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Qtile as mobile environment

🏷 qtile

🏷 mobile

🏷 pinephone

Created:   2024-08-20
Copyright: CC-BY-SA 4.0
Language:  en

Some weeks ago I bought Pinephone to test how much Linux is ready for the mobile phone. I was ready to switch if basic parts will work :) Sadly one of the main features still not works: mobile identification (signature). All my bank accounts or other government logins are based on that. So, I had to put Pinephone away as my main device

During testing I tried 3 variants of desktop (mobile) environments: KDE plasma, Phosh and Sxmo (sway and dwm). I like switching. Check my used distros :)[1]

KDE plasma was too slow. It worked and had many nice features but for this device it was to big. I had to wait for everything. (Later I tested new version (6.x) and it was more faster but still not fast enough)
Second choice was Phosh. Quickly I addopted the interface and could easelly use it. It was simple and it worked in general. I was lack of Samogitian language stuff.
After found the problem with mobile identification I put SIM into my old phone and Pinephone becomes *just* testing device. So, I become even more brave and switched to Sxmo. Sway Wayland edition worked fine and dwm not as I couldn't pass password step after boot. I tried to learn gestures and buttons and in general the idea is super. I like the part of buttons and more gestures. One of the best part is on screen keyboard manual control. But terminal apps and keybindings I like because of speed and by phone all these dmenu selections is slow. I understand that you can add some app launcher app and do that in your faster way. That's why I started to think why I should use sway (and different window placing or layout switching) if I can use Qtile.

I use Qtile since 2015 and it is the best environment for me. So I just `pipx install qtile` and switch in *tinydm*... I have running Qtile on my phone. Nice and, eh, no keyboard and no clickable app :D

First try just to see what it works at all (on wayland).

Now plan for the future:

add config for better bar (or bars)
*steal* keyboard from Sxmo. Temporally add click in bar (maybe bottom bar) for it until gesture will be created.
create Qtile extension for gestures. I like the way sxmo did and with Qtile extension configuration it could become nice
collect apps what should be used (but it is not very important). The most important app should be app launcher, call answer, mobile identification. I use dmenu in my laptop but it is different when you have keyboard all the time.

For some widgets qtile-extra should be used as popups or similar.

I see the use as switching between groups and vertical split with max layout as defaults. Keyboard, notifications, general settings (wifi, brightness etc.) should be in scrachpads.

In general this should be the clone of Sxmo but not so agresive :)

1: I like switching. Check my used distros :)

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