DeltaChat running on mobian (PineTab, PinePhone)

81

I’m using Mobian (which is really very functional now). Are you suggesting reporting the QT5 & killswitch incompatibility to QT? I think this may be a broader problem, since I have to boot with the camera deairgapped to see an image (even when not using Deltatouch).

I suspect my camera might also have some hardware damage.

Honestly, I think my chances of writing a productive report of this issue, given QT’s culture and my ignorance, are minimal. I agree that it needs doing, though, and I’ll try to do something useful once I have a clearer characterization of the issue.

82

If you’re ready to go, these are the steps:

Due to some internal changes, the .desktop file and the startup script that you have in /usr/ will not work anymore. It was a bad idea by me to instruct folks to put them in /usr/ anyway. If you want to be able to go back, you can rename them (otherwise just remove them, it’s solved differently now, see at the bottom of this post for details):

sudo mv /usr/share/applications/deltatouch.desktop /usr/share/applications/deltatouch.desktop--old

sudo mv /usr/local/bin/dt.sh /usr/local/bin/dt.sh--old

Then update the desktop database (do this in any case, whether you renamed or removed the two files above):

sudo update-desktop-database

Download the new installation script (which will take care of most steps currently listed in the wiki):

Also download the adapted click file:
https://codeberg.org/lk108/-/packages/generic/deltatouch/pr53/files/3163967

Assuming that you downloaded both files to the same directory and you are in this directory, make the script executable, and then call it with the downloaded click file as parameter (without sudo):

chmod u+x install-deltatouch.sh
./install-deltatouch.sh deltatouch.lotharketterer_1.16.4_arm64.click

Read the disclaimer :slight_smile: If you agree with it, then make sure to answer “n” to Enable camera? [Y/n], but “y” to everything else. It should work then.

The script will generate a .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/ and call update-desktop-dabase. Everything else is in ~/bin/deltatouch.

It’s fine to re-run the script as often as you like, but note that it is not suited for versions lower than 1.16.4. If you want to go back to an older version, you have to

  • remove the .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications rm ~/.local/share/applications/deltatouch.desktop
  • run (as user) update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications/
  • Put the two files in /usr/ back into place
  • Run sudo update-desktop-database
  • Run rm -rf ~/bin/deltatouch
  • and extract an older click file again: dpkg -x <path/to/click-package> ~/bin/deltatouch
83

Speedbump; when I ran the
./install-deltatouch.sh, I got the error:

./install-deltatouch.sh: 38: 
dpkg-architecture: not found

“dpkg-architecture” was not a command on my machine (Pinephone).

I had to run
sudo apt install dpkg-dev
to get it.

84

Works; it says “Camera unavailable”, for both server and contact scans. Putting that message in a box, maybe padded or color-filled, might make it matche the search image in the user’s head when they are looking for the camera image. Maybe even an icon of a camera in the box? But then it’s permanently off, so there’s little point.

I’m overthinking this. It works.

85

I see you now also have a .deb, let me know if you want me to test it.

86

Great!

Ok, I’ll adapt the script so it doesn’t use dpkg-architecture.

I agree that it would be better, but not sure when (and if) I’ll get to that.

Thanks for the offer. Right now, it’s in an early state and doesn’t work out of the box. I’ve disabled the package unit on the repo now so people don’t get wrong impressions.

87

Thank you! Good luck with it all.

Doing Debian development actually through a mobile interface seems like it would be slow, though I’m sure someone has done it. :slightly_smiling_face:

I don’t think message shape really matters. It’s only going to be seen by people who know that they disabled the camera because of the upstream problems of Mobian on their specific architecture. Confusion seems unlikely.

Perhaps a mobile with a camera killswitch ought to provide an error image when the camera is offline, to save coding it into every convergent app.