Technically not a hardware bringup, but still very important non the less!

If you have used i think any linux phone before you may have noticed that if you plug in the charger the system immediately boots, while on android it shows a charging symbol.

This became quite infamous with the PinePhonePro, it's boot consumed more energy then the charger could give, so it was stuck.

This is also how my PPP died and was thus retired to the drawer.

Ive drained my FP6 many times now already with working on it but it always came back, but to not risk it i've now implemented a ultra lower power charging mode.

At boot it detects if the boot reason was because of a charger, then it shuts off everything it can shut off. and enters the charging mode.

While in charging mode you can press volume up to turn on the display, this shows the current battery % and charging rate, pressing it again shuts the display off again.

You can press volume down to enable debug mode, this initializes SSH. Keep in mind that this is mega slow as only a single little core is active and downclocked all the way, fine for fetching logs but if you want more it might be better to bring up more of the CPU.

In charging mode pulling out the charges causes the system to shut off.

In charging mode pressing the power button causes the system to reboot and start as normal.

I suppose my hands aren't really showing it in the video but those are the buttons i press.

Hopefully no FP6 will ever die because of a battery boot loop.

News roundup

As with any of my posts here is the regularly scheduled news roundup:

Mollie terminated my account

If you stalk me you might have read this post:

https://ani.social/post/35846695

My comment here explains "why":

https://ani.social/comment/18286964

So i would recommend anyone doing FOSS work to not use Mollie as they clearly don't like it and will terminate your account suddenly out of nowhere, another example of the grip big tech has on us.

As a result i've had to make the only payment rails on my website a regular bank transfer and cryptocurrency. When i still had access to the mollie dashboard i could see that many payments were already done with bank transfer so i hope its not too much of an inconvenience.

The donation money should be safe, i should be getting it in my bank account next week according to their email, and if i don't i'll be raising hell.

Donations

Thank everyone that donated so very very much, i really can't express my gratitude enough.

https://catcrafts.net/financials is now at a massive €1061.02!!!

I don't know what to say, genuinely thank everyone very very much. I'll be working to fulfill the mission you all have funded and continue to fund.

And that brings me to my next point, which makes me a bit teary eyed that people are so generous to me:

A massive thanks to the kind person willing to donate €500!!! but didn't get trough 3D secure on their card.

I really don't know what to say except your generosity knows no bounds, if you happen to be reading this would you be willing to do a bank transfer instead?

If not i understand, but thank you very much again for willing to donate this massive amount.

Linux 7.2

Linux 7.2 has released and i've updated my image! Anyone using it should just be able to do a regular update via apk and get the new 7.2 kernel, please let me know how it goes!

Fairphone 6+

I think everyone has read my original comment announcing it already but Luca emailed me confirming the FP6 and FP6+ are software compatible, this is also on the pmos wiki now.

Improved Camera

I've also improved the camera color correction again. If we compare with the image from my previous post:

Previous post:

Now:

My white wall is actually white now.

The quality is still pretty bad, but i'm continuing to improve it. The next steps are de-noising on the DSP/NSP/NPU (whatever the hexagon processor is called), maybe even more color correction (running out of ideas on this front i must admit) and a camera app that doesn't store in JPG format.

But probably the best solution to improving camera quality is not taking photos in my dark room at night, but we know that is never going to happen xd its 04:46 and i have work tomorrow send help

Feedback

I don't have any statistics on how many people are actually using the image because that's the point of a privacy focused OS so maybe i'm just shouting into the void here but i can see the image has been downloaded a couple times already. If you are using the image, how's is it going? Any issues? Any good things? Please let me know!

My payment processor just terminated my account and i am reminded once again too self host literally everything.

I already have a self hosted crypto rail but for many people that is not an option, bank transfer is quite easy to do with just checking against my bank's API, but remembering from the data before i got terminated it was around 40% transfer, 40% ideal, 20% card.

Is there anyway to self host those other payment ways outside transfer?

Does anyone have experience with this?

If you do thank you very much!

