Librem 5 and KDE Plasma mobile

I tried using parts of instructions from mobian

sudo apt install -y curl
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
curl 'https://repo.mobian.org/mobian.gpg' | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt install plasma-mobile plasma-mobile-tweaks plasma-settings plasma-phonebook plasma-dialer spacebar angelfish okular-mobile

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.

purism@chonkyboi:~$ sudo apt install plasma-mobile plasma-mobile-tweaks plasma-settings plasma-phonebook plasma-dialer spacebar angelfish okular-mobile libwacom2
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
libwacom2 is already the newest version (1.8-2).
libwacom2 set to manually installed.
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libegl-mesa0 : Depends: libgbm1 (= 21.2.6-1pureos4) but 22.3.6-1+deb12u1 is to be installed
 libwacom2 : Depends: libwacom-common (= 1.8-2) but 2.6.0-1 is to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

I have to find out how to force it, but I’m guessing it’s not supported by Purism for some reason (lack of personnel?). It feels like I’d have to install an alternative OS like postmarketOS or mobian to get it to work properly without forcing it.

That’s a very efficient way to break your system. Please don’t.

There’s no Plasma Mobile packaged for PureOS yet. It may be possible to install Plasma Mobile on the next version of PureOS (crimson) thanks to Debian upstream; it’s not feasible on Byzantium at all without putting a huge amount of work into packaging.

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Eh, that’s fine. It’s been a brick in my drawer ever since I got the fixed modem and personally found out the battery lasted <8h (even less with signal alternatives on it).

Right I got everything installed and am stuck at it dropping me into a TTY. Was able to ssh in After installing sddm it “failed to read display number from pipe”. So, I’m debugging that right now. simplelogin from https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Development_Environment/Boards/HowTo/Install_Plasma_Mobile.html doesn’t exist on the debian repo, so I’m just trying to find a display manager that can boot plasma-mobile.

Edit:

well, gdm doesn’t seem to allow choosing sessions and just installs gnome shell, which won’t start after entering the password.
Postmarket OS uses tinydm, but I have to find an apt repo for that.

EEdit: found tinydm repo and it uses openrc? Well, no systemd and it depends on /usr/bin/autologin which isn’t on the system. In any case, /usr/share/wayland-sessions/plasma-mobile.desktop exists, but the script doesn’t work as it can’t find a display :thinking:

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You have added the repositories and installed packages from incompatible distros. It’s simply not going to work.

Well, it’s kind working. Installed weston and started it, then ran startplasmamobile in it and got

It opens plasmamobile in small window, not a big one. I have to find a way to make it fullscreen and it should be alright (for now).

Your whole system remains broken and you’re going to have many issues trying to install further packages. That’s a fun exercise if you plan to wipe it afterwards, but please - don’t report any issues happening on a system in such bad state.

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Well, I got it to start plasma mobile now!

Caveats

The script was written à posteriori from the cobbled together shell commands I had in my ssh terminal. You might need to debug a little.

The first time it starts, it doesn’t ask for your pin! After that, it works fine though.

I wouldn’t recommend you do this unless you can ssh into your phone or have a USB-C dongle with a keyboard to unfuck yourself should shit go sideways

Script

Run this in an ssh session

# install curl and get the mobian gpg key
sudo apt install -y curl
curl 'https://repo.mobian.org/mobian.gpg' | sudo apt-key add -

# Add mobian repo to repo list
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list

# phosh has fixed dependencies that clash with those of plasma-mobile
sudo apt remove phosh

# Install plasma-mobile and greetd that will start plasmamobile
sudo apt install plasma-mobile plasma-mobile-tweaks plasma-settings plasma-phonebook plasma-dialer spacebar angelfish okular-mobile greetd

# Generate a greetd "greeter" which is plasmamobile
echo '
[terminal]
# The VT to run the greeter on. Can be "next", "current" or a number
# designating the VT.
vt = 7

# The default session, also known as the greeter.
[default_session]
user = "purism"
command = "startplasmamobile"
' | sudo tee /etc/greetd/config.toml

# Enable the greeterd greeter
sudo systemctl enable greetd

# You should be ready for a restart now
sudo reboot

Results (screenshots)

So far, it’s quite fluid and much more reminiscent of android, which is exactly what I was looking for. Never liked not having a “desktop” / tray / launcher / whatever with phosh.

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Don’t worry, this was just a fun experiment for my Saturday. Maybe I’ll try to run the pi-hole on this. Nixos doesn’t have it and I don’t fancy mucking around with dnsmasq + I much prefer it over a raspberrypi.
If it works without a battery, it’ll stay on, but in either case I’ll tuck it away safely, back in the dusty drawer it came from.

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I’m aware, but since you’re posting it publicly I really need to stress out how much it breaks the whole system, because I know from experience that people will try it and then will be surprised that things are broken and then will cry for help, often failing to mention that they were actively trying to break it beforehand :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hey thanks for figuring this out. Hopefully Purism will support this when Crimson launches. I found I did not have to install the Debian package list as you did. Here are my updated steps to do this all from PureOS on the Librem 5.

# Update to PureOS Crimson
$ sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
# /etc/apt/sources.list
deb https://repo.pureos.net/pureos crimson main
deb https://repo.pureos.net/pureos crimson-updates main
deb https://repo.pureos.net/pureos crimson-security main

# disable phosh
$ sudo systemctl disable phosh.service

# Install plasma-mobile and greetd that will start plasmamobile
$ sudo apt install plasma-mobile plasma-mobile-tweaks plasma-settings plasma-phonebook plasma-dialer spacebar angelfish okular-mobile greetd

# Generate a greetd "greeter" which is plasmamobile
$ echo '
[terminal]
# The VT to run the greeter on. Can be "next", "current" or a number
# designating the VT.
vt = 7

# The default session, also known as the greeter.
[default_session]
user = "purism"
command = "startplasmamobile"
' | sudo tee /etc/greetd/config.toml

# Enable the greeterd greeter
$ sudo systemctl enable greetd.service

# You should be ready for a restart now
$ sudo reboot

I will update with similar steps on the Debian wiki for Mobian so this is less confusing.

I also ran into an issue where I couldn’t remove phosh as it was tied to a librem5-gnome-core package that was held?

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Now I just need to figure out how to configure it to use squeekboard instead of the plasma-mobile limited keyboard.

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