Updating to gnome calls 46

Hardware Librem 5
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Hello, I am trying to make SIP calls with gnome calls on the Librem 5, it does work, however the sip account frequently disconnects from the server. It also sometimes has difficulty connecting too the server to the point of making it more or less unusable (unless perhaps I am expecting a call) as I cant always predict when calls are coming in and I cant baby-sit it.

It seems to be able to hold a stable connection for about 30 minutes, I am afraid that this is such a big use case that may need to switch to another operating system if I can not resolve the issue.

The Librem 5 seems to ship with gnome calls 45.alpha.0, I have noticed however, on my desktop that gnome calls 46 is rock solid, and maintains its connections, its even good at reconnecting after a disturbance (such as moving out of range of a wifi network).

So I would really like to update to gnome calls 46 and I have gone through significant trouble trying doing this.

First I tried getting gnome calls 46 from flathub, it did download and install, however whenever I tried to launch gnome calls it always launched the 45.alpha.0 version. So I tried to uninstall gnome calls however I got a warning that the “essential” packages: librem5-phone, librem5-gnome-phone, and librem5-gnome would be removed with a prompt that said removing them could be harmful and to type “Yes, do as I say!” if I actually wanted to remove them. Those packages seemed important, I took the hint and chose not to uninstall.

So I tried to update to crimson, which didn’t go well but I eventually did get crimson on my device, after all that, same version of gnome calls :sob: .

I went back to byzantium and I tried to use byzantium-updates-proposed but it made no difference. So Im not really sure what to do, it might be kinda a deal breaker for pureos if I cant make it work.

Also I am wondering if it did work with 46, if I would have the same issue, I cant help but wonder the issue has to do with the integration between those essential packages (librem5-phone, librem5-gnome-phone, and librem5-gnome) and gnome calls?

Does anyone A: know how to update gnome-calls or B: know if doing so would not solve (or would be unlikely to solve) the problem C: if B, then what might I be able to do?

Thank you for your time

Also, is there another gnu/linux mobile OS which might have a package that fits my needs (and works on/has been tested/officially supports on the librem 5 particularly the hks’s)?

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Mobian typically has more recent packages, but the user experience on the Librem 5 will be different as a result.

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Thank you. May I ask about how different, if sip calls, text, internet, disk encryption, and hks’s work and generally it about is privacy friendly and secure as pureos it sounds good. Looks like its phosh based?

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Mobian uses Phosh and is generally as privacy-friendly and secure as PureOS. As a reminder, PureOS is a Debian-derivative.

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Looks like stable mobian has 45.alpha.0 according to that post, a look at debians archives shows that trixie has 46. I am curious if I could add mobian’s repo to my sources.list and pin gnome calls from there? I wonder if I would inherit the issues with the cell modem (not sure what is in the librem5-phone package or the others and if they would be updated)

EDIT:

Postmarket OS may also have it, I got this link from the wiki under gnome calls

Also: might plasma-dialer work on the L5?

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Sure you can. Here are instructions for installing Plasma Mobile on the Librem 5, along with a related thread’s post for plasma-dialer:

Install Plasma Mobile

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Thank you, not sure I want to go all in on the plasma investment, really just may want to try that one app.
The instructions look to be official though, is it officially supported?

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It happen with WLAN or MODEM data? Is S2R enabled? Have you tried to compile Calls v46 source code for Byz?

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The instructions are official, however they refer to the development board and are likely outdated as a result. I suggest referring to the postmarketOS Wiki instead:

Purism Librem5 (purism-librem5) - postmarketOS Wiki

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WLAN. I dont know what S2R is, and I am not sure I have seen a setting for it. I have not tried compiling it, that might be an option.

Im not sure if purism has made modifications, think there is a way to update to 46 from purism’s repo (they seem to have a lot of forks, this is the one for the L5 deb package and a fork)?

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Ty. PM OS might be the way to go in general :thinking:

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You can game with PMOS via SDcard however i not recommend pm.o.s.

Suspend to Ram.

I may test compiling for you tomorrow. However knowing how Evil Gnome is, i doubt it is compatible with Byz.

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Purism already donated Calls for Gnome : ( so Purism is no longer responsible for development or control.

Gnome it is not Good anymore they are so obsessed with Flatpak and Fedora Business.

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May I ask specifics?

It seems it is, how might it make a difference? I checked on my PC as well (where I think it may work through suspend) it has the same setting.

My thanks! I might give it a go as well, but I dont know if I can do tommorrow.

By “evil” do you mean difficult to compile? Do you think there is a better chance if we try to adopt modifications from purism’s forks?

They seem to still fork and make modifications (at least to packaging) for it though. That is why I wonder if there might be a way to apply purism’s down stream changes to a new version (46) of calls.

Does this make create a technical obstacle for building?

Though it would be a shame if we went through all this effort and the issue resided with one of these packages: librem5-phone, librem5-gnome-phone, and librem5-gnome I wonder if there may be a way to easily eliminate them as a cause?

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How were you launching the calls app? If it was the GUI app drawer then the icon shortcut may be set to open the older version.

You could try launching the flatpak version from the terminal and test how well it works. The terminal command is flatpak run org.gnome.Calls

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Tried it via the terminal, it launched the older version. I have wondered if there is a way to set priority or specify a version (or repo i.e flathub), also perhapse select which version to run at boot

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Here is Flatpak’s command reference for run:

Try using this command:

flatpak run -u org.gnome.Calls
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We need to tackle other bug before upgrading to Calls v46. Please keep Calm until tomorrow to tried fix ur issue.

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Okay, so I tried that it needs the full --user however, it didnt work, Im not sure but I think it was under the system installation (dont know if it made a difference), BUT I did a user install and … no difference, BUT THEN I found the calls process and killed it THEN I started with --user and it launched version 46!!! Then I tried it without --user and it worked again!

One interesting observation is, the command before would exit immediatly after v45.alpha.0 would launch, but now it waits, I have to ctrl+C it (or the app has to stop) before I can type in my terminal again, which means maybe some sort of “intent” was being sent somewhere to launch and stopped the launch.

I don’t want to get too excited. There still may be issues, I haven’t tested it at all, I’m unsure in particular if integration is going to work or how it will handle calls

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Will remain calm :+1:

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