Quick post today, readers may remember that in the last post that the 112 test was today, so i hope you all set your alarms for this post!

imsd emergency calling works! end to end tested on the live network!

I called 112 in the designated time slot and had full two way voice with the operator, plus NAW data, sadly the AML did not work.

The Netherlands doesn't use the text based AML my code had, ive send an email thanking them for the test and requesting information on the data based AML aswell as a possibility for a future second test when that works.

I do have to say that i can only say this works for the netherlands, i can tell the emergency path works in the modem and it took the genuine correct path, i can't guarantee it. I'm not sure what the risk is that it works here but not elsewhere but i think its right to state this.

Before doing the first test i was so nervous with my phone hovering the call button but im glad it all worked out in the end, the operators were really kind too.

On the slight chance that any 112 operators happen to read this, Thank you very much!

Today i bring the working main camera!

Building on the work nondescriptpointer did on the wide lens camera i have written the driver for the main camera and now its working alongside auto focus and color correction.

The color correction still a work in progress, but you can already see how much it improved the image.

before:

After:

But the after is still very grainy, plasma camera storing in jpg isn't exactly helping either, ill be working to get rid of the grain.

If we look at the same scene form my android galaxy A16 you see that there still is alot of work to be done:

I'll continue to work on the camera, but i wanted to get something out today (mainly so i could send to nondescriptpointer xd)

I asked him what role he wanted to play in the upstreaming and we agreed he would send it and i would review and assist. So i successfully pulled down another soul into the linux phone kernel rabbit hole muhahahahaha

News roundup

Alot of things happend lately so good thing to discuss them, the big one:

Emergency calling test

You may have noticed that everywhere i put warnings that emergency calling is not verified yet. i wanted to fix that but after searching i couldn't find anything about it.

So i just called the police non emergency line and explained the situation, the operator told me that the information wasn't public but provided me with an email to send my application too.

I was a bit sad cause if its a non public thing its probably gated behind being big tech, but i send the email anyway, and much to my suprise i got back.

De testen zijn goedgekeurd voor dinsdag 18 augustus tussen 13:30 en 14:15 uur.

Met vriendelijke groet,

(name censored) B ICT,

Tactisch & Technisch Beheer 1-1-2 (TB112)

Translation:

The tests have been approved for Tuesday, August 18, between 1:30 p.m. and 2:15 p.m.

Kind regards,

(name censored) B ICT,

Tactical & Technical Management 1-1-2 (TB112)

So Im really excited for this, and then you know for sure that you can reach the emergency number with your linux phone.

Fairphone 6+

So the Fairphone 6+ has been officially announced an as soon as i can buy one im buying one, testing my image, and fixing any issues.

Im really glad for the donations so i can justify to myself this purchase instead of spending 650 euros for a phone that i already have.

Donations

I'm really grateful for all the people that donated and still continue to donate, i was over the moon when i got my first donation and i never expected to get this much. From the bottom of my heart thank you all very much.

I want to be open on where it's going. And i think as donators you deserve to know that its being spent wisely. so i made a script that builds this page from my bank statement:

https://catcrafts.net/financials

If it all works then donations should be reflected live and it will show the expense for the FP6+ when i buy it, net will drop in the negative as the remainder is coming out of my pocket.

If you want to send a donation please do so to the updated link: https://catcrafts.net/shop/donation this will be reflected in the dashboard live and for tax reasons its now mega clear that its a donation.

Catcrafts as a company

Im contacting a notary with the plans to have Catcrafts corporated as a non profit company (stichting), this is is depending on all the legal stuff however so this isn't set in stone.

If and if this company goes somewhere and i could quit my job, i will pay myself a salary to live on that will be publicly visible on the financials page. Dutch law requires for non profits that salary to be at max market confirming and not a shadow way for paying out dividends, so its guaranteed that any money in the company will go towards furthering the mission.

