The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

So I got the dreaded crossed off no-SIM telephony disabled message today....
I guess I am all out of N900s.
My pinephone is not ready to be a daily driver under Mobian and Maemo-Leste is not ready for making phonecalls and SMSs.
I'll still be around.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

Hope maemo leste will rise soon to be fully operational and compatible with all devices. Why mobian is not a daily driver!! Is the calling function woking or not woking?

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

It(Pinephone 3/32gb running Mobian) works well enough for receiving and sending calls as well as SMSs.
Maybe I am wrong but it seems I will have to edit files to make contacts though maybe I can import vcards from the N900.
One major problem though is media playback, I think I can drain the 3150mA/h battery in 70-100min watching video on desktop VLC as the phosh media player is very limited in formats it will play.
Pretty much the app situation is very sparse and installing desktop apps is difficult as they dont ever format correctly with the minimum pixel count they are expecting. Things might get better when my pine-keyboard clamshell arrives but the touch interface is not great for desktop apps.
Really though beyond that I just want a battery effecient way to play audio-books, I need that perhaps more than a music player for long commutes; my other big thing, bluetooth PAN tethering should be easy to script because hooray! Linux!
But I realize that I already really miss Maemo vs the experimental and now enforced daily-driver use of Phosh.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

You are right, Nokia N900 and Maemo are pretty functional than Pine phone. Was considering to purchase one to test it, but your review will hold it until it becomes fully functional

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

Search on the web for repair method. Is way easy and will take no more than 15 minutes without soldering

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

Yea, I did think of doing the full reballing repair with my hot air reworker but I really need to start making the pine into my new daily driver, I still would like to fix it in the future though.

Also the app situation has improved and I have GPS working, one issue is current build has quit taking and making phone calls after using it for a few days and reboot doesn't fix it.
https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=apps
Apps are still pretty slow since it has a weak CPU but the experience with a bit of work is far better than even three months ago.
Re:my need fo audio book, cozy has been mretty well optomized; I dont like it as well as Panucci but it works well enough for now.

Maybe it is just a relief to be interacting over SSH/SCP with a real proper Linux system post Maemo/N900 after having done Microg for LineageOS installs for other people.

I still really want to see a working phone Maemo-Leste build for the pinephone soon.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

Reballing is the best option but no need for it. The simple pressure method still works fine. Mine is ok for more than 3 years

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

You mean the folded paper on top of the SIM for pressure trick?

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death
 

Yes. Worked for me on 3 devices and still running without issues

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

The paper trick on the SIM worked, still going to keep at making the Pinephone my primary.
The N900 is still a favored backup though.
The Pine might be alpha rough but getting back to being able to access the modern internet is pretty cool without needing to tether a tablet or laptop.
(edit)Sadly not so easy, now it goes from X-ed SIM to working, a few squeezes help, but no longer reliable. It will probably be a while until I can hot air reball the modem but is still good way to run Maebble to update my Pebble watch.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

A short update on everyday use of a pinephone after almost a month since my N900 stopped working.
For the most part it works nearly as well as my N900, and I am surprised a bit how much waiting for a fully UI optimized stable audio book app(Cozy) was holding up my adoption of the pinephone.
In some ways far better, I am getting used to being able to access my email and other websites again after many years of mostly useless web browser despite the many attempts by the community to restore function.
I miss the always dark appearance of most Maemo5 apps but that is not a minor issue.
I am currently trying to solve the way to get bluetooth access point working(PAN) as we have with the N900 I am stuck at getting Mobian to show the NAP/PAN UUID. This is in my opinion a must-have replacement for wifi hotspot which is implemented, I need PAN-internet access both for mobile work and on the train but especially during a power outage where WiFi uses too much power.
I love having whole disk encryption at bootup.
There is still no great solution to video playback though Kodi is nearly there with the Estouchy skin installed thouvh that skin seems to crash some streaming plugins; VLC's UI is not ready for the scaling, and the included Gnome Totem player has always had issues playing most video formats/codecs.
I have GPS and navigation working, there are several OSM apps which allow downloading local area for offline use, GPS device access still requires setup via CLI.
Battery life is way better than 6 months ago but still could see improvement especially when playing video.
The bluetooth audio on speakers, headphones, and cars seems to be working well for the most part, occasionally there is an error where I need to un-pair and re-pair as the phone tries to use it's internal speaker.
after nearly a decade using a N900 it is nice to be able to use standard CITA headphones without an adapter.
At this point I would call the pinephone 70% as functional as Ubuntu on a laptop or LineageOS with Microg on a phone/tablet.
The app repos (both deb and flatpak) are getting populated with the must have services.
I am still waiting for UI optimized crytpo wallets, secure IM services (Tox and Briar) either via libpurple or stand alone; remote hardware interaction such as Pebble watch support, heart rate monitor, and OBT car computer readers; better battery life, more reliable OS(no more in-my-pocket kernel panic shutdowns); maybe a manga reader and some way to spoof access to my Librarie's overdrive book and audiobook service; I will probably tink of more later.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

