Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Will Linux phones stay around this time?

linmob.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 491 posts

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#281

Post by gspr »

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…

> 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 diversity in the hardware market.

It's also all Google's. At any time, for any reason, Google can arbitrarily decide that they don't want you to run software X, Y or Z. On your device. The situation is, frankly, untenable.

(Yes, you can often work around Google's arbitrary decision at the cost of inconvenience on your part. That still doesn't cut it. My device, my rules! Just like with my PC.)

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#282

Post by slver »

swiley wrote: post #229
AussieWog93 wrote: post #139

I'd be shocked if it took off. The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design, and this is far more important for people on mobile than desktop.

Two things: 1) The GNU utilities have pretty good CLI UI design and there are plenty of us who are perfectly happy with just that and a decent WM like FVWM even on a phone 2) It's not like closed mobile stuff has a great UI either. My favorite example is Apple's camera app. Did you know you can do manual focus with it? It's absolutely impossible to discover but I think it involves a "reverse three finger pinch." I've…

The Apple Camera app has no manual focus. It has autofocus, tap to focus and it has focus lock if you tap and hold.

How come your “favorite example” isn’t even a real example...

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#283

Post by drums8787 »

gspr wrote: post #279
AussieWog93 wrote: post #139

I'd be shocked if it took off. The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design, and this is far more important for people on mobile than desktop.

> The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design I'm having a hard time understanding what it is about the development paradigm that's allergic to good UI design. In good faith I'll assume you meant that "FOSS projects seem to lack good UI design". This I'll agree with, if we're talking about G UI design (others have pointed out that the CLI interfaces are usually great). I really don't think th…

Also don’t know about the paradigm per se, but I suspect a lot of FOSS developers are CLI first type users. Secondly, they are mostly not working in environments where GUI UX designers are part of the process. Thirdly, good UX design doesn’t happen by committee. Pure speculation on the first two.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#284

Post by slver »

dudeman13 wrote: post #277
EvilEy3 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plenty of us Which is a soooo tiny minority that it won't even show up on charts. > It's absolutely impossible to discover but I think it involves a "reverse three finger pinch." That's a shitty UX, not UI.

Can't have bad UI if there is no visible UI taps head

There is no three finger manual focus gesture on iPhone. Not sure where he got that from.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#285

Post by ryukafalz »

konart wrote: post #217
matkoniecz wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linux desktop is nowhere this is as untrue as "Year $YEAR will be year of Linux on desktop" was so far (posting from laptop running Linux) > A linux phone is simply unthinkable Linux phones exist already > You can't race It is not always necessary to win completely and crush competition to reach goal

>this is as untrue as "Year $YEAR will be year of Linux on desktop" was so far (posting from laptop running Linux) This will be untrue when linux will have noticeable* share of installs. Not just you and some other tech guys who amount to grand total of 2-3% of desktop systems. [*] - at least 10-15%.

Who cares if its marketshare is above some arbitrary number so long as there's enough interest to keep development going? It doesn't matter to me what other people are using, I find Linux desktops to be the most comfortable thing for me, so I use them!

If other people are satisfied with Windows and everything that goes along with it (forced auto-updates, ads, etc) - fine! You do you. I'm happy with what I have though.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#286

Post by _0w8t »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #139

I'd be shocked if it took off. The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design, and this is far more important for people on mobile than desktop.

Modern UI on the phones makes discovering features really hard. One often ends up with searching obscure forums just to know very useful feature like IPhone trick with holding the space bar to move cursor.

I can understand that on 4” inch phones there were no space for extra buttons, but with 6” screens this became ridiculous. So much for “good” design.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#287

Post by herbst »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #139

I'd be shocked if it took off. The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design, and this is far more important for people on mobile than desktop.

Gnome 3 is by far one of the most modern approaches to desktops and personally i dig the look.

Imo these days where foss ment ugly gui are slowly over

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#288

Post by pjmlp »

techrat wrote: post #176
pjmlp wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide the Android documentation how to access LinuxSE on non-rooted devices, you know those that regular consumers actually buy and app developers get their income from. Just another example on how Linux die hards try to make juice out of lemons, to pivot Linux dominance on consumer devices.

Look, the goalposts are moving again. I wonder how that keeps happening... I can't see what replying with "how to access LinuxSE on non-rooted devices" has ANYTHING to do with my comment that you previously replied to unless you're just trying to be disingenuous. I specifically mentioned that a typical use case of someone affected by the changes breaking Termux are users * most likely to be the type that will run a c…

Whatever dude, enjoy your rooted device.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#289

Post by mch82 »

ath92 wrote: post #214
codeflo wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s even worse, I think. Good UX design looks deceptively easy, but is actually incredibly hard. So hard that a lot of programmers don’t even recognize how terrible they are at it, or how high the skill ceiling actually is. They think UI design is pretty colors and rounded buttons. In a functioning software company, the managers recognize this skill difference and simply order the developers to implement what the de…

I think part of the problem is also that it's sometimes more difficult to implement a nice and usable design. Instead, it may be easier to write code that does everything it needs to, but forces the user to jump through hoops to get what they want. Sometimes making software more user-friendly may even cause the code to get more "ugly", because instead of a nice and elegant piece of software that only solves the core…

As a product design lead, your comment and the comment you’re replying to reflect my experiences both with open source and with commercial development. For me, part of the solution has been learning how to communicate with developers. I’ve also found it helpful to broaden the scope of UX I consider to include the developer experience, data processing workflows, and the design of CLI and API interfaces.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#290

Post by herbst »

_0w8t wrote: post #286
AussieWog93 wrote: post #139

I'd be shocked if it took off. The FOSS development paradigm seems to be allergic to good UI design, and this is far more important for people on mobile than desktop.

Modern UI on the phones makes discovering features really hard. One often ends up with searching obscure forums just to know very useful feature like IPhone trick with holding the space bar to move cursor. I can understand that on 4” inch phones there were no space for extra buttons, but with 6” screens this became ridiculous. So much for “good” design.

Not sure if apple really can be considered modern in a space developing as fast as that. From my pov apples ui is still the dated sister everyone is trying to copy from
Post reply on HN