I think a non profit phone company has a genuinely good proposition, i praise fairphone alot for the things they do right but in the end they are still an profit seeking business so im a bit wary, and they still post on Musk's X so my long term judgement on their company is still out there

I applied to be a fairphone partner with in my eyes a pretty good pitch, if they accept my opinion will be improved ;) hopefully i just need to have more patience or they are ghosting me ;-;

Shipping restrictions

I'm sad to announce this but i don't think i can do worlwide shippng, earlier i said i would be shipping worlwide but i must sadly retract that statement for reasons out of my control. I will be shipping worldwide with the following exceptions:

US, CA: It's seemingly impossible to get a Bedrijfsaansprakelijkheids­verzekering (corporate liability insurance) for the United States and Canada in the netherlands, its all worldwide excluding US and CA. Getting coverage for those requires "contact us" with probably a very hefty premium, and selling without insurance is too risky as that would mean financial ruin if i get sued.

I would appreciate if anyone that isn't a massive company has experience with this, will be contacting my insurer aswell to see what's possible on this front

RU, BY, KP: Sanctions make it a criminal offense for me to ship to these countries.

imsd

Thanks to the community we now have 4 confirmed working carriers! If you are using the image please let me know so i can add it to the list!

Making a Linux phone

Ever since this project i've been dreaming about making my own linux phone, i've been looking into it here and there and while this might just be the sleep deprivation talking i think i can do it.

Making a good linux phone however is the hard part, and i don't think i can make an better arm linux phone then the fairphone 6 as those qualcomm chips are impossible to buy.

So im not going to, i'll make a RISCV one. will it be bad? yes, will it end up like the pinephone? most probably, will it run hot and have terrible battery life?, most likely. will it cost me a ton of money?, yes.

BUT

It will be a phone as open as i can make it, with good software, and a (in my eyes ethical) non profit company backing it. i think there is a good business proposition to made there, whatever the case its very long term anyway.

Meeting the lead pmos dev

Correction: There is no lead pmos dev, and the developer in question has since responded here: https://lemmy.world/comment/25358433

I'm keeping the original text here for transparency sake but i shouldn't have called him out like this.

My sincere apologies.

Original:

Imagine my surprise when i see the lead pmos dev on a dutch tech forum, and i'm named, and then heart sank trough the floor when i'm being made out for something that can be disproved with a 10s search.

Luckily the record was set straight fast!

Translation:

I don't want to hide context so here is the full thread:

https://tweakers.net/nieuws/250872/fairphone-gaat-smartphone-met-12gb-ram-uitbrengen-voor-649-euro.html?showReaction=22462270#r_22462270

What's next

1. More color correction
2. Laser rangefinder autofocus instead of software only.
3. Selfie camera
4. Fingerprint sensor
5. Extensive testing

And then the FP6 is done, i will open my shop and continue with the FP6+

Since a long time i feel purpose in my life again, and i have alot of stuff still planned! And getting all the patches upstreamed is also probably a half year commitment atleast.

If you made it this far thank you for reading! As always ask me anything in the comments and ill do my best to answer.

Hello again!

I have returned with more patches, this time i bring you. All the sensors!

This entire collum can be made green.

We are nearing 100% completion, but im afraid true 100% might never happen.

I was working on the fingerprint sensor aswell, but its gated behind the TEE, and can't be read from the kernel. This is going to be an issue.

So the end state might not be 100% sadly, but i hope people don't miss the fingerprint sensor too much? (ill see if i can get it working but this is one thing i cannot promise)

But we are nearing the end, With the sensors done the only thing left is the cameras.

I contacted the person who's blog was posted here: https://ani.social/post/34679544

and cool guy, we agreed to coordinate our efforts with the camera, so expect that one coming soon.

My hot take on the current discusion

This might earn me some hate but i am against Jolla, many people argue "don't let perfection stand in the way of good" but we have perfection right here, its the FP6.

For several reasons:

This is blatant false advertising.

The Jolla phone is not based on Big Tech technology

Yet it uses a Big Tech kernel. There is a huge difference between a mainline linux phone and a linux phone using an android kernel.

Combined with the fact that has much debated that there are closed source components and it can't run wayland apps.

There should be no excuse for closed source components period, no matter if they are small or easily to remove, if there is close source anywhere that means that open source is not an required but a marketing strategy.

