Current Mobian releases do (not) work on FP4

Discuss The Products
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My FP4 arrived today.

I’ve installed the latest Mobian, then the Mobian from one month ago, then the oldest available Mobian (Feb this year).

None of them work.

The first two do not work in any way shape or form; the phone enters a reboot cycle, and there’s no sign of anything other than the unlocked bootloader warning, then ten seconds or so of nothing, then back to the unlocked bootloader warning.

The oldest available version, from Feb this year, does better; the phone gives a vibrate on reboot, and then does not enter into a reboot cycle, and the screen is active but blank (dark rather than white - black screen with backlight, I’d say).

If I plug my USB cable in, the laptop starts taking network connectivity from the phone.

However, that’s it. No UI, nothing. I waited about three hours like this, tried the volume keys (apparently they can be used to show the console, which should show progress on the file system resize, which happens on first boot), but nothing - blank screen.

It looks like Mobian, as of late July 2023, is not working on FP4.

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Just tried the 2023-04-16 build, behaves the same as the Feb build.

(BTW, this forum software is unbelievably annoying. The constant nagging/hints/guidance - all that, but then this minute area in which to actually compose text.)

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So Mobian OS? What makes you think it would work?

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Hi and welcome to the community, xeno!

I think you might be one of or maybe the first person to ask about Mobian here. Not sure if there’s anyone here who’s able to help you.

According to their wiki, the FP4 is in experimental support and several things are listed as “not working”.
https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=fp4

My guess is you’re better off contacting the Mobian people, see bottom of
https://wiki.debian.org/Mobian/

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So Mobian OS? What makes you think it would work?

Mobian Wiki indicates experimental support.

https://wiki.mobian.org/doku.php?id=devices

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Hi and welcome to the community, xeno!

Thankyou, Ingo.

I think you might be one of or maybe the first person to ask about Mobian here. Not sure if there’s anyone here who’s able to help you.

Yes.

According to their wiki, the FP4 is in experimental support and several things are listed as “not working”.
Mobian - Debian Wiki

Yes. I need none of that functionality, so that’s all okay. The only functionality not described is GPS.

My guess is you’re better off contacting the Mobian people, see bottom of
Mobian - Debian Wiki

Yes. Having a very slow-mo conversation in IRC with them now.

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I have installed /e/OS for now.

I’ll move to Mobian once it’s up and running.

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Did you get the impression that there’s actually anybody working on improving this for the Fairphone 4?
Their Wiki itself says they are building “generic image for SM7225 devices”. They can do this to infinity, possibly without any substantial change on the Fairphone 4.

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They can do this to infinity, possibly without any substantial change on the Fairphone 4.

The image files indicate in their name they are specifically for FP4, and FP4 is in fact the only SM7225 device supported.

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Ah, here, and the boot-fp4 image inside the tar.gz files, I see.
So there’s some hope, ok, should be interesting.

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In fact, Mobian does work. It just looks like it does not.

On booting, the phone vibrates once, and then comes to a black screen (the screen is active, but black). Mobian is active now, but it is not displaying anything.

To get to the Mobian login page, you must repeatedly press and release the power key - I think five times in all. Each time the screen will power up, then power down, remaining black, but in the end, the Mobian login screen will appear, and you can log in.

Note that Mobian really is experimental. As of 2023-08-10, it’s based on Trixie (“testing”, which will become Debian 13), not Bookworm, and last night, having installed system updates on the phone, the phone now cannot boot - it cannot get past the bootloader. Either updates cannot be used, or you must keep a backup image of your phone, so you can restore if this happens.

(I since reinstalled Mobian, and it upgraded without problems).

Finally, note, I could not find a viable map application for Mobian. “Mepo” was the least worst, but i couldn’t zoom in enough to read street names. Also, I think GPS does not yet work.

This sadly was a deal-breaker, so I’m on /e/OS for now.

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