First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

This thread is primarily a first impression of 2 OS's and possibly more later..
After purging the "muttering while puttering" posts with the intent of being more concise .
Being purely a maemo child and tolerating (only the last bit) android out of need for simply a fully functioning device.
I have never bothered to concern myself with other OS's, their methods of install, their workings, nothing.
Waiting for a proper alternative to maemo.

Now, with the rapid (as in the last few years) progress of alternate OS's , looking at the state of their devel. currently, I thought it time to seriously look at them.
The initial period of upstarts coming and going seem to be done, firefox os, web os, etc. , with a stable group remaining, determined to stay the course of progress, UT (Ubuntu Touch), PM (Plasma Mobile), SF (Sailfish), Maru, and the recently new addition of Leste (maemo). (I am sure there are others that I have omitted but for the present these are the dominant players)

My reasoning for my investigation ( I suppose I shall call it..) wasn't only curiosity or necessity (due in great part to the world moving on and the n900 and out community trying to keep up with the changing and advancing methods of access to the greater world.)
But as well...I liken my necessity for greater understanding to the view that if one does not educate oneself (at least in the basics) in new methods and technologies that appear to become the norm, then one ends up steam-rolled over by it, such as the "ATM's" when they came out, or the advent of internet banking, or any of countless innovations that change the fabric of living.
As well...
I believe it is a good exercise to examine and explore even the os's that are now defunct ...to get a feel for what they attempted to bring as an experience to the handheld nexus 5...
since the future has all the players converging into being able to run each others software ...I believe it will then become a race afterward as to who can then bring the best elements of their competitors to the public...and who can provide the most options in available desktop environments and window managers...

In the now expunged post, there was conversation about "convergence" and "convergent devices", devices with the ability once plugged in to a monitor, turn the smartphone into a desktop computing experience with peripherals such as mice and keyboard to be used for further convenience.
All for the purpose of using one device instead of many for essentially the same task.
There are good philo and technical arguments against it at this time, but the concept is sound.
Simplify ...in an already complex world.

One thing which I have noted that we do not really speak of , is the greater "convergence" which is occurring.
When I saw that the progress and movement (on the previously mentioned OS's) and that all of them had common ties in their advancements, ie: Halium, Wayland, etc..
I saw that other than a few alterations, they were all the same beast.
Just different skins stretched over the same bones.
Essentially said OS's are all "converging" .
especially with the work being done to bring the other disparate OS's programs to their own devices..
Soon Sailfish will be able to run ubuntu touch apps, plasma apps, android apps, maemo apps, along with x11 apps..
And all the other mentioned OS's will shortly be able to do the same as well.

The stakes are serious.
Those that don't show progress, consistently and timely, lose people, momentum and their edge in this race.
Those that do, gain.
The ones that first figure out common issues with each other gain the lead, with the rest playing catch-up.


Bluntly, the ones that figure out:

-how to bring their platform to as many models of phone as possible
-a user interface that works
- multiple options for de(s) and / or wm(s) that are low resource without being non existent, along with low consumption background processes.
-that can provide speed of delivery in response times to input as well as manage heavier programs without slowing the system down

Win.

Cute or cool, or over the top bling at the cost of resources and delivery on device, or singular (or a handful) of novel functions...will not.

Such is the emerging reality, at this time, of handheld alternatives for the world.


Seriously affecting change is coming, so I wished to be aware and understanding of the players, their development, and their OS's and how they worked at this time.
couple that with the fact there is precious little in serious write-ups on the web, past those who have installed a crippled up iso that was never meant for running in a sandbox on a PC ...and their comments. And a very small number of instructions, some outdated,
and so on.

So now you see my reasoning for doing this thread.
seeing the need to understand the new dynamic that is unfolding around us, personal curiosity, and the inevitability that the Alternate OS of the near future I and many others will be forced to choose from, necessitate my new learning curve.

This post is long since it is explanatory.
Subsequent posts will be as brief and specific as possible.

and the way things are summing up..
my final findings will be a surprise, I think.



