Hi Everyone, I've been using a pine phone pro, and have a number of issues with it, I've also made a few improvements, like respecting the volume setting during a voice call on a kali install. But I've plenty of other issues you might be able to help me with. Alexar suggested this as a list to ask on. Anyone here with ppp experience? Thanks, -- You can have my money, if you must - but not my identity. John August, Permutations : https://johnaugust.com.au https://www.mixcloud.com/Johnorg/ Vice-President, NSW Humanists - www.hsnsw.asn.au Pirate/Fusion Candidate: Bennelong 2016, Senate 2019, Bennelong 2021
Hi John (and other FSM folk), On Thu, Feb 22, 2024, at 09:26, John wrote:
I've been using a pine phone pro, and have a number of issues with it, I've also made a few improvements, like respecting the volume setting during a voice call on a kali install.
But I've plenty of other issues you might be able to help me with. Alexar suggested this as a list to ask on. Anyone here with ppp experience?
I've had a PinePhone for over three years now. It's been my second phone, and carries my travel SIM when I'm travelling overseas. All up it's worked pretty well, though it can be a bit sluggish. Beyond being a phone, it's very handy to be able to carry a proper Linux machine in your pocket. These days I mainly run Mobian with Phosh. The installer lets you do an encrypted setup. I also got a PinePhone Pro nearly two years ago. At the time, the software wasn't really quite ready, so I mainly set it aside, and didn't have time to do much with it, aside from booting it up occasionally. But only last week, in a burst of energy, I installed Tow Boot (as recommended) on my PPP and then installed Mobian. I'm pretty happy with it, but really haven't had much chance to play around with it. When I'm satisfied with how it's running as a pocket Linux machine, I'll switch across my spare SIM from my old Pinephone, and try out how it also works as a phone. I can let you know how it goes. All these things take time. My medium-term plan is to get Waydroid running on both. Then I can install those Android apps necessary to keep in touch with friends and family (especially those overseas), like Signal and even WhatsApp and WeChat, the last two being regrettable necessities to communicate with folks not committed to Free Software. Compromises have to be made... Until then I have to use an old Google Pixel phone for everyday. If Waydroid works, I'll be using the PPP as my everyday phone. Happy share experiences with the PPP (and PP). I'll be pretty busy the next few days, so won't be able to respond until after that. — Smiles, Les.
On Thursday, 22 February 2024 09:26:18 AEDT John wrote:
I've been using a pine phone pro, and have a number of issues with it, I've also made a few improvements, like respecting the volume setting during a voice call on a kali install.
But I've plenty of other issues you might be able to help me with. Alexar suggested this as a list to ask on. Anyone here with ppp experience?
Probably best to ask on Matrix, lots of the Linux on phone development is discussed there. The Matrix room #flounder:luv.asn.au is a good place to start. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Thanks for the replies, everyone, I've tried to get onto matrix, but the search window seems blind to my return key and I can't actually go to any room. So, I'll settle in here for the present. So, I'll outline my experiences, if anyone has something to add, it will be much appreciated. I've tried to email Megi without any luck so far, but it could be related to how gmail blocks optusnet emails and it is perhaps getting worse with time. There's multiple issues I've found with my ppp so far. I don't know whether they're to do with the Kali install, the underlying kernel, or just the apps not being compatible, or app settings. I've heard it said that there are other installs which are more fully functioning, like say graphene, but after twenty years of doing updates and app changes which don't fix the underlying problem, I'm reticent to change anything unless there's explicit mention of the problem I'm seeing and an implemented change/solution in some change log. So, in the absence of strongly pointing information, I'm doing what I can myself, but sure appreciate if anyone else has seen this. I have a kali linux install, and the kernel is : Linux kali 6.1-rockchip #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri May 12 11:08:38 UTC 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux One issue is that during a voice call, the phone does not respect the volume control. The ppp chip runs a "feed through" and it seem the pulse audio driver does not know to adjust the volume setting inside of the chip during such a feed-through, because there's no real "output" as such. I've written a daemon to monitor the volume setting and write a scaled value to the speaker volume setting inside the chip with amixer. Another is that the microphone does not seem to work at the start of a voice call. You can fix this by cycling the speakerphone setting, but I don't know why this fixes the issue. For some people, they say my call fades in and out, but other people do not seem to experience that problem. I think is something to do with echo cancellation and how it interacts with other phones, but have not managed to figure out