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| title | description | date | image | math | license | hidden | categories | tags | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| My Oneplus 6T Linux setup | A description of my current Linux phone and it's setup | 2024-02-23 00:00:00+0000 | postmarket.png | false |
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Configuration
This is the current configuration i am using while daily driving linux on mobile.
I am using a OnePlus 6T with PostmarketOS and the Phosh user interface.
As a daily driver the phone is basically 100% functional for my use case, your experience may vary depending on your needs.
Known issues and problems i have experienced
Current issues i have found:
- calls have stopped working (workaround here)
- brightness resets at phone reboot
- default audio output resets at phone reboot
- battery profile resets at phoen reboot
- notch blocking some information in the top bar (workaround)
- camera not functional
- browser notification not passing through
- gesture to close applications difficult to use
- notifications are not removed when read
Installation
There are pre-built images of PostmarketOS that can be used if a custom compilation is not needed. The installation of these images if incredibly simple and well documented here.
Pre-built images can be found here.
GPS
If you want GPS to work, you may need to flash OxygenOS in a specific version, before flashing postmarketOS; 9.0.8 for OP6, 9.0.16 for OP6T. Its recommended to flash it to both slots (ie. use copy-partitions from LineageOS) although it was not proved that it is necessary.\ If you want to check that the GPS is working use:
mmcli -m any --location-get
If you get no output, you didn't get the fix. Some devices might need to enable manually the GPS:
mmcli -m any --location-enable-gps-nmea
mmcli -m any --location-enable-gps-raw
If you want a GUI to easily test the GPS connection you can use Satellite.
Applications
These are the applications that i am currently using/testing:
Phonecalls
Calls
"Calls" is the default application to call used in the OS. When receiving calls, the vibration and sound work, even when the screen is turned off.
While at the beginning it seemed that there were no major issues and the calls where working fine, now I am having trouble making calls work at all. More info on this issues and potential fixes later.
Messages
Chats
"Chats" is the default application to send and receive SMS and MMS messages. I have not tried MMS yet, SMS work perfectly out of the box, no particular setup needed. The app is quite complete and responsive.
Features include: archiving messages, messages receipts, emojis, search function and more. Fully functional
Emails
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is very good state overall, i have not needed to look at potential alternatives yet, given how everything i need is in the app already. With a a couple of changes to the view settings it is possible to create a very usable setup.
Notifications work visually if the app is open in the background, but i have not being able to make the sound of the notifications work.
Once open, emails are fully readable and navigable, they render correctly and have all the standard options available and working (reply, reply list, archive, just, forward, etc).
Browser
Firefox-ESR
The extended support release of Firefox is the default browser of the OS and arrives with mobile-config-firefox package already installed, making it usable from the start.
The browser is fast and responsive, the only issue i have found is that the tabs menu is not working correctly when more tabs than the maximum the view allows are open. I wasn't able to swipe to reach the tabs outside of the view of the menu.
Aside from that i have found no issue
Reddit client
Giara
Giara is a a Reddit client release under the GPL3 license, written using python and GTK. The app works very well, shows everything the site does, from comments to thumbs up to dates and edits.
Has the option to copy to the clipboard a comment or post and to open them in the browser. Currently has a slight issue swiping the main page.
Headlines
Formerly gtkeddit, it is written in C++ and it's an archived project. It's currently still working great, probably slightly faster than Giara, but the UI is older and i don't like the way it manages trees of comments. Still very good as a Reddit client.
RSS feed
Newsboat
Famous RSS/Atom feed reader for the terminal written in C++. Somewhat functional after a couple of easy modifications i have found improved my experience. Instructions will follow.
Matrix client
FluffyChat
Written using flutter, works very well out of the box. Notifications works visually as long as the app is among the open applications tray. Only important piece missing is the ability to play audio messages.
Requires flatpak installation and flathub repository addition.
Fractal
The app works, only the basic functions are there but they are all functional, but i am pretty sure it does not support the e2e chats verification.
Nheko
Was not able to login due to a visual bug. I'll wait for a fix and try again, apparently the app is very liked among users.