Of course installation and reflashing necessitate that you have your official droid firmware...(you don't need the ENTIRE android debugging library) just adb and fastboot...um...git...um...opengapps...and the latest TWRP...
and then whatever else that specific OS's require as well.

HERE IS THE EASY BULLETPROOF METHOD ANYONE CAN USE (TO GET THEIR NEXUS 5) BACK TO YOUR FACTORY ANDROID

First get back into TWRP recovery ...wipe ...advanced wipe...wipe everything but your storage.
then go back to the main ...and enter recovery ...
Once entering recovery ..all you need is that ...(For PM ...adb and fastboot recognize your device once it is in twrp recovery..and the process is fluid after that...)
..plugging into your PC....
and making sure you follow these step by step instructions ...(just make sure you have downloaded to your pc your factory droid firmware and then you can pretty much skip the beginning of the instruction set and head straight to "adb devices" in term...and go from there)
You will be able to reflash your nexus 5 (most certainly) back from whatever PM trauma you have put it through... :D
JUST MAKE SURE that once you notice behaviour looking like something serious.... like it starting to loop ...that you are prompt in reflashing and don't screw with it further...
I can't guarantee success from deviating from such behaviour.

https://docs.ubuntu.com/phone/en/dev...alling-android

Also ..do not be alarmed at the time PM can take for the backlight to finally shut off...processes still running ...(not sure which ones just yet.

Ooooh
one more thing
if you wish to shut down PM by term now as in "right now"
I suggest simply " shutdown -h now" :D

I'm sure I will think of other things...
but let you have fun...
and remember when start the wifi ...be patient. There are A LOT of processes running chugging away....during start up...

oooh...and go grab a proper slimport for your nexus 5 if you want to plug into a monitor.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

As a nexus 5 owner, thanks for the small review. Have you also tried convergence with Ubuntu?

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Sounds like you are trying to squeeze product A (PC) on product B (phone) :)

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

While most of the time your writing style is a bit incompatible with my brain (which is my problem, not really yours!), I managed to read through the first post.
It was rather informative and fuelled my interest in both projects. Thanks!

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Second that! :D

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Before I go through the motions of seeking another old Nexus 5 (why do NONE of these projects ever use MODERN DAY ****!?) - does it work as a telecommunication device (phone calls, email, web) or does this work like a proof of concept (somethings may work, but not all)?

Curious.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Hi endsormeans. Fantastic write ups! Could you please provide some screen shots of some interesting features. Even mundane of dialer or gallery. Are you able to open a terminal on both OSes. Can you compile code on them? What kind of repositories are available? Thanks!

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

That much I had surmised. I guess my statement about the old hardware is more of a situation of why is this site so fixated on older hardware. It should be treated as rhetorical.

Yeah, I didn't see "calls sounded great" or "were hard to configure" or anything of the sort. Thanks for clarifying.

Thanks for sharing. It is appreciated.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Endsormeans, I appreciate you checking this out. Perhaps you are helping give us a glimpse of what to expect on Purism phone as it will be compatible with certain versions of ubuntu and plasma. From what it sounds like to me, maybe the plasma version you are using is more suitable for tablet device. Perhaps could be a good substitute for those that never got the jolla tablet they ordered.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Last time i looked at nexus 4/5 there were problems with battery-life and camera.

https://forums.ubports.com/topic/123...than-nexus-4/2

Nexus 4 was/is very nice but a little bit fragil.

(i was surprised endsormeans could settle on one sd port, but now we are literally at zero ;) )

keep posting!

edit: i found "nominal", is this more than 1 day, does plasma and UB touch differ?

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Is possible on Nexus 5 hardware :)
https://www.geek.com/chips/nexus-5-h...eader-1645580/

Nexus 4 has only 3.3V VUSB so even software was removed from kernel.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

I see room for improvement, but good to hear that it seems to make the day.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

The battery runtime wasn’t good on the Nexus 5 from the beginning - it’s not an issue with UT it’s the same on Android, Sailfish, Lineage ...