And that is the issue i have with Jolla, it gives me the wrong vibe, big tech wearing foss clothing.

Jolla is a Finnish company specializing in privacy-first OS and Edge AI solutions. Founded in 2011, we continue the legacy of Nokia and MeeGo, driving mobile innovation into the human-centric AI era.

We develop Sailfish OS, the only European mobile OS, trusted globally for over a decade, and now enhanced for AI-driven applications. Our AppSupport technology enables Android™ apps to run on Linux platforms. Our privacy-focused Jolla Mind2 AI computer delivers secure AI capabilities across industries.

With over 60 successful software release deliveries and a proven track record across multiple hardware platforms, we collaborate with partners in the automotive and telecommunications sectors to drive innovation with our OS and Edge AI technologies.

https://jolla.com/

This really makes my alarm bells whistle, are they a private phone company or an AI company??? Why this marketing language?

Let me give you an example:

These are the FP6 wire diagrams, free to download at https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/37795041144082

This is commitment to open source, this single document has allowed me to do this bringup.

Does Jolla publish one? not that i can find. If they do i retract this point but i haven't been able to find it.

So why don't they? If they truly believe in openness why not publish these documents? My hypothesis: they don't care. Its all just marketing.

Soon the FP6 will be fully ready, a true daily drivable modern mainline linux phone.

I believe in maximum openess, so lets define mainline:

its the https://github.com/milos-mainline/linux staging kernel, combined with my patches.

All my patches have already been submitted on the list, but these will take time to be reviewed, it will be a very long time before they will be integrated in the kernel itself.

But they have been submitted, and im activily working on the maintainer feedback, these will make it eventually.

Once cameras are done, i will make an easy to install script and post it here. Simultaneously i will begin selling preflashed units on my shop: https://catcrafts.net/shop/fp6-pmos

These will be identical if you flash it yourself, these are for people that can't otherwise buy one, don't want to flash it themselves, or want to support me.

I also want not only the code to be open but also the business to be open and honest, i take whatever price i can source the phones at and add a €50 euro markup, none of this ending the price in 99 nonsense.

I do this to cover the administrative costs and labor costs.

This is cheaper then the Murena /e/OS version:

https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-6/ Which is currently priced at €599 as of time of writing.

And this might cost me alot of money but im willing to stand by it:

When a product does have to travel (a hardware fault, or a product so far gone it no longer responds to recovery tools at all), the shipping is paid by Catcrafts, both directions

https://catcrafts.net/legal/terms

This applies worlwide.

I also looked at the privacy policy of the Jolla website:

We may also permit third parties and services providers to use Cookies on our Site to better tailor the services, products and advertising on our Site and other websites.

https://commerce.jolla.com/policies/privacy-policy

THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING COOKIES ON A COMPANY THAT MARKETS ITSELF AS PRIVACY FOCUSED????

What a joke. This is a privacy focused policy: https://catcrafts.net/legal/privacy

The only thing i collect that i don't need is request logging, but i hope you understand why i do that.

No cookies, no advertising, nothing.

No i don't want to make this sound as advertising myself, i want this to sound like what the example of a open, honest, and privacy focused company should look like.

If you made it this far thank you for reading my rant, if anything is wrong or i have made a mistake please let me know in the comments and i will correct it.

While celebrating my previous post of working call audio @[email protected] left this excellent comment:

https://ani.social/post/34656971/17805917

And this reminded me something that i and many devs sadly often forget, if its works for me it doesn't mean it works for everyone.

My philosophy is that linux should be as accesible as possible, nobody should be forced to be stuck with big tech.

So i tried my best to add orca screenreader support to plasma-mobile.

I mad this statement on my previous post

But a successful one!

But i genuinely don't know if i can claim that today, i don't use a screenreader so i don't know what the user experience should look like. I will glady incorporate feedback.

As with my kernel patches i will be working to upstream this with KDE, since this is probably not controversial i think it should be accepted quite quickly.

