks ago. That worked reasonably well, but at the end it still feels alien because at the end of the day it is an android and ios app. Using it with a mouse felt even weirder because it is not designed that way. Anyway: Maybe third time is the charm for gtk apps.

If anyone else has similar mock-ups flying around on their hard drive, feel free to post them in the comments.

LPT: If you're not a fan of where Android or iOS is going but have to use one, buy a used phone to avoid giving money directly to ill-intentioned manufacturers. Then use some of the savings to support Linux Mobile Distro development!

We need to show a market demand for repairable phones and unlocked bootloaders.