Hello there. I tried Maemo Leste on my Pinephone and looks great but no browser available and only few apps on it. What image did you use? Thanks

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

Much thanks for this detailed feedback, Great to read!
And about camera, phonecalls, SMS and MMS (with pics), how is the status?

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

Soon a PinePhone made picture for the competition? :D

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

No MMS yet everything else you ask about is good.
The camera is now working 100% the last few days since they got the QR reader working in-app. Strangely many apps cant access the camera and the mobile friendly apps mostly do nto have much in-app config and I have not found a good single location for documenting config file edits.
There are pretty much daily OS and app updates now.
I feel like the price means more people are willing to pay for a bring-your-own-OS device to do dev work.
(edit)
I will say that I wish Maemo-Leste were ready for everyday use on Pinephone. I love the familiarity it brings and I am better without systemd. I suppose the good news is with all FOSS drivers we can choose our preferred OS so there are at least 10 for Pinephone. With N900 we had Maemo5 or half working nitdroid with no modem, only now a 13 years later is Leste coming to the N900.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

Seriously though if anyone can help me with the Bluetooth Network Access Point PAN profile UUID I could use eyes on the problem.
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=16343
We have it working for years on the N900, I am not sure if it is automatic or had to be edited in somewhere when we did the CSSU or Kernel Power.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

^ Will take a look, but it's not my area of expertise.

Thanks for your long report.
Forgive my incredulity, but:
Phone calls & SMS have been notoriously tricky for all FOSS smartphone OS development, and you do not mention them at all in your report.
Now you say they're "good" - can you clarify? Good = 100% reliable as a daily and only mobile phone?

Also, how good is battery life exactly?
I get just about 2 days out of my SFOS device, with an old battery.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

It has a reasonable sound quality, still some backround noise but that might be fixed in software, calls work probably 99% of the time, reliable incoming wakeup works better than the N900, SMS in and out every time as far as I know. Good as in unremarkable, nothing bad to say. The biggest requirement is to occasional check that the phone didnt kernel-panic, reboot, and get stuck at the password prompt for full disc encryption; that is a problem when it is in a pocket vs on my desk where I will see the reboot.


MMS is in the pipe for Purism -> phosh -> and then forked on to the other OSs I suppose. https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=12456

Battery is probably only good for a day right now. I am the kind of person who did a double-Scud N900 battery and for non-linux users I recommend a Moto G7 power flashed with LineageOS and microG which seems to get 4-5 days. Work is being done on Mobian Pinephone battery life and it is a long way form the 3-4 hours possible years ago.

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

Thanks for clarifying a few points!
Still, I have to nag...
So, what are the 1% about then? What is happening there? You simply don't receive a phone call that you definitely know somebody made?

Re: The Dreaded SIM-X Death - forced everyday N900 to Pinephone/Mobian
 

The bad 1% is stuff like removing from pocket and finding that the phone has rebooted from a kernel panic and waiting for the disc password to boot or the audio is wonky maybe coming from the phone ear speaker especially when paired to bluetooth in a car.
FWIW I am running the unstable branch so I get the latest updates but it is more crashy. I have not really tried stable since I first got the phone but phone calling was probably nearer to 100% and I do not recall kernel panics but it did have terrible battery life.