Small celebration:

I was quite happy when i saw this in my inbox:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/

+maintainers:

• • Jorijn van der Graaf [email protected]
• • Srinivas Kandagatla [email protected]

It looks like im being upgraded from linux contributor to linux maintainer!

Selling fp6 with pmos preflashed and with my patches preinstalled

Some comments mentioned this and it got me thinking, would there be demand for this?

I would be selling them on my catcrafts.net website, payment methods would be my bunq so wero, bancontact, credit card and crypto.

If you are interested in this, please upvote my comment, ive been looking into this and there is quite alot of administration that comes with it, so i would like to only do this if there is actual demand.

I would be shipping to any place i can. I will be shipping from the Netherlands, so keep that in mind for import duties and shipping costs.

At first, man thinks he controls the modem.

But after the 20th reboot, man learns the modem controls him.

— Epictetus

So here it is! working VoLTE calls with audio on linux!

What a rollercoaster it has been i'll tell you that.

The frequency between my previous posts was only a few days, as you can see from the time since my last post this has been a far harder project.

But a successful one!

Now fully powered trough my new imsd project:

https://forgejo.catcrafts.net/Catcrafts/imsd

As i said in a my previous comment no matter what i did the regular modem route wasn't working, so i had to come up with my own.

This has several advantages however, call audio is now just routed trough wireplumber & pipewire, so its integrated much better.

Both inbound and outbound calls work.

How do i get this???

The patient route is waiting until my patches get accepted upstream, a few already have and are coming in 7.3 probably (pmos runs 7.0 currently still oof), a few will probably take longer, 7.4 or beyond.

but for the ones that want to jump right on ive published everything on my forgejo:

https://forgejo.catcrafts.net/Catcrafts

I will soon be publishing a shell script that does the entire installation soon for easy installation.

Sadly there is no way to just plug in an android and do it, so there are still a few manual steps needed, but i believe the path to adoption is reducing friction as much as possible, so ill do my best to make it as easy as possible to use.

imsd

So what is an "imsd"?

its a full userspace implementation of the IMS protocol, which drives VoLTE (4G) calls.

Normally the modem firmware drives this, but this is quite difficult to work with, now it runs fully via a standard daemon on linux!

Along with several d-bus helpers that integrate it with standard plasma-dialer.

if made a APKBUILD for pmos that is mutually exclusive with 81voltd, and loads imsd instead. so installation should be easy.

Now will this actually work?

That's where you come in!

I am just one guy with one phone with one carrier.

I can say it works on the Fairphone 6 with KPN. it might work with other carriers and other Qualcomm phones aswell, so potentially this could work for the entire linux phone ecosystem, but i have no way to test that.

If you end up trying it, no matter if it works or doesn't work, please send me a message or open a PR, then we can make sure it works for everyone!

donations

I really was surprised when people asked me this, i just see myself as a guy doing this in his free time, "why would people want to send donations to me?" i thought.

I still stand by my previous point, i have a job, and this project costs me nothing except for time, i don't have any costs. So i felt kinda guilty receiving money from people.

But i would much rather spend my time making software that benefits society instead of the B2B stuff i do at my job.

I really feel greedy for saying this, but if you want to send me a thank you then that is now possible at: https://bunq.me/catcrafts

Please don't feel any pressure to do this, doesn't matter what i get im still continuing with this bring-up. And if you don't want to donate to me there are many linux organizations that could really use the support! In my eyes we are all in the same boat with the same goal.

If you do decide to, and i cannot express my gratitude enough if you do, please write in the description that it's a donation, as this makes tax easier.

What's next?

Ive got a bunch more stuff coming soon, while i haven't posted here in quite a while i've been plenty busy on the mailing list:

So except some more posts soon.

Bonus round

Having fully working hardware is great, but a phone that has no apps is pointless for most people, so i would like to start a discussion in the comments.

What apps do you need that are preventing you from switching to mobile linux?

My quest to 100% feature completeness continues!

Today i bring before you... The working microphone!

Now everyone is going to ask:

Does this mean working calls?

I asked the same thing, and with maybe a bit too much excitement i inserted my SIM card.

But the answer is no, neither audio nor mic work in calls.

