Revision as of 23:49, 10 November 2018

Why is Plasma Mobile not using Mer/Nemomobile?

Plasma Mobile is a software platform for mobile devices. It is not an operating system in of itself, it consists of Qt5, the KDE Frameworks, Plasma and various software that's part of the application set. Plasma Mobile can work on top of the Mer distribution, but due to a lack of time and resources, we're currently focusing on Halium as a base for testing and development.

Can Android apps work on Plasma Mobile?

In the future, potentially, but currently no. There are projects like Anbox which are seeking to have Android apps run on the Linux desktop without any performance loss, and with full integration. This could be leveraged in the future to have Android apps running on top of a GNU/Linux system with the Plasma Mobile platform, but it's a complicated task, and it's not a priority right now.

Can I run Plasma Mobile on my mobile device?

Currently, Plasma Mobile runs on the following device types:

(Recommended) Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X: We offer official installation scripts for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X. The images are built on top of Halium and KDE Neon (16.04 in the latest stable rootfs, 18.04 in the latest "edge" rootfs). You can find more information here

Desktop PCs and Laptops: If you want to try out Plasma Mobile on a regular machine, the x86_64 Neon-based Plasma Mobile image is for you. Keep in mind that it has not been updated since March 2018, and is still based on Ubuntu 16.04, meaning that newer hardware may have issues due to the older drivers. It cannot be installed, but you can test it from the live environment on any hardware that supports Wayland. This image is not representative of the current state of Plasma Mobile, and has many issues.

Devices ported to postmarketOS: if your device has been ported to postmarketOS, follow the instructions to install postmarketOS on your device. Plasma Mobile is available as an interface, but your mileage may vary due to the early state of postmarketOS.

if your device is not listed here and you want to port your device to Plasma Mobile, you can follow the Halium porting guide which contains steps for installing the Plasma Mobile rootfs onto your finished device.

What are requirements of device for porting Plasma Mobile?

For Android based devices (ARM and x86) a Halium port is required:
- Device tree & Kernel source
- Kernel version must be 3.1.0 or later
- Devices with MediaTek chipsets are not recommended
- 16 GiB of storage is recommended, but 8 GiB could also work
- 1 GiB of RAM is needed
Intel or AMD based devices (with open source firmware) just can use the x86 ISO

I've installed Plasma Mobile, what is the login password?

If you've installed it onto your Nexus 5/5X via the installation script, the password should be "1234", and you can then change it afterwards by running "passwd" in Konsole.

If you're using the (much older) x86 image, no password is set by default, and you'll have to set it by running "passwd" in Konsole before you can authenticate for anything.

What's the state of the project?

Plasma Mobile is currently under heavy development, but for more information, check out this page on the wiki which is kept up-to-date with the current project status

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 = Why is Plasma Mobile not using Mer/Nemomobile? =
-Plasma Mobile is software platform for mobile devices, this however doesn't include the operating system but Qt5, KDE Frameworks, Plasma and Various applications. Plasma Mobile can work on mer distribution. But since we don't have expertise and resources for packaging for Mer, that is not our main focus.
+Plasma Mobile is a software platform for mobile devices. It is not an operating system in of itself, it consists of Qt5, the KDE Frameworks, Plasma and various software that's part of the application set. Plasma Mobile can work on top of the Mer distribution, but due to a lack of time and resources, we're currently focusing on Halium as a base for testing and development.
 = Can Android apps work on Plasma Mobile? =
-Currently it is not possible. Hoewever, there is shashlik project which makes it possible to run android apps in Normal Linux environment, please check it out : [https://phabricator.kde.org/T4991 http://www.shashlik.io/]
+In the future, potentially, but currently no. There are projects like [https://anbox.io/ Anbox] which are seeking to have Android apps run on the Linux desktop without any performance loss, and with full integration. This could be leveraged in the future to have Android apps running on top of a GNU/Linux system with the Plasma Mobile platform, but it's a complicated task, and it's not a priority right now.
 = Can I run Plasma Mobile on my mobile device? =
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 Currently, Plasma Mobile runs on the following device types:
-* x86 based devices: if you own an x86 based device, [https://www.plasma-mobile.org/get/ Desktop Neon based ISO] image is for you.
+* '''''(Recommended) Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X:''''' We offer official installation scripts for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X. The images are built on top of Halium and KDE Neon (16.04 in the latest stable rootfs, 18.04 in the latest "edge" rootfs). [https://www.plasma-mobile.org/neon-arch-reference-rootfs/ You can find more information here]
-* devices ported to postmarketOS: if your device has been [https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices ported] to postmarketOS, follow the [https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Installation_guide instructions] to install postmarketOS on your device.
-* devices where Halium can run: if your device [https://github.com/halium/projectmanagement/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3APorts can run Halium], get the [https://www.plasma-mobile.org/get/ Neon-based rootfs] that the Plasma Mobile team provides and follow the relative [http://docs.halium.org/en/latest/ guide].
+* '''Desktop PCs and Laptops:''' If you want to try out Plasma Mobile on a regular machine, the [https://www.plasma-mobile.org/get/ x86_64 Neon-based Plasma Mobile] image is for you. Keep in mind that it has not been updated since March 2018, and is still based on Ubuntu 16.04, meaning that newer hardware may have issues due to the older drivers. It cannot be installed, but you can test it from the live environment on any hardware that supports Wayland. '''This image is not representative of the current state of Plasma Mobile, and has many issues.'''
-If a port is not available, you can help in porting Plasma Mobile to your device.
+* '''Devices ported to postmarketOS:''' if your device has been [https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices ported] to postmarketOS, follow the [https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Installation_guide instructions] to install postmarketOS on your device. Plasma Mobile is available as an interface, but your mileage may vary due to the early state of postmarketOS.
+if your device is not listed here and you want to port your device to Plasma Mobile, you can follow the [https://docs.halium.org/en/latest/ Halium porting guide] which contains steps for installing the Plasma Mobile rootfs onto your finished device.
 = What are requirements of device for porting Plasma Mobile? =
@@ Line 27: / Line 30: @@
 * Intel or AMD based devices (with open source firmware) just can use the x86 ISO
+= I've installed Plasma Mobile, what is the login password? =
-For Android porting you should have a look at the [http://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/first-steps.html Halium Porting Guide].
+If you've installed it onto your Nexus 5/5X via the installation script, the password should be "1234", and you can then change it afterwards by running "passwd" in Konsole.
-= I've installed Plasma Mobile, what is login password? =
-Default user in the Plasma Phone reference image is &quot;phablet&quot;, there is no password set by default for user, At startup however it shows login-screen neverth-less as current kscreenlocker have no way to detect if password is set. It will accept anything as password during startup. See [https://phabricator.kde.org/T4991 T4991 on phabricator].
-After logging in device, you can use konsole to set passwd for user.
+If you're using the (much older) x86 image, no password is set by default, and you'll have to set it by running "passwd" in Konsole before you can authenticate for anything.
-= What is status of project? =
+= What's the state of the project? =
-Plasma Mobile is currently under heavy development. For more information about the status of the project visit the [https://phabricator.kde.org/tag/plasma:_mobile/ Plasma Mobile board on phabricator].
+Plasma Mobile is currently under heavy development, but for more information, check out [https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Mobile/General this page on the wiki which is kept up-to-date with the current project status]