Notes on running PostmarketOS on a OnePlus 6

I am experimenting with postmarketOS on a OnePlus 6.

This is not my first foray into a Linux-mobile device; I have previously used postmarketOS on an old Samsung tablet, as well as Mobian, and the version of Debian that one could install onto the Planet range of PDAs. And, of course, many years ago, a Sharp Zaurus.

Even though I am currently a pretty happy user of GrapheneOS, I’m keen to explore options which are further removed from Google.

tl;dr: to make this work for me, I am going to need to make a lot of compromises. I am not sure if I am willing to do that or not. But I am enjoying the experiment.

These are mainly some working notes.

Installation

I wrote up installing postmarketOS with full disk encryption.

Wiki

The postmarketOS wiki is useful.

I am avoiding Waydroid

I am avoiding Waydroid. Since one of the goals of this experiment is to see about move away from Android, using Waydroid seemed like cheating.

I might play with it at some point but, for now, I am not looking at Android applications via Waydroid.

I’ve focussed on the browser, rather than apps

As part of my preparation for this experiment, I looked at what apps I actually needed, and what services I could use via the web browser instead.

Surprisingly, most of the parking apps that I use seem to work fine in a browser. I am not 100% sure of this - I haven’t tried them all yet - but then most of the car parks I use on a regular basis still have payment machines anyway.

Banking websites generally suck, but none of my banks require - as far as I can tell - an app, as long as I’m willing to log in to the website using a card reader. I have not yet uninstalled the banking apps from my other phone, so I don’t know what will happen when a payment requires verification.

Home Assistant works fine in the browser, but it does mean that my device location is not available (since this requires the app). So Sandra cannot tell where my phone is (and thus, most likely, where I am), which is a bit of a pain.

I can control music around the house using the Lyrion Media Server’s web interface. Easy.

I haven’t used shopping-related apps for ages, so no change here. I just use the websites.

(Mostly) working bits

VPN / WireGuard

Wi-Fi works fine.

I generated a WireGuard config on one of my WireGuard servers, and imported the resulting text file on the OP6. It worked, as expected.

To make it connect automatically, I used:

nmcli connection show

to identify the WireGuard tunnel, and then

nmcli connection modify [NameOfTunnel] connection.autoconnect yes

to connect automatically.

It connects automatically following a device reboot.

Bluetooth

My Bluetooth headphones, and a Bluetooth keyboard, paired, connected, and work.

Email

Geary works fine, although it doesn’t appear to support GPG/PGP, which is a shame.

Nextcloud (CalDAV/CardDAV)

Using GNOME’s “Online Accounts” functionality, I could connect to my Nextcloud instance, for contacts and calendar.

Cellular / phone stuff

This worked more easily than I was expecting.

I bought a SIM, on the Three network (UK), put it in, and restarted the phone.

It detected the SIM card automatically on reboot.

SMS arrived immediately. Lots of them.

I enabled mobile data from within GNOME settings (just as I do on my laptop, to control the internal modem) and it Just Worked. Traffic gets routed over the WireGuard tunnel.

I can make a phone call, and I can receive a phone call, when the phone is unlocked or not. However, the stack is not particular stable: sometimes I can make and receive calls, and sometimes I cannot.

There appears to be a fun bug, for me to investigate:

• I receive a call on the OP6
• I answer the call while the OP6 is locked
• I hang up the call on the OP6 or the other end hangs up the call
• I unlock the OP6
• it calls the number which had just called me :)

Bitwarden

Bitwarden is in my “sort of working” list.

It works, as a Firefox add-on.

I’d like to have a “desktop” way of accessing it, and I have yet to work that out.

Things which I’ve yet to get working enough

Camera

The cameras both work, after a fashion, but not if you want high quality images or video.

I bought a small compact camera on eBay a while back, in the expectation that this was going to be a problem. It is nowhere near as convenient, of course.

Navigation

When I cycle or drive somewhere new, I tend to use my phone for navigation.

Using the Maps application, I can plan a route, but I don’t get navigation instructions.

This is a bit of a pain, and I don’t have a good alternative.

XMPP with audio/video and notifications

The default SMS/XMPP/Matrix application, Chats, supports XMPP, but I cannot log in to my XMPP server (Snikket) using it. I have not dug into why this is the case, as I don’t think that I’ve got anything strange set up.

Dino does work for messaging and file tranfer, and doesn’t look too bad on the smaller phone screen.

But, for some undiagnosed reason, I don’t get notifications for incoming messages, and audio/video does not work, as calls fail to establish. Other people say that audio works for them, so I am not sure why it is not working for me. I need to look into this.

Signal

I have not found a good option for this. Possibly some kind of Signal/XMPP bridge.

Fingerprint reader

I was not expecting this to work.

It is a bit of a pain typing in a passphrase each time to use my phone, but oh well.