Xiaomi on Ivon's Blog

Debian for Phones: Installing Mobian on the Xiaomi Pocophone F1

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 18:00:00 +0800

What is Mobian? It is a phone Linux system based on Debian, developed from the Debian Testing branch, which means Debian 12 Bookworm.

Mobian was originally developed only for Pine64 devices. Later, it added support for several Android phones: OnePlus 6T, Xiaomi Pocophone F1, Xiaomi Mix 2S, Fairphone 4, and SHIFT 6mq. I think this has something to do with the development of postmarketOS.

My phone is a Xiaomi Poco F1. As of April 2023, most hardware functions work normally under Mobian, but the camera and OTG still do not work.

Hands-on video:

1. Installation Process
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Flashing Mobian will overwrite the Android system. To restore Android, use MiFlash.

First confirm that the Pocophone F1 bootloader is unlocked.

Power off the phone, then hold Power and Volume Down at the same time to enter fastboot.
From Mobian Weekly builds, download the flashing file (.tar.gz) for phones with the s845 processor. Extract it. It contains boot.img for booting and rootfs.img for the system. Open a terminal in that directory.
Use Fastboot to flash boot.img to the boot partition and the system partition. This Xiaomi phone also has displays made by Tianma and EBBG. Mine is Tianma, so I chose the tianma boot.img.

fastboot flash boot mobian-sdm845-phosh-20230402.boot-beryllium-tianma.img
fastboot flash system mobian-sdm845-phosh-20230402.boot-beryllium-tianma.img

Next, flash rootfs.img to the userdata partition.

fastboot -S 100M flash userdata mobian-sdm845-phosh-20230402.rootfs.img

Erase dtbo.

fastboot erase dtbo

Reboot.

fastboot reboot

2. Mobian Interface and Usage Tips
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The default account is mobian, and the password is 1234.

The default interface is Phosh (based on Gnome), and the display protocol is Wayland.

The basic gesture is to tap the bottom of the screen to enter multitasking.
Tap the top of the screen to open the status bar. Landscape mode has to be toggled manually.
You can switch the interface to Chinese in Settings, but most Linux phone apps are not translated, and there is no Chinese touch keyboard.
Open the terminal (King Cross) and use APT commands to update packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y

Mobian’s software sources are the Debian bookworm repositories, and Gnome Software supports installing packages directly from the repository.

After installing Flatpak, the software store can also download apps from Flathub.

sudo apt install flatpak
sudo apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak
flatpak remote-add --user --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

If you want to find other software made for Linux phones, check the Mobian, postmarketOS, and Plasma Mobile wikis. They have plenty of app lists.

Mobian is a Debian derivative, so there are also third-party repositories you can add to install tools made for Linux phones. Be careful, though: they can also make the phone fail to boot. Fun hobby.

3. Install Waydroid to Run Android Apps
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Mobian is based on Debian Testing. Use this command to add Waydroid’s upstream bookworm repository and install it:

sudo apt install curl ca-certificates -y
curl https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash -s bookworm
sudo apt install waydroid -y
sudo systemctl enable waydroid-container
sudo systemctl start waydroid-container

Then refer to Waydroid + postmarketOS Tutorial.

4. Play Steam Games
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Create a chroot environment, compile Box86 + Wine, and run Windows programs. Detailed process: Play Steam Games with Box86

But the Phosh desktop environment is not suitable for desktop apps, because Phosh treats every window as an app. It is better to install the GNOME desktop environment separately.

First Look at Ubuntu Touch: Redmi Note 5 + Android Dual Boot

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 18:00:00 +0800

Ubuntu Touch aims to bring Linux to phones as a mobile operating system.

After Canonical abandoned Ubuntu Touch, the Ubports community took over maintenance. Around 20 devices are officially supported, and they provide a one-click installer.

This Redmi Note 5 is not officially supported. It uses technology from the Halium Project, can coexist with Android, and can even install an Android emulator.

Redmi Note 5 + Ubuntu touch test items:

WIFI
Bluetooth
4G network
Flashlight
Screen rotation
GPS
Vibration
Camera
Audio
Fingerprint

1. Required Tools
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Phone: Redmi Note 5 (whyred), MIUI 11

Recovery: TWRP 3.5.2.

ROM & halium-boot.img: choose one to download. Each has its own bugs, and none of them pass every test item.

The version on Github has weird camera and timezone behavior: https://github.com/Linux-On-Sdm6Series/Linux_manifest/releases

The version built by parasparihar0 on the Ubports forum has no audio: https://forums.ubports.com/topic/5128/redmi-note-5-pro-whyred

2. Installation Steps
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Android seems to have partition encryption issues that prevent Ubuntu Touch from booting. If you run into that, you can only format the data partition and then install Ubuntu Touch.

Enter TWRP Recovery and back up the boot partition.
Flash halium-boot.img to the boot partition.
Flash the Ubuntu Touch system. It will be installed to the /data partition.
Boot into the Ubuntu Touch system.
After setting the language and region during first boot, enter the desktop. There will be a basic usage tutorial.
The default login account is phablet, and the password is also phablet.
To boot back into Android, just restore the original boot.img. Github also has a zip file for completely uninstalling Ubuntu Touch.

3. Applications
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Controls: swipe inward from the right to enter multitasking mode, and swipe inward from the left to open the launcher. Swipe down from the top-right corner to open the quick settings menu.

The Ubuntu Touch screenshot shortcut is pressing the volume up and volume down buttons at the same time.

