Ubuntu Touch on Pine64
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Hi
I will try to sum up the things that Oren & Co over atis doing and the things you need to do to have the best exprience on your pine64 device.
The focus at the moment will be on Pinephone, Pinephone Pro, Pinetab and Pinetab 2.
This post will be updated when new things gets developed.PINEPHONE & PINEPHONE PRO
You need Tow-boot on the emmc to install Ubuntu touch on your phone:These procedures is still valid to install UT on your phone:
https://ubports.com/blog/ubports-news-1/post/pinephone-and-pinephone-pro-20-04-install-3889
Here you will find the latest version to install:
https://ci.ubports.com/job/focal-hybris-rootfs-arm64/job/master/
From Oren on Telegram channel:
These are our images, ready for your usage, building daily. I’m still figuring out how we will have these distributed. I’ll be updating my gitlab page, the pine64 wiki, and the ubports wiki in the next few days pointing to here, most likely.You can select last successful artifacts or click on the “+View” button, then click to download the .raw.xz file of your respective device. then flash it in the same way as our downstream images.
Please note: these are still r/w and still have to be upgraded through apt. However, you should notice multiple improvements with ContentHub, the modem, and even GPS support.
To update your phone, run this in the terminal on your phone:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y
Enter your password and press enterThis is done between the releases that Oren makes on his Gitlab page.
To have the latest version of UT, always make a new, fresh install of the latest version from Orens Gitlab page.
These are not pushed through apt. This will persist as long as we don’t have OTA:s on the phones.It is recommended to update the modem(SDK) and its firmware(ADSP).
You need to have ADB and Fastboot installed on your PINEPHONE to install these:https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/releases/tag/0.7.2
https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/blob/kirkstone/docs/ADSP-CARRIERS.md
The Modem-SDK release version 0.7.4 is more buggy/instable than 0.7.2.
The modem is like a computer and it talks adb and fastboot, that is why you need adb and fastboot installed on your phone.
If your carrier is not listed in the table on the ADSP-page, you’ll have to check which firmware that works best for your carrier. I don’t know when the table over the carriers was last updated, newer versions of the firmware could be a better experience.
If your carrier isn’t listed and you install a firmware that works with your carrier, please make a pr so it gets on the table.
On this Github there is a lot of help to get things set up in the right/best way, Such as Flashing, Settings, How to, etc. Please read it.Oren have made a Help guide to help you along the way of tinkering with your phone/tablet:
https://gitlab.com/ook37/pinephone-pro-debos/-/wikis/Help-Guide
PINETAB & PINETAB 2
According to the 0.8 release, both the Pinetab and Pinetab 2 have U-boot preloaded, they don’t use Tow-boot to boot.Here is the latest version of UT, 0.9 in the writing:
https://gitlab.com/ook37/pinephone-pro-debos/-/releases/v0.9
Please leave a comment if there is something missing
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Hi
A word from Oren & CO:
Use Modem-sdk release version 0.7.2 instead of 0.7.4
Release 0.7.4 is more buggy/instable.
I have changed the info and link in the first post. -
Hi
Just want to drop a little info here that stefan_hdb shared over at pine64 forum:Just to update the information above. There is a new image version, that includes a wifi-driver. I tested that successfully: the pinetab has wifi-access with the internal modem. Very nice!
He is talking about the latest release 0.8.1.
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Hi again
There is a new modem firmware ADSP and it is only listed under the latest modem-sdk release 0.7.4. I don't know why it is only listed here.
Here is the link to download it:And here is the Github page:
https://github.com/Biktorgj/quectel_eg25_recovery/tree/EG25GGBR07A08M2G_30.007.30.007
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L Lakotaubp referenced this topic on
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Hi
I have been tinkering with my Pinephone CE Ubports edition and realized that I have written that you needed adb and fastboot on your pc. This is wrong, you need to install it on your PINEPHONE. This is because of the modem is like a computer and it talks adb and fastboot. I have changed the first post and added/changed the info regarding this. Sorry if this caused any headaches. -
Hi
there is a new version for the pine64 devices you can find them here:https://gitlab.com/ook37/pinephone-pro-debos/-/releases/v0.9
And the first post is updated too
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@Rondarius
There are new Pinetabs also out there I just saw.
Pinetab 2 (ARM device) and Pinetab V (RISC-V device).
