Last Updated on June 12, 2022 by pg@petergamma.org

After we spent almost three weekw everyday some time until we managed to install LibreOffice on the PinePhone:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=16614

and we spent one week more everyday some time until we where able to have a remote desktop desktop connection via VNC to our PinePhone:

https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=16775

and after we did about a day of google search about HDMI adapters for the PinePhone, we are facing the following problems:

• the PinePhone keyboard works, but not the special characters
• we have often to pull out the battery since the phone stucks, and there is no other way to reboot it
• the Bluetooth mouse repeateatly dissconnects

• a PinePhone connected via VNC to a Windows PC:
• PC mouse works on both devices, keyboards unreliable on both devices
• then we had once more a closer look at Martijn Braams setup, where everything seem to work which does not work on our setup:

and we asked ourself, how Martijn managed to get to work his setup:

further questions:

When will the PinePhone USB-C dock Martijn used be available again in the Pine64 store?

https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-usb-c-docking-bar/

• Which was exactly the distro, in which Martijns USB-C dock worked? Which day, which, month, which year? (several reported, the USB-C dock does not work with the PinePhone).
• Martijn said in his youtube video, even the Ethernet cable adapter worked, which is great.
• We suppose what looks so easy was the result of many hours of hard work. We do not want to reinvent the wheel and want the exact setup Martijn used.
• Martijn was able to use an external keyboard with trackpad, eventually also the result of a long evaluation process. Maybe it is worth to find out which was the exact keyboard model Martijn used:
• The keyboard is a Lenovo thinkpad usb keyboard with trackpad, Martijn mentioned it in his youtube video
• Everything seems to work perfectly in Martijns Youtube video, from keyboard to trackpad, to Ethernet, to HDMI monitor, to LibreOffice etc. But almost nothing seems to work in our setup which we described here in this blog.

Therefore we would be happy to know as many details as possible about Martijns setup and how to build it up yourselves.

Also for desktop applications like LibreOffice, whe think that a new Linux distribution for the Pinephone might be helpful, a distribution which uses Martijn s PinePhone keyboard, and a distro, which has a Bluetooth with allows a reliable connection to a Bluetooth mouse, a distro, which has an app store, with apps which we are looking for, which do not necessarily require to be touchable, a distro, where the user can deside, which features he wants to use.

Many people expect from a Linux phone that it is a phone which can be used like a Linux PC, and apps can easily be downloaded. We think that a new distro, or a much further developed Ubuntu Touch distro for the PinePhone, with a user interface which requires a keyboard and a mouse, but has much more features than the current PinePhone mobile Linux distros would be highly desirable.