Anyone here running Plasma Mobile on their Librem 5? Plasma Mobile 6 just recently came out and the plasma mobile website lists Plasma Mobile 6 as supported on the Librem 5 running Postmarket OS. The Librem 5 development board ran Plasma mobile and we don’t hear much about that in the Librem 5 community after that, since around 2017. For what it’s worth, the AI claims that Plasma Mobile runs more mobile apps on the Librem 5 than PureOS does because of KDE support of a larger number of mobile linux apps. But I don’t know what the reality is on that.
I am a big fan of Plasma Mobile and all the work their team has done. Hopefully, I can provide somewhat of a short synopsis.
Running Plasma Mobile on Non-PureOS Distributions
KDE Plasma Mobile has a page listing current distributions supporting Plasma Mobile here:
The distributions for arm devices currently are openSUSE, postmarketOS, and Mobian. I am unaware of an official wiki page or support for running openSUSE on the Librem 5.
If you plan to run Mobian, you should also read this page:
Running Plasma Mobile on PureOS:
Plasma Mobile is not currently in the software repository for PureOS, but I am curious if it is to be included in Crimson. The package is in Debian’s repository.
The package also currently fails to properly install using guix:
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Thanks Myrcy,
It looks like there needs to be some additional development work done before Plasma Mobile can run under PureOS on the Librem 5. Otherwise people with better hacking skills than myself would already be installing and using it on their Librem 5, and telling us about their experiences with it. When I asked the AI if installing plasma mobile to my Librem 5 running PureOS could be done, the AI even gave me a sudo apt install command to install Plasma Mobile on the Librem 5. I doubt that works and didn’t want to risk junking up my librem 5 with a broken installation, unless others on this forum have already done it successfully.
I was surprised to discover last night that the x86 version of PureOS not only runs the Plasma environment, but that when you download the live version of PureOS from Purism’s website (the bootable iso image), that Purism gives you the choice there to select either the Phosh or the Plasma version to download. I chose the Plasma version and it ran well on my Intel NUC6.
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You can see what an apt-get install command by doing a dry run (simulation)
apt-get --simulate install package-name
(apt is supposedly more user friendly than apt-get, but that hasn’t been the case for me.)
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This is good information. Will it carry through the entire install process to verify a successful installation at the end? If so, even if the installation doesn’t run as a real application after it is installed, at least you could uninstall it afterward with no harm done. I might go back and give it a try, if so. But I also suspect that an incompatibility somewhere in the process might present itself before the installation even begins. Could the AI really know that the process is technically sound? Or is the AI just barely intelligent enough to know how to format a generic installation command that may or may not even exist. No software versions nor repositories were even mentioned. It’s kind of like asking the AI to recommend a good program to install. So it replies with: sudo apt install good-program.
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In an apt-get simulated install, nothing gets installed. It checks for dependencies and conflicts. The screen printouts look like a real install but no downloads or changes to the system happen. I suggest that the next time you do an install, simulate it first and see for yourself.
An AI response to a query can be almost anything, including a correct answer, a wrong answer, a made up answer, or utter nonsense. AI might guide you to information you would be unlikely to come across otherwise but it would be very foolish to rely on it without verification.
It is certainly possible that the AI used some reasonable process to make its recommendation of what to install and the specific command to install it, provided you gave it enough information to know which OS is installed and therfore what the package manager and package name is. If the package is in the default OS repository it can assume that your /etc/apt/sources.list has the needed repository. The package might be one that is in every OS version. Of course, all these details can vary. It is usually good to supply all the context information that you can just like when asking a question in a forum.
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I think the larger issue here is that PureOS Byzantium is based on Debian Bullseye (oldoldstable).
That release of Debian does not have an official package for Plasma Mobile:
However, the oldstable does[1]. I am curious to see if this means users will be able to change from Phosh to KDE Plasma in Crimson.
You probably could find a way to install it from source, but it might be easier to just wait or run Mobian.
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Also, as a general rule of thumb, you should limit your usage of AI.
You can find answers to questions like these on the internet.
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Only up to a point with more general linux issues, but with such a niche thing that L5 and mobile arm Linux mobile can be on specific hardware, it may draw on too limited sources, like these forums where most posts are not solutions, twisting AIs answers as there isn’t enough quality data (as was apparent).
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I am extremely tempted to try the alpha image of Crimson and see if KDE Plasma works. If so, I will attempt to provide an update in this post.
On a side note, to help clarify things:
I find this statement inaccurate. For example, when I used Mobian, I was able to run both GNOME’s Chatty and KDE’s Spacebar—while using KDE Plasma Mobile.
Generally, a user’s ability to run a specific application should not depend upon them utilizing a certain desktop environment.
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I have noticed from trying several different linux desktop environments that there seem to be two camps, Gnome and KDE. Generally, there are many programs that will work on both/either desktop environments. However if you install a highly Gnome or KDE centric distro, the apps that do not natively come with that same environment tend to have incompatibilities or will not run at all. In the Gnome environment, you might or might not be able to hunt down and satisfy all of the dependancies required to get a certain KDE program to run. The same can be said of Gnome programs in the KDE environment. And when you have a Gnome program in the Gnome environment, it always just works. The same is true of a KDE program in the KDE environment. If Purism would have built PureOS to work with the KDE environment without any customizations for plasma Mobile, then Plasma Mobile would probably have run on the Librem 5 with few if any customizations required anyway. Since PureOS is optimized for Gnome, the Gnome apps should more often work on the Librem 5. If Plasma Mobile is properly ported to run on the Librem 5, I would expect that all of the KDE programs in Plasma Mobile, especially the KDE apps, will just work without needing to be changed. The mobile apps will already be customized to run on a phone diaplay. The Librem 5 might experience a new windfall of new mobile apps that work, with a clean install of Plasma Mobile.
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PureOS currently don’t have an option to switch environments at login. Mobian has it and Mobian Trixie + plasma mobile or PostmarketOS + plasma mobile just works. I don’t know if PureOS will ever officially support plasma mobile as it adds more burden on the support staff to officially support two environments. So most likely people who want plasma mobile will always have to use Mobian or PostmarketOS.
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Shouldn’t you be able to fix this by changing the display manager?
I would assume installing LightDM or another manager and properly configuring it should repair this issue.
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As a side note, shouldn’t Phrog still allow users to change their graphical session?
I thought this was a still a feature of the program but perhaps it has changed.
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Mobian use phrog, but PureOS don’t use it yet. You will need to configure PureOS to start phrog instead of directly launching phosh. It is not impossible, but just need more work than just installing plasma mobile.
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I have not attempted to install Plasma Mobile on my Librem 5, but you can run KDE apps under phosh. Out of curiosity, I have the Kirigami Gallery app installed and that seems to work fine, which suggests that other apps built using the Kirigami UI framework should work if available to install. I don’t really know what Kirigami apps are out there. I’m more familiar with desktop KDE apps.
The main issues I see with Kirigami Gallery running under phosh are that it doesn’t by default get recognised as a “Mobile Friendly” app for the purposes of filtering icons on the home screen and the keyboard doesn’t automatically appear when you focus a text field. I seem to remember you can make an app appear as mobile friendly by editing its *.desktop file, though.
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I have both Plasma Mobile and Phosh environments on Mobian Trixie, and both work well. You can easily pick which one to log into on the login screen.
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Thank you so much for pointing this out to me.
Hopefully, at some point we can easily switch between the two in PureOS.
It appears that phrog depends upon a newer version of phosh than what is currently in the Crimson repository as well—although please do not quote me on this.
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