DebianOn is an effort to document how to install, configure and use Debian on some specific hardware. Therefore potential buyers would know if that hardware is supported and owners would know how get the best out of that hardware.

The purpose is not to duplicate the Debian Official Documentation, but to document how to install Debian on some specific hardware.

If you need help to get Debian running on your hardware, please have a look at our user support channels where you may find specific channels (mailing list, IRC channel) dedicated to certain types of hardware.

Support

As of January 2025, Mobian support for Pixel 3a (google-sargo) is experimental. You are welcome to ask about it on Mobian communication channels.

There are several reports during 2024:

Installation

Known good weekly images

Not all of the weekly images are tested continuously on all devices in all variants. The ones below are known to work and are a good starting point for running testing:

Obtain the Image

Pre-built images for your device are available from https://images.mobian.org/sdm670/weekly/, packed in a file named

(where the <family> you are looking for is sdm670).

Verifying the images

Mobian images come with multiple files:

To verify the download, use the following steps:

  1. Import the Mobian signing key from here. Once downloaded, the key can be imported with gpg --import mobian.gpg.

  2. Verify the signature with gpg --verify <downloaded file>.sha256sum.sig.

  3. If the signature is valid, check the other files with shasum -c <downloaded file>.sha256sums

  4. If this prints OK for all files the download is verified.

Preparing the Device

As you would do before installing a custom Android ROM, the bootloader needs to be unlocked. The exact procedure varies depending on the device you own, so we suggest you search the Internet for an unlock guide aimed at your specific device.

We also recommend that you upgrade Android to the latest available version and install all system updates before installing Mobian.

See postmarketOS' wiki for allow bootloader unlocking and unlock the bootloader.

Flashing the Image to the Target Device

WARNING: Flashing Mobian to your device will wipe your Android installation! Please install recovery software such as TWRP and make sure you understand how to recover your system before proceeding.

Those devices being Android smartphones in the first place, they have secure boot enabled, meaning we can't replace their bootloader and need to rely on Android tools in order to flash Mobian.

In practice, this means we can't flash a single image file, and the downloaded tarball will contain:

As these devices have several variants, which differ only by the device-tree they need, and the DT being part of the bootimg, we provide one bootimg for each variant. You have to flash the one matching your device:

Once you have extracted those files from the tarball, boot your device into fastboot mode, connect it to your computer using a USB cable and run the following commands to install Mobian: 

fastboot flash boot mobian-<family>-<graphical_shell>-YYYYMMDD.boot-<model>.img
fastboot -S 100M flash userdata mobian-<family>-<graphical_shell>-YYYYMMDD.rootfs.img
fastboot erase dtbo

Please note, erasing DTBO is optional, as described in pmOS wiki.

If all steps above succeeded enable uart, otherwise the device might not boot reliably: 

fastboot oem uart enable

Then reboot your phone with 

fastboot reboot

Fastboot mode

When the device is shut off, both the !Pixel3a (sargo) and the !Pixel3aXL (bonito) can be put in fastboot mode by pressing and keeping pressed the power and volume down buttons, until the fastboot screen appears. Different entries can be navigated with volume buttons and entered with power button.

Notes:

General

Audio

General Audio

 sudo systemctl mask alsa-restore 
 sudo rm -f /var/lib/alsa/asound.state

GPS

GPS works, but the following two commands are required to have it working:

Disable engine lock: 

qmicli -d qrtr://0 --loc-set-engine-lock=mt

Disable proprietary NMEA messages: 

qmicli -d qrtr://0 --loc-set-nmea-types=all

This will have to be done after every boot for now.

Voice Call

[Unit]
Description=Restart the userspace daemon for the QDSP6 voice call audio driver on resume
After=suspend.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/systemctl restart q6voiced.service

[Install]
WantedBy=suspend.target

[Unit]
Description=Disable pulseaudio/pipewire suspend-on-idle module during call
After=ModemManager.service
ConditionUser=!@system

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround.sh

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10s

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

This should be placed in the /lib/systemd/user/ folder and enabled using systemctl --user without sudo or alternatively execute the following in a console 

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround.sh
cat <<'EOF' | sudo tee /lib/systemd/user/call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround.service
[Unit]
Description=Disable pulseaudio/pipewire suspend-on-idle module during call
After=ModemManager.service
ConditionUser=!@system

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround.sh

Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10s

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

EOF

systemctl --user enable call_audio_idle_suspend_workaround.service

Notes about installation on sargo

yifei: I successfully booted mobian plasma mobile on my sargo, my procedure is:

flash the latest android build with Android online flash tool, chrome/chromium is required. https://flash.android.com/build/8782922?target=sargo-user&signed=true&wipe=true

flash mobian images, I used mobian-sdm670-plasma-mobile-20250110: https://images.mobian.org/sdm670/weekly/mobian-sdm670-plasma-mobile-20250110.tar.xz

then: 

fastboot oem uart enable
fastboot erase dtbo

reboot and it should boot into greetd and asks for password (1234).

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