Using Sailfish OS on the FP2 - Experiences and Issues

[Ingo]

@ben

So I would be willing to contribute 10€ to a “crowdfunded” FP2 for @explit. If you are interested too, please send me a personal/direct message.

Count me in! Some more people are needed, though

[TobiasF]

@lkraav

Maybe it’s not worth it to work on FP2 anymore and just leave it to Android.

I think some users bought the FP2 because of Sailfish OS. Cancelling the adaptation of an official Sailfish OS will disappoint those users.

@frnk

So, since you are not interested in Sailfish OS on FP2 anymore, stop posting to this thread.

We don’t kick out users because they are not using a Fairphone. Maybe they have good reasons not to use a Fairphone.

And when they tell their experience with other devices, we can refine our goals and wishes for FP2 and future Fairphones.

[AnotherElk]

@tofra

Cancelling the adaptation of an official Sailfish OS will disappoint those users.

There seems to be nothing official going on anymore as far as I could find.
Sailfish OS on the Fairphone 2 is a community port, and Fairphone and Jolla had talks but didn’t reach an agreement.

Will Sailfish OS be officially supported on the FP2?

Truth is; I do not know more myself. There have been talks between Jolla and Fairphone, but I wasn’t there at the table. As all things, in the end it has to do with money; development costs time, time equals money and apparently Jolla and Fairphone did not reach agreement yet over who is going to pay what part of the bill. It is very hard for me to say when the people involved in these talks will come to a conclusion and what that conclusion will be. I ask regularly, but as the talks are ongo…

Will Sailfish OS be officially supported on the FP2?

Don’t forget that there is also documentation, support, legal issues, updates and commercial parts to this project. New docs need to be written, support staff needs to be trained, contracts with Jolla need to be made, EULAs have to be updated, future support needs to be sustainable (we cant release and then let it be) and then there is the question: how are we going to sell it? Will we need to change the shop and allow people to choose which OS they want when they buy? Will people be able to …

… and that was November 2016.

Honestly, I tried Sailfish OS on my Fairphone 2, and it was running very well and was a nice OS and all, but it really finally died as a future option for me personally the moment I found out Alien Dalvik - which isn’t even available with the community port - only would run Android Apps in a simulated Android 4.4 and no further (for understandable technical reasons though).

If I would have to look beyond my current LineageOS installation now, I would certainly look into the UBports (ex Ubuntu Touch) direction instead. But LineageOS is behaving too well for that at the moment .

[pa4wdh]

I think you’re describing my situation perfectly: I need a new (dual sim) phone, and i want Sailfish OS on it. I simply do not want google anywhere near all the personal data that’s on my phone so anything android based is a no-go.

My two options are:

• Fairphone 2, and i’m not buying the hardware before i know it will work. I guess this mostly depends on @mal’s availability to actually do the work.
• Wait for official support of a dual sim version of the Sony Experia X

[mal]

A small status update again, I have gotten everything working well enough for next release (alpha5, based on Sailfish OS 2.1.3.7) but I still need to hack around a small issue in the build system which for some reason didn’t update certain package patterns. So hopefully I get the release out very soon in coming days.
On other development news I did first tests using backported bluetooth subsystem which will make it possible to use bluez5 and will add support for Bluetooth LE. This won’t be included in the next release but hopefully very soon after that in alpha6 release, next official Sailfish OS release is already quite close so I will do bluetooth testing in the coming weeks and the make another release soon after Sailfish OS 2.1.4.x is released.
Maybe I should also start calling the releases beta already

[gabs]

Hello Mal,
many thanks for the testing version 2.1.3.7 .
Did this version need an andriod update?
And which part of the android package must be updated?
Before or after Saifish OS update?

Many thanks again for supporting Sailfish OS on Faiphone.

Gabriel

[mal]

Hi, the upcoming release will require updated Android 6 base, version 18.02 to be exact, but also it requites the same old modem partition (for the proximity sensor battery drain, and also for a bluetooth bug) as before with all previous release, everything else can be updated. I will write proper installation and update instructions for the release.

[pa4wdh]

Thanks for the update @mal. I"ll wait for a few experiences and hope to be able to order a fairphone soon.

[wolfgang_peer]

Hey @mal great work. That sounds really good. Would it be possible to publish a link to an installable image of fairphone? I tried ‘older’ v. 2.0 sailfish os image on top android 6 of my FP2 (i got it view weeks ago) but Sailfish OS alpha 2.0 something ended up in just a ‘Blue’ Screen. So sadly i had to go to LinageOS 14.1 which works not to bad (just some camera issues)
So if you have a image which you would share, it would be really great .

[mal]

I will share the image very soon, just one small camera issue left that I just found this week during final testing. Hopefully my fix will be merged tomorrow and I can make the release image. I don’t want to share an image with non-working secondary camera.

[wolfgang_peer]

i am not sure if this helps, with your camera issue, but i had a problem with the camera in Fairphone Opensource 18 as well as in LineageOS 14.1. Today i installed the update for LineageOS 14.1 (nightly build 28.2.) and now the camera seems to work fine .

[mal]

The camera issue I had was just in Sailfish side, one helper program I use in camera module detection and configuration updater script had a bug.

[axelito]

Hi @pa4wdh, I am in this with you - 2Sim-card would be perfect for me during travels abroad from Europe and the combination of a “fair” produced mobile and a G*****free OS is something I am looking towards since long. I am still on my Fairphone1 as the FP2 was not able to run Sailfish OS. Hopefully this changes now soon (Kudos to @mal!) because Sony would not be my first choice at all and shiftphone ist also not there yet… I will follow this thread and do hope for tests and experiences of you guys! Thanx

[ced117]

@pa4wdh @axelito I use the Fairphone 2 with SailfishOS as my daily driver. It’s a great piece of software, that’s for sure. If i can test something for you, just let me know

Thank you again @mal for all the work

[pa4wdh]

@ced117 thanks for your offer. My main interest is the combination of SailfishOS and the 2017 Fairphone2 model. Other than that, i’m curious about the dual-sim capabilities, i’m planning to use one SIM for outgoing calls and data, and a second (prepaid) SIM for incoming calls. Both SIMs need at least 3G connectivity.

[ced117]

@pa4wdh Oh, you are talking about the new screen. I dont know exactly if it’s supported already.
Regarding the dual-sim capabilities, i have no idea sadly, i only use one sim card, but i can try with another sim card if needed.

[BeMiGro]

@pa4wdh

Both SIMs need at least 3G connectivity

That won’t work. Only one sim can use 3G/4G, the other one is limited to 2G. This is a limitation of the SoC / modem, so neither Sailfish OS nor FP2 specific.

[ced117]

@BeMiGro Thanks for the info.

[pa4wdh]

@BeMiGro thanks for the info, that’s quite essential to me.
For some reason my prepaid SIM is limited to 3G only, the other one can use 2G/3G/4G, but switching that one to 2G would make data very slow …

Edit: I just tested again because i couldn’t find any information on prepaid and the 3G limitation. Now it works \o/. I guess maybe my initial registration was allowed on 3G only (for security reasons), now i’m able to use it on 2G.