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NewUserTips

Adam Pigg edited this page Aug 31, 2023 · 18 revisions

Tips for New Users

As a new user to Sailfish, here are some useful tips to get you started with software app stores and repositories.

Official Documentation

Sailfish has a complete suite of useful documentation available at https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Help_Articles/

A typical activity for a new user might be to enable Developer mode and SSH access, so read about that here https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Help_Articles/Enabling_Developer_Mode/

Chum Software Repository

There are 3 main sources of applications for SailfishOS:

  • Jolla Store
  • Chum
  • Openrepos

The jolla store is tightly controlled with certain restrictions by Jolla, and at the other end of the spectrum, openrepos allows any binary package to be uploaded.

The chum repository is best described as "f-droid for Sailfish" and is a curated store of useful applications. See https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/announcing-sailfishos-chum/7381 for more info.

For the best experience it is recommended to do the following:

  • Enable untrusted software from the Settings application
  • Use the webbrowser to visit:
    https://chumrpm.netlify.app/
  • Select the version of Sailfish, and aarch64 as the architecture
  • Download sailfishos-chum-gui and save in the Downloads folder
  • Install the package

The Chum GUI application can now be opened from the application launcher. Another useful software store, Storeman can be installed directly from Chum.

Waydroid

Waydroid is an android container that can run on Sailfish using LXC containers. For information on waydroid see https://github.com/waydroid/waydroid

Waydroid on Sailfish is assisted with some custom packaging which automates the setup/configuration , adds required services, and wraps the application in a custom launcher to give the best experience. For information in these see https://github.com/sailfishos-open/waydroid and https://github.com/sailfishos-open/waydroid-runner

  • From chum-gui install waydroid-runner and waydroid-gbinder-config-mainline
  • Open a terminal and enter root mode with devel-su
  • Enter the command
    waydroid init
    to download the android filesystems
    Note, I had to do this on mobile data as the wifi download seemed to keep getting stuck
  • Stop and disable dnsmas q.service
    systemctl stop dnsmasq
    systemctl disable dnsmasq
  • Edit the gbinder config
    vi /etc/gbinder.d/anbox-mainline.conf
    Replace aidl2 with aidl3
  • Reboot
  • From the application launcher, click the Waydroid icon and you should be prompted with an android window. Note, due to limitations of the SailfishOS wayland compositor, waydroid can only work in single-window mode (currently)

For waydroid specific issues, please see the waydroid developers. For waydroid packaging or runner issues, please raise issues on the sailfishos-open project.

Keyboard Users

To enabled a landscape homescreen, install Patchmanager from Chum (possibly following a fix in KnownIssues, and install the patch "Default allowed orientations". You will need to set the Patchmanager options "Allow incompatible patches" and "Convert patches between 32-bit and 64-bit". After this, in a terminal enter the following command as defualtuser

dconf write /desktop/sailfish/silica/default_allowed_orientations 3

and reboot

Installing the keyboard layout for the Pinephone Keyboard

Note: This is temporary until it is included in the default build

  • Enter the following commands to install git
    devel-su
    zypper in git
  • Clone the following repository with the keyboard layouts
    git clone https://codeberg.org/phalio/ppkb-layouts.git
  • Install the layouts
    cd ppkb-layouts
    sh install-xkb.sh
  • Now go back to your regular user account
    exit
  • Set the layout and variant
    dconf write /desktop/lipstick-jolla-home/layout "'pp'"
    dconf write /desktop/lipstick-jolla-home/variant "'altgr'"
  • Reboot or restart lipstick
    systemctl --user restart lipstick

Camera

To use the camera, you need to install the app "Shutter", and dont use the jolla camera app. From a terminal
devel-su
zypper in harbour-shutter
Ensure that the pixel format is set to MJPEG. The picel format button is the 3 circles. You can choose a resolution, and take pictures only, not video (yet).