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March 06, 2021 13:37 UTC
I just realized that the kernel supplied with the mobian OS for the pinephone
does not have support for console mouse support, that is, CONFIG_MOUSE_PS2,
CONFIG_INPUT_MOUSEDEV and such. This only affects the use of mice within the
terminal world, the mouse will still work under X.
Many new kernel packagers always seem to omit these drivers from modern kernels,
because, I think, they've never had reason to use them and seriously, who would
need console mouse support for a phone anyway? I think developers of Linux
phones would do well not to see their devices as merely phones. These devices
are Linux computers which deserve kernels with the tools that some geeks and
even, some developers, use and adore.
For instance, I love using gpm, gpm allows one to cut and paste while using the
console, an idea, that must seem foreign to some, who may wonder, why anyone,
would need to copy and paste, while within tmux. This is how I found out, by
installing gpm and having gpm.service failing on me.
Long story short, I'll have to compile a customized kernel for my pinephone to
enable the above mentioned mouse drivers. I already have a strategy, that was
used to build kernels for raspberrypi and pine64, SBC boards, in the past,
using chroots on my faster AMD64 boxes. That process works well. What I think
I'll do with the pinephone, is copy the contents of the entire SD card into a
directory, on a faster computer, then create the chroot environment and compile
the kernel there. Since I use mostly Debian systems, I'll compile the kernel
creating a Debian .deb file and then I'll install that on the pinephone using
the normal methods.
Obviously, I'll keep writing on the subject to let those interested, know of
the progress. Thanks.