[Tinkerphones] GNOME on Smartphone
H. Nikolaus Schaller
hns at goldelico.com
Thu Oct 26 14:38:09 CEST 2017
Hi,
there is currently a lot of hype around running
Gnome on a smartphone which seems to need new
hardware to be possible.
This made me curious. Therefore I took a fresh µSD
card and did run on some Linux SBC with additional
card reader:
DEV=/dev/sdb ./makesd gta04 -v 20171013-stretch-9.1-armhf -r debian
Next, I patched in the latest 4.14-rc6 kernel. This
step might not be necessary since the 4.13.x installed
by makesd is equally good.
Then I booted the GTA04 with this µSD and after
setting up ethernet over usb (g_ether) so that
the GTA04 has access to the Internet I could do
apt-get update
apt-get install gnome-core
It did take a while (installed ca. 1.5 GB on the µSD)
but did not fail.
After rebooting the GTA04 (I needed a second attempt
for unknown reasons), I didn't see a Gnome desktop,
but at least some Gnome related processes are running:
...
root 2259 1 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/iio-sensor-proxy
root 2361 1 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/sshd -D
root 2371 1 0 17:17 ttyO2 00:00:00 /bin/login --
root 2387 1 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/gdm3
ntp 2396 1 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/ntpd -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g -u 105:109
root 2438 1 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 /lib/systemd/systemd --user
root 2440 2438 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 (sd-pam)
root 2444 2371 0 17:17 ttyO2 00:00:00 -bash
root 2450 1 0 17:17 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/upower/upowerd
root 2598 2 0 17:18 ? 00:00:00 [kworker/u2:3]
root 2931 2387 3 17:19 ? 00:00:00 gdm-session-worker [pam/gdm-launch-environment]
Debian-+ 2941 1 8 17:19 ? 00:00:00 /lib/systemd/systemd --user
Debian-+ 2942 2941 0 17:19 ? 00:00:00 (sd-pam)
Debian-+ 2946 2931 1 17:19 tty1 00:00:00 /usr/lib/gdm3/gdm-wayland-session gnome-session --autostart /usr/share/gdm/greeter/autostart
Debian-+ 2948 2941 2 17:19 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/dbus-daemon --session --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile --systemd-activation
Debian-+ 2950 2946 8 17:19 tty1 00:00:00 /usr/lib/gnome-session/gnome-session-binary --autostart /usr/share/gdm/greeter/autostart
Debian-+ 2958 2950 99 17:19 tty1 00:00:03 /usr/bin/gnome-shell
root 2963 2444 0 17:19 ttyO2 00:00:00 ps -ef
root at letux:~#
These processes seem to fail after a while and new
ones are respawned (process ID becomes higher).
Maybe this is just a setup issue (missing definition
which display should be used or something alike).
If someone has an idea and is experienced in debugging
Wayland, gnome and systemd, please try and let us know.
Then we can fix the installation and make pictures...
If I had a compatible PAL or NTSC monitor, I could even
try to connect a keyboard in USB mode and have "a full
desktop on the smartphone" without waiting another year.
And if we ever build a Pyra-Phone, this same exercise will
run there (we just have to choose a different MLO & U-Boot
in the makesd command). And we would get HDMI output for
the monitor.
BR,
Nikolaus
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