My first week of daily driving pmOS edge, or: "Having your dogfood and eating it too"

# Intro
I got a Oneplus 6 2.5 years ago, to play around with #linuxOnMobile. My other phone, an old Android, partially broke its screen last fall. The writing was on the wall, as the cracks crept ever further. Last week it was no longer usable, as the screen began sensing touch inputs erratically, without being touched.

1/8

So, I figured this was a good a time as any to ditch #Android and use #PostmarketOS full-time.
For the user interface I chose #Gnome Mobile, as it, in my opinion, has the best balance between usability, completeness, lack of bugs, and pretty✨️
As the filesystem I chose Full-Disk Encrypted #btrfs because I'm developing some tools for btrfs on pmOS (#apksnap, #mangr0ve).

2/8

In my opinion btrfs is a better filesystem for the 'portable device' usecase than #ext4 is. Data integrity and easy recovery of b0rked systems is so nice.

3/8

# Pros I've experienced
- Call, text, mobile data, wifi, auto rotate, auto brightness, browser activities, writing notes, email, OTP, podcast and radio listening, manga reading, peertube and youtube watching, mastodon; all work more or less. These are functions I use daily.
- Impressive battery life, especially when suspended.
- Freedom to do what I want with my device.
- Privacy from megacorps and others.
- Immense feeling of achievement.
- Clout.

4/8

# Papercuts
- Couldn't log into any public services, because the government-sanctioned OTP app won't run in waydroid. Called the bank and they were understanding enough to mail me an OTP hardware dongle. Should arrive next week. Problem solved.

5/8

- Couldn't use my super-cheap youth public transport card at first. Transport provider insisted I install their app, I insisted that wasn't an option. I don't want to use Waydroid if I can help it, due to battery and functionality concerns. Also Linux-only dogfood is yum. Had to dig info about an obscure webshop out of the public transport provider, where my youth card was luckily listed. Problem solved.

6/8

- Camera on the #Oneplus6 doesn't work yet. I love documenting my day in photos, saving and sharing them with my family. I feel the loss.

- #Flare (the Signal Messenger on Linux app) has only partial support for being the main Signal client, i.e. without being connected to an Android phone. Buut the mode is experimental and difficult to enable. There's a workaround using signal-cli, but signal-cli in #AlpineLinux is only built for x86_64. (for now)

7/8

- Phone doesn't ring the alarm unless it's awake. i.e. doesn't do the job of an alarm clock in the morning.

- The screen sometimes becomes corrupted, like there's an issue with the #gpu driver. Restart fixes it, and so does forcing the gpu to redraw different images to the screen for a while. For some reason more likely to occur when the device is exposed to cold environment

# Summary

I'm pleasantly surprised that the papercuts seem small. See ya'll next week!

8/8

@papiris

Great writeup ! Thanks !

Most important question: did your OnePlus 6 work as a phone ? I mean were you able to receive and place calls with audio working ?

@pavel Yeah, I hope #libMegapixels makes it easier to extend support of more cameras on more phones more easily

@normand I'm glad you found it useful!
If I remember correctly, the main camera sensor (IMX519) gained driver support in the mainline kernel a few months ago.
What remains then, I believe, is figuring out the particulars of the ISP and how it all wires together on-device
I couldn't find much about the front camera sensor (IMX376k), so that's likely still some ways off.

@normand I've had my Pinetime watch for two years now, I think? It's not the most robust thing out there, but I'm happy with it. Sorry to hear yours've given you trouble

@comcloudway Your Pinephone's battery life _dwarfs_ in comparison to the OP6 and OP6t (w/ even bigger battery). I haven't load-tested it continuosly for a whole day yet, so I haven't got exact numbers.
But when I've charged it overnight (not recommended for safety and longevity reasons) and started the day with a full battery, I usually have 30% left once midnight comes around

@papiris the battery of my PineTime expanded so much that it cracked the sealed case. I was able to remove the back cover. Some unidentifiable component had completely turned into red dust. While I was still using it, it was probably a fire hazard...

And with shipping (prohibitive $$$) and duty fees, it had cost me over $120CAD. For a $25USD watch... Add the unfilled promise of connectivity with a Pinephone, to say this watch has been a huge disappointment is an understatement.

@normand yikes, your disappointment is understandable. Shipping and import taxes also bit me in Norway, as I bought three from the main store for my fam and I before @pine64eu opened shop

@papiris I am also daily driving an enchilada, and it doesn't ring on call if it is not waken up. My solution : I disabled the sleep, just dim the screen. The battery still hold a day without any problems (not a big user, but I endup the day around 50-60% left)

@vmaurin that's a clever workaround! I haven't had issues with missed calls yet (maybe ppl have only called when my device is awake so far?), but I'll keep it in mind if troubles come up later

@Nuuskis hi, I see two possibilities;

1. your enchilada has a replacement screen, in which case you may want to try flashing pmOS edge (without using an .iso) using the pmbootstrap tool.

2. pmOS packages its own firmware, for the most part. For the parts that still aren't shipped in pmOS, the version of OxygenOS (Android) you had on the device before flashing pmOS, matters.

In any case, there are more details in https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/OnePlus_6_(oneplus-enchilada)

@Nuuskis If you want more help while you're underway, the PostmarketOS matrix room is more synchronous and high-bandwidth than here on mastodon
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Matrix_and_IRC

@Nuuskis yeah, although I'm not up-to-date on how functional it is. My screen is original, so I've focused on other areas :)
for example I have a replacement battery which needs a little tweak to the "devicetree source" in /boot/dtbs/qcom/sdm845-oneplus-enchilada.dtb after kernel upgrades to properly communicate its charge level. This one is a papercut as well, albeit small. Might be a similar situation with your screen.

You'd probably have more luck asking in the pmOS Matrix ;)

@quixote yeah, early adopters' experience was unsustainable. But without y'all early adopters we couldn't have made the dream work

Glad to hear you want to give Linux on mobile devices another go!

@normand
Someone posted a $1000 bounty for working sdm845 camera support in the PostmarketOS #lemmy community!

Not sure how the project handles bug bounties, but if it's legit I'm optimistic. Have you seen this, @craftyguy ?

https://lemmy.ml/post/10797325

@papiris @normand hmm no I haven't seen that. We have talked about starting an official bug bounty program but just haven't gone far with the idea yet.

Does anyone have any experience setting up and running a successful bug bounty problem? 😅

@papiris @normand @craftyguy Hey that bounty is from a community member but is not an "official" bounty in any shape or form. We're not responsible for it and we don't currently handle bug bounties.