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Yes, a slightly bigger battery would have been appreciated. But I would rather have a microsd slot instead :)

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

This would have been nice with included usb microsd adapter somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftFIMTu5zE8

but availability seems similar to mugen for n900

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

As I understand it you have 2 of 'em nexii, one with Plasma and one with UT, right?
So it might just be the Plasma-one was already weaker with battery from the beginning.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

@endsormeans, do you know whether Plasma actually suspends the device while its inactive? I would expect UT to do that, although not sure. One way to check is to see in dmesg whether you have lots of suspend/resume messages.

Keep posting your impressions.

As for apps, I would expect it will be relatively easy to port them from SFOS to any of these OSes.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

i was expecting someone to start this thread, thanks endsor. i am interested in trying plasma mobile but sadly i dont have a compatible device to do that but it is good to know that plasma is a great thing to try. i have seen plasma videos so i have an image like what plasma is like and all but i have no idea about ubuntu touch. ubuntu touch is ubports now i guess. new profile pic! it looks good endsor.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

You are mistaken. Ubuntu Touch is not any more a layer on android than Plasma is.

They both use libhybris so that they can use already existing android drivers. That's all there is to it, just like in Sailfish.

Personally I think Ubuntu Touch is crap. But it has nothing to do with (due to necessity of) using android drivers.

But thank you for posting these impressions, I look forward for more of your experiences on both systems. I personally haven't tried Plasma.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Now that i got my nexus 5 back from a friend in need for temporary replacement, i had to try PM again after long time.

You really hyped me up endsormeans, maybe that is part of me now being left quite underwelmed.

All in all, using it gave the same ux feeling that i had when attaching a tiny tft to a raspberry.
Mostly due to unoptimized screen resolutions and stuttery animations.
My endevour to explore it abruptly ended when i tried to update from cli. The Plasma gui told me it sees 161 updates but its update page just showed a refresh icon to look for updates again. No button to start updating as far as i could see.
Updating from cli looked fine. All 161 packages installed.
Then rebooting resulted in a white screen after the google bootlogo.

The best thing i found to be the install script :D
I will study it and propose one for AsteroidOS at some point in time.
This actually was the best ux i ever had from any linux install script!
Pleasently verbose and informative and yet so simple to use.

Thanks for putting me on the trip endsormeans.

My nexus 5 now temporary runs oreo 8.1 Lineage 15.1 to see what the droid camp is doing. Will propably check the state of sfos ports next.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

I sure had and will have with the install script!

On oreo i must admit the new font is really soothing the overall cluttered droid pain. quite nice.

Plasma guys could easily step up their ui game by finding a red line when it comes to icon and symbol design. I was quite shocked to see they still have that much room for improvement and yet fire some "its gorgeous" sample on boot/login.
I mean the always present 3 buttons on the bottom foremost fit no other ui element found through the system and look cheap and clunky on their own.
I am in no way a capable designer like gerbick but instantly get the feeling i could improve the ui with my limited abilities in inkscape.
I wouldn't even be that ranty and more forgiving about the PM design if they wouldn't call it gorgeous themselves.
Is that audio sample ment as satirical cry for help and i fail to get it?

As you said, the features of PM are impressive and i hate to spit into their fine soup but it did not meet my standard of gorgeous even remotely.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

SailfishOS has less proprietary parts than Maemo. Just saying.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

I thought about that a bit why many maemonians detest SailfishOS on the basis that it has proprietary parts. Yet turn a blind eye on the fact that maemo has lots more of it.

I came to the theory that the reasons are historical. Back when maemo came around, such level of basing a mobile product on open source software was unprecedented. Things are not the same today, while SailfishOS is more open source than maemo, it is not amazingly open source compared to the rest of the mobile field.

So taken the time maemo and SailfishOS arrived, you could argue that maemo was more open source compared to the playing field back then than SailfishOS is compared to today's playing field.

