#506 Fedora KDE Plasma Mobile Improvement Plan Tracker Thread
Opened a year ago by timaeos. Modified 7 months ago

Fedora KDE Plasma Mobile Improvement Plan

This is an issue meant to aggregate some of the issues hindering Fedora KDE Plasma 6 Mobile from being delivered to end user.
Currently, only two members (tdawson, farchord) have devices available for flashing images with Plasma Mobile.
The intention is to rekindle this initiative based on the feedback from the KDE Sig Meeting on 2024/05/06.
Initially, this will just be an overview check list and detailed actions will be added over time as obstacles are determined.

Images

Documentation

  • [ ] Organize migration from Wiki to Fedora Docs
  • [ ] Create KDE Plasma Mobile Wiki page with Installation Guidance
  • [ ] Create Plasma Mobile Troubleshooting and QA Guidance
  • [ ] Upstream Issue Management Guidance

Ecosystem Development / Marketing

  • [ ] Developer Onboarding for Application Development (Devin Lin with KDE)
  • [ ] MauiKit / Kirigami Reference Applications (components / widget)
  • [ ] Social Media Announcements (Fedora Marketing Team, boosted on Sig Members Accounts)
  • [ ] Podcast Circuit ( Fedora Podcast and others) ( @ngompa )
  • [ ] Conference Circuit with preinstalled demonstration device ( Any Sig Member Available to Attend )
  • [ ] Fedora Magazine Article detailing Installation or Showcasing Screenshots

User Experience

  • [ ] Confirm core functionality of Applications - This is looking primarily at the Phone Replacement use-case
    • Login Manager
      • SDDM with a Mobile Theme (it's unclear if a mobile theme exists at the moment)
    • Telephone
      • Plasma Mobile Dialer
    • Contacts
      • Merkuro Stack
      • Phonebook
    • Browser
      • Angelfish
    • Music / Audio
      • Elisa
      • AudioTube
      • KRecorder
      • Kasts (Optional)
    • Video
      • Haruna (not mobile centric and should be replaced when something viable is available)
      • PlasmaTube
    • Messaging
      • Spacebar (SMS/MMS)
      • NeoChat
    • Camera
      • Plasma Camera
      • Kamoso
    • Store
      • Plasma Discover (Flatpak Integration)
    • Terminal
      • QMLKonsole
    • Calculator
      • Kalk
    • Clock
      • KClock
    • Weather
      • KWeather
    • Calendar
      • Merkuro Stack
      • Calindori
    • Text Editor / Note Editor
      • Marknote
    • EMail Client
      • Merkuro Stack
  • [ ] A/B Image Swapping (e.g. Fedora KDE Plasma Mobile Atomic)

Comment from Yoda in the matrix channel:

You can’t really build official images for any of those devices, as they all require lots of different out-of-tree patches

We would need x86 devices (e.g. tablets and AIOs) in order to perform the testing

Metadata Update from @ngompa:
- Issue tagged with: experience, mobile

a year ago
  • Applications

    • Packaged

      • [X] Alligator - pkg
        • RSS Feed Reader
      • [X] Angelfish - pkg
        • Mobile Web Browser
      • [X] Arianna - pkg
        • Ebook Reader
      • [X] AudioTube - pkg
        • YouTube Music App
      • [X] Kalk Calculator - pkg
        • Calculator
      • [X] Calindori - pkg
        • Calendar
      • [X] KClock - pkg
        • Clock Application
      • [X] Elisa Player - pkg
        • Music Player
      • [X] Fielding - pkg
        • REST API Test Tool
      • [X] Francis - pkg
        • Pomodoro Application
      • [X] GCompris - pkg
        • Education Software Suite
      • [X] Journald Browser - pkg
        • Journald Browser
      • [X] Kaidan - pkg
        • XMPP Client
      • [X] Kasts - pkg
        • Mobile Podcast Application (Does this cover Audiobooks?)
      • [X] KDE Itinerary - pkg
        • Itinerary and Boarding Pass Management
      • [X] Keysmith - pkg
        • OTP Authenticator App
      • [X] Kongress - pkg
        • Companion Application for Conferences
      • [X] Kontrast - pkg
        • Color contrast checker
      • [X] KTrip - pkg
        • Public Transport Navigation App
      • [X] KWordQuiz - pkg
        • Flash Card Application
      • [X] Marknote - pkg
        • Markdown Note Taking App
      • [X] Merkuro Calendar - pkg
        • Calendar Suite
      • [X] Merkuro Contact - pkg
        • Contact Suite
      • [X] Merkuro Mail - pkg
        • Mail Suite
      • [X] NeoChat - pkg
        • Matrix Client
      • [X] Okular - pkg
        • Document Viewer
      • [X] Plasma Mobile Phone Dialer - pkg
        • Plasma Mobile Phone Application
      • [X] Phonebook - pkg
        • Phonebook application
      • [X] Koko Photos - pkg
        • Image Gallery Application
      • [X] PlasmaTube - pkg
        • Youtube Viewer
      • [X] QMLKonsole - pkg
        • Terminal app for Plasma Mobile
      • [X] KRecorder - pkg
        • Audio Recorder
      • [X] Spacebar - pkg
        • SMS Application
        • Seems dead?
      • [X] Tokodon - pkg
        • Mastodon Client
      • [X] Vakzination - pkg
        • Health Certificate Manager
      • [X] KWeather - pkg
        • Weather Application
    • Unpackaged