any details beyond that. Another is that the speaker just drops out and ceases to operate on a call, though the number is otherwise dialed. It may be that no audio in either direction works, I'm not sure. I don't know if this is with the modem or something else, and it may be related to the phone hibernating, but it can also wake up without the problem. But, you can (9 times out of 10) fix it by resetting the modem. At other times, you need to turn the phone off and on again - rebooting does not seem to fix that problem. I'm hoping to figure out what mmcli does to the modem when it resets the bus, and do it separately without bringing the usb connection down and up. Similarly, the world camera can drop out, while the selfie camera still works, but rebooting seem to fix that. If I knew enough, I'd try reloading the relevant module, but don't have that worked out yet. The message telling you about missed calls does not translate numbers into people in your address book ( though, strangely, the screen popup can do this ). I have a script to update the sqlite database, but have not yet got it automated. There's some issues with getting a phonecall done via bluetooth - you can with some manual pulseaudio fiddles get it going, but for the present the "proper" phone headset is beyond me. But I hope to at least be able to get bluetooth mic and headset running as separate items. There's a decent number of minor app frustrations. You can do a call from the message log, but you cannot send a message from the call log. The phone log repeats sequential calls, but would be better if a series of calls had a (n) after that for repeats. I hope to fix these issues with time, or maybe find a better install if can be *sure* it fixes the problems. I'm poking around trying to understand the details of the interface better, and plan to watch a youtube video on phosh ( phone shell). Quite some hurdles, but I'm up for it, and curious about others' experiences. Maybe other people with other installs / kernels don't see my problems? Cheers, -- You can have my money, if you must - but not my identity. John August, Permutations : https://johnaugust.com.au ttps://www.mixcloud.com/Johnorg/ Vice-President, NSW Humanists - www.hsnsw.asn.au Pirate/Fusion Candidate: Bennelong 2016, Senate 2019, Bennelong 2021
On Saturday, 24 February 2024 14:38:27 AEDT John wrote:
I've tried to get onto matrix, but the search window seems blind to my return key and I can't actually go to any room. So, I'll settle in here for the present.
What Matrix client are you using? What's your Matrix address? I can invite you to the Flounder room.
There's multiple issues I've found with my ppp so far. I don't know whether they're to do with the Kali install, the underlying kernel, or
I'm using Debian/Unstable which seems reasonably good.
One issue is that during a voice call, the phone does not respect the volume control. The ppp chip runs a "feed through" and it seem the pulse audio driver does not know to adjust the volume setting inside of the chip during such a feed-through, because there's no real "output" as such. I've written a daemon to monitor the volume setting and write a scaled value to the speaker volume setting inside the chip with amixer.
When I first tried Debian on a PinePhonePro it had problems with voice calls. Now it seems to be working better but I haven't tried much in the way of serious calls. I recently did a test to make sure that it works on Voice over LTE and that seems OK, I didn't test the quality. I will do that when I get my spare SIM back (hopefully in a few days).
Another is that the microphone does not seem to work at the start of a voice call. You can fix this by cycling the speakerphone setting, but I don't know why this fixes the issue.
Sounds like a big worth reporting to the distribution. But is using such a device as an actual phone something that the Kali people really care about?
The message telling you about missed calls does not translate numbers into people in your address book ( though, strangely, the screen popup can do this ). I have a script to update the sqlite database, but have not yet got it automated.
Sounds like you are doing some good work on this. It might be better for you to use Debian/Unstable, file bugs against Debian, and get write access to the Debian wiki to document things.
There's some issues with getting a phonecall done via bluetooth - you can with some manual pulseaudio fiddles get it going, but for the present the "proper" phone headset is beyond me. But I hope to at least be able to get bluetooth mic and headset running as separate items.
It's been reported that Wifi 2.4GHz and Bluetooth conflict. Which is particularly annoying given the battery life issues and the fact that 5GHz Wifi apparently uses more power.
There's a decent number of minor app frustrations. You can do a call from the message log, but you cannot send a message from the call log. The phone log repeats sequential calls, but would be better if a series of calls had a (n) after that for repeats. I hope to fix these issues with time, or maybe find a better install if can be *sure* it fixes the problems. I'm poking around trying to understand the details of the interface better, and plan to watch a youtube video on phosh ( phone shell).
I preer KDE Mobile but Phosh seems preferred by Purism and Pine64 employees.