It's a bit unfair, but understandable psychological reaction.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Either I missed the news that Sailfish opened up their GUI and Silica components, or perhaps you missed the news that Maemo is on its way to version 7. The only proprietary parts in Maemo 7 are those which are unavoidable (SGX drivers, WiFi/Bluetooth firmware).

EDIT: Even Fremantle was arguably less proprietary than Sailfish in the places where it matters. If you wrote an app for Fremantle, in whatever framework, it would be mostly portable. If you write a Sailfish app, it will run wherever Silica components can run. :rolleyes:

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Well my view on Red Snapper OS (which would be the coolest name ever for the russian sfos) will be the same as on Red Star OS.

If i ever plan to hack in to Kwangmyong, Red Star Os will sure be my first choice on a dedicated laptop i burn or dip into nitric acid afterwards.

If i ever plan to become a russian postman i will sure embrace my Red Snapper OS POS to shift pension money directly to all russian grannys doorsteps with ease.
For my personal use, i will continue to rely on vanilla Fedora without Kim Young Un enhancements and am sure my sfosx maintained in finland will not force me into using VK or ask for FSB influenced privacy policy update anytime soon.

It is in best interest of jolla to not taint vanilla sfos in light of offering it to all parties. What do you think would the chinese or even bolivian say if Jolla would hide Red Snapper bits behind their backs?

Wahh, talking of red snapper bits made me hungry.
http://lh5.ggpht.com/_LNaQuBlSf8Y/Sb...2269_thumb.jpg

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

It seems rather unfair to compare an OS that's currently being sold on and for new devices to a community effort that got rid of the proprietary parts (because you can't develop those any further) of an OS for which development stopped seven years ago. Obviously, ajalkane was not talking about the latter, but about Maemo when it was still being developed by Nokia, before the community took over and made it better. If you want to compare Maemo 7 to anything, it should be Nemo Mobile. Hey, it doesn't have any proprietary parts!

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

I'm not trying to start a debate on which OS is more open. It sounded to me like ajalkane wasn't 100% aware of the latest Maemo developments which is why I posted. endsormeans mentioned several times in this thread his intention to run Maemo Leste on his Nexus 5 (no mention of Fremantle), so fair comparison or not, to me it seemed to be the most relevant one.

I think you'll find that Nemo Mobile uses the same proprietary parts that Maemo Leste uses on similar devices. Here you can find the SGX blobs:

https://github.com/nemomobile/ti-omap3-sgx

I wasn't able to find the Intel Wi-Fi firmware on Nemo Mobile's GitHub but I assume they are using this too, otherwise I'd love to know how they got it working on devices like the N900, N9 and N950.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

I tried Plasma Mobile on my Nexus 4. I just followed the Halium docs. Compiling Halium took a long time and chewed up most of my the space on my SSD, but it was otherwise painless to build and install.

I couldn't get voice calls or mobile data to work. There wasn't even any mention of modem in Halium's porting docs. I tried asking around on IRC in #halium and in #plasma, but no one responded. Is modem working properly on Nexus 5? It didn't appear to be in the screenshots I've seen.

I had to manually enable the wifi on every boot by using some arcane command.

Launching the camera program caused the whole thing to reboot.

Being able to apt-get whatever the heck you want from the ubuntu repos is pretty cool, but there are some issues with XWayland. For example, some GTK programs displayed only in tiny windows in the corner of the screen.

XWayland didn't seem to know when the on-screen keyboard was being displayed, and clicking the enter key would also activate the close-program button.

Chromium and Firefox were pre-installed in the pm-rootfs tarball. Chromium worked okay (except for the above-mentioned keyboard issue), but FF consistently crashed on launch.

Rotation wasn't working, but IIRC, it seemed like I was getting good data from the sensors.

apt-get upgrade caused the device to boot loop.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Now that I've read the whole thread ;) , it seems like your modem isn't working either. I suspect nobody's modem is working.

Bummer. Sadly, a phone without a modem is digital chindogu.

