Quick Look: Pinephone Manjaro Plasma Mobile

I installed Manjaro with Plasma Mobile on my PinePhone. In this video I take a look at that setup.

Videos:

See the video for the long story, but here are some extra quick notes comparing Plasma Mobile (Manjaro Arm on PinePhone) and Phosh (PureOS on Librem 5):

  • Plasma Mobile has the same stupid conflation of screen unlock PIN and Linux user password, forcing passwords to be numeric and therefore insecure.
  • This version of Plasma Mobile has a full-screen loading indicator while apps are launching, at least indicating that the device is doing something in response to tapping an app icon.
  • Both work in phone mode.
  • Phosh is nicer in convergence mode; Plasma hides the phone controls without providing desktop controls.
  • At least the preinstalled KDE apps handle the mobile form factor fine, although left/right side swipes would take some getting used to.