Plasma Mobile

A mobile variant of the KDE Plasma user interface, optimized for touchscreen.

= Installation = Use the pre-built images from the downloads section of postmarketos.org, or build your own image with pmbootstrap. If using the latter, Plasma Mobile can be installed by selecting it as the UI in.

On existing systems, it can be installed by installing the  meta package or   if postmarketOS specific customization is not wanted.

When running  you'll be prompted for a user password. Make sure to only use numeric characters [0-9] in this password as the Plasma Mobile lock screen uses this password as a PIN. On an existing Plasma Mobile install you can change your user password and PIN in the Terminal with the standard  command.



= Usage =

First Boot
As with all other interfaces in postmarketOS, the first boot takes longer than usual: the file system will be resized to use the entire device.

After boot, you are asked for your PIN. For pre-built images, this is. If you flash a rootfs created with pmbootstrap, the "PIN" is the user password you provided during pmbootstrap install.

Connect to Wi-Fi
Swipe the top bar down to reveal a menu with a Wifi symbol. Tapping the symbol itself will turn Wifi on or off. To connect to a network the first time, tap the Wifi word below the symbol (the one with the small down arrow next to it). Now select an access point.

Wi-Fi kwallet bug for images before 2021-04-01
When connecting to an access point with a password, due to, you are required to set a kwallet password, and unfortunately the dialog is a bit awkward to navigate. Type in a password, then click the visibility button to show the password, and click OK to set it. You will be asked for this password after rebooting the phone and trying to connect to Wi-Fi again.

Images from 2021-04-01 onwards will have the kwallet bug fixed. If you have installed an image before, run the following commands over SSH after successfully connecting to Wi-Fi:

Install Updates
Go to the Home Screen (tap the bottom right X if you have an application open). Swipe from the bottom upwards to reveal the app menu and start Discover, KDE's graphical package manager frontend. When Discover asks for privileges, type in your user's PIN (e.g.  for pre-built images).

Swipe from the left to center to open Discover's menu, and select the entry with the up-arrow at the very bottom (it may say "Fetching updates" or the number of updates available). From here you can perform the updates. Depending on what has been updated, you need to reboot the device afterwards for changes to take effect.

Running Apps from SSH session
In order to run applications on the device, you need to set up your environment similar to the environment in which the plasmashell is running:

For the official KDE instructions on running Plasma Mobile, see https://develop.kde.org/docs/plasma-mobile/running-apps/.

Taking screenshots
In command line:

is from package.

Power Off and Reboot
Hold the power button for about three seconds, then let go. Do not hold it too long, or else you will force-reboot your device. You will be presented with the options to reboot, power off or cancel. plasma-phone#71 is about making this a bit more intuitive.

= Troubleshooting =

Scaling
On devices such as the Samsung_Galaxy_A5_2015_(samsung-a5ulte), Samsung_Galaxy_A3_2015_(samsung-a3), BQ Aquaris X5 (bq-paella) or Moto_G4_Play_(motorola-harpia), you may need to set a custom scaling factor.

The following sets a 2x scale factor:

If you're trying to run this from SSH session, you need to set extra env vars:

Log output
Logs are written to.

Logging isn't verbose
One needs to enable debug logging for certain components in. Without that, you barely see any log output. We ship such a qtlogging.ini file in  because Plasma Mobile is relatively new and we want to be able to debug it properly.

If the file did not get installed for you, please double check if it is there and report in.

KWin doesn't work
Please follow these instructions for debugging.

Some env vars that may help Angelfish browser
( source )

Software rendering
Plasma can also be used if your device doesn't support hardware acceleration (if it's a non-armhf device) yet by using software rendering. Please note that the interface will be slow, and it might not be usable for the average user.

Software rendering is not enabled automatically for now. Make sure  is installed (it contains swrast dri module).

Edit KWin wrapper startup script:

Comment out existing startplasma invocation command at the end of file and replace it with

Then restart tinydm

You can alternatively try this script to run e.g.  on X11

Starting Plasma Mobile from the Terminal
If  is installed, Plasma Mobile will be automatically launched via tinydm.

It can also be launched manually by running the following script:

Flickering in Mozilla Firefox
In case you experience flickering with the Mozilla Firefox web browser, it is because of a rendering bug in the browser, and can be mitigated by switching to the WebRenderer rendering backend by setting  to   in the browser's   window.