NixOS · Apr 7, 2020
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+= March 2020 round-up
+include::_support/common.inc[]
+include::_support/website.inc[]
+:special: news
+:docdate: 2020-04-07
+:image: {rootrel}news/2020-04-07-march-2020-round-up.jpeg
+Samuel Dionne-Riel
+April 7th 2020
+
+This update is the fifth in a series of regular updates on the state of the
+project.
+
+Only changes that have been accepted and merged in Mobile NixOS are
+chronicled here. There's always link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pulls[more work]
+currently in-progress.
+
+=== Notable changes
+
+link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pulls?q=is%3Apr+merged%3A2020-03+sort%3Acreated-asc[17 PRs were merged]
+during the month. (The link says 18, but one of them was, to me, late in
+February, read the previous news item).
+
+Let's look at some of these.
+
+==== Pine64 Pinephone “Braveheart”
+
+This was teased about on the link:https://twitter.com/samueldr/status/1237478576443854848[
+author's twitter account]. link:https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/[The inexpensive
+Pinephone] is the latest new device added to Mobile NixOS.
+
+This brings a bit more than only a new device. This is the fourth system type
+added to Mobile NixOS. The added system type (U-Boot) in theory will give us
+the ability to support any U-Boot-based system in a common way. In practice the
+still unmerged and WIP link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/94[#94]
+shows how this is true by using U-Boot with another Pine64 device, the 
+_Pinebook Pro_.
+
+A nice thing that was verified again with this new device port is that the
+stage-2 image (the rootfs, the system.img) is indeed universal. It is using the
+same AArch64 build of the system image as Android-based devices, and
+Depthcharge-based devices.
+
+Our build for the Pinephone relies on the link:https://gitlab.com/pine64-org/linux[
+downstream kernel from the Pine64 community], with only one added patch.
+The same is done for the U-Boot build.
+
+The added patches are user-experience-focused patches that are using the RGB
+LED of the phone to show the boot status.
+
+Other than that, the hardware support is not complete, but it is supported at
+the same level as other devices, plus Wi-Fi working.
+
+See link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/96[PR #96] for all the details.
+
+==== Hydra builds
+
+This is not entirely an in-repository change. There's link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/97[#97]
+and link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/113[#133] that are relevant
+to this. The link:https://hydra.nixos.org/jobset/mobile-nixos/unstable[mobile-nixos:unstable jobset]
+on Hydra is the other part of the puzzle.
+
+What this gives us is automatic continuous builds of Mobile NixOS against the
+`nixos-unstable` NixOS channel. From this, we can track changes that break the
+Mobile NixOS builds, and track internal breakage to some parts of Mobile NixOS.
+
+This is not even the best part. As can be seen in link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/113[#133],
+we are now delivering up-to-date stage-2 rootfs, which allows end-users without
+the required hardware to link:https://mobile.nixos.org/getting-started.html#_using_a_pre_built_system_img[
+bootstrap themselves using a pre-built image]. The requirement to have a native
+AArch64 machine to build the system image is no more. While not ideal, users
+could make use of their phone to build a customized image, or simply, do a
+`nixos-rebuild` on it.
+
+It already paid its worth in gold, as by the time this was developed, two
+regressions were spotted and quickly fixed. And furthermore, I hope that the
+exercising of the cross-compilation framework will help the NixOS developers
+working on making cross-compilation better in NixOS.
+
+==== Other mentions
+
+* Using GitHub Actions, link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/112[#112]
+  checks new PRs for some simple breakage.
+
+* Developers can now use `nconfig` to configure their kernel using the “porcelain”
+  `bin/menuconfig`, as added in link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/109[#109].
+
+=== Ports
+
+One new device has been merged during March.
+
+* Pine64 Pinephone “Braveheart” (pine64-pinephone-braveheart) [link:https://github.com/samueldr[@samueldr]] (link:https://github.com/NixOS/mobile-nixos/pull/96[#96])
+
+Bringing the link:https://mobile.nixos.org/devices/index.html[total of devices to 11].
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