Using the smartphone Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu Edition for other purposes

This is not an overview of the smartphone or operating system Ubuntu Touch, on which it works, but rather a description of how to use a set of Linux technologies on a smartphone for certain tasks (for which a laptop or desktop computer is usually used).



About six months ago (on his birthday), the Meizu Pro 5 smartphone was purchased in a top configuration. In the very first week, the Chinese Android Flyme was demolished, and the Ubuntu Touch OTA-12 OS was installed. I’ll say right away that the operating system at that time (and even now too) is still raw, but the smartphone functions as a telephone regularly. Calls, sms, distribution of 4G internet laptop over WiFi - everything works.

Around the same time, Raspberry Pi 3 was configured with Ubuntu Mate - and experiments were conducted on using it as a home desktop computer, which, unfortunately, were not successful - on the one hand, Pi 3 was weak, and I wanted to have something This is a type of personal laptop - as a working laptop (provided by the employer, with whom you travel without parting) and a working iPhone are used only for business needs.
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As a result, the microSD card installed by Ubuntu Mate migrated to the Meizu Pro 5 smartphone and was mounted in the / home / phablet / PI folder and then, using simple commands, a VNC server was raised in a chroot environment.

Thus, at any time you can connect to the Ubuntu Mate desktop using the vncviewer or Microsoft RDP Client from a laptop or any other device (for example, iPhone). And if you connect a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to Meizu Pro 5, and run the vncviewer from a Libertine container, you can use the Ubuntu Mate desktop directly on your smartphone (a very small image, but for emergency cases, it is fine).

The smartphone’s resources are about twice as large as those of the Raspberry Pi 3 - 8 cores, 4 Gb of RAM - therefore all “office” applications work perfectly. LibreOffice (this article is now written using Writer), Chromium, Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, Keepass2, and so on.
Of course, terminal applications are all present - mate-terminal, konsole, xterm, etc. VPN with two-factor authentication (openconnect) - from the chroot environment - also works.

Windows applications. As it turned out, this is also possible.

PL / SQL Developer (+ Oracle Instant Client) and AutoCAD work through wine and Exagear (i686 emulation). And quickly enough - this GT drawing was created in AutoCAD on a smartphone in 5 minutes - it's comfortable to draw!

Microsoft Office (2007) - starts and runs, installed in case of emergency, if Libre Office fails.



Upgrading operating systems - both Ubuntu Touch and Ubuntu Mate is done using apt-get.

Below is a description of some convenient things that have been tried.

Redirect SMS if necessary (with filters and sorting)

Since sms are stored in the sqlite database, you can choose sms using SQL, for example:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet$ echo "select timestamp, message from text_events where message like 'Example%' order by timestamp; " | sqlite3 /home/phablet/.localhost/share/history-service/history.sqlite 

and then through the conveyor feed the script to send:

 /usr/share/ofono/scripts/send-sms/ril_1 555555555 $message_string 0 

Copying photos, videos and other files on sftp (from phone and to phone)

You may not know which pocket your smartphone is in, or in which room your spouses have a laptop, but if they are on the same network, you can access the phone via ssh and copy the pictures to the laptop:

 phablet@ubuntu-phablet$ scp -p *.jpg laptop:/Users/wife_login/Pictures/ 

File Encryption

Especially valuable documents and Keepass with passwords lies in the mounted Cryptkeeper folder.

Connecting an external monitor / TV

Powered by Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter (Miracast) - USB receiver connects to a TV or monitor. At the same time, Ubuntu Touch switches to Desktop mode, all phone applications become separate windows on the desktop. It is rarely used, since the image quality is suitable only for watching videos, and working with small text is very unpleasant - for this, vncviewer is used from a laptop.

Internet distribution from the smartphone

It works quite normally, sometimes it is used to connect the iPhone to talk on Skype, or connect a laptop to the Internet via WiFi.

Separation of personal and business Internet traffic

If there is a desire not to waste Internet traffic of the employer (during working hours while on the local network), you can delete the default gateway to Guest WiFi on the phone, and then all network activity will occur on the 4G network, and the display will be performed on the laptop screen via vnc (or xrdp).

Connecting keyboards, mice, USB hard drives, USB-drives, printer

The connection is established using a USB-C-USB adapter, to which you can connect a USB hub, and a mouse, keyboard, etc., to it.

Samsung color laser printer was found in the home WiFi network and automatically installed using CUPS, documents are printed properly.

Console mplayer in the terminal to listen to music

Who likes mplayer, you can start playing music in the console:

 user@ubuntu-phablet$ cd Music; mplayer *.mp3 

And in another tab of the console - the mixer (volume control)

 phablet@ubuntu-phablet$ padsp aumix 

Mercurial repository

TortoiseHg is used, the main repository is on the smartphone, the repository clones are made on several home computers / laptops. For synchronization on the smartphone, the Web server is started using TortoiseHg Workbench.

Charging another phone from Meizu Pro 5

The smartphone can work for several days on a single charge, about 2 times longer than the iPhone (not exactly measured, my subjective opinion) - which is quite pleasing. In addition, he can share the charge with another phone through a USB-C-USB adapter.

Total

The gap in productivity between smartphones and computers a decade ago is gradually reduced, so most of the tasks that were performed on personal computers can now be performed on smartphones.

If you have questions, ready to answer in the comments.