It seems having them work in userspace is not enough.

So it seems that that requires additional work (coming soon!)

To give updates on my previous posts aswell.

For all 3 (GPS, NFC, audio) patches have been submitted, i've had contact with the freedesktop and maintainers on the LKML and they have requested changes, and a v2 is out for all. But don't expect them to reach phones anytime soon.

GPS:

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mobile-broadband/libqmi/-/merge_requests/470: maintainer requested some renames, adressed and waiting for review.

https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mobile-broadband/ModemManager/-/merge_requests/1463: stuck as draft until libqmi patch lands

NFC:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/ Sashiko AI review found a bug in my code and maintainer requested small change, both addressed in v2.

audio:

https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/ maintainer requested significant changes, addressed in v2

https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/ awaiting review

https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/ RFC patch resulting from requested changes, i think this one might get quite the tail...

Audio is turning into quite the story, way more then i expected.

When having a working patch ive learned the work is far from over.

I was thinking of maybe hosting my own downstream kernel with all my fixes, if there is demand for it.

(also open letter to the mods if these posts are becoming spam and if its turning too much into my personal blog?)

Well that was easy.

Here i was thinking audio was going to be the boss fight...

These were small easily identifiable kernel changes, not the entire investigations that GPS and NFC needed.

Ill be working to getting calls fully working, but this is already a big step.

And speaking about NFC, i just submitted the kernel patch for it to the mailing list! very nervous and excited to see how that turns out.

No new features today, just wanted to make a short post.

It is completely possible to do linux development on the go!

Is it convenient? Probably not.

Is a laptop better? Most likely.

Is it funny? Yes.

Also a double table is definitely better:

While we are mostly focused on Linux mobile development, it is easy to overlook that all you need is a bluetooth keyboard and mouse and it becomes an (albeit tiny) linux desktop!

This is the continuation of my ongoing effort to get the FP6 fully feature complete with linux.

I chose NFC cause i thought it would be relatively easy like GPS, well that assumption turned out to be wrong.

But alot of time later and as you can see in the video now reading works! card emulation is a whole other can of worms that i want to tackle after.

Unlike the GPS which was a userspace problem this is a true kernel patch and im quite nervous about submitting it, if anyone happens to have contributed to the kernel please tell me how it went, i would really appreciate any advice.

I'm trying to flip all of these to a green wall of "Works":

GPS is now a solid green works when my patch gets approved, NFC now is partial.

Mobile Linux development mini guide for beginners

Disclaimer: This guide is written by some guy who only vaguely knows what he is doing, please don't take this as authority.

I will mostly write this in the perspective of the FP6, but it applies to other phones aswell since i'll try to keep it generic. I don't want to dig into the tech here but more the general process with some common pitfalls.

1. Pick a phone with a cooperative manufacturer, Fairphone is excellent in this but there might be more.
2. Don't just flash linux onto it directly, First test every hardware feature running on stock android, then you know 100% for sure it's not a hardware problem. i made this mistake and when i was really stuck with the NFC i thought maybe my phone is just broken since i never tested it on android and had to flash android again, turns out the hardware was fine as shown in the video.
3. Android is your friend, use it, I know software devs love reinventing the wheel but don't, looking at android is the biggest help there. ideally you have a same model phone running (rooted) android by your side so you can directly compare, i know it's a hard ask to purchase 2 phones but i cannot understate how much it helps. what i did is i purchased the linux one for myself and the android one for a family member, which i borrow for development. During the GPS and NFC work i really just compared what the android driver transmitted vs the linux driver and it helps a ton.
4. Get a folder with all your research material Clone the linux kernel, your downstream kernel if there is one for your device, an android kernel, and device trees from the manufacturer, and any technical documents you can find: for the FP6 i am using these:

downstream kernel

Fairphone kernel

e/OS kernel

Fairphone 6 technical manual (most of the document is not very interesting, but all the way at the bottom are wire diagrams, these are very helpfull)

1. Start small, don't just grab the most valuable task from the beginning, start with the easiest task that ideally can be done in userspace.

