Manjaro ARM Beta2 with Plasma-Mobile (PinePhone)

ARM Releases
1

The Manjaro ARM project is proud to announce the second BETA release of Plasma-Mobile for the PinePhone!

PlaMo Beta2
PlaMo Beta21920×1080 344 KB

This image uses kernel 5.10.7 optimized for the Pinephone (megi)

Since our first beta release in December we were able to fix a lot of important bugs, namely concerning call stability and connectivity for all carriers.
The new desktop version features KDE Frameworks 5.78.0, snapshots of Plasma 5.20.5 and latest
versions of plasma-mobile- and mauikit-apps in our dedicated [mobile] overlay repo.
Preinstalled apps include basically everything you expect from your typical smartphone, including a torch, camera app megapixels and many applications familiar from a plasma desktop.

Known issues

  • Wakeup from standby somtimes takes more than one press of the power button.
  • Camera image in megapixels camera app currently doesn’t properly rotate to landscape with the app window.
  • Screen sometimes fails to wakeup when receiving a call.
  • Keyboard sometimes doesn’t slide down completely.
  • The kernel currently used for the Pinephone allows charging of the battery only to about 80% capacity as a security measure to prevent overheating.

Download Pinephone PlaMo Beta2
Download Pinephone PlaMo Nightly

About the device

PinePhone:
Perhaps you’re in a line of work where security is a must, or a hard-core Linux enthusiast, or perhaps you’ve just got enough of Android and iOS and you’re ready for something else – the PinePhone may be the next Phone for you. Powered by the same Quad-Core ARM Cortex A53 64-Bit SOC used in our popular PINE A64 Single Board Computer, the PinePhone runs mainline Linux as well as anything else you’ll get it to run.

The purpose of the PinePhone isn’t only to deliver a functioning Linux phone to end-users, but also to actively create a market for such a device, as well as to support existing and well established Linux-on-Phone projects. All major Linux Phone-oriented projects, as well as other FOSS OS’, are represented on the PinePhone and developers work together on our platform to bring support this this community driven device.

Order

Both the Manjaro Edition and the KDE Community Edition (based on Manjaro) of the PinePhone are already sold out :partying_face:
Currently the PinePhone ships as the Mobian CE, but of course still runs any distro/DE from SD-Card or internal eMMC :wink:

How to install

Download the image/xz file from the download location. Verify that the download completed successfully.

After that, install Etcher ( sudo pacman -S etcher if on Manjaro) and burn the image to an SD card (8 GB or larger).

The PinePhone should recognize the SD card as a bootable device and boot from it.

The preconfigured users are:
User: kde
Password: 123456

User: root
password: root

Donate

Please consider supporting Manjaro ARM directly via Patreon , Ko-Fi or Open Collective.
You can also donate to our upstream, which is Arch Linux ARM .

Bugtracker

If you face issues with this editon, please open a new issue on our bug-tracker

Development Changelog

We will list our progress to Beta3 here

  • Beta2 (2021-01-22) Download
  • Dev (2021-01-31) Download
    • based on unstable branch
    • Kernel got updated to 5.10.12
    • we are using now eg25-manager in combination with ofonoctl to manage the modem
    • Mesa is now at 20.3.4
    • shipping Plasma-Git, Frameworks-Git and Plasma-Mobile-Git packages
      • Frameworks at 5.79
      • Plasma at 5.20.90
    • regular upstream updates
  • Dev (2021-02-11) Download
    • based on unstable branch
    • Kernel got updated to 5.10.15
    • eg25-manager support got improved
    • we switched to the new kde-unstable repo
    • lots of fixes to Plasma, Frameworks, Apps and Plasma-Mobile packages
    • regular upstream updates
11 Likes
2

Finnish Telia not working. Same thing with Lomiri. Probably ofono? Shows Telia upleft and some numbers there before it starts to show just Telia. Can’t get anywhere with browser though and no updates so data is not working.

3

Thx for this new release
would you please be so kind in the future to add #pinephone tag to the post its har to find plamo beta 1 and beta 2 post .

2 Likes
4

new install needed? Or can the BETA1 updated to the BETA2 ??? I am on unstable channel and have a newer kernel than listed above in BETA1

1 Like
5

I finally got around to trying my phone.
I assume the KDE SMS app is for text messages. When I open the app, it says no devices. How does one send a text message?
Is the SD always required or is there a flashing process?
Also it does not seem to charge more than 84%.

1 Like
6

It’s for SMS/MMS. To send a text message, you need to have a contact phone number in.

You can flash to the internal eMMC, just like on any other board.

1 Like
7

you are right of course :wink:
tag added.

1 Like
8

Sure! You will get everything simply by updating the system.
Unstable now also has more newer updates available.

1 Like
9

Mobile network don’t work I tried what some one mentioned in beta 1

It worked for a few seconds then it drops and then I tried run that command again and it only gives me an error message.

Call worked
I am using CBB a Danish telecompany and on all other distribution whit phosh mobil network also works.

Modem don’t wake up after deep sleep only wifi so reboot is required to use call again.

Would be nice whit a contact app which synced whit online acc like phosh does…

But overall I really like plasma and the polished UI is top nice, ihope functionality will be prioritiesed soon
:sunglasses:

1 Like
10

Also it does not seem to charge more than 84%.

This might explain it.

@oberon This could be added to known Issues

11

Ok, successfully flashed the image to the emmc and it now boots in the image.

First tests, calling…

My carrier is AT&T. Incoming calls work without an issue. I have not yet tested while it is in sleep.

However, for outgoing calls to my wife, also on AT&T, I hear a beep instead of a ring and she does not receive a ring but her led light indicates an incoming call. If she answers, the call works as expected.

