DeltaChat running on mobian (PineTab, PinePhone)

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

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

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I had a look at your prototype, but as I am not a programmer, I donā€™t understand very much of it ā€¦

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

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Iā€™m also looking for away to get DC running on Mobian ā€“ that would be great! Iā€™m also looking for binaries, recipes to follow just donā€™t work when I put my skills to test, tooā€¦

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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 donā€™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.

Manjaro (arch-based) specific process:

Then finally, ./kdeltachat

Iā€™d try this on my pinephone + mobian but Iā€™m pretty sour on how fragile that distro is at the moment, got tired of reinstalling images for the time beingā€¦

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Any news on this?

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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 donā€™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 ā€œSettingsā€ page with the ability to toggle encryption and read receipts.

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Thanks for your work! I tried to build the flatpak but my PinePhone freezes with the flatpak-builder on ā€œBuilding [=======> ] 410/411ā€

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

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

I would try qemu path first though.

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

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I have posted an additional request for a native UBports DC Client. Hope the developers will listen to the growing amount of requests. :slight_smile:

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I donā€™t even know how much work it is to port/build it for the Pinephone. :man_shrugging: Hard to adjust expectations on that matter that wayā€¦

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For reference, thread about UBports is here:

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Ping. Any news :grimacing: , no?

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KDeltaChat is available as a Nix package, you can probably install it on https://mobile.nixos.org/

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Mobile NixOS is really only meant for advanced users that already know NixOS.
However, Nix (the package manager) can be installed on any Linux distribution (x86_64 as well as aarch64): NixOS - Getting Nix / NixOS. The script will tell you what to add to your ~/.bashrc or similar in order to set up your $PATH. After installing Nix, should be able to do nix-env -i kdeltachat-unstable and then run kdeltachat.
If that doesnā€™t work, feel free to ask me here or on Delta Chat.

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@dotlambda thanks for your description! I have DeltaChat running now on my PinePhone with mobian! It does not look like DeltaChat on my old Android, but as long as it makes chatting and emailing easier it is very welcome! I think I made a reboot before installing it, because it did not take over the $PATH? I will keep testing.

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It does not share any code with Android version except the core library.

Great if it works for you, but there are lots of things still missing. The most obvious part is that there are no notifications yet and no way to send an attachment.

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Notifications are not a problem for me, as on mobian I am used, that I donā€™t get notifications. The phone goes into sleep very soon and after that I only get notifications for calls and SMS. But also for SMS I think I have missed 99% of the notifications because of the type of sound or the volume. This is a very special point but I donā€™t know, if I will ever be notified for new emails on mobian ā€¦ there should be a way how normal applications can wake up the phone. I think only applications especially written for phones can do that?

Sending pictures would be very nice, I appreciate the function, that they are reduced in size and sent with the share function on Android. Another problem with pictures is the low quality of the PinePhone camera. But writing only messages is at least a good start.

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