2023-07-28
2023-10-03: I'm aware of new developments like rk2aw but I do not cover these as they involve switching away from Tow-Boot
2024-03-02: I don't currently use my PPP so this guide might be outdated.
2025-01-25: This guide is extremely old, follow at your peril.
Updated to fix the date which was wrongly displayed in the American (bad) format.
Adapted and where needed thoughtfully rewritten from the old blog.
The PinePhone Pro is not the stablest device out of the box, in fact it is often broken out of the box, but that is out of the scope of this blog.
I will be sharing the optimal PPP setup for convenience and stability. The guide expects that you have a relatively good knowledge of how the phone works and how to distrohop on it, so you should be able to understand how to update the phone and put in an SD card etc. with minimal hand holding. If you don't know how to do this then this guide is not for you, sorry.
So without further stalling, here is how I set it up.
Step 1 - Get Mobian installed
Get the Mobian image and then flash it to SD following these instructions. You should probably set up encryption on the way.
Step 2 - Set it up
Install updates and set your APN in the Mobile Network settings page appropriately.
Step 3 - Waydroid (the difficult part)
Install Waydroid through the Mobian install instructions.
Run sudo waydroid init but then do not start Waydroid yet.
Follow this guide by nroth to set up a known working Waydroid image. You may use this handy Waydroid utility to extract the Google registration ID without typing out the long command in the guide. You can still run the long command anyway if the utility does not work.
Optional: Get Magisk set up using the aforementioned Waydroid utility for root utilities. I cannot recommend this unless you know exactly what you are doing with it and the potential ramifications if something happens. You can also install microG if you wish.
Step 4 - Fixing Waydroid
Get Waydroid's clipboard working. For whatever reason it is broken by default. To fix the clipboard run the following commands:
pip install pyclip
The argument "— break-system-packages" was needed to get pyclip to install on my setup. It has not obviously broken anything in my case, but it could break something for you, so consider if you really really want a Waydroid clipboard.
sudo apt install wl-clipboard
Enjoy your functional system.
Install Biktorgj open modem firmware (optional)
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BROKEN MODEMS, IT IS ENTIRELY UP TO YOU WHETHER YOU DO THIS OR NOT
Make sure this is legal where you live before proceeding!
Where is the guide I wrote, you ask? I removed it because you should follow the official instructions.