JanaMe: I should try to focus on one project, so I actually make project.
Also me: I want to try postmarketOS and oooh, I even have a device here, which could work 
This device has been tested with postmarketOS, but its device package has not yet been added to the postmarketOS repositories.
This means that it cannot be selected in pmbootstrap.
Uh, maybe that would be more work than I'd be willing to invest into that idea right now 
So I just re-realized that I have a postmarketOS-cabable phone here. It's still in the testing category, but according to the wiki most things should be supported.
Well, let's figure out how to pmbootstrap that puppy :3
Well, I followed the instructions and I keep getting thrown into fastboot mode.
I also get warnings that something isn't properly configured and that I should run pmbootstrap kconfig check, but that commands says everything regarding my device is fine.
Uuuh, yeah...
Or rather: It gives me an error regarding an acer-swing, which is the wrong device, and nothing else.
Internal Storage: Broken
Uuuuuh, oopsie, I might have overlooked that critical part of the wiki 
The cameras work, which is cool. They look absolute ass though, but in a funny almost artistic way.
Otherwise, so far, I hate the Plasma Mobile UI less than Android
The primary issue I have with pmOS on this device so far is that the WiFi keeps disconnecting and I have yet to figure out a pattern to it. And when it‘s disconnected it‘s a gamble whether it will successfully reconnect or not.
Seems a bit more happy with a 2.4G wifi (currently tethering from my iPhone).
And I'm posting this from the device :3
And I'm posting this from the device :3
This is what I'm looking at. The plasma keyboard isn't bad, but I have no idea why the Shift key acts as Caps lock.
Uhm, so I think I have tracked down the source of my WiFi issue. But it's confusing.
If I try to disable Auto Rotate, it doesn't work and just goes back to On.
But after I touched the toggle once, WiFi will freak out.
If I reboot and don't touch the Auto Rotate toggle, everything behaves fine. Been stable and fast for half an hour now. 
Oh yeah and a working auto rotate button would also be good, because the rotation is incredibly trigger happy
I revert my statement on WiFi and auto rotate.
It seems to rather depend on the current moon phase or something.
Switched to iwd WiFi backend. Let's see if that helps.
Also, for some reason, had to set EnableIPv6 in the iwd config, even though it should be the default since 2.0 (this is 3.12).
I am currently re-compiling Plasma Keyboard.
I think that describes the Linux phone experience pretty well :D
Yay, I created myself a reasonable german keyboard layout.
Now the reasonable thing would be to upstream that to Qt Keyboard, but AFAIK they currently have no concept of alternative keyboard layouts for a certain language 
(Which is why I now just forked Plasma Keyboard, copied fallback to de_DE and swapped Y and Z)
I tried looking into the contribution guide for Qt and had no idea where I would even go to ask about alternative layouts for a language.
So for now I just threw my little patch into a repo and apply it with a custom apk build.
Gotta say, the abuild system for Alpine is quite nice 
In comparison: KDE seems pretty easy. I made an account, immediately had access to their Gitlab and could theoretically propose a MR immediately.
Also my WiFi is pretty stable now, as long as I don't dare to move the phone.
If I pick it up, it will immediately loose it.
Inserted a SIM and got it working with a reboot :3
Now it would be kinda funny if mobile internet ends up being more stable than WiFi.
I have yet to understand how to make a custom APN work. So far it has just kept going back to the default Telekom one, but for now I think I also got throttled somehow.
Gonna have to retry that later.
Enough testing for now, the inconsistent WiFi is very annoying.
It also didn't want to accept a USB ethernet dongle and the USB networking somehow isn't recognized by macOS.
To be continued some other time.
It also didn't want to accept a USB ethernet dongle and the USB networking somehow isn't recognized by macOS.
To be continued some other time.
Installing distrobox and podman on a phone.
This feels so wrong and at the same time is so incredibly fun :D
With some hints from the postmarketOS IRC, I managed to narrow the WiFi issue down. 2.4GHz WiFi works really well, 5GHz not at all. So whenever the phone tries to upgrade the connection, it drops.
There are some known workarounds to force it to 2.4 on-device, but those didn’t really work for me. So for at home testing I now just opened up a separate SSID that works.
Now I‘m digging through firmware stuff to see if I can find any clue as to what‘s wrong (I don’t expect success, but I‘m trying anyways)
RDP didn't auto-configure a firewall rule.
Contributing your nftable rules
Heck yeah, I will. pmOS Gitlab account, here I come
Installed waydroid to be able to run some Android apps on postmarketOS.
By default internet connectivity inside of waydroid was broken. Waydroid itself seems to auto-configure nftable rules into the lxc chain. But that chain is not referenced in any of the default chains, so the rules never apply.
Meanwhile there is also a waydroid-nftrules package, which has different rules, but those are not enabled by default. So by linking that one to /etc/nftables.d/, it started to work, but I think the better way would be to figure out how to jump to the chain that waydroid creates by itself 
I'm overall very positively surprised by postmarketOS.
Most of what I've heard about the state of Linux on phones was that it's incredibly unusable.
And yeah, there are rough edges to it, but so far this is working so much better than I anticipated.
Don't get me wrong, this is far from mainstream user friendly. But for someone that isn't scared of a Linux terminal? It's serviceable, to the point where I am very tempted to give it a try to use it as a proper phone.
The main thing I would still want to get working for that is a custom APN for the SIM card. Default APN just work OOTB, but adding a custom APN with credentials has so far not worked.
Ah yeah, and getting the auto rotate toggle to work would also be nice. This thing is turning everywhere.
Like I'd rather have broken auto rotation than constant auto rotation.
Like I'd rather have broken auto rotation than constant auto rotation.
David Clubb@davidoclubb There is also a button on Plasma Mobile, it‘s just broken :/
Though I want to give Phosh a try too soon
Though I want to give Phosh a try too soon
"Musty Bits" McGee
Remind Me@arichtman Ok, I will remind you on Friday Jun 26, 2026 at 12:34 PM UTC.