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Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

plasma-mobile.org

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Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#221

Post by mih »

winter_blue wrote: post #172
reledi wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The content on the page does a very poor job of explaining what it is and why we should care. It's only until I saw the KDE developers at the bottom that I realised it's a graphical desktop environment but for your mobile phone. It's FOSS so it's hackable, as in you have access to the source code and development is done in the open and contributions are encouraged. The target developer phone seems to be the LG Nexus…

Yea, the Plasma Mobile home page doesn't really make a strong pitch towards a potential user. For mobile developers, the biggest difference is that they'd be using the Qt framework instead of the Android framework. So the pitch at least for mobile developers, should be why it's a more pleasant and better (and more productive) experience to develop mobile apps with Qt vs the Android frameworks. I'm not how much better…

To answer your question, I'm a user of KDE since its 3.x days. KDE 4 was as bad as they say it was - buggy, terrible theming and impaired customizability. The stability did improve in its later versions though.

I switched to Plasma 5 about a year ago, when the first stable version landed on Arch linux. It's been a daily driver since. Initial versions had lots of bugs in them - persistently high CPU usage. Sometimes the desktop hung for no fault of the user. Proper resumption after standby/resume was a lottery. On the plus side, the Breeze theme was a breath of fresh air compared to the older Oxygen theme.

Since version 5.6 was released things have improved and keep getting better with every new version. There are still occasional cockups with Intel graphics drivers leading to high CPU usage. The problem though seems to stem from the Qt libraries. Some GTK 3.x apps don't show proper widgets (blame Gnome devs for not having consistent themes for 3.x versions). I did give other DE's a go - Gnome 3.xx, Cinnamon, XFCE etc., but always ended up switching back. Plasma offered the best mix of customizability, performance and aesthetic appeal for me.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#222

Post by k__ »

st3v3r wrote: post #111
k__ wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be the main problem with android alternatives. I have a Huawei Honor, but can't find any Android alternatives for it.

In order to get the android alternative on there, someone has to do the work to get it on there in the first place. If no one has done it for your device, then that job falls to you. Which is why most of these target Nexus devices, because those are the easiest to do the work for (or it's already done).

What has to be done for this?

Is this hardcore hacking action stuff or can this be done by the average CS-major/Developer?

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#223

Post by Sylos »

codedokode wrote: post #190

I think the title is misleading. This project is about installing KDE on a smartphone over Cyanogenmod (which is a modified build of Android). I am totally against Google and its restrictions and tracking proprietary code in Android but this project looks more like an attempt to get user base to sell them some paid services later. Do you really need KDE to make your phone "hackable"? Google did a lot to polish Androi…

> I am totally against Google and its restrictions and tracking proprietary code in Android but this project looks more like an attempt to get user base to sell them some paid services later.

KDE e.V. is a non-profit, so I don't think they could legally even do that...

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#224

Post by Sylos »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #80

> Plasma Mobile is developed by one of the most reputable and longest-standing software development organisations in the world. But you don't want to clearly tell us who it is?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_e.V.

Their main-project is the KDE Plasma desktop environment, which is a GUI with accompanying applications for desktop Linux.

Probably the most famous thing outside of the Linux-world that they are responsible for is KHTML, which is what WebKit (and therefore also Blink) is based on.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#225

Post by pjmlp »

OOPMan wrote: post #219
pjmlp wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously aren't aware that since Android 5 there isn't any bytecode being interpreted. Android is 100% native code since that version. Even the changes in Android 7, although they use an intepreter written in Assembly, the code is JITed with profile information, both are cached and it gets ultimately fully compiled to native code when the device is charging. Also in case you didn't notice, Apple is pushing for L…

Unfortunately, despite all this Android is still a turd of an OS. Just about every Android device I've used has been painful in some way or other and invariably I've ended up rooting it and installing a custom firmware, generally the most light-weight one I can find. Unfortunately, despite these antics Android remains annoyingly prone to sluggishness, freezing, reboots and various other random problems. Ultimately it…

Those problems don't lie necessarily with the language, rather on the quality of work of everyone involved.

I have seen pretty sluggish, full of memory leaks and dangling pointers, C code written at enterprise level, by developers that couldn't care 1s about code quality.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#226

Post by Yaggo »

lphnull wrote: post #174
amiga-workbench wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would kill for a Nokia N950. A proper keyboard, and a true Linux operating system with the usual userspace software you would expect.

My raspberry pi 3, encased in a rainbow colored 3d printed case and with a 3.5" touch screen, is what took the place of my n900. It's a fraction of the cost of an n900, but with a standard rpi linux distribution and modern specs. Sure I can't make calls with my pi, but the sacrifice is well worth it for the nerd appeal of having a fully functional computer in your pcoket.

Raspberry Pi has one big flaw as a mobile device: it cannot sleep. If you disable peripherals etc you can get it down to ~100 mA or so when idling, which is still order of magnitude more than a real sleep mode.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#227

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

pjmlp wrote: post #204
digi_owl wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that very few people these days knows that all the big name European mobile brands (Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens) were also big name infrastructure brands. And that two of them still operate (Ericsson and Nokia, the latter having bought Siemens infrastructure division).

Some here used to work for that unit. :)

Really?

That explains a lot about you: although mostly your preference for strong typing. Working for a phone company will do that for you.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#228

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #196
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so sure. There are a lot of N900 users and fans. Another interesting project which might fill my desire for a true mobile computer (if only I could afford it) is the Pyra, the more powerful successor to the Pandora. But at $~500-$~600, it may not be worth it, and it still hasn't actually released yet (although the company did make the Pandora, so they have a history of Getting Stuff Done). If you're goi…

I think the Pyra even has an (optional?) modem module you could potentially make calls with (using a Bluetooth headset rather than sidetalking-style ;-)): https://www.pyra-handheld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Modem

Yeah, but it costs 100 euros extra.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#229

Post by agumonkey »

macco wrote: post #214
agumonkey wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never liked KDE looks nor ergonomics. Nor their attempts at grand projects (plasma makes me cringe everytime I see the word now). But I appreciate "simpler" open linux platform for smartphones. Wish them the best. ps: I was actually looking into FDroid to free myself a little from Android locks, wishing for a simple linux + ssh + any signed code I wish.

Me too, then I tried Plasma 5.8 and I am delighted. It is by far the best DE I ever used - and yes, macOS included. The polish it has is unbelievable.

Around KDE 5 first releases I had a thing for it. But I had what resembles javascript fatigue. The KDE world was too much of a moving target; also, but that's on me, I was fed up with DEs, except for the basics GUI (think OS2, Win3/95) I felt they provided no value over emacs, so that's what I ended up with wmii,emacs,chrome.

Re: Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device

#230

Post by humanrebar »

codedokode wrote: post #198
winter_blue wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, the Plasma Mobile home page doesn't really make a strong pitch towards a potential user. For mobile developers, the biggest difference is that they'd be using the Qt framework instead of the Android framework. So the pitch at least for mobile developers, should be why it's a more pleasant and better (and more productive) experience to develop mobile apps with Qt vs the Android frameworks. I'm not how much better…

Actually I don't see much benefits from using Qt. C++ is pretty old language that doesn't have a GC and its syntax for me is worse than Java's.

> ...and its syntax for me is worse than Java's

Both C++ and Java have been improving their syntax in recent years. I'd recommend reintroducing yourself to the latest version of either.

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