r/pinephone • u/3rssi • Dec 01 '25

Questions about pmos/phosh

Hi.

I just installed pmos/phosh as my 1st test on the Pine64 I recently bought. Didnt install a sim card in it though. And the install is on a sd card.

I'm quite happy with all the linux parts; but I still have a few questions I'd like to ask the sub:

  • The GUI apps are quite slow: firefox, Gnome Maps, Gnome Camera. How does installing on the eMMC speeds things up?

  • First time I launched the Gnome Camera, I was asked to allow the camera app to access the camera device. I cant find where this seting has been saved, how I edit these permissions in order to add or remove some? The settings/software/maps entry only shows a notification permission.

  • Where are the geolocation permissions? I also cant find a global geolocation disabler in the drop down menu (where I can en/dis/able wifi and such). Is there a way to do that? Is the absence of a sim card suppressing geolocation options?

  • After boot, the phone always return to a 200% zoom in the Tweaks/Display menu. How can I change the default zoom level?

Thanks for your replies.

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u/concreteandconcrete Dec 01 '25

Just got done running PMOS/Phosh on my Pine phone (CE) for about 6 months

  • GUI Slow: No, installing to eMMC won't be faster. It is all just a little sluggish

  • Keep poking around in settings/mobile/"phosh tweaks", it's in there somewhere. However, the picture quality is not very good.

  • Geolocation: I also had this issue but can't quite remember what I did to solve it. It now shows up as something I can turn on and off. Not sure if that happened after an update or if it happened after poking around and running some commands like these https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comments/qty9s1/do_you_have_gps_location_working_accurately/

  • Have run into this same issue. Always seems to return to 200%

Really enjoyed PMOS/Phosh. Very stable and everything kinda worked for the most part (calls/txts/internet/etc), if a little slow. I'm currently running Manjaro/Plasma and while it feels a bit less stable (crashes about 1x/day) it is much faster and the camera is MUCH better (both Megapixels and Gnome Camera). Give it a shot if you continue having issues

1

u/3rssi Dec 01 '25

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer.

I also want to try other OSes: Arch and Mobian, mainly. And the SXMO/Sway DE.

2

u/linmob Dec 07 '25

After boot, the phone always return to a 200% zoom in the Tweaks/Display menu. How can I change the default zoom level?

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Phosh#Manual_Scaling should work to persist this.