PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder • Hacker News Board

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#231

Post by jokethrowaway » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

viro wrote: post #143

viro wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-_- I just wanna point out the homeless rate in China is higher than the United States, and you still have to pay rent in China too. So it's not really a capitalism problem its a being alive problem.

@rorykoehler It's the most well known non capitalist society.

People are downvoting you because it looks like you think China is a communist society and western countries are capitalist societies.

There is not much difference between China and western countries. Sure, China is a bit more oppressive (understatement of the year), but they both have element of capitalism and a huge set of coercitive and authoritarian laws which err on socialism.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#232

Post by mpol » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:22 PM UTC

cesarb wrote: post #133

danShumway wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's terrifying, and I deeply sympathize, but it seems like a government problem more than an app ecosystem or market problem? It's not just that Linux isn't going to break the app store duopoly in your case, nobody is going to, because your government is effectively reinforcing that behavior. Forcing people to install root certificates on their devices is a problem on a whole 'nother level over just commercial inc…

I think you mixed two different things; what requires the authentication software is the banks, not the government. The government isn't forcing anyone to install the ICP-Brasil root certificates; if you don't, the government websites will just show as untrusted in the browser (since they're signed by one of the CAs which chain to the ICP-Brasil root), but other than that they should work the same. Things might be di…

Here in the Netherlands I can use the website of my bank even if I don't have a smartphone. I get some QR-camera reader which I can point at the computer screen and it generates a TAN code, which I can enter at login and at transactions.. I do believe the government and banks in my country somewhat think in line with the user needs. Not in every country will this mentality exist.

Sure, if you want an app for an open source platform like Linux, that may take a lot longer. I think there is already a common platform for this, but not many banks offer it.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#233

Post by 5etho » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #59

fsflover wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the made-in-USA edition. How much alternative phones from the USA cost? Standard edition costs $800.

I get it, I'm all for it. Objectively, it's still a lot of money even for middle class Americans.

you're just lying yourself that you are middle class I see, nothing to be ashamed of to be lower class. I am also lower class. politicians made us this way.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#234

Post by offtop5 » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

sergeykish wrote: post #218

offtop5 wrote: post #157

I'd much prefer a list of phones where people have been able to crack the bootloader open completely and then I can just install Linux on top of it. Not a big fan of extremely old hardware which would never be able to keep up with what I can get out of a Raspberry Pi. In fact, how feasible is it to create a hat for the Raspberry Pi compute module which operates effectively as a mobile phone. Like you would an obvious…

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices > postmarketOS now boots on over 200 phones and tablets (as of 6 May 2020) That, I believe, is about mainline kernel. And only boot. [1] https://tuxphones.com/postmarketos-boots-200-linux-phones-ta...

Awesome response, it looks like most of these phones are still rather old though. I know that some cheaper Chinese phones have bootloader as you can completely unlock without going through the OEM process.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#235

Post by megous » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

seba_dos1 wrote: post #203

ognarb wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In term of CPU, the hardware is similarly shitty. For the GPU, the Librem 5 has a better GPU. In plasma mobile, the current bottleneck is on the GPU side, so maybe the Librem 5 can offer better performance but I'm not sure the improvements are worth $600 more.

In practice, the biggest difference comes from RAM speed, which Librem 5 has almost three times as fast as PinePhone. Then, the CPU is clocked at 1.3x the speed and it has twice the L2 cache. eMMC is faster too. The difference in every day usage is easily noticeable even just by how fast applications start and, indeed, the GPU performance difference is drastic: https://social.librem.one/@dos/104767475144787918 Recent…

Startup times will probably change quite a lot for apps that use the GPU. I've noticed some performance work being done recently around startup times.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#236

Post by zepto » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

aroman wrote: post #155

fsflover wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t see why people other than ideological technologists would want to use this phone. AFAIK every single change in tech starts from such people.

Sure, they start there but they eventually expand beyond that initial core group to the wider population. I’m saying that in this case, I don’t think it will expand beyond that initial group. Why would non-idealists use this phone when the alternative they already have in their pocket and know how to use can do everything the PinePhone can do?

> Why would non-idealists use this phone when the alternative they already have in their pocket and know how to use can do everything the PinePhone can do?

Nobody expects them to.

People will use it when it does something the alternative they already have cannot do.

Using the term ‘idealists’ is perjorative but more importantly, it implies confusion about why people buy this phone.

The people who buy the phone today do so because it allows them to do things which the alternatives cannot. I.e. the purchase is pragmatic. This is the precise opposite of idealism.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#237

Post by megous » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:30 PM UTC

linmob wrote: post #24

willis936 wrote: post #11

I looks forward to seeing reviews. Offhand, does anyone have a list of closed source drivers this device? It’s not a dealbreaker to me (I use many raspberry pis in my home), but it’s nice to have an inventory.

IIRC, it essentially boils down to: - closed source software running on the LTE modem, - proprietary firmware for the Realtek bluetooth/WiFi chip - optional firmware for camera autofocus.

- optional proprietary firmware on the type-C controller

- firmware in the touch controller

No closed source drivers in the kernel or userspace though.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#238

Post by jokethrowaway » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

simonh wrote: post #200

cheaprentalyeti wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to think the whole "capitalist"/"communist" dialectic is meant to make people think there's a "capitalist" economic system or a "communist" economic system, whereas when the communists get control they make a "state capitalist" or "party capitalist" system that looks much like "capitalism" except it has a severely authoritarian political system (which everyone is told is a symptom of "capitalism.") In o…

The root problem is that redistributive systems are inherently coercive. If your system has money and commerce of any kind, more money will end up in some hands than others. I'm not making a fundamental judgement on this, all laws are coercive in some sense, capitalist systems often have redistributive features, taxes and such. However redistribution in the extreme and complete sense in communism is often characteris…

While I agree with the sentiment of your post, you seem to be conflating capitalism with what countries you believe to be capitalist implement.

Most countries I can think of implement a mix of capitalism and socialism. Some features are capitalism, some are features of socialism.

Coercion and taxation are not capitalism, taxation is just theft operated by the state.

I consider the "no true scotsman" argument for communism to be valid: we never arrived to real communism and that's because it's impossible.

Communism can be achieved only if all the individuals of society are perfect; without that perfection the best you can achieve is a socialist dictatorship.

On the opposite (anarcho-capitalist) side, I think we should try to get rid of all our society socialist features and see if the free market can support us entirely. In my opinion, capitalism is not bad, we just don't have enough.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#239

Post by megous » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

Happpy wrote: post #144

Is auto call recording possible?

HW can do it.

https://xnux.eu/devices/feature/audio-pp.html

SW would probably need a bit tinkering. Make sure the in-call audio profile is set up correctly for recording, and some way to start/stop recording during a call.

Re: PinePhone – Beta Edition Linux SmartPhone Preorder

#240

Post by mpol » Wed, Mar 24, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #50

padraic7a wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal has given some, probably very little, support to the Ubuntu Touch port now known as Axolotl. https://github.com/nanu-c/axolotl I'm sure that if it grew in popularity they might be inclined to support it further.

Wouldn't that mean you could use Signal without their client app? I though that was explicitly forbidden by OWS?

Sure. I use Whisperfish on Sailfish OS for Signal conversations. I hear the developer is quite positive about the support he gets from Signal about getting it up to speed. There was that famous blog post, I think in 2016, where they said they won't support third-party clients, but they got so much flac over it, they might have reconsidered.

Also, there is in the EU a Digital Markets Act being worked on. That will mean some networks that play a big part in society will need to allow third-party clients. https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/euro...