      • [ ] Eloquens - pkg
        • Lorem ipsum text generator (...why?)
      • [ ] Index - pkg - assignee: farchord
        • Maui Kit File Manager
      • [ ] KAlgebra Mobile - pkg
        • Graphing Calculator
        • Fedora has Kalgebra but it's unclear if the mobile variant exists
      • [X] Kalm - pkg -
        • Breathing Technique Application
          - This was added as a part of Gear 24.05 ( @yselkowitz )
      • [ ] Kirogi - pkg
        • Drone Ground Control Application
      • [ ] KleverNotes - pkg
        • Note Taking Application
        • Seems dead? Replace with Marknote
      • [ ] Klimbgrades - pkg
        • Example application for Demonstrating KDE Kirigami QT Framework
      • [ ] Licentia - pkg
        • License selection application
      • [x] Notae - pkg
        • Note taking app
      • [ ] Peruse - pkg
        • Comic Book Reader
        • Seems Dead?
      • [ ] Pix - pkg
        • MauiKit Image Gallery
      • [x] Plasma Camera - pkg
        • Camera Application for Plasma Mobile
        • Kamoso is currently the stand-in for the dedicated plasma-camera mobile application.
      • [ ] Tasks (Toad) - pkg
        • To Do Application
      • [ ] Vvave - pkg
        • Audio Player

It looks like Spacebar isn't dead but just hasn't gotten a recent release. There is activity on the gitlab

In terms of missing core functionality while reviewing the applications, it appears that Mobile-Friendly Local Video Playback is missing as a feature of the KDE Plasma Mobile Stack.

Metadata Update from @farchord:
- Issue marked as depending on: #513

a year ago

For the camera package, it looks like other places are using kamoso in place of plasma-camera. Since Kamoso is already packaged, it could be the camera equivalent.

Since the prevailing opinion seems to be to make the plasma-mobile package mostly barebones, what are the thoughts on having a separate "batteries included" group for also installing the curated list of mobile oriented applications that fit into the expanded core functionality group?

Since the prevailing opinion seems to be to make the plasma-mobile package mostly barebones, what are the thoughts on having a separate "batteries included" group for also installing the curated list of mobile oriented applications that fit into the expanded core functionality group?

I like that idea. Something like a plasma-mobile-core, along with a couple other plasma-mobile-* (plasma-mobile-pim, etc..) and then a plasma-mobile-environment that pulls them all in.

There will be a kde-mobile and kde-mobile-apps group, and an environment group kde-mobile-environment. This mirrors our setup for the desktop groups.

Here is my first pass as the KDE Plasma Mobile comps file
https://pagure.io/fedora-comps/pull-request/969

Here is my first pass as the KDE Plasma Mobile comps file
https://pagure.io/fedora-comps/pull-request/969

This is now merged and working.

All of the machines we currently say we are going to build images for need some type of "tweaking" to get them to work with Fedora. Is this going to be allowed as an official Fedora edition? Or are these all going to be un-official respins (is that the term) ?

From what I can see, the Lenovo Yoga series is the only "tablet" / mobile machines that you can just plop Fedora on.

We can produce generic AArch64 and x86_64 images, I believe fedora-arm-installer tweaks ARM ones to target specific devices already.

