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Will Linux phones stay around this time?

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Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#131

Post by smhost »

j-james wrote: post #114

I don't understand the desire for a Linux phone as so described in the article as a daily driver. The Android platform represents an enormous amount of work that encompasses a more secure base kernel, an unparalleled selection of applications designed for mobile usage and written in a memory-safe language, fantastic sandboxing and user privacy features leagues ahead of any desktop operating system, and great diversit…

Personally, I just want it for completeness. With phone hardware getting powerful enough to run mid-to-high end games, I want to be able to carry around a phone that I can hook up peripherals to and use it just like I would use a desktop. The Android ecosystem is pretty good in its own way, but it's qualitatively different compared to the Linux ecosystem for my use case.

Windows and several popular Linux distros are moving to ARM anyway, so I feel like this is the ideal time to attempt carving out a space for people like myself.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#132

Post by marto1 »

j-james wrote: post #114

I don't understand the desire for a Linux phone as so described in the article as a daily driver. The Android platform represents an enormous amount of work that encompasses a more secure base kernel, an unparalleled selection of applications designed for mobile usage and written in a memory-safe language, fantastic sandboxing and user privacy features leagues ahead of any desktop operating system, and great diversit…

No GNU userland and a waterfall of IP issues !? Enough of a reason for me to be honest.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#134

Post by cerved »

oneplane wrote: post #29
jchw wrote: post #6

I enjoy the Pinephone, but it certainly has its issues. I’d kill for better performance; it’s very close to usability. I also have some issues with the hardware (it seems my battery has stopped working entirely, recently.) On the other hand, there is one confounding software issue that I think makes it the hardest as a full replacement for a modern smartphone: push notifications. An equivalent for APNS or FCM that al…

Without mass-market and the scale that comes with it (including returning income from existing users) it's near impossible to provide the same nice UX as an iPhone or a Google-riddled Android phone. That's the whole problem with most projects and why they neither produce acceptable usability nor a an acceptable price point. It's not that it's not technically possible, it's just infeasible without becoming yet another…

Agreed.

Even on the deskstop, linux arguably has a less stable GUI. At least on the desktop you can drop into a CLI and fix things. Even if you don't know what you're doing, you can google your way to a script and copy + paste.

Mobile and touch is 100% GUI dependent.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#135

Post by seba_dos1 »

robolange wrote: post #19

Openmoko failed for so much more than financial reasons. It's been a while since I've thought of that fiasco, but my memories: * The leadership was terrible. They had no clue what it took to make a mass market product. They just assumed that they would sell hardware and a community would provide a working operating system and apps magically. * The hardware was buggy. There was one issue that if you let the battery dr…

> They just assumed that they would sell hardware and a community would provide a working operating system and apps magically.

No, not really. They had an exact opposite problem - they made several iterations of the default operating system, starting almost from scratch at each iteration, which burned quite a lot of energy and willpower of the community, which in turn focused their efforts on alternative distros like SHR or QtMoko.

> had to use an external charger.

Fortunately, you could use a standard Nokia BL-5C battery with the Freerunner. You didn't even need to have an external charger, just a charged spare battery would suffice. Also, IIRC this was an issue only with the first batch (so a small minority of produced phones).

> Another issue was that the GPS receiver was accidentally surrounded by metal, so barely functioned

Not really. The GPS problem was because of microSD clock interference. You could solder a resistor on microSD slot pins or use a software workaround that clocked the reader down enough to not interfere.

> it was hard to use without a stylus

I have programmed quite a lot on that touchscreen with OSK without using a stylus. It worked fine, but yeah, it would be much better if the screen weren't recessed (N900 did that well, that touchscreen was excellent).

> so like 5kbps max data transfer.

More like 100kbps.

> Then there was finally a big bloated distribution (SHR if memory serves) that packed in enough libraries to make a more or less "usable" device, but doing so maxed out the phone's meager storage and RAM, making it nearly impossible to do anything "smart" with it.

Uhm, no? SHR was a light OpenEmbedded-based distro with E17-based window manager. It was one of the snappiest and most reliable distros for that device, I used it for a few years as a power user and was very happy with it. And maxing storage wouldn't be an issue anyway since you could boot from an SD card.

Eventually I've switched to a N900 because of the Freerunner's slowness. If Glamo wasn't so slow I guess I would use it for a few years more before switching. I still have it and it still works, although I don't really use it anymore.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#136

Post by EvilEy3 »

akiselev wrote: post #25
rbanffy wrote: post #2

Am I missing something? Every Android phone is running Linux.

The core parts of Android that make it usable on mobile devices like power management and scheduling [1] aren't in the mainline Linux kernel last I checked. This is about getting Linux to the point where you can choose between an Arch, Ubuntu, debian, etc. distro for your phone. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/706374/

They're barely working on desktop and you want to bring them to phones?

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#137

Post by rini17 »

j-james wrote: post #114

I don't understand the desire for a Linux phone as so described in the article as a daily driver. The Android platform represents an enormous amount of work that encompasses a more secure base kernel, an unparalleled selection of applications designed for mobile usage and written in a memory-safe language, fantastic sandboxing and user privacy features leagues ahead of any desktop operating system, and great diversit…

You haven't experienced the Nokia N900, have you?

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#138

Post by KozmoNau7 »

smhost wrote: post #131
j-james wrote: post #114

I don't understand the desire for a Linux phone as so described in the article as a daily driver. The Android platform represents an enormous amount of work that encompasses a more secure base kernel, an unparalleled selection of applications designed for mobile usage and written in a memory-safe language, fantastic sandboxing and user privacy features leagues ahead of any desktop operating system, and great diversit…

Personally, I just want it for completeness. With phone hardware getting powerful enough to run mid-to-high end games, I want to be able to carry around a phone that I can hook up peripherals to and use it just like I would use a desktop. The Android ecosystem is pretty good in its own way, but it's qualitatively different compared to the Linux ecosystem for my use case. Windows and several popular Linux distros are…

Exactly, I would love a smartphone-size universal computing device, to use on the go or plug into desktop/laptop docking devices when needed.

The individual parts are all there. Phones are powerful enough, we have USB-C with displayport for docking, KDE/qt has (or used to have?) an alternate small/touch GUI setup, phones can throttle their CPUs up when placed in a dock with active cooling, every individual part of the puzzle is available today in some form.

Microsoft tried it and Samsung tried it, but both were too tied to their own proprietary ecosystems. I think it could work with a det of open and freely available standards.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#140

Post by Const-me »

sto_hristo wrote: post #107

Linux desktop is nowhere due to the thousands of distributions and disparity in development effort. A linux phone is simply unthinkable. Biggest strength in android/ios is the centralized leadership and vision. This enables consumers to make an easy choice, which attracts developers, who all seek predictability and maximum exposure. But even if the linux community centralizes around a singularity, it will still be no…

> Just take a look at this demo

Consumers didn't care about that. Windows had it in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyVHCFsiq8c

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