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Will Linux phones stay around this time?

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Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#461

Post by selfhoster11 »

matthew_kuiash wrote: post #405
Forbo wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> browser checks of yore The same shit is happening today, except it's Chrome instead of IE6. We have an entire generation of webdevs who learned fuck-all from the previous round of the browser wars.

TBF 1/2 of them weren't even born...

So what? We've had writing for thousands of years, and it's a perfect way to preserve historical lessons for the future ~losslessly.

I'm a fairly young person but I've had a bit of interest in the history of computing from Unix onwards. It's all documented and out there in public archives, accessible by anyone. It ignited an interest and let me identify more deeply with my profession, plus it highlighted just how much the history of computing is cyclical (especially the mainframe->thin client->mainf^Wcloud cycle), and therefore shown me how much of the old history we can dust off and put into good use again in the modern times.

History is context. One is doing themselves a disservice by not doing some cursory reading around it.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#462

Post by selfhoster11 »

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…

> I'm having a hard time understanding what it is about the development paradigm that's allergic to good UI design.

There may not be causation, but there is definitely a strong correlation. KDE is approximately 2x as annoying to use as an intensive daily driver compared to a Windows 10 modded with OpenShell (aka Classic Shell) and a few smaller tweaks. I know this because I run them side by side, one for work and one for personal use. Don't get me started on Gnome Shell, it's a train wreck for those familiar with/expecting a classic GUI.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#463

Post by selfhoster11 »

_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.

Navigating settings on my new Android phone resembles "Where's Waldo?" more than anything else. The search bar at the top, while tantalising, doesn't actually work in finding any setting that I've tried.

The menus are inconsistent, options are divided into strange categories, there are several "rabbit hole" menus where entire trees of settings are tucked away rather than just put them at the top level. This could be partly down to having a Chinese phone, but some of those deep menus are from stock Android too.

Early Android phones were way nicer.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#464

Post by nix23 »

drybjed wrote: post #459
nix23 wrote: post #186

I was thinking about Plan9 lately, and Mobile is THE platform for it...i think. Since you are ~always online, how cool would it be when your phone is just the terminal, the CPU/File/Authentication-Servers sitting in the DC, is that the future?

There is/was a Hellaphone[1] project, based on Inferno, a Plan 9 successor. There are also some slides[2] and a video demonstration[3] available. [1]: https://jfloren.net/b/2015/8/18/2 [2]: https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-20/dc-20-presentations/... [3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF_-jQc53jw

Yeah watched that already, the phone that deletes itself when G-Force is to high. But they missed the great opportunity that inferno/plan9 could have given (phone=terminal and nothing more)

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#465

Post by selfhoster11 »

EvilEy3 wrote: post #263
forinti wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd much rather use any Linux than Windows 10.

Why?

Not the parent poster, but Windows 10 is turning into a managed consumer cloud endpoint, rather than remain a power user/prosumer-friendly personal computing platform with privacy in mind.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#466

Post by rbanffy »

megous wrote: post #272
akiselev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Yes, it's it is. PM is normal part of Linux since at least a decade ago, probably longer. Pinephone now has standby of around 7 days, and runtime power management is also quite good, with automatic powering off of CPU cores, when idle, and downclocking of memory controller in my 5.12 kernel branch, that many pinephone distros will migrate to soon.

Are these changes being mainlined anytime soon?

BTW, a Pinephone running WebOS is very tempting. WebOS was so much ahead of its time it’s still ahead of ours.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#467

Post by lytefm »

cookiengineer wrote: post #103

This is kind of anecdotal to Meego, WebOS, FirefoxOS and all the other forms of them that happened in the past. I don't think that people will use the phone solely because it's Linux. They'll use it if it can solve their tasks at hand. Personally I think that Linux will never take off if we won't create financial incentives to make and deploy apps, additionally to fix the mess that's user rights/permission management…

> I think in order for Linux to succeed there has to be a compile pipeline (and runtime?) that allows to deploy those apps easily. If that's not possible (due to whatever reasons) the platform will never really take off.

I agree. An important difference to the situation a few years ago is the availability of actually viable cross-platform development frameworks like React Native, Flutter, Capacitor,...

If all I need to do in order to support a new niche OS is configuring one additional build target, I might just go for it. Otherwise, certainly not.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#468

Post by rambojazz »

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.

Sorry but I can't stand these kind of generalizations... it's at the same level of "Everybody from is ". I've seen many proprietary projects with a budget for UI development equal to zero (and yes, the UI indeed sucked).

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#469

Post by ldiracdelta »

cookiengineer wrote: post #452
ldiracdelta wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this idea that Qt can't be used? You can license with the community license under LGPL. If Qt can't be used with an open source license, then nothing LGPL can use open source commercially, but the point of LGPL is to not scare away businesses with viral copy-left code. Yes, you have to deliver your object files and a Makefile, et c. Also, you have to open source your Qt library edits, but who needs to do that…

> What is this idea that Qt can't be used? You can license with the community license under LGPL. The Terms and Conditions on their website [1] say otherwise, especially "APPENDIX 4: SMALL BUSINESS AND STARTUP". No, sir, I'm not touching that library for anything I want to make money with. [1] https://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/

Qt is dual-licensed. You're referring to the commercial license. See https://www.qt.io/download-open-source https://www.qt.io/licensing/open-source-lgpl-obligations and https://www.qt.io/licensing/open-source-lgpl-obligations#lgp... . If you go to this page, you can see which pieces are LGPL: https://www.qt.io/product/features#js-6-3

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#470

Post by craftinator »

teddyfrozevelt wrote: post #450
tnzm wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flatpak, of all things? https://flatkill.org/

People really still post this?

I actually hadn't seen this before. What's the counter argument to the security problems that that website points out?
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