This is what arm-image-installer can currently do:

❯ arm-image-installer --supported
AllWinner Devices:
a64-olinuxino amarula_a64_relic bananapi_m2_plus_h5 bananapi_m64 
 libretech_all_h3_cc_h5 nanopi_a64 nanopi_neo2 nanopi_neo_air 
 nanopi_neo_plus2 nanopi_r1 orangepi_lite2 orangepi_one_plus orangepi_pc2 
 orangepi_prime orangepi_win orangepi_zero_plus orangepi_zero_plus2 
 pine64-lts pine64_plus pine_h64 pinebook pinephone pinetab sopine_baseboard 
 teres_i 

TI am625 Devices:
beagleplay 

QCom Devices:
dragonboard410c dragonboard820c 

Rockchips rk33xx series Devices:
evb-rk3328 evb-rk3399 ficus-rk3399 firefly-rk3399 khadas-edge-captain-rk3399 
 khadas-edge-rk3399 khadas-edge-v-rk3399 nanopc-t4-rk3399 
 nanopi-m4-2gb-rk3399 nanopi-m4-rk3399 nanopi-neo4-rk3399 orangepi-rk3399 
 pinebook-pro-rk3399 pinephone-pro-rk3399 puma-rk3399 roc-cc-rk3328 
 roc-pc-mezzanine-rk3399 roc-pc-rk3399 rock-pi-4-rk3399 rock-pi-4c-rk3399 
 rock-pi-e-rk3328 rock-pi-n10-rk3399pro rock64-rk3328 rock960-rk3399 
 rockpro64-rk3399 

Other Devices:
rpi02w rpi3 rpi4 

Looks like PinePhone models are supported.

Well, actually the whole ARM Pine64 lineup is supported.

Hum, the comps lists are missing Discover (plasma-(discover). Is this on purpose?

Once added, Fedora Kinoite Mobile looks good as a first start.

Hum, the comps lists are missing Discover (plasma-(discover). Is this on purpose?

It isn't. I honestly thought it got pulled in. Yes, we need to add it.

I've merged the initial Kinoite Mobile manifests: https://pagure.io/workstation-ostree-config/pull-request/517

We have test container images (x86_64 only) in https://quay.io/repository/fedora-ostree-desktops/kinoite-mobile?tab=tags from the unofficial CI pipeline.

So... I took a look at the Phoronix article comments regarding the KDE Plasma Mobile Spin proposal and there was some potentially useful feedback about KDE Plasma Mobile for improving the experience:
https://www.phoronix.com/forums/forum/phoronix/latest-phoronix-articles/1471326-fedora-41-looks-to-offer-a-kde-plasma-mobile-spin?p=1471436#post1471436

While some of the statements aren't immediately actionable, there is something to what is stated:

the lack of a "universal back button" on applications ruins a large amount of usability, and while this isn't KDE's fault, I would like to see GTK, QT, and all the other larger toolkits come together and at least agree on this.

disregard all of the MAUI apps, neat in theory, but pix, clip, buho etc, all found ... the features lacking.

They don't really have a touch friendly video app... they have is dragon player which works, but it's a bit more simplistic then many people would like, but it does at least get the job done.

No real file browser... Index (MAUI) is servicable, but the UI really isn't that great for one handed use, so expect to two hand it lots.

This generally coincides with what @tdawson and @farchord mentioned. To improve the experience, the first bit of feedback about a universal back event is interesting. There's probably an opportunity to start a dialogue about this upstream.

One other piece of feedback was the lack of a mobile payment application. I'm not sure how to handle that feedback, though. That's a more challenging thing to handle for the phone use case

I'll take care of plasma-camera

Anyone willing to knock out the reviews on these two mobile apps before the mobile spin happens?
cc: @ngompa @tdawson

Metadata Update from @timaeos:
- Issue marked as blocking: #41

11 months ago

Anyone willing to knock out the reviews on these two mobile apps before the mobile spin happens?
cc: @ngompa @tdawson

I got them. Sorry for taking so long. When these originally came in, I was swamped, then I forgot.

Thanks @tdawson

Other question since the spin is going to need a marketing push once F41 comes around.
@tdawson, would you be willing to be a guest on Fedora Podcast to discuss the spin and the current state / your experience with mobile linux as a platform? This, of course, would be after the initial deliverable is available

I'd expect it to be discussing things around what the KDE sig is doing to improve the mobile KDE plasma experience, hardware targeting, identified gaps in the mobile experience, and finally a call-to-action for others to help with the effort. Pulling in some of the ARM Sig or Mobility Sig for the conversation would also seem like a good idea since they handle the hardware enablement side.

