In the first 2-digit episode of PineTalk, Ezra and Peter are happy to interview Martijn Braam, whom you may know of his involvement with postmarketOS, the many apps he develops or his videos and blog posts.
They also present some homework and discuss community feedback and questions.

Special Intro

See credits at the bottom of this post.

What have we been up to lately?

But let’s get to it now and start with the

App of the Episode

Interview with Martijn Braam

Links about the things we talked about, in order of appearance:

Getting started with Linux

Thank’s again to Martijn for coming on!

Follow Martijn’s work on:

Community News

PINE64: FemtoStar: taking aim for the stars

Megi’s blog: PinePHone kernel news

Community engagement 😀

Homework on PineCube (Ezra)

Things Ezra did:

It’s what I use to take the video feed of the camera and stream it via RTMP to a RTMP server, which I setup next.

Homework regarding FM radio (Peter)

Last episode, we could not give a good answer to the question Deon Denis asked on Youtube: How about a FM radio back cover?
So:

  1. How do other devices implement this?
    • Headset serves as antenna
    • Sometimes implemented within the SoC (e.g. MediaTek MT6753)
    • Sometimes within the Wifi/BT chip (e.g. Samsung Galaxy SII)
  2. Do we have support for FM radio?
    • the Realtek RTL 8723CS chip used for WiFi and Bluetooth in the PinePhone alledgedly supports receiving FM radio according to its announcement, but it’s nowhere to be found on the spec sheet.
    • but: We don’t have a driver that would support this, and we don’t have the hardware for it.
  3. Would the Pogopin i2c (i-squared-c bus (inter-integrated-circuit interface) offer enough bandwith for fm-radio on the PinePhone?
  4. Alternatives:
    • PinePhonePinePhoneRTL SDR connected to USB
      • clunky (many cables)
      • likely requires external power source,
      • but: software exists, see e.g. rtl_fm_player
    • also, easy: (Bluetooth) Headphones with FM Radio are a thing

Listener Feedback

@DarkeyVilkulak on Odysee wrote:

PinePhone”LoRA is not for sending images. Kids these days are really spoiled ;D What about simple text communication and long range mesh for simple communication. It can use some kind of low bandwidth encryption. There are several projects like Meshtastic about that.”

Listener Questions

Sebastian asked via email:

1) combability of the frameworks/distros

PinePhonePinePhoneIs there a way (or some projects that try) to run apps, that where written with one desktops framework, to run those on another desktop? Like running Lomiri apps on kde-mobile?

Additionally, when I see things right, quite some apps aren’t packaged
for every (major) PinePhone distro (even though they use the same
framework). So it would be even great, to use AUR on mobian (also it
sounds somewhat strange). I just mean, it would be great, when software
for a specific need, wouldn’t have to be written over and over again.

2) Different starting points

Where are good starting points (and where to
find them) that would help different parts of the ecosystem?

Feedback and Questions welcome!

Remember: This is a community podcast, so please leave feedback on what we should do better, get your suggestion’s in and feel free to ask questions!

Use #askpinetalk or tweet at us @talkpine, toot at us @talkpine@fosstodon.org, send email to pinetalk@pine64.org and join our Discord!
Or just add something to the dedicated PineTalk Feedback and Questions forum thread!

Credits:

Intro and Outro Music

Music by Bradley (PixelPaintbrush) Ames

Thank you to NerdZoom Media for being PineTalk’s audio producers!

Special Intro credits

Script & Editing: Ezra

Cast

Audio

Atmosphere

Calm Forest Birds
BurghRecords – Sonny Fascia

Music

Aquarium by Kevin MacLeod, License
Leaving Home by Kevin MacLeod, License
Waltz of Treachery by Kevin MacLeod, License

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