At first, man thinks he controls the modem.
But after the 20th reboot, man learns the modem controls him.
— Epictetus
So here it is! working VoLTE calls with audio on linux!
What a rollercoaster it has been i’ll tell you that.
The frequency between my previous posts was only a few days, as you can see from the time since my last post this has been a far harder project.
But a successful one!
Now fully powered trough my new imsd project:
https://forgejo.catcrafts.net/Catcrafts/imsd
As i said in a my previous comment no matter what i did the regular modem route wasn’t working, so i had to come up with my own.
This has several advantages however, call audio is now just routed trough wireplumber & pipewire, so its integrated much better.
Both inbound and outbound calls work.
How do i get this???
The patient route is waiting until my patches get accepted upstream, a few already have and are coming in 7.3 probably (pmos runs 7.0 currently still oof), a few will probably take longer, 7.4 or beyond.
but for the ones that want to jump right on ive published everything on my forgejo:
https://forgejo.catcrafts.net/Catcrafts
I will soon be publishing a shell script that does the entire installation soon for easy installation.
Sadly there is no way to just plug in an android and do it, so there are still a few manual steps needed, but i believe the path to adoption is reducing friction as much as possible, so ill do my best to make it as easy as possible to use.
imsd
So what is an “imsd”?
its a full userspace implementation of the IMS protocol, which drives VoLTE (4G) calls.
Normally the modem firmware drives this, but this is quite difficult to work with, now it runs fully via a standard daemon on linux!
Along with several d-bus helpers that integrate it with standard plasma-dialer.
if made a APKBUILD for pmos that is mutually exclusive with 81voltd, and loads imsd instead. so installation should be easy.
Now will this actually work?
That’s where you come in!
I am just one guy with one phone with one carrier.
I can say it works on the Fairphone 6 with KPN. it might work with other carriers and other Qualcomm phones aswell, so potentially this could work for the entire linux phone ecosystem, but i have no way to test that.
If you end up trying it, no matter if it works or doesn’t work, please send me a message or open a PR, then we can make sure it works for everyone!
donations
I really was surprised when people asked me this, i just see myself as a guy doing this in his free time, “why would people want to send donations to me?” i thought.
I still stand by my previous point, i have a job, and this project costs me nothing except for time, i don’t have any costs. So i felt kinda guilty receiving money from people.
But i would much rather spend my time making software that benefits society instead of the B2B stuff i do at my job.
I really feel greedy for saying this, but if you want to send me a thank you then that is now possible at: https://bunq.me/catcrafts
Please don’t feel any pressure to do this, doesn’t matter what i get im still continuing with this bring-up. And if you don’t want to donate to me there are many linux organizations that could really use the support! In my eyes we are all in the same boat with the same goal.
If you do decide to, and i cannot express my gratitude enough if you do, please write in the description that it’s a donation, as this makes tax easier.
What’s next?
Ive got a bunch more stuff coming soon, while i haven’t posted here in quite a while i’ve been plenty busy on the mailing list:
So except some more posts soon.
Bonus round
Having fully working hardware is great, but a phone that has no apps is pointless for most people, so i would like to start a discussion in the comments.
What apps do you need that are preventing you from switching to mobile linux?
This sounds bonkers! Good work.
The thing stopping me from trying out Linux mobile is autofocus for the camera. I don’t have fairphone 6 money iirc but a solution to that for some of the cheaper devices (e.g. op6) would definitely get me on board trying it. Wish I had the dev hours to commit to it but you know how it is
Banking and ride sharing apps are all I really need, Ideally I’d like to have a translator app.
well, those are the kind of apps unlikely to happen in any form other than Waydroid and such since nobody other than the corps providing the service can usually make one.
Not a ‘prevents me from switching’ but more of a nice to have: Does anyone know of a Gadgetbridge equivalent or port for Linux? I know of some clients dedicated to some specific hardware such as the Galaxy buds client, Amazfish and Watchmate for the Pinetime and that the Bangle.js should work using Webbluetooth directly(probably, I’ve lost mine long time ago, can’t test this).
There seems to be a Pebble client called stoandl in the works and whilst checking flathub for this comment, I also read of Budslink, which should handle multiple brands of bluetooth headsets.
Do you know of more such clients?
KURWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA now my meme is (slightly) outdated :/
People like you are why the open source community exists, bro.
Incredible work, as an FP6 owner, I’m watching all this progress with great interest :)
I want to start by saying this is amazing and I’m grateful for you, and people like you who work hard to make Linux mobile a thing.
