LINux on MOBile
Received my MNT Pocket Reform (RK3588, 32GB/256GB) today, and it's lovely. Thanks @mntmn for creating such unusual products!

Feel free to ask me anything (well, newbie questions preferably, as I just got it today :-) )

#Linux #MNT #PocketReform
Jul 14 at 10:41amWeb
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 14
@linmob so cool, please post some pictures when you have the time :D
Show threadLINux on MOBileJul 14
@mntmn Here's one, taken with the Librem 5 - OnePlus 6 for size comparison:
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 14
@linmob awesome!
Show threadPenJul 14
@linmob @mntmn So cool! Love this combination of open source hardware and software.
What do you think of the performance of the MNT Pocket Reform so far?
Show threadLINux on MOBileJul 15
@nacly Performance is as expected - it's not in Snapdragon for laptops or Apple Silicon territory, but totally serviceable. I am running this from eMMC, I will see how well NVMe works at some point in the future. @mntmn
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 15
@linmob @nacly BTW there are at least two caveats in terms of performance:
- there was a bug in mesa that made firefox much slower than it should be, which has been found by a MNT user and now fixed upstream, but i don't think it arrived in debian yet (cc @josch any way of tracking that?)
- you can overclock the gpu to 1ghz
Show threadjoschJul 15
@mntmn @linmob @nacly I did not create a tracking bug in Debian for that. Would you like me to? We probably have to wait for the Trixie release as only then will the next mesa upstream release be packaged. To get this into the MNT repos now would either require us to build a patched mesa or for mesa to backport the patch onto their last stable release and then the Debian mesa maintainer to do another upload.
Another performance caveat is the scaling issue. In gnome, set scaling to 100% or 200%
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 15
@josch @linmob @nacly oh right, but i think on pocket it defaults to 200% at least. i read a while ago that the mesa patch was considered for backporting to mesa 25.1, but not sure if it happened https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/merge_requests/35678#note_2975293
mesa: reorder mesa format corresponding to GL_BGRA (!35678) · Merge requests · Mesa / mesa · GitLab

current st_ChooseTextureFormat(..., internalFormat=GL_BGRA8, ...) returns PIPE_FORMAT_R8G8B8A8_UNORM. this causes significant performance loss in apps that use BGRA texture format(e.g. firefox) when transferring textures because of format...

GitLab
Show threadjoschJul 15
@mntmn @linmob @nacly Cannot confirm. The default "Scale" in the gnome display settings with the most recent system images is 225%. I tried disabling gnome fractional scaling in this MR but without success: https://source.mnt.re/reform/reform-tools/-/merge_requests/131
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 15
@josch @linmob @nacly uh oh CC @rmader (gnome appears to selects 225% scale on pocket and 125% on classic reform by default, slowing things down)
Show threadjoschJul 16
@linmob @nacly @rmader A workaround has been found! @mntmn spotted that the schema header needs to have `:GNOME` appended (for what reason? does anybody know?) And with that, fractional-scaling is disabled and only 100% and 200% can be selected in the GNOME settings and it defaults to 200%. I updated the MR accordingly. This will be part of of the next reform-tools version and will affect new installations.
Show threadRobert MaderJul 16
@josch @linmob @nacly @mntmn Yeah, that's an issue that's not easy to get right everywhere :/ You might want to have a look at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/4503
monitor: Calculate fractional scaling factors using exact quotients (!4503) · Merge requests · GNOME / mutter · GitLab

Here we generalise scaling factor detection to include all reasonable quotients within the range 1.0-4.0 (which is unchanged). In theory we are only adding some one...

GitLab
Show threadEric Engestrom 💙Jul 15
@mntmn @josch @linmob @nacly it's in 25.1.5 :)
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 15
@1ace @josch @linmob @nacly nice, thanks for confirming! looks like debian experimental has 25.1.5
Show threadjoschJul 15
@linmob @nacly @mntmn We live in two different worlds. 😁 The fastest machine I have is the RK3588 and it's too fast. I have been using the BananaPI CM4 with A311D as my only computer for 2 years and coming from there, the RK3588 is complete overkill for any of the work I do. I don't think I have any workload in my daily computing activities that would max out the RK3588 other than building linux which I usually do on some gitlab CI... Even the Intel laptop from work is slower than the RK3588. :D
Show threadconcretedogJul 14
@linmob @mntmn so much ace'ness in one picture!
Show threadnLupo  Jul 14
@linmob @mntmn How is the current battery life?
Show threadLINux on MOBileJul 15
@nlupo I think I should get 2-4 hours? Serious estimates and experience will take me quite a bit though, as I am just setting this up and my schedule is awfully full in the coming two weeks (and this is 'fun laptop', not '$dayjob machine'). @mntmn
Show threadnLupo  Jul 15
@linmob @mntmn I see.
Show threadmgdJul 14
@linmob @mntmn ortholinear ftw :)
Show threadJmbmknJul 15
@linmob @mntmn Can it be set up to run a second display? The tiny display seems usable for short periods, but for somethign longer a bigger monitor seems necessary.
Show threadlucie lukas "minute" hartmannJul 15
@jmbmkn @linmob yes, i "dock" it to a dell u2724d at home, for example (via hdmi for 1440p@120hz display + usb-c for power and usb data)
Show threadLINux on MOBileJul 15
@mntmn @jmbmkn Can confirm it works that way, already docked to my weird LG Dual Up and it just works (which, for ARM laptops is especially noteworthy, my Thinkpad X13s (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X13s_(lenovo-21bx)) only started supporting that weird thing with the recent 6.15 kernel (although I can't rule out was just unlucky beforehand)).
Lenovo ThinkPad X13s (lenovo-21bx) - postmarketOS Wiki

Show threadAjiraJul 19
@linmob @mntmn what is your feeling when typing on the keyboard ? are the big enough and sufficiently spaced ?
Show threadLINux on MOBileJul 21
@akira This is quite subjective, but I, with zero prior experience with ortholinear keyboards got along better than I had hoped from the start. I have not tried writing/editing lengthy blog posts though, so I'll need to get back to you on that.
In general, I am used to smaller than usual keyboards from the ASUS C101P chromebook and my Surface Go 2 Type Cover, and multiple 'netbooks' back in the day.
@mntmn
Show threadAmin Hollon 🏳Jul 14

@linmob @mntmn

I need to get my hands on one of these some day, they look really awesome.