What common android/iOS apps did you get working on Manjaro ARM?

I’m slowly but surely transitioning to using my Manjaro Pinephone as my daily driver. As such, there are quite a few apps that I’ve had to transition from android or find equivalents of.

I’m hoping this thread can be somewhat of an app showcase for how to get some of the non-intuitive (or non-native) apps working, as well as describe the experience/usability of the solution.

Some notable apps that I’ve been able to use (on Phosh) that were not intuitive to setup:

Chromium

  • problem: did not launch
    • solution: add env GDK_BACKEND=x11 to Exec line of /usr/share/applications/chromium.desktop
    • (copy to /home/manjaro/.local/share/applications for permanent change)
  • usability: no further issues

KeePassXC

  • problem: did not fit on screen
    • solution: scale-to-fit org.keepassxc.KeePassXC
  • problem: copy/paste did not work
    • this appears to only affect some apps. i can copy from keepassxc to “Text Editor”, and then copy from there to apps like chromium
  • usability: bit small on the screen, but otherwise good

Lyft

  • problem: no app available
solution: use chromium as web app
sudo pacman -S --needed chromium

create file: /usr/bin/lyft with contents:

#!/bin/bash

GDK_BACKEND=x11 chromium --user-data-dir=$HOME/.config/lyft --app=https://ride.lyft.com/

create file: /usr/share/applications/lyft.desktop with contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Exec=/usr/bin/lyft
Icon=lyft
Name=Lyft
GenericName=Lyft
Comment=Request a Ride
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Office;Application
StartupNotify=false

(optional icon: download a lyft logo png and move it to /usr/share/pixmaps/lyft.png)

  • usability: near perfect, just make sure you have location services enabled in Settings before launching it

Verizon Message+

  • problem: no app available
solution: use chromium as web app
sudo pacman -S --needed chromium

create file: /usr/bin/vznmsg with contents:

#!/bin/bash

GDK_BACKEND=x11 chromium --user-data-dir=$HOME/.config/vznmsg --app=https://web.vma.verizon.com/vma/web2/Message.do

create file: /usr/share/applications/vznmsg.desktop with contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Exec=/usr/bin/vznmsg
Icon=vznmsg
Name=VerizonMsg
GenericName=VerizonMsg
Comment=View Verizon Messages
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Office;Application
StartupNotify=false

(optional icon: download a verizon message+ logo png and move it to /usr/share/pixmaps/vznmsg.png)

  • usability: requires frequent login. i recommend saving the credentials when prompted. i also recommend the “Full Page Mode” in the menu

Skype

  • problem: no app available (aside from purple plugin, which is not feature-complete)
solution: use chromium as web app (custom user agent)
sudo pacman -S --needed chromium

create file: /usr/bin/skype with contents:

#!/bin/bash

GDK_BACKEND=x11 chromium --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.90 Safari/537.36" --user-data-dir=$HOME/.config/skype --app=https://web.skype.com/

create file: /usr/share/applications/skype.desktop with contents:

[Desktop Entry]
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Exec=/usr/bin/skype
Icon=skype
Name=Skype
GenericName=Skype
Comment=Connect to Skype
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Office;Application
StartupNotify=false
  • usability: pretty much perfect, works like a native app

MS Teams

  • problem: no app available
solution: use chromium as web app (custom user agent)
sudo pacman -S --needed chromium

create file: /usr/bin/teams with contents:

#!/bin/bash

GDK_BACKEND=x11 chromium --user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/75.0.3770.90 Safari/537.36" --user-data-dir=$HOME/.config/teams --app=https://teams.microsoft.com/_#/

create file: /usr/share/applications/teams.desktop with contents:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Exec=/usr/bin/teams
Icon=msteams
Name=Teams
GenericName=Teams
Comment=Connect to Microsoft Teams
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Office;Application
StartupNotify=false

(optional icon: download a teams logo png and move it to /usr/share/pixmaps/teams.png)

  • usability: too wide to fit on screen, bit wonky to navigate, but otherwise usable
2 Likes