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Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

tuxphones.com

131–140 of 212 posts

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#131

I don't understand why the Google Assistant has to be thrown in. Beside me not liking the idea of Google Assistant processing my request, I don't really believe that it's a feature that many need or even request. Of cause I'm in a non-English speaking country, so that may change the usage, but I don't know anyone who uses Google Assistant, Siri or Cortana and only two people who use Alexa, which technically isn't eve…

[deleted]

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-amp url: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/7/27/16035508/d...

Yeah, terribly sorry, I just pasted it without looking, was on the phone.

One more reason why we badly need FOSS+H phones :) Interesting project btw. And really good battery life, although in idle, considering the RPis aren't certainly optimized for low consumption like other boards are.

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#134
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

firefox os had so much potential, now with pwa's being the next big thing, it seem like firefox os could be a game changer. Too bad they killed it.

I'd be interested in this on a modern smartphone platform with a touchscreen and virtual keyboard just to cut Google out of my life.

Why not run Lineage OS then?

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#135
post #112
post #95

It's a stretch to call these "Linux-based" phones. The kernel [1] comes from an old Android fork of Linux 3.10 which is nearly 6 years old. Android kernel code is largely incompatible with mainline Linux which is the reason there are very few phones that can run actually run mainline (real) Linux. [1] https://github.com/kaiostech/kernel_msm-3.10

>which is the reason there are very few phones that can run actually run mainline (real) Linux. You mean the drivers not being in the Linux Kernel/hard to port ? because I have a very hard time believing most smartphones couldn't run the Linux kernel, provided it's compiled to whatever architecture and the drivers are there.

Android kernels are forked up to six times [1] which results in kernels that have diverged significantly from mainline. Mainlining a device is no way near as trivial a task as you make it out to be. Have a look at how many Android mobile phones have a least bare minimal mainline Linux support [2][3], then have a look at postmarketOS's mainlining guide [4] and you'll get some idea.

[1] https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/andro...

[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

[3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

[4] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Mainlining_Guide

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#136
post #4

Any word on US availability? There are plenty of people who don’t need an entire iPhone, or can’t comprehend one due to age or other handicaps. It’s good to have choices.

You can buy a Nokia 8110 4G in the U.S.A. IIRC, and it's powered by KaiOS.

The 8110 4G isn't available with an appropriate set of radio bands for the US, so you're going to have coverage issues.

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#137
post #111
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

firefox os had so much potential, now with pwa's being the next big thing, it seem like firefox os could be a game changer. Too bad they killed it.

It's kind of funny that PWA was Jobs original vision for iOS apps with HTML5, before they came up with the walled garden cash cow approach. > “The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. And guess what? There’s no SDK that you need! You’ve got e…

PWAs make sense today, but back then, they just came too early in the game. The iPhone only had EDGE (2G) networking, it was painfully slow both in terms of throughput and latency. Each HTTP request would take ~300-500ms under optimal cell coverage.

Additionally, unlike modern PWAs, web-apps back then had persistence for data only, so you had to reload the entire application over the network at each launch. People back then loved the switch to native apps because they were extremely snappier.

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#138
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

firefox os had so much potential, now with pwa's being the next big thing, it seem like firefox os could be a game changer. Too bad they killed it.

I'd be interested in this on a modern smartphone platform with a touchscreen and virtual keyboard just to cut Google out of my life.

You could run https://e.foundation/

Re: Linux-based 4G phones with Google Assistant sold for $7 in Indonesia

#139
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minor nit, but I always appreciate receiving these -- in US English as well as British I believe it's always written "bury the lede"

I don't think that's the case. Lede is at best an alternative spelling, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paragraph#Spelling and FWIW, I'm British and I've never seen it spelt lede outside of this forum. I guess it's an American thing, and even then, it's pretty wrong.

I'm British and I'd spell it as lede, that's how I've predominantly seen it spelt also.

So as clear as mud then!

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