Thanks @tdawson

Other question since the spin is going to need a marketing push once F41 comes around.
@tdawson, would you be willing to be a guest on Fedora Podcast to discuss the spin and the current state / your experience with mobile linux as a platform? This, of course, would be after the initial deliverable is available

Certainly. Thank you for the offer.

I'd expect it to be discussing things around what the KDE sig is doing to improve the mobile KDE plasma experience, hardware targeting, identified gaps in the mobile experience, and finally a call-to-action for others to help with the effort.

Those are all very good things we should discuss.

Pulling in some of the ARM Sig or Mobility Sig for the conversation would also seem like a good idea since they handle the hardware enablement side.

This is one of the reasons I would love to do the podcast. We will not be targeting phones or ARM devices, other than those that work on standard Fedora.

We will be targeting anything that has a touchscreen, is mobile, and can run Fedora. This is mainly 2-in-1 laptops and tablets. Those are mainly x86_64 machines and a few ARM machines. Think of the Lenovo Yoga, StarLite and the Microsoft Surface Pro.

The Fedora KDE SIG has a very good reputation of working upstream with KDE. But because we'd been focusing on phones, we had never been able to work with the upstream Plasma Mobile project. All of our efforts were getting Fedora to work on the hardware, and not on Plasma Mobile. By shifting our hardware focus, we are able to break open a new market for Fedora, as well as allow the KDE SIG to work with upstream Plasma Mobile.

Makes sense -- I expect that once the deliverable is ready we can do the marketing points in the OP with the internal Fedora KDE Marketing Team (cc: @radbirb @kellin ). We'll need a running feature list for them to run with to write the marketing copy when the time comes for Fedora Magazine

cc: @joseph

So, what name have we chosen for the mobility sig? I know we were thinking initially of Plasma Mobile, but not many people liked that. Then we had a long name starting with a K that I don't remember, and then we suggested Kinetic

So, what name have we chosen for the mobility sig? I know we were thinking initially of Plasma Mobile, but not many people liked that. Then we had a long name starting with a K that I don't remember, and then we suggested Kinetic

I believe it was Konvertible?

P.S. looking forward to helping with promo for this new spin ! :)

The name is actually something we need to decide on fast so I can start doing the paperwork to get the Spin done.
I didn't do any requests to create a new SIG. I thought it fell under the KDE SIG. Though that might have been in the Desktop Working Group proposal. But, beyond that, we need to name the spins.

We are doing two "spins". One a normal rpm based spin. One an "Atomic Desktops" spin.
It might be good to name them both the same, but I'm ok if we don't.
Proposed Names:
KDE Mobile
Plasma Mobile
Konvertible
Kinetic

There have been a few others, but let's stick to those.

We did have some discussion between "Konvertible" and "Kinetic". I believe we settled on "Kinetic" because it deals with movement, or mobile. "Konvertible" deals more with the 2-in-1 machines that I have been using, and doesn't really fit for dedicated tablets or phones.

So for me, for the Atomic Desktop, I really like the idea of naming it Kinetic. It goes very well with Kinoite.

But then, for the Normal Desktop (?) do we also name that Kinetic, or do we do the more traditional desktop naming, and call it "KDE Mobile" to go along with "KDE Desktop"?

Metadata Update from @timaeos:
- Issue tagged with: meeting

11 months ago

This is under the KDE SIG. We can have as many deliverables as we want.

I think we're at "KDE Plasma Mobile" and "Kinetic" right now.

This is my first request for a spin, so I apologize in advance for several questions that might seem obvious to others.

  • I was going to do two seperate releng issues. Once for regular desktop, one for Atomic. Does that seem correct?

  • Do we want a separate fedora-release-* for mobile? Or should that just use fedora-release-kde and fedora-release-kinoite?

To answer:

  • One releng ticket should be fine.
  • Yes, we will need two new -release subpackages: one for regular mobile and one for atomic mobile.

I think we should not introduce new names as that would likely be even more confusing.

KDE Plasma Mobile & Kinoite Mobile are fine.

Metadata Update from @timaeos:
- Issue untagged with: meeting

10 months ago

Metadata Update from @timaeos:
- Issue tagged with: meeting

10 months ago

Metadata Update from @timaeos:
- Issue untagged with: meeting

10 months ago

Metadata Update from @ngompa:
- Issue unmarked as blocking: #510

7 months ago

Log in to comment on this ticket.