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Sailfish X for Gemini
Jolla finally released Sailfish X for Gemini. Gemini are old school PDAs. Or, customised Android smart phones (with or without the phone bit) with physical keyboards. I've been using Sailfish as my phone OS for a few years now, and I love anything with physical buttons, so I was all in.
I'm glad I got some practice in with the Community edition before the official release, because it is not the smoothest process. Here's the current state of things;
- Following the Planet Computers guide download the flashing tool.
- Go to the Partition Tool and set up your partitions. This is the main pain point. With the Community edition of Sailfish I was able to treble-boot my Gemini; #1 Android, #2 Debian, #3 Sailfish. But now it appears that Sailfish must be in the first partition, and you can't boot linux alongside it. It could be an error in the tool, but it is frustrating. Okay, so my new partitions are #1 Sailfish, #2 Android. Fine, now I'll download the Scatter File, the Gemini base firmware, and Sailfi... err... the download link goes to the Jolla shop. When you've paid for the OS you get an email telling you to use the Planet Computers documentation, which is what led us to this circle. Luckily there's a way out. The "Firmware List (including older versions) and MD5 checksums" link under the poorly named "Download Sailfish OS firmware" button is what you want. Follow it and download the sailfish.zip.
- Okay, so do follow the documentation, but in summary; Create a folder called 'Gemini' (the flash tool is configured to look for it). Put the Scatter File in there. Unzip the Gemini firmware into there too (make sure not in a folder). Also unzip the sailfish.zip into the same folder. Then run the tool. (If you're having difficulty 'restarting' Gemini just disconnect/reconnect the USB cable.)
- Boot up and configure your new OSs.
Good point, the paid-for Sailfish version has access to the basic Jolla apps, unlike the Community version, which are really useful. But, neither version has an Android compatibility layer, so no Android apps, which does limit its potential. You have to turn on 'Developer Mode' to get a terminal, and most of the screen is obscured by an unnecessary on-screen keyboard. It's not Android-compatible, it's not a fully featured linux, and I can't multiboot with a linux either? It is great to see Sailfish working on more devices, and hopefully these are all just teething problems, but it is frustrating.
I'm glad I got some practice in with the Community edition before the official release, because it is not the smoothest process. Here's the current state of things;
- Following the Planet Computers guide download the flashing tool.
- Go to the Partition Tool and set up your partitions. This is the main pain point. With the Community edition of Sailfish I was able to treble-boot my Gemini; #1 Android, #2 Debian, #3 Sailfish. But now it appears that Sailfish must be in the first partition, and you can't boot linux alongside it. It could be an error in the tool, but it is frustrating. Okay, so my new partitions are #1 Sailfish, #2 Android. Fine, now I'll download the Scatter File, the Gemini base firmware, and Sailfi... err... the download link goes to the Jolla shop. When you've paid for the OS you get an email telling you to use the Planet Computers documentation, which is what led us to this circle. Luckily there's a way out. The "Firmware List (including older versions) and MD5 checksums" link under the poorly named "Download Sailfish OS firmware" button is what you want. Follow it and download the sailfish.zip.
- Okay, so do follow the documentation, but in summary; Create a folder called 'Gemini' (the flash tool is configured to look for it). Put the Scatter File in there. Unzip the Gemini firmware into there too (make sure not in a folder). Also unzip the sailfish.zip into the same folder. Then run the tool. (If you're having difficulty 'restarting' Gemini just disconnect/reconnect the USB cable.)
- Boot up and configure your new OSs.
Good point, the paid-for Sailfish version has access to the basic Jolla apps, unlike the Community version, which are really useful. But, neither version has an Android compatibility layer, so no Android apps, which does limit its potential. You have to turn on 'Developer Mode' to get a terminal, and most of the screen is obscured by an unnecessary on-screen keyboard. It's not Android-compatible, it's not a fully featured linux, and I can't multiboot with a linux either? It is great to see Sailfish working on more devices, and hopefully these are all just teething problems, but it is frustrating.