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My PinePhone arrived on July 7, 2025. It has been a wild
ride, and it is far from over. Here are some notes:
I got the soft, clear plastic case. I think that was a good
choice. It makes the phone easier to hold, and perhaps it will
give some protection, if I ever drop it.
I got the PinePhone version that included the docking bar and more
RAM, and I'm glad I did. I think the docking bar is
essential. How else could one reasonably manange upgrades and
other needed maintenance and exploration?
However, the docking bar gave me trouble that took a while to
resolve. There were perhaps two problems. First of all, it
was flaky. I set it up on my kitchen table with a generously
large monitor and a USB mouse and keyboard. I eventually settled
on a process: Connect all the components first with the phone off, then
conect the power to the docking bar last.
This process worked sometimes, but most of the time, it did
not. The phone would boot, but the monitor, mouse and keyboard
remained inert.
I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a coincidence that this process
suddenly became perhaps 90% reliable after I got a 20W PD power supply
to replace the 5W (5V 1A) power supply that I used initially. I
also got a nice, cloth covered, Apple brand, six foot long USB-C cable
for it. I don't suppose that made any difference, but maybe?
250807aa I have revised my method for using the dock.
I still setup all components first with the phone off and no
power to the dock, but I also setup a powered hub—initially
with no power.
Here are some details: I use an HDMI cable to connect the
dock to the monitor and a USB cable to connect the powered hub to
the dock. I plug the keyboard and mouse into the powered hub,
and there is room also for a flash drive, which seems to work, but
needs more testing. I connect Ethernet to the dock.
I use an Anker 20W power supply to provide power to the
dock—still unpowered, and the dock plugs into the phone.
The Anker 20W power supply, the power supply for the hub, and the
monitor all plug into a power strip.
To power on I first confirm that the USB-C cable between the
Anker power supply and the dock is connected only to the dock, and
not to the power supply. Then I turn on the power strip.
This supplies power to the hub, and the monitor, and the keyboard
and mouse get power from the hub. The dock is still
unpowered.
Next I press the phone's power button for a few seconds or until
the led on the phone glows indicating that the phone is booting
up. The monitor should display the phone's desktop using the
whole screen. I use the mouse to login. Then, finally, I
connect the other end of the USB-C cable to the Anker power
supply. At this point the monitor shows that the Internet is
active, and it prompts me for the KDE Wallet password, which I do
not provide, as the Internet is working through the Ethernet
cable.
The other problem was the Manjaro Plasma Mobile operating system
that came with my PinePhone. It had some features that made using
the docking bar difficult. In particular, I didn't like the
screens widget—I couldn't get it to work reliably and it added
complexity. In fact, that was the general impression I got from
the whole operating system. Too much fat. Not enough
lean. So I embarked on a journey to find a better operating
system.
What I found was the stable release of the same operating
system! However, it took some effort and some study to first get
it to update, and then to get comfortable using it. Which I think
I am now, almost a month later.
I downloaded the operating system and put it on an SD card.
Updates finally worked after several tries, some learning and study,
and some consultation with Duck.ai. Here are the steps I followed
to do the updates:
[Sorry, you'll have to read this later when it is
finished.] A final step: Move (not copy) "~/.config/pulse to a safe
place, then stop and restart pulseaudio with "pulseaudio -k" and
"pulseaudio --start".
Duck.ai advised me to do this after I explained the audio
troubles I was having. See below.
And just recently I found some solutions to two audio related
problems, although they are not particularly good solutions:
The two problems are really, perhaps the same problem.
I was having trouble with the earbuds in both "Phone" and "HiFi
Sound" modes. The problem was that the phone wouldn't always
play sound through the earbuds. The sound would come out of
the phone's built in speaker instead
The "Phone" mode seemed to be the bigger problem. I must
say, however, that I'm optimistic that I have both problems under
control now. Perhaps the "final step" I described above
helped, but I did something else at about the same time—I
changed my work-around.
I had found that plugging in the earbuds, then going to the
phone's audio settings and choosing either "Make a Phone
Call–Headphones–Headset" or "Play HiFi
Music–Headphones–Headset" was often enough to get the
desired behavior. The "something else" that I did, however,
was instead of just choosing one or the other I would choose twice
with a choice of the other in between. Or perhaps choosing
twice is only needed for "Phone" mode. That's it anyway. I'll
report back about how this turns out.
250807ab I have revised the above, making it much
simpler. It seems that the changes in the 250807aa notes
fixed one or more problems I was attempting, but failing, to
solve here.
In short, simply choose the applicable audio profile before
making a phone call or doing some other audio task. This
may need to be done in advance of every phone call.
I'm not sure, but it seems the other audio tasks will use the
last chosen profile.
After the above descriptions of quirky behaviors needed for the
PinePhone, here are two more:
You might not choose to do this, but let me explain,
anyway. USB-C connectors, and other kinds of small USB
connectors, tend to get loose and unreliable with age. To
avoid this happening to my PinePhone, or maybe just to slow it down,
I decided to leave my dock plugged into my phone all the time.
I don't necessarily use the dock, but I might. This way
it is handy if I need it, and I avoid plugging in and uplugging the
dock to the phone. And also I figure it is better to wear out
the dock than the phone, so having the dock plugged into the phone
all the time reduces the wear on the phones USB-C connector—I
charge the phone through the dock! I have a special procedure for starting and shutting down the
phone. As I explained above, I leave the dock connect to the
phone all the time, whether I am using it or not. Therefore
there are several use cases. I explained above how to start
the phone and shut it down when using the dock. The process is
very much the same when using the dock only as a source of power or
when leaving the dock un-powered and using the phone's battery as
the sole power source.
Starting the phone and subsequently supplying power to the
dock:
This process is really the same as what I have already
described above in my 250807aa notes. If you are not using
the hub or monitor, simply leave them out and follow the same
steps. Without the monitor the display will of course be on
the phone. Also you may use the dock directly without the
powered hub, but you may need the extra ports which the hub
supplies for flash drives or other devices. With dock plugged into phone and Ethernet, if needed, but
not power, and power cable plugged into dock, but not the power
supply... Press button and hold the phone's power button to start it
in the same manner as what I described above. After the phone boots connect the dock to it's power
supply as I described above.
Starting the phone when using a dock that will not be powered-on
or when not using a dock at all:
Shutting down the phone:
Disconnect power from the dock when at the main
screen. Press and hold the phone's power button, then choose
shutdown.
After shutting down the phone I let it sit on my desk, powered
off but charged, waiting for use. If I need to take it with
me, then I remove the USB-C cable from the dock—it is already
disconnected from the power supply— and store the phone in my
fanny pack. Note that in the above steps when prompted for KDE Wallet
password you should provide it. I don't know why it prompts
for the password, but do it, anyway. Maybe later I'll learn if
this is actually needed. I should explain some of the reasons for these steps being
what they are. Perhaps I'm causing trouble by leaving the dock
connected all the time to the phone? I don't know the answer,
but I wonder what part that plays. I do know that the phone
will often restart if shut down while connected to a powered-on
dock, and often the phone will start when power is connected to it
or the dock when the phone is off Perhaps both of these
scenarios are OK? After much testing I have suspicions that
both are not OK and are associated with failures and problems of
different kinds.
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