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 ?

@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)

@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!

@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.