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DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

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Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#41

Post by rtpg »

pjmlp wrote: post #16
rtpg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we could put FFOS on this phone. I still think the FF model of "everything is a web page" would lead to a pretty magical end goal, first set out by Smalltalk VMs. But I am not using a phone with a laggy keyboard.

Smalltalk used "everything is native". As someone that used Smalltalk, HTML/CSS with JavaScript glue surely isn't what Smalltalk had for its GUI.

Oh, did it? I thought it was in its own universe. Maybe I'm thinking of some other system (Scratch??).

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#43

Post by Sylos »

Freak_NL wrote: post #31

I own the Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu smartphone. And I like it. This is actually my first smartphone, so my perspective may be somewhat different from that of the reviews of it out there. I am a software engineer, and I greatly value the freedom to do whatever I want with computing devices I own, and to be able to tweak things and contribute any enhancements back to the community. If something irks me and I can fix it, I wil…

> I do sorely miss Firefox with uBlock Origin though! Ads on websites seem even more intrusive than on the desktop.

You could edit the hosts-file to block ads...

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#45

Post by lambda »

rplnt wrote: post #34
lambda wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh. I've just never installed any ad-based applications. If there's a no-ad paid version for a buck or two I'll buy it, otherwise, I just don't use it.

How did you know which apps have ads? Until recently it was not shown anywhere I think?

If it's a gateway to a paid service (music stores, Uber, Lyft, etc), it generally won't have ads.

If it's free, but not a gateway to a paid service, I check to see if source is available; if source is available, it generally doesn't have ads (and if it does, I can just build it myself and remove them).

If the above checks fail, I check for a paid, ad-free version. If such a version exists, that implies the free version has ads. If the price is reasonable, I'll buy it, otherwise I'll skip it.

Finally you have free-as-in-beer but not as in freedom apps, that don't have paid alternative or any other way of generating revenue. I just assume those apps are either encrusted in ads or scams, so I don't install them.

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#46

Post by rglullis »

I got the BQ Aquarius 5 a few months ago, after my Moto G2 SIM card stopped working. So when comparing two budget-but-capable-phones, I can say that the hardware on the Ubuntu phone is not the problem.

The software they have is great, and I haven't seen any half-backed features. The updates are consistent and always bring something interesting. The idea of lenses and scopes are great as an alternative to the lack of common apps. I didn't miss not having a weather app or yelp, or youtube or whatever.

The one thing that is lacking on Ubuntu Touch are the things that are core to mobile use cases. For example:

- I understand that I won't get a decent Google Maps app, but there is no real alternative. Here Maps comes installed, but I could not find a way to get public transportation data. uNav seems to do the turn-by-turn navigation, but they don't have voice, which is useless when I am on a bike.

- There is no decent story for messaging/VoIP: You can have Telegram, but also is just a webview wrapper. Messenger, Whatsapp? Nothing. And if at least they had half-decent XMPP/SIP clients, I could try to drop the closed services and try to switch my friends and family with me. But what good is a smartphone that I can't use to talk or chat?

Because of these things, I was basically forced to always be walking around with two phones: the Ubuntu one for connectivity and basic media and as a hotspot for my broken Android, which I would then use when I needed to look into maps or call/message someone. The hassle was enough for me to find a replacement board for the SIM card and go back to use only Android for everything. The Ubuntu phone now is in a drawer, waiting for me to get some time to play with application development for Ubuntu Touch.

All-in-all, my feeling is that Canonical is close to get its break and make Ubuntu a compelling alternative. It is just not there yet. I also hope that this Moto G was my last Android phone.

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#47

Post by angry-hacker »

cnr wrote: post #26
Scarbutt wrote: post #5

How does distrowatch gets the "page hits" for all the distros's websites? or are those "page hits" initiated from within distrowatch? (surprised to see Mint at the top)

They are counting "one hit per IP address per day" on distribution subpages. Here is explained "DistroWatch Page Hit Ranking": https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity

Therefor it depends how well specific distro page of theirs rank in Google? If linux mint ranks 5th and Ubuntu 30th, because ubuntu is so popular, of course it gets more hits. And maybe some little known distro ranks 1st because it has no competition.

I think their popularity table is flawed, but I still love their website. You can browse distros that are based on specific distros etc.

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#48

Post by lake99 »

pjmlp wrote: post #15
lake99 wrote: post #6

> About 1GB of memory is required to run the phone with its default scopes and settings, leaving us about 2GB of space for applications and other features. I did not see this coming. I was under the impression that moving away from a JVM would have lowered the memory requirements. A comparison of the two versions of Meizu Pro 5, Android and Ubuntu, would have been useful too. I am curious if the move away from the An…

As of Android 5, there is only ART, which is no different than using Go, D, or any other AOT compiled language with a GC enabled runtime. Also many Scopes are actually written in either JavaScript, or QML with C++ and Go as possible code-behind languages. https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/ So overall the runtime requirements aren't much different, unless you are writing a pure Qt/C++ scope (without QML).

Ah well, I guess I'll stay with Android for the time being then. I hope they meant to introduce Scopes as a stopgap measure to bridge the app divide to Android and iOS. I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#49

Post by pjmlp »

lake99 wrote: post #48
pjmlp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of Android 5, there is only ART, which is no different than using Go, D, or any other AOT compiled language with a GC enabled runtime. Also many Scopes are actually written in either JavaScript, or QML with C++ and Go as possible code-behind languages. https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/phone/scopes/ So overall the runtime requirements aren't much different, unless you are writing a pure Qt/C++ scope (without QML).

Ah well, I guess I'll stay with Android for the time being then. I hope they meant to introduce Scopes as a stopgap measure to bridge the app divide to Android and iOS. I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.

> I don't like this trend of newer (Android) apps needing 20-50MB downloads, and being so bloated for what they actually do.

Most of those apps are actually written in Qt, PhoneGap, Xamarin, or whatever portable flavour of the month.

Applications written in Java just with the Android Frameworks, are hardly above 10MB in application code, usually the rest are image/audio resources or a collection of the "Java framework of the month" for Android.

Re: DistroWatch Ubuntu Phone review

#50

Post by rodgerd »

lambda wrote: post #21
kogepathic wrote: post #19

> Over the past year and a half I have become accustomed to the idea that I get to run free applications on my phone in exchange for being shown semi-frequent ads. This tended not to bother me most of the time, except when Android apps would suddenly show me full screen videos at high volume. Really? I installed AdAway [1] on my Android phone and since then I have seen no ads. Zero. The only issue is that some legiti…

Huh. I've just never installed any ad-based applications. If there's a no-ad paid version for a buck or two I'll buy it, otherwise, I just don't use it.

That sounds great in theory, until you pay for the no-ad version and the developer crams ads in a month or two later.
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