Lock screen.

The camera can take photos normally, but occasionally crashes.

Opening the terminal always requires entering the password.

The built-in Morph browser is based on Chrome 77. It does not seem to have hardware acceleration, and it opens desktop websites by default.

Apps are downloaded from the OpenStore app store.

The Godot 3D app works normally, so I tested 3D performance (this phone uses the s636 processor).

There is also a UI Tweak Tool app, which can force the system into large-screen desktop mode.

In phone mode, normal Linux GUI apps cannot be opened. They have to be installed through a Libertine container.

4. Notes
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The biggest problem is that the firmware in these ROMs is unstable. Apps can start crashing as soon as they get updated.

Linux programs also have to run in a container, and there are not many native apps to use.

Maybe installing chroot on Android is more practical…

Redmi Note 5 postmarketOS Performance Notes

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 10:03:00 +0800

On December 5, 2021, I tried postmarketOS for the first time.

postmarketOS is based on Alpine Linux. It puts a real Linux system on an Android phone, similar to Ubuntu Touch. It is not chroot, not proot, and not Android. Just plain Linux.

Apps that opened during testing: GIMP, LibreOffice, Firefox.
Things that did not work: Wifi, audio, Bluetooth, 3D acceleration, screen rotation

This phone is not on the official recommended list. Its status is testing, which basically means it is half-dead on arrival. Just fixing hardware drivers is already enough work.

The installation flow is to build a flashable package on the computer, then flash it on the phone with TWRP.

1. Required Tools
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Phone: Redmi Note 5 (whyred), bootloader unlocked, Recovery is TWRP 3.5.2, all partitions wiped.
Computer: Ubuntu 20.04 with Python 3.7, Git, and Openssl installed.

2. Build the Flashable Package
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Install pmbootstrap on Linux:

pip3 install --user pmbootstrap
source ~/.profile

Install shell completion:

sudo apt install python3-argcomplete

Add the following to the bash shell config file ~/.bashrc:

eval "$(register-python-argcomplete3 pmbootstrap)"

During installation, pmbootstrap downloads the latest version from Gitlab, including configuration files for many devices. Initialize pmbootstrap:

pmbootstrap init
Work path: Enter #Use the default work directory (/home/user/.local/var/pmbootstrap)
Channel: edge
Vendor: xiaomi
pmbootstrap install --android-recovery-zip
Device codename: whyred
Username: User
User Interface: xfce4

Build the flashable package. By default it installs to the phone’s system partition. If there is not enough space, you can use parameters to install to another partition; check the Wiki. During the build, it asks you to create a user password. Enter it twice, then press Enter.

pmbootstrap install --android-recovery-zip
#Shut down pmbootstrap
pmbootstrap shutdown

Connect the phone to the computer, boot into TWRP, and find the generated pmos-*.zip package in the work directory. Mine was here:

~/.local/var/pmbootstrap/chroot\_buildroot\_aarch64/var/lib/postmarketos-android-recovery-installer

Copy it to the phone, mount the system partition, and install it directly.
If the system partition cannot be mounted, format it as ext4 to repair the filesystem, then try again.
After installation, TWRP may show a “cannot mount system: resources are busy” warning. You can ignore it.
Reboot the phone.

3. Install Software
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The default buttons look tiny on the phone. Tap the top-left corner and go to Appearance -> Settings -> Window Scaling, then set the scale to the maximum.

When you tap an input field, the on-screen keyboard opens automatically. It feels a bit like using Termux.

At boot, WIFI cannot load the driver… so no WIFI. I followed the WIKI and shared the computer’s fiber connection to the phone over USB: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/USB_Internet

At least that gets it online.

postmarketOS uses apk as its package manager (unrelated to Android APK files). If the software you want is not available, you can only grab a deb file yourself and install it.

apk add firefox libreoffice gimp

The tested apps all opened… but hardware driver problems need to be solved before software problems are even worth discussing. Not practical yet.

Xiaomi on Ivon's Blog

Debian for Phones: Installing Mobian on the Xiaomi Pocophone F1

1. Installation Process
#

2. Mobian Interface and Usage Tips
#

3. Install Waydroid to Run Android Apps
#

4. Play Steam Games
#

Further Reading
#

First Look at Ubuntu Touch: Redmi Note 5 + Android Dual Boot

1. Required Tools
#

2. Installation Steps
#

3. Applications
#

4. Notes
#

Redmi Note 5 postmarketOS Performance Notes

1. Required Tools
#

2. Build the Flashable Package
#

3. Install Software
#

4. References
#

Xiaomi on Ivon's Blog

Debian for Phones: Installing Mobian on the Xiaomi Pocophone F1

1. Installation Process #

2. Mobian Interface and Usage Tips #

3. Install Waydroid to Run Android Apps #

4. Play Steam Games #

Further Reading #

First Look at Ubuntu Touch: Redmi Note 5 + Android Dual Boot

1. Required Tools #

2. Installation Steps #

3. Applications #

4. Notes #

Redmi Note 5 postmarketOS Performance Notes

1. Required Tools #

2. Build the Flashable Package #

3. Install Software #

4. References #

1. Installation Process
#

2. Mobian Interface and Usage Tips
#

3. Install Waydroid to Run Android Apps
#

4. Play Steam Games
#

Further Reading
#

1. Required Tools
#

2. Installation Steps
#

3. Applications
#

4. Notes
#

1. Required Tools
#

2. Build the Flashable Package
#

3. Install Software
#

4. References
#