"But my friend runs a PinePhone as a daily driver"
lemmeee @ lemmeee @sh.itjust.works Posts 2Comments 185Joined 1 yr. ago
lemmeee @ lemmeee @sh.itjust.works
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Yeah, it's to isolate the modem and I think it's done the same way in Librem 5. Both phones also have a killswitch that lets you power off the modem. As far as I know other phones instead have the modem built into the SoC and there is some isolation too, but I don't really know how that works and I guess it's done by the chip's manufacturer (but I'm not sure).
Like the Librem 5, the PinePhone uses separate cellular baseband and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chips. Together with the hardware kill switches, this results in larger printed circuit boards (PCBs) and less energy efficiency compared to the mass-produced Android phone that has an integrated System on a Chip, such as the Snapdragon, Helio or Exynos. The PinePhone is thinner at 9.2 mm than the Librem 5 which is 15.5 mm thick because the PinePhone solders its wireless communication chips to the PCB whereas the Librem 5 places the cellular baseband and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth on two removable M.2 cards.[1][18][19]
Just to clarify, this is the keyboard addon that I was talking about. It has a built-in battery. It has a button on the side that lets you toggle the battery on and off. When I disable the battery and plug in a USB mouse, it will work, just as it does without the addon. But not with the battery enabled. So the extra battery must be interfering with the power to the USB port somehow. Surprisingly the result is the same even when plugging in a powered USB-C hub with the mouse plugged into it.
When I disable the battery, then plug in the mouse and then enable the battery again, the mouse will keep working.
I don't know much about the hardware, though. I'm even surprised that the modem has something to do with delivering power to devices.
Edit: I guess misunderstood some things. anx7688 seems to be a USB controller. The modem is separate from the SoC and is connected internally via USB. But maybe it's not a problem with the modem in this case, but with the controller.
Ah, that makes sense! I didn't realise that it was the modem. It runs proprietary firmware, which developers can't really replace.
Edit: I noticed this message when trying to plug in USB devices while the keyboard addon is attached. For some reason USB devices only work without the keyboard. But I couldn't find any mention of this other than some old bug that has already been fixed.
The modem does have issues with waking up from sleep and I sometimes have to restart it with a script. WiFi has a similar problem.
If a project is popular people will make changes to it every day. But you can look at the repo and judge for yourself.
This community is called linuxmemes. You are talking to GNU/Linux users here. For everyone else it's going to be hard, obviously. It takes time to learn to use a completely different operating system.