DeltaChat running on mobian (PineTab, PinePhone)

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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 don’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 way…

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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 doesn’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 don’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 don’t know, if I will ever be notified for new emails on mobian … 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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After feedback from @bokf I want to clarify my prior instructions for running KDeltaChat on arbitrary Linux distributions using Nix.

  • Install Nix as described here. That script will modify ~/.profile and print instructions for updating your $PATH in case you don’t want to log out and log in again.
  • Install KDeltaChat using nix-env -i kdeltachat-unstable. You should now have kdeltachat in your $PATH and hopefully in your launcher.
  • Keep it up to date using nix-env -u --always.
  • If /nix is taking up too much space (updating doesn’t remove old versions), run sudo nix-collect-garbage -d.
  • If you ever want to get rid of Nix (and KDeltaChat), just remove the directory /nix.

If KDeltaChat’s configuration options are not sufficient for you, I recommend importing a backup created with one of the official Delta Chat apps.

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Also report which options do you need the most, adding them to the Settings screen usually does not require much effort.

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I’d appreciate the option to configure email address, mail server, and username separately.

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I also think, that this is important, as for example for Strato accounts the email adress is different to the server adresses. The email adress is you personal domain name, but server adresses are for all the strato adresses the same.

Can somebody tell me what “Start IO” and “Maybe network” means? It appears, if I tap on the white space in the upper left corner. Yesterday I switched “Start IO” on, today it is off again and I haven’t received the new messages in DeltaChat (only in my mail program).

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“Advanced settings” are added now, but idk what it takes to update the Nix package.

“Start IO” enables network. You need to tap it each time after starting the app to go online :slight_smile: It should probably be inverted and renamed to “Work offline”.

With proper theming it looks like this:
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“Maybe network” tests if the connection is still alive. Android calls it whenever the app is moved from background to foreground.

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Thanks for the clarification. That would be better, standard should be connected. In my case even the field to press in the upper left corner is just white:
2021-07-05-110041_crop_300

2021-07-05-105818_crop_300

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What I also didn’t find out is how to start a new Chat. In the Android version I think there is a + in the lower right corner to start a new chat. This is missing here? Or I didn’t find it until now?

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Once all checkmarks on https://nixpk.gs/pr-tracker.html?pr=129301 are green, a nix-env -u --always will update it to a version that includes the advanced features.