[Linux-aus] FOSS Mobile with 8/10G ram and volte support

[Russell Coker]

On Wednesday, 17 July 2024 11:15:33 AEST Yifei Zhan wrote:
> I'm getting some FOSS-capable mobile phones (OnePlus 6/6T) [1] from China to
> work on VoLTE on Linux mobile phones, I can buy a few more if there is
> interest and you can pick it up in Melbourne.
> 
> The 8G/128G ones (A6000) are about 70AUD each and 10G/256G ones (A6010) are
> about 120AUD.
> 
> The device in question is VoLTE-capable and there are reports of VoLTE
> working under PostmarketOS for US provider so it should be possible for us
> to get VoLTE working here with AU provides. It is used but with a decent
> amount of ram and storage plus a fast SoC which is more than capable of
> running mobile Linux, at the moment supported by Mobian and PostmarketOS.
> 
> [1]: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/OnePlus_6_(oneplus-enchilada)
> [2]: https://gitlab.com/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/issues/1878

https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/OnePlus/OnePlus6
https://wiki.debian.org/Mobian/Devices

This plan for buying OP6 phones started out when I realised that the OP6/6T 
are the only affordable phones in Australia in the officially supported Mobian 
list and also the only phones suitable for Mobian in Australia with decent 
battery life.  The PinePhonePro and Librem5 are both quite expensive and have 
short battery life.  The PocaPhone F1 isn't available on eBay and while one 
imported from another country MIGHT work, the probability is lower than with a 
phone that was actually sold in quantity in Australia.  I discussed this with 
Yifei and he discovered that he can get them at even cheaper prices than the 
$300 I was looking at on eBay.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oneplus/comments/1aebdxz/
unlock_volte_in_australia_oneplus_5_6_7_8_9/

According to Reddit these phone will work with VoLTE so it looks like the 
process would be to get VoLTE going on the stock firmware and then upgrade to 
Mobian or PostmarketOS.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/fajita/

They also work with LineageOS which is a good fallback if they turn out not to 
work well on Mobian or PostMarketOS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnePlus_6T

The ones with 10G of RAM (the McLaren edition of the 6T) aren't specifically 
listed on the LineageOS or Mobian pages.  One would hope that they are just a 
minor variant on the theme and work in the same way, but there is more risk in 
buying them.  I am wondering whether it's worth the extra money and risk for 
an extra 2G of RAM.

The what's not working section of the Mobian page says that USB OTG isn't 
working which precludes the typical "convergence" usage that is the best way 
of using up more than 8G of RAM.  This may be something that doesn't get fixed 
and is making me tend towards the cheaper phones with 8G of RAM.  Until the 
start of this year I was using a laptop with 8G of RAM so a phone with that 
amount should be fine.

It's also noted that Mobian has "temporary" problems with microphone and 
speaker since August last year which can be worked around with Bluetooth.  
This shouldn't be so hard to fix as it was apparently working in the past.

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