If I call a land line, I hear a normal ring and the call connects and works as expected.

Text messaging works with the Spacebar app. But how do you delete them?

Edit: It seems I can not activate the data network. Do I need to contact my carrier to activate this phone?

1 Like
12

Hey @0n0w1c ! Did you try the ofonoctl command to set the DNS resolvers?

sudo ofonoctl wan --connect --append-dns

DNS resolution isn’t automatically set for me either, so I’m thinking I might get systemd to execute it at startup, maybe.

2 Likes
13

That worked! Thank you very much.

17 
[kde@plasma-mobile ~]$ anbox check-features
You're running Anbox on a not yet supported architecture

How does Anbox work on Phosh then?

I have done:

sudo mkdir /dev/binderfs

sudo mount -t binder binder /dev/binderfs

sudo systemctl start anbox-container-manager

and then…

[kde@plasma-mobile ~]$ anbox launch --package=org.anbox.appmgr --component=org.anbox.appmgr.AppViewActivity
[ 2021-01-26 18:03:11] [daemon.cpp:61@Run] [org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Timeout] Connection timed out
18
  • can’t do anything modem related after wake from sleep. e.g. phone sleeps once, no more modem access until reboot. US AT&T. I did receive a call when it was sleeping once
  • this wake from sleep problem prevents me from receiving text messages - permanently. I can’t access text messages that were sent when the modem was asleep, even in other OS’s
  • settings app isn’t accessible after wake from sleep as well, perhaps related
  • have to manually append DNS still to use data
  • can’t use nextcloud with a locally signed certificate - Chromium/angelfish won’t allow self-signed certs, tried to use Firefox, but it is completely unusable - perhaps adopt Phosh’s firefox config and give users the option
  • the keyboard is a nice layout, but I can’t get rid of it when I want to or bring it back when I want to

overall, no reliable phone functionality. layout looks nice, but I would like to use it as a phone.

19

The keyboard sure could use a [ctrl] key.

20

I was able to place/receive phone calls with pinephone running Plasma Mobile Beta 2 but noticed that the keypad doesn’t work during a phonecall. For example, interacting with a voicemail system to delete messages using keypad. Doesn’t seem to work yet. Very encouraged by the progress of this version of Plasma Mobile. Keep up the great work!!!

21

Alarm dosent go off i gues deep sleep is preventing it
Phone calls get disconnected and some times it gets disconnected whit out hanging up…

22

Hi all,
I am so sorry but I still have problem (with modemmanager ?),
I can’t use Manjaro at all (PM, Phosh, ubuntu touch).

[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ ofonoctl list
No modems found
[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ systemctl status ModemManager
* ModemManager.service - Modem Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/ModemManager.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2021-01-30 17:07:07 CET; 10min ago
   Main PID: 3729 (ModemManager)
      Tasks: 3 (limit: 1995)
     Memory: 6.9M
     CGroup: /system.slice/ModemManager.service
             `-3729 /usr/bin/ModemManager

Jan 30 17:07:06 manjaro-arm systemd[1]: Starting Modem Manager...
Jan 30 17:07:06 manjaro-arm ModemManager[3729]: <info>  ModemManager (version 1.14.10) starting in system bus...
Jan 30 17:07:07 manjaro-arm systemd[1]: Started Modem Manager.
Jan 30 17:07:10 manjaro-arm ModemManager[3729]: <info>  [base-manager] couldn't check support for device '/sys/devices/platform/soc/1c10000.mmc/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:1': not supported by any plugin
Jan 30 17:08:30 manjaro-arm ModemManager[3729]: <info>  [base-manager] couldn't check support for device '/sys/devices/platform/soc/1c10000.mmc/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:1': not supported by any plugin
Jan 30 17:13:52 manjaro-arm ModemManager[3729]: <info>  [base-manager] couldn't check support for device '/sys/devices/platform/soc/1c10000.mmc/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:1': not supported by any plugin
Jan 30 17:17:17 manjaro-arm ModemManager[3729]: <info>  [base-manager] couldn't check support for device '/sys/devices/platform/soc/1c10000.mmc/mmc_host/mmc1/mmc1:0001/mmc1:0001:1': not supported by any plugin

[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ systemctl status ofono
* ofono.service - Telephony service
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/ofono.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2021-01-30 17:07:06 CET; 10min ago
   Main PID: 3605 (ofonod)
      Tasks: 1 (limit: 1995)
     Memory: 3.0M
     CGroup: /system.slice/ofono.service
             `-3605 /usr/sbin/ofonod -n

Jan 30 17:07:05 manjaro-arm systemd[1]: Starting Telephony service...
Jan 30 17:07:05 manjaro-arm ofonod[3605]: oFono version 1.31
Jan 30 17:07:06 manjaro-arm systemd[1]: Started Telephony service.
Jan 30 17:07:24 manjaro-arm ofonod[3605]: parse_devices_reply: found 1st battery device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_axp20x_battery

[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ mmcli -S
successfully requested to scan devices
[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ mmcli -L
no modems were found
[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ mmcli -e
error: no modem was specified
[kde@manjaro-arm ~]$ mmcli -B
ModemManager daemon 1.14.10 running

I have tried Mobian, PostmarketOS ← works fine for me, but sometimes disconnect from Telekom network and I can make/recive the calls, reboot fix it (I can’t reboot phone 10x per day)

I used donate button because pinebook with manjaro works great, thank you, but pinephone is unusable at this moment obviousli just for me :smiley: should I wait for kernel update ?
thank you

1 Like
23

I am not sure but somthing has happrned because calls has worked fine om Phosh but no longer does . I dont know if it’s relater to the current kernel or?

1 Like