2. Think before you act, This is more of a do as i say not do as i do, cause i don't follow this rule fully myself but it is very important, you don't want to brick or fry your device, when flashing or working with voltages look twice before you push.

3. Keep your device charged, When working on your device you probably have it connected to your PC 99% of the time, but your PC might not provide enough power to have a net positive while you look at your phone and go "oh it's charging so it's fine" hook it up to a dedicated USB charger every once in a while if this is the case on your device

I wanted to cover these pitfalls specifically, there are probably better technical guides then i can write out there on stuff like adb, fastboot and the kernel.

And if you only know basic C that is genuinely not an issue, good linux knowledge is far more important as you spend far more time troubleshooting then programming (atleast in my experience)

And finally, you need alot of patience, it is not extremely difficult, just very time consuming.

I get it is not for everyone, and i don't want to make it so like im pressuring people, but nobody is going to do this except us, the clock is ticking until android gets locked down, and big tech would much rather have us on their proprietary software where they can squize our wallets dry then free software.

I really want to turn this phone into my daily driver, so i started working on one of the features i would want in a daily driver, working GPS.

This is the current component support table of postmarketos:

i think audio is too complex for me, so i decided to tackle GPS, as you can see its currently listed as broken, but not anymore!

It really helped i have another FP6 running android, i could directly inspect how it was talking to the modem to get it working.

So i started pulling threads and here we are. I want to upstream this and i'm making an account so i can submit patches for modemmanager and libqmi, but i have never upstreamed something before, so advice is appreciated!

If you have a linux phone and want to use it as a daily driver, see if you can contribute it! this is how we build up the linux ecosystem.

This is my second linux phone and coming into it i had high hopes and low expectations, the result was a mixed bag but generally positive.

My first was linux phone was the PinePhonePro and i really liked it at the time as a concept, but it was hard to use it as a daily driver, i think i lasted around a month before buying an android.

The PPP had several problems, it was very slow, would get very hot, and my primary concern as i said here its battery was terrible.

And the battery has since fully died, so sadly i can't run side by side tests.

So that brings us to the FP6.

The installation was pretty smooth, follow the steps from the wiki and for me they worked perfectly.

The usage itself feels alot more snappy compared to the PPP, general UI work is comparable to a normal android i would say, and no longer each action has a delay.

So i wanted to tackle the battery point, i ran a few tests, please take these with a grain of salt as they were not done professionally, but they should be indicative:

Idle (not full suspend as the SSH connection was still active):
Power	0.43 W (98 mA @ 4.44 V)
Drain	2.2 %/hr (45.4h)
CPU	0.9%
GPU	264 MHz

Idle with screen on:
Power	0.95 W (214 mA @ 4.43 V)
Drain	4.9 %/hr (20.4 h)
CPU	3.0%
GPU	277 MHz

Watching 1080p H.264 video with BT headphones:
Power	1.57 W (359 mA @ 4.36 V) 
Drain	8.1 %/hr (12.3h)
CPU	20.7%
GPU     278 MHz

Peak CPU:
Power draw : 6.15 W (1437 mA @ 4.28 V)
Drain rate : 32.6 %/hr (3.0 h)
CPU usage  : 100.0 %
GPU        : 277 MHz

Temprature stayed fine across all tests only during the CPU test did it became warm but not too much, which is in stark contrast to the PPP which would get very uncomfortable to hold, and be severly battery drained.

I think these values are interesting when compared to the same test on e/OS, well atleast that's what i would say if i could gather it.

Sadly i was not able to gather detailed power data on android.

Idle with screen on:
CPU usage : 18.7 %
GPU usage  : 11.7 %

18.7% seemed very sus, but it checks out?