EDIT: There's some possibly-relevant stuff about modem on PostmarketOS here, but PMOS doesn't use hybris or halium, so maybe not: https://github.com/postmarketOS/pmbootstrap/issues/1054

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

I rely on my Nexus 4 for communication, as well as my only internet connection. I've done some hacking on it in coffee shops so I could still get on IRC to ask around, but I can't do that all the time. Furthermore, halium doesn't support MultiROM.

For me, no modem is a no-go.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

How much space does Ubuntu take? Is it possible to install things from the ubuntu repository?

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Wait a cotton picking minute. I asked if it worked, you said yes.

Allow me to ask again, but more clear. Do phone calls, with a working SIM inserted into the device, manage to connect to another living person with also a working device that can accept phone calls work?

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

@endso, do you really have to always write a whole essay? Why can't you reply a simple YES or NO?

FWIW, I am still none the wiser what the answer to gerbock's question is. And believe me, I would like to know it too!

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

This turned out in a monologue :) I find difficult to find some objective information too, that's why I am asking about the memory space requirements.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

OK, so the answer is no.

Forget about "tweaking" and "mucking about". If there is a <software package> provided specifically for <a device> then it should work on said device out of the box, without "tweaking" and "mucking about".

If it does not work out of the box, then it does not work. Simple as that.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Surely we should distinguish between suggestive, misleading, morally loaded questions where any answer makes you suspect, and simple binary questions that don't carry any extra load.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

PM on nexus is not "plug and play out of the box"..
there are things that need to be set up...


My examination of it is purely initial and cursory so far.
I am not certain yet that some issues were of my own making, using instruction that I found which could be outdated, my own sim being an issue, or any number of other possible culprits.

Once I have spent enough time with it I will be able to state beyond a shadow of doubt that "yes "x" works" , or "there are issues resolvable in "x", or "no "x" has unresolved issues and doesn't function yet at this time".

If I followed any of the suggested methods found and stopped because it didn't install or run correctly, or I omitted something...
the 1st time trying..
and stopped there saying "well it didn't install properly once "
or
" 'x' didn't run properly once.."
" ergo .."x" doesn't work..."
then my findings would be no better than what is found currently on the web.

don't care for my process of trial and error .
making sure that if there is an issue... it is legitimate ...
and with no
"I don't suggest doing .."x" ...instead do "z" ..for positive results"?..

not a problem...

just want definitive yes or no answers ..to a cursory examination?
yet again..

not a problem..
look to the official write ups on PM on Nexus 5.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Did you just make me into a type of beer?

These kinds of things really frustrate me because I do not want to take a fully functioning device, replace the OS with something that boots up, but not much else.

Call me weird, but a device that could make a phone call before I altered the OS should be able to do that (and more) afterwards. If I just want a terminal in my pocket, I'll go back to the N810 and keep waiting.

So cutting through all of the words; I read that it is a "No" until otherwise proven. Thanks.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

Oh, gerbick, a thousand apologies! Typing on an on-screen keyboard sucks bulls.

Re: First thoughts concerning Plasma Mobile and Ubuntu Touch on Nexus 5
 

On UT, in order to install stuff from the ubuntu repos and use xmir, you need to set up a libertine container because the rootfs is read-only by default, and is overwritten with each update.

It's a pain in the butt. Bonus, if even a single package doesn't download properly while initializing the container (possibly because UT suspended your terminal session because you switched to your web browser to surf instead of boring yourself to death watching packages download), the container setup fails, and you get to start all over again. It really sucks. If using xmir, there are also major issues with DPI. Everything is so tiny!

Honestly, just using Android or LineageOS with an Ubuntu chroot, XSDL, and Hacker's Keyboard is less hassle than UT's libertine crap. It's actually easier to get and use software from the Ubuntu repos on Android than it is on Ubuntu Touch, which is shameful.

On PM, it's totally painless, you just need to expand the rootfs file or else you'll run out of space. The PM install scripts come with a script for doing that easily. XWayland is well-integrated, you wouldn't even notice it, except for the few glaring bugs.