But at the same time, seeing working phone calls be big news really highlights how much further we have to go.
I’ve recently been wanting to ditch Android and I’ve been exploring options but haven’t found anything that suits my needs yet, but people like you working hard has me hopeful for the future
There is probably no way, but something that works in the car like Android Auto? I guess the protocol is proprietary but it will be one of my hardest things to miss if I had to go back to the car navigation and entertainment. So if it can’t be compatible, then something that does the same with an external screen or so, so it can be added to a car.
I’m not sure how android auto works but that indeed would be cool.
The closest thing now would probably be a linux sbc with an aftermarket display, using KDE connect.
What is the point of android auto? Every time I’ve gotten in a car that prompts it I trun that shit off asap. Never understood WHY people want their phone and car as one.
- Navigation with current traffic without paying a monthly fee to the car producer
- Seemless following of my podcast from train to car.
- Notification and voicing of messages while driving and the option to answer.
Those are the main points I can think of right now.
Before android auto, people used to have a phone holder, usually with a charger. Navigation and voice commands were still a thing.
Car protocols are so fucked that an extra linux media display would probably be the right way to go.
For everyone that donated thank you so much!!!
I would really to add a “thank you” section, if you would like your name here, please reply with the time of your donation so I can find it on my bank. If you want the amount shown please also say that.
And if you want to stay anonymous then that’s ofcourse also perfectly fine!
Thank everyone very much again! truly!
Can’t wait for this to be avail in Canada…am burning to get rid of Android.
Holy Smokes… All during the Mercury Retrograde no less… This is all nothing short of genuinely amazing!! First it was GPS, then NFC, then Audio (with Microphone) and now Calls? Please do correct me but, by the PMOS Graph, that’d just leave the Camera and the IMU left??
All jokes aside, my fp4 suddenly started dying on me and ended up ordering a fp6, so I’ll gladly run some tests! If you have any particular place you’d like us to send feedback or bug reports, please do let me know!
EDIT: Also the lack of Emergency Calls (or at least that’s what it says on the imsd repo) is a bit unfortunate, but, iirc, Emergency Calls work on a different band or system, regardless of SIM. So in a way, it’s also not too surprising, at least for me.
Thank you! “Cat’d” really made me laugh
If you have any particular place you’d like us to send feedback or bug reports, please do let me know!
For imsd the best place would be my forgejo, but im not sure how federation works yet on forgejo or if its even enabled on my instance, ive pretty much used it as my technically public but in practice private instance, so i need to figure that out.
In the meantime here on lemmy will also work fine.
and the IMU left??
https://lore.kernel.org/all/[email protected]/
;)
Absolute legend! My wallet is itching to get an FP6 with all this news…
Any plans on tackling the camera?
It seemed like Luca was already working on the camera and I didn’t want to race him so I prioritized the other stuff.
But now that the camera is the only thing left I was planning on sending him an email to ask if I could help.
Looks like there’s been recent news on that front! https://nondescriptpointer.com/articles/fairphone-6-wide-camera-linux/
Someone else seems to work on camera support https://nondescriptpointer.com/articles/fairphone-6-wide-camera-linux/
They’re putting mercury in gatorade‽‽‽
They spotted Hercules at the gay parade‽‽‽
Super cool! Actually a month ago I made almost exactly the same thing as IMSd but for the purposes of VoWiFi from a laptop modem! I also wanted to attach to an IMS bearer on LTE but couldn’t figure it out on my modem. My project was a pretty big hack and I never intended it to go anywhere other than for it to be a showcase, I knew I’d have to rewrite it from the ground up for it to actually be useful. Really cool to see this instesd
https://x.com/i/status/2066417720292163960 my original twitter post.
Incredible work! I honestly have not been as pumped about technology in such a long time, and it’s mostly due to Linux/Linux phones. I finally got around to fixing a PMOS install on my old phone and been itching to tinker with it.
With that said, how has the battery life been for you? Mines not great, but it could also be there fact that the battery is like 8 years old. And that’s only using WiFi. I’m curious how it does on modern hardware and using cell towers.
It’s less then android, but im sure there are more gains to be made there.
The battery works fine for a day, but if i don’t plug it in overnight its drained.
Thank you so much for your hard work! I can’t wait to be able to run Linux on my Fairphone 6.
Thank you!
I’ll soon publish that script here that will do the automatic installation, so hopefully you shouldn’t have to wait for long.