Quite some hurdles, but I'm up for it, and curious about others' experiences. Maybe other people with other installs / kernels don't see my problems?
I think that very few people try to make calls on a PinePhone at this time. Last time I tried that I went back to Android for calls etc after 3 days. I plan to try again in a month or so. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Hi also Les and others, thanks for your replies. But, in this email ... On Sat, Feb 24, 2024 at 10:25:41PM +1100, Russell Coker via Free-software-melb wrote:
On Saturday, 24 February 2024 14:38:27 AEDT John wrote:
I've tried to get onto matrix, but the search window seems blind to my return key and I can't actually go to any room. So, I'll settle in here for the present.
What Matrix client are you using?
app.cinny.in in my firefox browser, 123.0, 64bit.
What's your Matrix address? I can invite you to the Flounder room.
@johna--
There's multiple issues I've found with my ppp so far. I don't know whether they're to do with the Kali install, the underlying kernel, or
I'm using Debian/Unstable which seems reasonably good.
OK, I'll look into it. Maybe I can update some packages without doing a complete re-install, as kali pinephone is built on debian. There's dependencies, but we'll see.
One issue is that during a voice call, the phone does not respect the volume control. The ppp chip runs a "feed through" and it seem the pulse audio driver does not know to adjust the volume setting inside of the chip during such a feed-through, because there's no real "output" as such. I've written a daemon to monitor the volume setting and write a scaled value to the speaker volume setting inside the chip with amixer.
When I first tried Debian on a PinePhonePro it had problems with voice calls. Now it seems to be working better but I haven't tried much in the way of serious calls.
OK, I'll see if I can re-install their pulseaudio package, I'm happy if that fixes things. Equally, if it is the same version, that's worth knowing.
I recently did a test to make sure that it works on Voice over LTE and that seems OK, I didn't test the quality. I will do that when I get my spare SIM back (hopefully in a few days).
OK, cool.
Another is that the microphone does not seem to work at the start of a voice call. You can fix this by cycling the speakerphone setting, but I don't know why this fixes the issue.
Sounds like a big worth reporting to the distribution. But is using such a device as an actual phone something that the Kali people really care about?
OK, fair point. I'm puzzling over what package would be responsible for this. Can you see this problem?
The message telling you about missed calls does not translate numbers into people in your address book ( though, strangely, the screen popup can do this ). I have a script to update the sqlite database, but have not yet got it automated.
Sounds like you are doing some good work on this. It might be better for you to use Debian/Unstable, file bugs against Debian, and get write access to the Debian wiki to document things.
I'll look into it, but too many times in the past I've "jumped ship" only to find the original problems were still there. I'd be more confident if I could see how things are different in the change logs, and suggestive of a fix. At present, I was getting it automated, but the phone isn't registering missed calls like it used to. I don't know why, but hopefully it will make more sense soon.
There's some issues with getting a phonecall done via bluetooth - you can with some manual pulseaudio fiddles get it going, but for the present the "proper" phone headset is beyond me. But I hope to at least be able to get bluetooth mic and headset running as separate items.
It's been reported that Wifi 2.4GHz and Bluetooth conflict. Which is particularly annoying given the battery life issues and the fact that 5GHz Wifi apparently uses more power.
I've not seen such a conflict, just that the drivers don't work without making "manual" pulseaudio routes.
There's a decent number of minor app frustrations. You can do a call from the message log, but you cannot send a message from the call log. The phone log repeats sequential calls, but would be better if a series of calls had a (n) after that for repeats. I hope to fix these issues with time, or maybe find a better install if can be *sure* it fixes the problems. I'm poking around trying to understand the details of the interface better, and plan to watch a youtube video on phosh ( phone shell).
I preer KDE Mobile but Phosh seems preferred by Purism and Pine64 employees.
The apps responsible are calls and chatty, which are called by phosh IIUC. Does KDE use different apps for phonecalls and text?
Quite some hurdles, but I'm up for it, and curious about others' experiences. Maybe other people with other installs / kernels don't see my problems?
I think that very few people try to make calls on a PinePhone at this time. Last time I tried that I went back to Android for calls etc after 3 days. I plan to try again in a month or so.
OK, thanks. -- You can have my money, if you must - but not my identity. John August, Permutations : https://johnaugust.com.au ttps://www.mixcloud.com/Johnorg/ Vice-President, NSW Humanists - www.hsnsw.asn.au Pirate/Fusion Candidate: Bennelong 2016, Senate 2019, Bennelong 2021
On Wednesday, 28 February 2024 20:18:24 AEDT John wrote:
What's your Matrix address? I can invite you to the Flounder room.