58% 3760/foundation.e.blisslauncher: 49% user + 9.3% kernel / faults: 13209 minor
21% 1476/surfaceflinger: 14% user + 6.9% kernel / faults: 18 minor
12% 1383/vendor.qti.hardware.display.composer-service: 6.7% user + 5.5% kernel / faults: 137 minor
4.9% 972/crtc_commit:137: 0% user + 4.9% kernel
4.2% 986/android.system.suspend-service: 0% user + 4.2% kernel
2.3% 3353/com.android.systemui: 1.6% user + 0.6% kernel / faults: 8031 minor
2.3% 2364/system_server: 1.1% user + 1.1% kernel / faults: 5054 minor
2.1% 26001/kworker/u16:8-qc_ufs_qos_swq: 0% user + 2.1% kernel
2.1% 25893/kworker/u16:3-kgsl_devfreq_wq: 0% user + 2.1% kernel
2% 539/irq/153-24091000.qcom,bwmon-ddr: 0% user + 2% kernel
2% 15/rcuog/0: 0% user + 2% kernel
1.7% 4284/foundation.e.advancedprivacy: 1% user + 0.6% kernel / faults: 693 minor
1.1% 14/rcu_preempt: 0% user + 1.1% kernel
0.9% 25150/kworker/u16:13-events_unbound: 0% user + 0.9% kernel
0.7% 973/crtc_event:137: 0% user + 0.7% kernel
0.7% 946/kgsl_hwsched: 0% user + 0.7% kernel
0.7% 25148/kworker/u16:11-wmi_rx_diag_event_work_: 0% user + 0.7% kernel
0.5% 23213/kworker/u16:0-wmi_rx_event_work_queue: 0% user + 0.5% kernel
0.6% 1393/vendor.qti.hardware.perf2-hal-service: 0.1% user + 0.4% kernel / faults: 38 minor
0.4% 26004/kworker/u16:12-events_unbound: 0% user + 0.4% kernel
0.3% 1338/android.hardware.audio.service: 0.1% user + 0.2% kernel / faults: 34 minor
0.4% 1362/android.hardware.wifi-service: 0.1% user + 0.2% kernel
0.3% 23453/kworker/0:2-events: 0% user + 0.3% kernel

Watching 1080p video:
CPU usage 19.6%
GPU usage 7.3%

it seems the launcher from e/OS really is slurping down CPU.

So where does this leave us?

Would i recommend this as a daily driver?

No. If i gave this phone to someone who is not a linux fan they would probably get very frustrated.

Is it usable as a daily driver?

I think this is the more interesting question, if you really wanted you could definitely use this as a working daily driver, if you don't mind not having a camera or audio that is. BT works fine, so when combined with voip its a usable phone. and does all the phone things you would want it to do. Also if you are photosensitive it might not be a fit as there are currently some graphical flicker glitches. The audio driver is in the works if i look at postmarketos so if that gets fixed it would become much more daily driver worthy.

For the people interested i have also uploaded the vulkaninfo

cross-posted from: https://ani.social/post/16779655

GPU	VRAM	Price (€)	Bandwidth (TB/s)	TFLOP16	€/GB	€/TB/s	€/TFLOP16
NVIDIA H200 NVL	141GB	36284	4.89	1671	257	7423	21
NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell	96GB	8450	1.79	126.0	88	4720	67
NVIDIA RTX 5090	32GB	2299	1.79	104.8	71	1284	22
AMD RADEON 9070XT	16GB	665	0.6446	97.32	41	1031	7
AMD RADEON 9070	16GB	619	0.6446	72.25	38	960	8.5
AMD RADEON 9060XT	16GB	382	0.3223	51.28	23	1186	7.45

This post is part "hear me out" and part asking for advice.

Looking at the table above AI gpus are a pure scam, and it would make much more sense to (atleast looking at this) to use gaming gpus instead, either trough a frankenstein of pcie switches or high bandwith network.

so my question is if somebody has build a similar setup and what their experience has been. And what the expected overhead performance hit is and if it can be made up for by having just way more raw peformance for the same price.

This post is part "hear me out" and part asking for advice.

Looking at the table above AI gpus are a pure scam, and it would make much more sense to (atleast looking at this) to use gaming gpus instead, either trough a frankenstein of pcie switches or high bandwith network.

so my question is if somebody has build a similar setup and what their experience has been. And what the expected overhead performance hit is and if it can be made up for by having just way more raw peformance for the same price.