So, as everyone not under a rock knows, Android being an open and fully enjoyed experience may soon come to an end.
it may not! I don’t really know. What I do know, is that regardless of the times we live in, I like to screw around with stuff, so I went on ebay and bought a Oneplus 6T to do just that.
edit: American, Tello. Unlocked International firmware
I’m using PostmarketOS on Phosh. I was using Plasma Mobile and found it functionally close to vanilla Android, just chaotically buggy and wrong.
Phosh is Librem’s DE and is fairly solid, in my experience thusfar, the featureset is limited but utilitarian and it looks ok.
My scenario is simple. I want to schism my personal, federated and foss goings on off of my Android phone, leaving it a vehicle for four things, calls, messages, gps, and a hotspot and use this device as a tiny device for those personal things.
carry two phones?!
EDIT: RECORD-SCRATCH… I fixed this.
I had some terminal work to do on MMS since MMS isn’t included in the GUI settings… kind-of a massive oversight. They’re there on a Pinephone and a Librem 5, but not on the port of the DE the Librem 5 uses? I also noticed that I could recieve calls when in 2G-3G mode, but not 4G mode.
VOLTE
Either have your ISP disable so you can still have the 4G connection for data it if your phone doesn’t support it, or fix it. I was able to get mine working, and I still have 4G mobile data. This is solved, audio problems still persist tho.
My situation is that I can make calls, but I can’t receive them. The mobile settings are rather simple in the gui so I’ll be using a terminal for all of the mms settings if I want that, but that doesn’t solve my speaker crackle issues or connection problems. I had success with xmpp using dino between the protocol and jmp, but my limits with jmp.chat for those calls are more limiting than my normal isp, not that I make that many. If everyone I knew used xmpp, it would be a great phone lol.
I allso need to reliably make and recieve calls, I have a few responsibilities that make it so not getting a call could potentially be a fatal situation, so for now, at least, I can’t rely on the OP6T for cellular use.
This is a problem with my hardware. If you want to go drop the cash on a linux phone for the full support, by all means. It may be my solution in a few years but buddy, this was $140 on ebay lol.
Oh and the camera works, barely, but the zoom is broken, again, likely not a problem you’d have on a retail linux phone.
So how is it as a… palmtop?
Fucking, brilliant. Firefox? Full. Wanna run a server in the background? Do it. Want Linux software? Lol, any. Vlc? Yep. Jellyfin? Yeeep. If it’s a webapp, it works. Ebooks? Duh. Music? Yep. Bluetooth? You bet.
The biggest limitation youll have with software isn’t finding and running it, but finding apps designed to be horizontal or have hidden tabs rather than permanent frames.
This makes thunderbird entirely unusable, as well as keepassxc. Luckily, there are a few apps for every horizontal one to find as an alternative. I found secrets for keepass and geary for email, both decent vertical clients.
There is also no separarion between your pin and your password. They are the same thing. On a laptop, this is whatever. You’re used to using your password everywhere. On a phone with no fingerprint reader? I had to get clever with it and come up with something I could one-hand on a keyboard but still be a decent, memorable password.
The hardware space for these sorts of solutions has a few choices. There are some used gpd win devices out there that run Linux, but as outlandish as carrying two phones sounds, it’s easier than carrying any extra laptop, micro or not.
So for that reason, I find these to be extremely capable choices for those looking for software freedom and utility, but I do not see it as a replacement for a phone. For a laptop or a cyberdeck for the sake of privacy? Absolutely.
IF you had a functional camera and network?
then… maybe? For me, if it’s reliable then it’s a likely yes, but as-is right now, no.
Dual boot?
This phone has A/B Separation. That doesn’t stop anything… or enable anything, really. It just changes the method, but it is a bit risky since it risks bricking the phone, even from the MSM tool recovery. I would consider a Lineage/Linux split between A and B, but the issue is that while the method to get to Android is cut and dry because Linux is so lenient, the path back to the B-side where Linux exists is littered with apps that have come, gone and/or died because the next Android version keeps breaking them, so… that doesn’t seem entirely reliable, either. TWRP or a compatible recovery could possibly be used to flip from side to side without having to rely on a PC to do it over fastboot.