@johna--
That's not a complete address.
There's multiple issues I've found with my ppp so far. I don't know whether they're to do with the Kali install, the underlying kernel, or
I'm using Debian/Unstable which seems reasonably good.
OK, I'll look into it. Maybe I can update some packages without doing a complete re-install, as kali pinephone is built on debian. There's dependencies, but we'll see.
That might work.
Another is that the microphone does not seem to work at the start of a voice call. You can fix this by cycling the speakerphone setting, but I don't know why this fixes the issue.
Sounds like a big worth reporting to the distribution. But is using such a device as an actual phone something that the Kali people really care about?
OK, fair point. I'm puzzling over what package would be responsible for this. Can you see this problem?
I'll try it when I get my spare SIM back.
Sounds like you are doing some good work on this. It might be better for you to use Debian/Unstable, file bugs against Debian, and get write access to the Debian wiki to document things.
I'll look into it, but too many times in the past I've "jumped ship" only to find the original problems were still there. I'd be more confident if I could see how things are different in the change logs, and suggestive of a fix.
Kali is based on Debian/Testing so Debian will work in a very similar way to Kali. The reason for changing is not to get bugs fixed but to be able to report bugs to someone who cares about it.
It's been reported that Wifi 2.4GHz and Bluetooth conflict. Which is particularly annoying given the battery life issues and the fact that 5GHz Wifi apparently uses more power.
I've not seen such a conflict, just that the drivers don't work without making "manual" pulseaudio routes.
It's not a conflict when loading drivers, it's a conflict in use. The symptom I noticed was that sound from Bluetooth speakers was dropping out when Wifi was in use.
I preer KDE Mobile but Phosh seems preferred by Purism and Pine64 employees. The apps responsible are calls and chatty, which are called by phosh IIUC. Does KDE use different apps for phonecalls and text?
I think it's the same apps for that. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
On Sat, Feb 24, 2024, at 14:38, John wrote:
Thanks for the replies, everyone,
I've tried to get onto matrix, but the search window seems blind to my return key and I can't actually go to any room. So, I'll settle in here for the present.
So, I'll outline my experiences, if anyone has something to add, it will be much appreciated. I've tried to email Megi without any luck so far, ...
Thanks, John. All that you wrote is useful. As I said, I properly got my PPP running Mobian only the week before last. As I can, I'll try out various features (including those that seem to have given you trouble). But it is hard to find the time to that, and (despite its limitations) my old PP serves well enough as it is for most of what I want to do at the moment. I will mention, though, that in my earliest days of using my PP (that is, Pinephone), I had problems, especially with phonecalls, similar to what you've seen. In time, they got better, just with normal software upgrades, without my doing anything particular in the way of fixes or workarounds — probably from the efforts of good people better able to report bugs upstream. — Smiles, Les.
Hi everyone, Just to let you know. I managed to figure out how to update my pinephone pro to the latest kali version, from which I could then figure out how to go to straight debian. I've also updated the modem firmware and made a few mods to the modem program. Things now go a bit better, and I can now install anki, which I was previously unable to do. I no longer have to cycle the internet to receive mms add-ons, so that's improved. I still need to manually update missed call text update, which I hope to do automatically. I had to update my bluetooth scripts, as now it runs pipewire and I can't use pacmd. However, I do have something working reasonably well in terms of the bluetooth bone conduction headset - I can talk using it. Both mic and "speaker" are on at the same time, but because it is bone conduction, there's no feedback. My script looks for phone + bt connection and does metaphorical pulseaudio "wiring" to bring the bluetooth in. It seems you can use the menu to bring in these bluetooth elements during a phone call, but it does not seem to be automated, or that you can set this and have it remember for the next phone call. My script actually does this reasonably well, and I may eventually run it through systemctl . Perhaps the classic debian does this without issues, but one thing at a time, I may well make that leap at some stage. Cheers, -- You can have my money, if you must - but not my identity. John August, Permutations : https://johnaugust.com.au ttps://www.mixcloud.com/Johnorg/ Vice-President, NSW Humanists - www.hsnsw.asn.au Pirate/Fusion Candidate: Bennelong 2016, Senate 2019, Bennelong 2021
participants (3)
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John -
Les Kitchen -
Russell Coker