Any work on those ? -
@Keneda
Sorry but there have been no discussions about the Risc-V version on telegram. I drop a question about it
Both the Pinetab and the Pinetab 2 gets updates too. There are 3 images in the linked page above one for Pinetab and one for Pinetab 2 the third one is a unified image for both pinephones. -
@Keneda
Oren wrote that they don't have access to a Risc-V model and he didn't think that there will be any image for it in a long time due the amont of work they have to put into the arm versions that they have. -
Here is a longer answer from Oren regarding the Risc-V versions:
oklopfer — 08/21/2023 11:39 PM
@Luigi311 cant find you on the UT telegram but how has your PTV experience been? do you think its in a state where we could consider a port yet?Pine64 Protocol Droid — 08/21/2023 11:41 PM
[M] <luigi311> It’s been pretty good. The only things that I would say are show stoppers are suspend and especially for UT is the qt web browser issue.
[M] <luigi311> Might be fine to do a rhino port thoughoklopfer — 08/21/2023 11:43 PM
lol morph is based on qtweb so thats definitely an issue xD is it a code issue that can be fixed or a full hardware issue?
dont know why it would be hardware but who knows, the bes2600 is crazy
yeah i would love to do a rhino port but then i would have to pay for it
if its for UT first then it can be coveredPine64 Protocol Droid — 08/21/2023 11:52 PM
[M] <luigi311> It should be a code issue since riscv wasn’t adding into chromium until Jan this year and qt web is nowhere near that version. Suse has a potential patch but doesn’t seem to be working but fishwaldo mentioned trying to look into it.
[M] <luigi311> If he does get the patch working though I’m not sure if UT will accept the patch any time soon though since that could potentially affect every device and might cause issue with their only browser loloklopfer — 08/22/2023 12:18 AM
and so we wait…Fishwaldo — 08/22/2023 12:46 AM
Yah. It’s a very intrusive patch that will never get accepted by upstream. You might have better luck with qt6 but other areas it breaks on riscv currently
It also requires a ton of patches to things like Mesa, and fffmeg etc. (of which all patches are based on old versions). If you have no problem using older releases of Mesa then it should be ok to do a port. If you have to stick to a particular version, it’s going to be a big porting effort especially for Mesa. -
@Rondarius
Thanks for the infos.
So there is some work on RISC-V wich is a good thing I think.
More important is that PT2 is supported of course ^^ -
L Lakotaubp referenced this topic on
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Hi
Here is little something from Oren & CO on telegram:Oren, [2023-09-19 16:41]
Everything except the externaldisplay stuff has been merged
Oren, [2023-09-19 16:45]
That means that in theory, ppl can update their devices with apt and it will install rotation :))) pinetab2 will have to delete its .yaml.dpkg-old, but other than that, it’s all upstreamwill probably make a new release today, next one can be camera/gps/OTA upstreaming :DDDD
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Here is the link to the new release:
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Hi
Here is a little note from Oren & CO over att Telegram:https://ci.ubports.com/job/focal-hybris-rootfs-arm64/job/master/
These are our images, ready for your usage, building daily. I’m still figuring out how we will have these distributed. I’ll be updating my gitlab page, the pine64 wiki, and the ubports wiki in the next few days pointing to here, most likely.
You can select last successful artifacts or click on the “+View” button, then click to download the .raw.xz file of your respective device. then flash it in the same way as our downstream images.
Please note: these are still r/w and still have to be upgraded through apt. However, you should notice multiple improvements with ContentHub, the modem, and even GPS support. We are actively working on r/o and system-image updates, you can follow the progress in this chat.
Issues/other comments:
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network + modem seem to die on the pinephone pro when put to sleep. sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager ofono will get them back on, but we believe this is a problem with the kernel. We are actively working on this too.
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external monitor support is still poor, and camera is not working yet. Again, we are working on this.
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almost all of contenthub works. However, some things seem to require apparmor profile updates. For example, you can now correctly upload images to telegram, and you can download them from telegram, but trying to have the file open the downloaded file will still fail. You have to locate it manually.
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GPS should be working OOTB, but in reality it seems to be acting slightly funny. If it does not work right away, we have found switching to our branch that fixed it sudo ubports-qa install focal_-PR_location-service_27, then sudo ubports-qa uninstall focal-_PR_location-service_27 right after to remove it, it seems to bring GPS online
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PineTab2 WiFi has new, safer one-liners! sudo systemctl start pinetab2-wifi-enable + reboot to turn it on, sudo systemctl start pinetab2-wifi-disable + reboot to turn it back off. These are not persistent, so you can’t systemctl enable them.
Finally, I could not have got this far without @Luigi311 + @fuseteam, huge thanks to both of them for helping me take this project on
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Here is another post from Oren & CO:
Also they will likely recieve another few package updates in the next few days when OTA3 comes out, so these are test images until that is fully released (UBPorts will announce it). Then they are officially "beta" upstream images, before our OTA-upgradable final version.
Edit:
From Oren & CO:
i am waiting to upload this to the ubports + pine64 wikis until OTA3 comes out