WhatsApp Web in Firefox
To have access to WhatsApp chats to talk to normies who don't care about having their conversations be actually private i use the WhatsApp Web interface on Firefox.
Stuff that works include:
- sending, receiving, reading messages
- reproduce vocal messages
- see media sent and have access to media gallery of chats
- notification sounds when receiving a new message (if browser is open and WhatsApp is a loaded page)
- access to settings
Stuff that doesn't work include:
- visual notification on the phone screen when a message is received (The browser is the one that would need to send that notification)
- sending vocal messages (I was able to give the browser permissions but the issue now relies in the input device, i think)
- making and receiving calls
I have no interest in using features such as: status updates, channels, communities and so on, so i didn't test any of those.
Phone Camera
Megapixels & Millipixels
Not working, no matter what i tried. Still have to look further into it tho.
System Process Viewer
htop
The famous text based process viewer, honeslty it's here cause its cool. Super cool.
Some settings i changed (constant Work In Progress tbh):
Disable vibration during typing
open a terminal and type:
gsettings set org.sigxcpu.feedbackd.application:/org/sigxcpu/feedbackd/application/sm-puri-squeekboard/ profile silent
Notch blocking part of the top bar
Following the official PostMarketOS wiki, i edited this file: ~/.config/gtk-3.0/gtk.css with:
.phosh-topbar-clock {
padding-left: 130px;
}
Newsboat changes
To use Newsboat to read RSS feeds (including the feed of this site!) you can change a couple of things to improve your experience. The default browser used by Newsboat when using the "o" command to open an article in the browser is Lynx.
Using Lynx in the phone's shell is not impossible but impractical. What i found much better is to pass the Firefox-ESR binary as a variable when launching Newsboat, by editing the newsboat.desktop file in /usr/share/applications like this:
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=newsboat
GenericName=RSS/Atom feed reader
Comment=Launches newsboat RSS/Atom feed reader
Keywords=RSS,Atom,News
Categories=Network;ConsoleOnly
X-Purism-FormFactor=Workstation;Mobile;
Type=Application
Icon=newsboat
Terminal=true
Exec=bash -c 'env BROWSER=firefox-esr newsboat %u'
This will launch the Firefox-ESR binary and use firefox as the browser. The binary will be executed in the same terminal in which you launched the Newsboat binary, so, in order to go back to newsboat, you will need to close Firefox first.
Trying to solve issues with sound in calls
There are multiple issues, maybe related to each other, with audio inputs/outputs in general and specifically in calls.
In calls, with the default input/output compo, the audio input is working, so people will head you fine, but the adio output level makes hearing them barely possible. In a completely quite room you can barely understand when the other person is saying.
Also, the phone at startup or at the end of a call will switch the default output from the speakers to the headphones, which is another bug.
Both of this are making having reliable calls impossible as of right now.
One workaround that made calls working again partially (audio was still too low, but decent) was
Editing pulseaudio config:
sudo vi /etc/pulse/default.pa
Comment out loading module:
#load-module module-suspend-on-idle
Disable call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround service:
sudo rc-update del call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround
This workaround is among the comments on the issue #1876 that is tracking this problems. Please note that the original comment with the previous commands has a typo.
The issue of the default audio output being wrong is the issue #2522.
Basic terminal usage
Installing a package
sudo apk add neofetch
Uninstall a package
sudo apk remote neofetch
Search for a package
sudo apk search neofetch
Upgrade the system
sudo akp upgrad -a
Repair packages or a single package
sudo apk fix
sudo apt fix neofetch
Manage services
the PostmarketOS service manager is OpenRC, so you can use the rc-service commands with ease. the command is also symlinked to service, just so you know.
rc-service networkmanager status
sudo rc-service networkmanager start
sudo rc-service networkmanager stop
sudo rc-service networkmanager restart
To enable or disable services on boot you can use the rc-update command
# Start NetworkManager on boot (in the default runlevel)
sudo rc-update add networkmanager default
# Stop NetworkManager starting on boot
sudo rc-update del networkmanager default
and to see the list of services added to a runlevel you can use rc-update