Thanks for the mini review. Hopefully the situation with PostmarketOS (for both aftermarket and new devices) improves in the next 12 months.
Moving off Android and tech platforms under the control of American public corporations is becoming a more pressing priority.
Yes i have an arm based chrome tablet. No longer supported by google. It’s a bit underpowered. But works fantastically with post market. Few little bits of hardware here and there not supported. Mostly camera due to device tree shenanigans since it’s mobile style hardware.
KDE touch is so close. Just falling apart on edge cases most of the time, often due to limited resolution. Honestly something like Niri under Wayland with the rest of the KDE suite might solve some of it.
By yeah. I’m in a similar boat. A slightly better device and better KDE touch. I’d just keep a cheap cell around as a modem. Hell someone design a proper open host board that I could just drop a CM5 or similar in. With GPS 5G WiFi 6 BT5 and a software solution to RCS/call. It would be a shut up and take my money type situation.
I have a Pixel C. It’s þe most beautiful tablet I’ve ever seen, but it got progressively slower wiþ each Android release and I eventually flashed it wiþ Graphene (or some such). It didn’t help much wiþ performance. It’s rare enough þat þe one Linux build for it doesn’t support half þe hardware in it, which is a shame, because if it were, I’m certain it’d be just fine.
It’s infuriating. It really is a beautiful piece of hardware, wiþ a clever external keyboard. Ruined by Google.
Too bad that receiving calls didn’t work for you. Did you maybe forget to disable auto-suspend? My OP6 will not wake up for SMS or calls when suspended. Generally, I find sms and calls to work pretty well on my OP6, though I still wouldn’t completely trust it.
Bacon, I’m desperate for a fully functional daily driver to be out before Google locks down our ability to sideload. Might as well buy an iPhone, at þat point.
I’m in the side that we are in a transition period in the open technology world. Most of us are at home on a Linux laptop and software-wise, it is one. For me? This works. I can use this as my actual phone’s ‘proxy’, and it’s my goal to puppet it into any function I don’t currently have, within reason.
Makes sense. Carrying two phones is a blocker for me; I resent having to carry even one.
In carry, it’s a bit ridiculous.
In practice… I’ve got something down. Last night I installed a local ntfy server and linked sms/mms notifications from my Android to it, then linked the OP6T to the ntfy server. Now I know when I get an SMS on my SIM card. I intend to do the same for calls.
I need to go bug someone on Postmarket’s team to throw KDEconnect in the repository. That would make this chef’s kiss.
Now I don’t need to remove the Android from my pocket unless it’s to run music in my car. Luckily enough, my Pixel Buds love my OP6T but my 2014 car thinks it’s a headset. You gotta love the bad-bluetooth years, and no AUX so I can’t pair to a dongle, either. It’s FM transmitter, tear my dash apart and get Dexter’s Lab with it, or the Android.
Ubuntu Touch is also something of a curiosity for me for one reason, it has somewhat of a virtualization layer for some of the devices on the phone to run on the Android drivers or somesuch magic. Apparently UT has the camera and lots of other buggy things working, but it hasn’t been updated on the 6T since last year.
My mother was having issues receiving calls and messages on N200 with TMobile sim. LineageOS.
It’s all about APN settings if your phone is fully supported. Also, as a rule of thumb, make sure you’re on the latest of the latest firmware you could be before your phone stopped being supported officially before flashing LineageOS so you have the latest firmware for your radio, screen, camera, etc. But as far as that goes, at least on custom Android roms such as Lineage is, it’s about getting those APN settings perfect. I’ve used a Oneplus 7 Pro since release on Lineage and then CRDroid and I’m on Tello. I couldn’t recieve messages at first until I got it resolved. The OP6T on Linux won’t be capable whether I can receive calls or not, so… as far as solving my networking issue is concerned, it’s kind of moot until the speaker issue is fixed.
