3 ms·

What drivers are buggy in particluar? Not sure what you mean about 4G modem/GPS - neither does really have a driver on Pinephone. It's just a normal USB modem

by megous 3y ago

What drivers are buggy in particluar? Not sure what you mean about 4G modem/GPS - neither does really have a driver on Pinephone. It's just a normal USB modem device you can also buy and use separately in a PC. GPS just sends some NMEA data over virtual serial port, there's nothing about it that can have a buggy driver. It works just like any other GPS device that can't get assistance data. It's slow to lock on and doesn't work inside.

not_your_vase 3y ago
Right, regarding the modem, saying the driver is buggy is inaccurate. The firmware is what unusable. I tried all available versions, including the closed source ones and biktor's many hacked versions too. The only difference is the time it takes to crash. Some versions just crash every 4 minutes. The best ones only crash anytime between 4 minutes and 6 hours. (It reboots automatically, which takes around 20s + PIN code + network registration..) One thing none of them does is to work reliably for any period of time. And of course, it gets too hot to touch, sometimes to the point when I rather literally remove the battery for a few minutes in fear of heat damage. I really wonder what was the rationale using the same modem in PPP also... Then we have the Wifi/BT driver, which actually works once one finds the binary blob required, but they can't be turned on/off independently. But this is the smallest bug. At least tethering works, as long as one turns off all power saving features (and as long the modem doesn't crash). On a personal level, I wonder if the camera drivers can be even made mainline compatible, with the "2 physical sensor with 1 sensor interface" solution, which kind of requires a custom tailored application also to work... I really find Pinephones a lot of fun, but only as a hacking playground. I take one of my Pinephones with me all the time, but I also keep a phone that I know I can rely on.
- megous 3y ago
  From the back: :) > "2 physical sensor with 1 sensor interface" This is no problem for media API. sun6i-csi driver for the sensor interface just forces the userspace to select only one sensor at a time. The API is made for this. All camera solutions on phone require custom tailored solutions to work. That's just a difference compared to dekstop USB webcam space. People try to abstract the details in a library (eg. libcamera) or just hardcode it in their app. API for ISP and all required data are just not introspectable, so it has to be hardcoded somewhere in userspace. That's the nature of mainline API. > WIFI/BT BT/Wifi should be controllable independently using software, no? Like on other phones. At least I never noticed any issues in this direction. > Modem crashes. Sounds terrible. Not sure what's that about. I've never experienced any modem crashes, but I don't have a typical setup. I don't use eg25-manager, but my own kernel driver to manage modem power and my own test software to control the modem over AT interface for SMS/calls. I also don't use mobile data. Maybe I should try to stress-test the modem a bit more. Thermal management is lacking, for sure. There are several heat sources in the phone, and there needs to be some software that actively throttles down parts of the phone based on total knowledge of phone activity, and not just simple localized decision-making based on current temperature of individual part. (User on call or using a lot of mobile data, throttle down the main SoC CPU heavily, disable charging or limit severely, etc.)

by megous 3y ago

not_your_vase 3y ago

Right, regarding the modem, saying the driver is buggy is inaccurate. The firmware is what unusable. I tried all available versions, including the closed source ones and biktor's many hacked versions too. The only difference is the time it takes to crash. Some versions just crash every 4 minutes. The best ones only crash anytime between 4 minutes and 6 hours. (It reboots automatically, which takes around 20s + PIN code + network registration..) One thing none of them does is to work reliably for any period of time. And of course, it gets too hot to touch, sometimes to the point when I rather literally remove the battery for a few minutes in fear of heat damage. I really wonder what was the rationale using the same modem in PPP also... Then we have the Wifi/BT driver, which actually works once one finds the binary blob required, but they can't be turned on/off independently. But this is the smallest bug. At least tethering works, as long as one turns off all power saving features (and as long the modem doesn't crash). On a personal level, I wonder if the camera drivers can be even made mainline compatible, with the "2 physical sensor with 1 sensor interface" solution, which kind of requires a custom tailored application also to work... I really find Pinephones a lot of fun, but only as a hacking playground. I take one of my Pinephones with me all the time, but I also keep a phone that I know I can rely on.

megous 3y ago
From the back: :) > "2 physical sensor with 1 sensor interface" This is no problem for media API. sun6i-csi driver for the sensor interface just forces the userspace to select only one sensor at a time. The API is made for this. All camera solutions on phone require custom tailored solutions to work. That's just a difference compared to dekstop USB webcam space. People try to abstract the details in a library (eg. libcamera) or just hardcode it in their app. API for ISP and all required data are just not introspectable, so it has to be hardcoded somewhere in userspace. That's the nature of mainline API. > WIFI/BT BT/Wifi should be controllable independently using software, no? Like on other phones. At least I never noticed any issues in this direction. > Modem crashes. Sounds terrible. Not sure what's that about. I've never experienced any modem crashes, but I don't have a typical setup. I don't use eg25-manager, but my own kernel driver to manage modem power and my own test software to control the modem over AT interface for SMS/calls. I also don't use mobile data. Maybe I should try to stress-test the modem a bit more. Thermal management is lacking, for sure. There are several heat sources in the phone, and there needs to be some software that actively throttles down parts of the phone based on total knowledge of phone activity, and not just simple localized decision-making based on current temperature of individual part. (User on call or using a lot of mobile data, throttle down the main SoC CPU heavily, disable charging or limit severely, etc.)