DeltaChat running on mobian (PineTab, PinePhone)

[bokf]

Is there any way to run DeltaChat on mobian on the PinePhone or PineTab (arm64)?

[link2xt]

There is no client ready for use, but you can help testing and developing Kirigami-based client:

Native Client for Linux based mobile OS

I made a prototype of Kirigami-based client: https://git.sr.ht/~link2xt/kdeltachat It is not ready for day-to-day use, but testing on Pinephone and patches that make it work for you are very welcome. I have not set up an issue tracker or mailing list, but you can PM me here, ping me on freenode deltachat channel or send patches directly to the email listed in commit messages.

[bokf]

I had a look at your prototype, but as I am not a programmer, I don’t understand very much of it …

I thought more to get for example the AppImage run on the PineTab, as I have already the AppImage run on my debian desktop.

[mray]

I’m also looking for away to get DC running on Mobian – that would be great! I’m also looking for binaries, recipes to follow just don’t work when I put my skills to test, too…

[aarch64]

Another ARM64 / aarch64 user here who would love to be able to run DeltaChat (both on arch/manjaro and debian/armbian/mobian distros + aarch64 hardaware.)

Only slightly related: The appimage download pages don’t mention that the files are x86-64, from an end-user standpoint it would be nice to have -x86_64.AppImage or -aarch64.AppImage as a filename standard.

Extremely related: link2xt, thank you so much for your work. Going to be starting in on kdeltachat here shortly.

EDIT: kdeltachat will build and run on a Pinebook Pro > Linux - 5.9.6-1-MANJARO-ARM - aarch64

Last time I tried to build deltachat-core-rust it failed way harder than I could figure out (boiled down to an openssl issue if I remember correctly,) glad to see that initial blocking issue has been solved.

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Manjaro (arch-based) specific process:

• install rust via $ curl --proto ‘=https’ --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
• reboot for the env changes to take
• install missing deps via # pacman - S gcc make cmake git
• clone deltachat-core-rust via $ git clone https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core-rust.git
• clone kdeltachat via $ git clone https://git.sr.ht/~link2xt/kdeltachat
• $ cd kdeltachat
• $ mkdir build
• $ cd build
• $ cmake …
• $ make

Then finally, ./kdeltachat

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I’d try this on my pinephone + mobian but I’m pretty sour on how fragile that distro is at the moment, got tired of reinstalling images for the time being…

[mray]

Any news on this?

[link2xt]

I have created an unlisted repository for Flatpak builder scripts, you can use it to bulid and test KDeltaChat on Linux easily: ~link2xt/kdeltachat-flatpak - sourcehut git
You may need to update the commit hash (last line in chat.delta.kdeltachat.yml) with a pointer to the latest commit in ~link2xt/kdeltachat - sourcehut git, because I don’t do it on every update. Alternatively, build according to the README in KDeltaChat repository without Flatpak.

KDeltaChat is far from being ready to use, but I continue its development slowly. You can configure new accounts with basic settings now, chat avatars and the number of unnoticed messages are displayed in the chatlist and there is a working “Settings” page with the ability to toggle encryption and read receipts.

[bokf]

Thanks for your work! I tried to build the flatpak but my PinePhone freezes with the flatpak-builder on “Building [=======> ] 410/411”

[Simon]

I would try cross compiling, as the ram of the pinephone might fill up compiling the core in release mode.

[link2xt]

Looks like flatpak-builder has built-in qemu support for cross-compliation, worth a try indeed:

Freedesktop SDK cross compilers

Document how to cross-compile

Flatpak cross-compilation support: Epilogue

I would try qemu path first though.

[mray]

Any news on what to expect in far or near future? Without Signal or DeltaChat that phone is almost as useful as a paperweight