Questions PureOS on Librem phone

It’s a bug :slight_smile: not all links trigger the link counter

Yep, i think the same apps will be available. But where i’m not sure if the default compositor, what ever it will be (stock wlroots or custom) supports X11 or not. If not you can’t start any program that is relying on it, which are many i think. What will be supported on the librem i can’t tell. In this actricel in the “Compositor and Shell” section they say wayland only. @nicole.faerber might be capable of telling us more as she worte the article.

It might be possible that xwayland just isn’t installed by default but one can simply install it to use x11 apps but it also could be difficult to add. As the librem 5 with PureOS is linux it should definitely be possible but might need bigger changes. So depends highly on your skills.
I for my self am usually fine with easy modification but reconfiguring the whole compositor setup would probably be out of my league and what i won’t. I like to tinker a bit but the system has to work and be easy to maintain and update. So for me it must be as easy as some packages and some simple configs which are safe for updates. It would be okay if the X11 apps had some minor bug and only the wayland part get the polished phone UX for example.

Ohh good to know. And sorry for accusing anybody.

this application definitely supports xwayland, but it’s an option that can be switched off during compile time.
i wonder what the devs are planning there?

i have not contacted @nicole.faerber yet.

i made an inquiry to info@puri.sm and received a quick, but rather general reply.
a second, more specific inquiry went unanswered.

ATM we do not plan to enable Xwayland by default in order to avoid the extra overhead X applications will involve. But there is nothing preventing anyone from enabling it and installing the necessary additional X libs.

We also do not enable it by default so that we can more easily detect what breaks when not having X11 support - which is actually quite a lot :slight_smile:

Cheers
nicole

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Would enabling xwayland require recompiling? Or would it be more like changing a config option and maybe apt-get install <xwayland-support> or whatever the packages would be?\

I can handle changing options, installing software, etc.
Recompiling is not for the faint of heart and requires CPU time, RAM, storage, etc. If the phone is my only device, recompiling is absolutely not an option unless I rent a digital ocean computer or something.

Trying to summarize, @ondoho:

In theory, yes, you can install just about any package that is available for PureOS and/or Debian.
You should be able to use it like a “desktop replacement”, just as a Raspberry Pi with Raspbian (also ARM).
That has always be the intention, and that’s why the project page, when you actually scroll down to until “The Hardware”, is talking about “Enabling the path for a true convergence device”.
The picture there should already tell you, that OF COURSE you can do gimp and whatever - and yes, possibly UX will be horrible for Gimp unless you attach (at least) a mouse and (maybe) a screen…

In theory… but of course there may be obstacles… theory also says that most applications need little to no changes for Wayland, because that is mostly handled by the toolkit (Gtk, Qt).

So, maybe you could say, the more popular a given application is, the more likely it is to work from day one, or soon after…

@nicole.faerber - thanks for the reply.
I would like to ask the very same questions as blendergeek:

Would enabling xwayland require recompiling? Or would it be more like changing a config option and maybe apt-get install or whatever the packages would be?

I can handle changing options, installing software, etc.
Recompiling is not for the faint of heart and requires CPU time, RAM, storage, etc. If the phone is my only device, recompiling is absolutely not an option unless I rent a digital ocean computer or something.

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No, as far as I can tell right now it will not require recompiling, just (re-)enabling it in the config.
It will though require installing additional X packages then too, since we try to avoid having to ship them.

Cheers
nicole

2 Likes

thank you again, i appreciate the effort.
so, as far as i can see it will be possible to run X applications not optimised for smartphone use, without compromising the smartphone optimisation (apart from faster battery drain if i remember correctly).

it would be really great to get some definite confirmation beyond “as far as I can tell right now”!

Well, then probably let me elaborate a bit more on that.

We are currently still in the process of creating a compositor and shell for the Librem5. We are working very closely together with the upstream GNOME teams as well as Wayland and wlroots and rootston teams. For now we do not introduce anything that would prevent the X compatibility and I do not see that happening. But X11 compatibility is not a priority for us, sorry. So as long as we can maintain it with little effort we will keep it but if at some point it would turn out to cause major effort to maintain we are likely to drop it. But as I said before I currently do not see a need to do so.

X applications will though likely suffer from several problems, like issues with input management (like virtual keyboard), not being usable on the phone screen etc. Most toolkits these days (like GTK+ or Qt) have proper Wayland support and should not need X11 support anymore. So most (not all of course) applications using proper toolkits should just work. But also this is something we all need to learn over time. We now focus on the key apps for the phone and make these work as good as we can and then we will evolve into more sophisticated convergence topics, like e.g. using second screen with applications like LibreOffice etc.
There is a long road ahead of us! And we @ Purism are super excited that so many people have embarked with us on this amazing journey :slight_smile:

Cheers
nicole

2 Likes

thank you for your explanations.

this was my first thought, too.
but then i tested the current PureOS (for PC) in a virtual machine and noticed that it runs a Xorg sesion, not wayland!
I would have liked to switch to wayland to see where that gets me, but there does not seem to be an easy way to do this.
so i have no way of testing PureOS in a wayland session. I’d like to try that.

Oh, that’s weird since PureOS default is Wayland for more than a year now. Maybe this has to do with the VM? Wayland needs proper GPU/DRM support which PureOS running inside the VM probably can not get access to.

You can try PureOS without installation on a regular PC with Intel graphics by downloading one of the live images, put it on a USB stick and just boot into the live system. It will not modify your setup in any way.

Cheers
nicole

1 Like

hello. progress >> https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-16/

Just to let everybody know, Gimp seems to work on the QEMU image currently being distributed by Purism. The interface is horrible and you would need an external monitor to make it useful, but it still seems like it could be used.