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Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

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Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#71

Post by misterti »

roywiggins wrote: post #63
thawaway1837 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that basically Samsung Dex

Yes, Dex can more or less do this. I didn't realize my Samsung phone could do it for six months after I bought it, so maybe it's not well advertised. It does work, but I haven't tried to get actual work done with it.

I have, but it doesn't work out or i haven't found adequate tools for my programmer's task. Most of the apps can't be full screen, fortunately there is dexmax app to fix this. Overall experience for some serious work is not good, but for surfing it's fine. I succesfully used rdp to connect to my desktop computer :)

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#72

Post by jbverschoor »

mekkkkkk wrote: post #60
jbverschoor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want a kvm switch. I don’t want to rely on some remote server to do actual work

Well, in this case the remote server would be your phone. The switching part would be plugging it in.

oh like that. Yeah, for my phone I think the only things I'd want is actually just vscode and a linuxy environment.

I was playing around with https://ish.app/ on ios.. It supports airplay. But I couldnt' get it to compile some things I'd want, and it was still very slow.

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#73

Post by SyneRyder »

ummwhat wrote: post #36
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just wishful thinking. No manufacturers would release any devices with this OS for the following reasons: Phones are commodity devices where volumes have to be high and costs low. The big manufacturers that have the resources to make and sell something like this at scale(i.e. Samsung) want you tied in their ecosystem instead. Maybe some niche manufacturer could make a device with this via crowdfunding but the…

I think you read this too literally. I want a device which acts like a phone in my pocket and acts like a desktop when plugged into a screen/mouse/keyboard. The perfect unison of essentials like ride-sharing with the ability to do serious work. It doesn't have to be /e/.

As others have suggested, Samsung DeX does this. I was forced to use it for a while when my laptop was broken. My older Galaxy S8 required buying a DeX Station to make it work, but that includes some USB ports that let me plug in external hard drives and even my Focusrite Scarlett audio interface for connecting my studio speakers. I used Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, but it also worked with USB.

For simple HTML editing I ended up using an app called Quoda, the closest I could find to Panic's Coda with an integrated editor and FTP:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.henrythomp...

DeX isn't something I've used long term, partly because I can't use it in a cafe (there's no laptop DeX form factor), and mostly because much of my work requires Windows software. But I was still very impressed at how much I could get done. For some people it would easily be all they need.

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#74

Post by Narishma »

mirimir wrote: post #17
lostmsu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video decoding is usually implemented in hardware, so very efficient.

Sure, GPU. But do phones have gaming-level GPU? So what do phones normally do with their CPU?

The same things PCs do with their CPUs and GPUs. There are no differences here. The video decoder is part of the SoC, along with the CPU, GPU, memory controller and tons of other stuff.

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#75

Post by masklinn »

mirimir wrote: post #17
lostmsu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video decoding is usually implemented in hardware, so very efficient.

Sure, GPU. But do phones have gaming-level GPU? So what do phones normally do with their CPU?

> Sure, GPU.

Not GPGPU no, dedicated decoding blocks in the SoC. That's why getting hardware support in the phones is a Big Deal for video codecs (audio as well, to a somewhat lesser extent but support in the audio decoding block means audio playback can happen completely off CPU and let it sleep).

> But do phones have gaming-level GPU?

Not in the "modern PC gaming-class GPU". They have efficient GPUs but simply don't have the physical, thermal or energetic headroom.

In GFLOPS, higher-end phone GPUs are roughly where desktop GPUs were 10 years ago or so (though obviously there are other factors like texturing units and the like).

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#76

Post by diffeomorphism »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

This is exactly what I've wanted phones to become for years. It honestly amazes / pisses me off that I can't buy something like this off the shelf. Maybe I'll bite the bullet and piss away a few hours on rom flashing to get /e/ on my phone.

You have been able to buy attempts for multiple years, e.g.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Atrix_4G#Webtop

- https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/Continuum

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_DeX

- Ubuntu's convergence attempts

- https://maruos.com/

and probably many more (e.g. the Nokia N900 was already more of a laptop than a phone). However, all of them flopped for being too inconvenient (needing lots of cables/peripherals), too slow, too thick or just too "early".

For comparison "VR" has been tried extensively already in the 1990s by Sega, Nintendo and others. It flopped. Now it is coming again and even has a Half-life game in the works. However, I am not too optimistic it will succeed this time.

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#77

Post by Nursie »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

This is exactly what I've wanted phones to become for years. It honestly amazes / pisses me off that I can't buy something like this off the shelf. Maybe I'll bite the bullet and piss away a few hours on rom flashing to get /e/ on my phone.

> It honestly amazes / pisses me off that I can't buy something like this off the shelf.

My Huawei P20 Pro does it off the shelf.

It seems to be a bit picky about which monitors it's willing to speak to, but with the 'right' ones it's just a matter of plugging it in via USB-C and attaching a bluetooth keyboard. It has a windows-mimicking desktop mode and the phone screen becomes a trackpad.

I've never really found a use for it myself, but it is there.

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#78

Post by Nursie »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #23
IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

This is exactly what I've wanted phones to become for years. It honestly amazes / pisses me off that I can't buy something like this off the shelf. Maybe I'll bite the bullet and piss away a few hours on rom flashing to get /e/ on my phone.

That's just wishful thinking. No manufacturers would release any devices with this OS for the following reasons: Phones are commodity devices where volumes have to be high and costs low. The big manufacturers that have the resources to make and sell something like this at scale(i.e. Samsung) want you tied in their ecosystem instead. Maybe some niche manufacturer could make a device with this via crowdfunding but the…

> No manufacturers would release any devices with this OS for the following reasons:

But some have already released phones with a similar desktop mode.

Re: Using an /e/ phone as a desktop or laptop

#80

Post by [deleted] »

mirimir wrote: post #66
hyperpallium wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you're aware of http://termux.com ? It's effectively a linux distribution for android (with a large repository of packages), that uses the existing android kernel. So no rooting required, and has the power efficiency of android.

Does it provide tools to lock down GPS and WiFi-based geolocation? And turn off scanning WiFi APs? Just allow manual selection. Also, can you flash firmware? Maybe wipe the GPS firmware? Oh, and can you mess with the baseband? Edit: I asked in the Termux Wiki.

[deleted]
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