can you message on signal without a matrix bridge yet
pls moxie let me foss
axolotl is cute but it's not canonical, you know
The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
31–40 of 225 posts
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want a performant Linux phone, put some skin in the game. The reality is that this ain't going to happen. There will be never enough volunteer-based work to enable the level of effort that it requires to develop consumer devices like smartphones. Commercial actors have so much money and power, and people have bills to pay. This is something where full open source model just doesn't work.
Why is Linux Desktop viable (I'm certainly very happy with it at least) but phones are too much work?
I think the idea is the array of phones is so comparatively vast, and their release schedule is so frequent, that it's just much harder to reach any really reasonable market coverage for things like good drivers.
(I'm not sure I agree, I just think that's the argument)
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#33This is probably gonna come as a shock to some people, but I wholly think I could live with a Linux smartphone today. I really only use my phone for two things: text/calling and staying connected to my desktop/laptop. As long as it supports the KDE/GDE connect protocol (I doubt it doesn't), I could see myself actually being one of the early adopters here.
I'm not convinced. I'd love a Linux phone but there must be some standard that ensures apps are easy to develop and the apps must grow significantly for this to catch on. Otherwise it'll be just like Linux on the desktop. It'll become a mess of 15 different standards and apps devs will not bother with that. I really hope it'll work out, but we'll see.
This is about like saying that Javascript will never catch on unless there is a single Framework that all developers use to create applications....
Not only is that unnecessary, it is also not practical as the entire purpose of Open Source is that if you do not like something you fork it and make it your own.
Linux on the Phone should absolutely avoid the Wall Garden draconian approach of iPhone and modern Android
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want a performant Linux phone, put some skin in the game. The reality is that this ain't going to happen. There will be never enough volunteer-based work to enable the level of effort that it requires to develop consumer devices like smartphones. Commercial actors have so much money and power, and people have bills to pay. This is something where full open source model just doesn't work.
Why is Linux Desktop viable (I'm certainly very happy with it at least) but phones are too much work?
Developing open source hardware is much more difficult.
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#35The biggest threat to Linux on phones could be Fuchsia. If/when Google decides to switch to a Fuchsia base for Android, all the chipset vendors will follow suit and that will make it even harder to find chipsets that can be used with a Linux kernel - upstream or not. That will dry up the amount of effort put into making Linux a good mobile platform.
Maybe the stable binary api of Fuchsia drivers will be usable on Linux with a wrapper, but that obviously won't be open enough for projects like the Librem5 (I'm not sure what is Pine64 position on binary drivers).
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#36I've seen the pinephone in action and while I'd love to contribute to it, there is an immense amount of work that still needs to be done. Even the basic text editor they have for it takes a while to load up. The phone call app barely worked as well. I mean, the idea is awesome and I want it to succeed. But in order for me to put a dime up for it, phone calls have to work without question, I need a text editor of virtually any kind, a web browser that doesn't take ages to start, a calendar app that works, and the ability to simply listen to mp3's. The phone hardly has any of those features working in a remotely feasible state right now.
I really do admire the project, but it's far from ready. It needs financing I know, but I don't like funding things for a subpar experience. I certainly do have excess cash to devote to these projects, but I have no recourse that they will get at the state I want it in in a reasonable time frame.
That all being said, I can't wait until this gets better.
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#37Using a low power phone for everyday use, for a year now. I would say the "convergence" of the android and iOS devices is creating a device that is tuned to suck you into the marketing and advertising of google, apple, etc.
Android and iOS devices are tools and platforms to gather data and use the consumer as a product more than anything else.
Break the slab like form factor and my addictive habits dropped, drastically. Break the app stores, and marketing and I got a lot more time back in my life.
I have a separate hotspot for internet, a tablet for internet access, a phone only simple communication with a 2GB plan and an offline GPS. The convergence of these is an optimized tool to farm the consumers.
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you want a performant Linux phone, put some skin in the game. The reality is that this ain't going to happen. There will be never enough volunteer-based work to enable the level of effort that it requires to develop consumer devices like smartphones. Commercial actors have so much money and power, and people have bills to pay. This is something where full open source model just doesn't work.
Why is Linux Desktop viable (I'm certainly very happy with it at least) but phones are too much work?
Even Linux desktop suffers from a lack of contributors. Even many core-infrastructure projects are shockingly dependent on 1–2 devs who have been unsuccessful in attracting more contributions.
One example of where the manpower just isn’t there for both Linux desktop and the PinePhone is a solid maps app. All solutions are little more than tech demos compared to OSMAnd on Android. Yes, OSMAnd itself has grown through contributions from the community, but it basically soaked up already what little manpower there is. There are other examples where running Android apps on the PinePhone under a compatibility layer is seen as a necessity to get around the PinePhone's lack of manpower.
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#39This is probably gonna come as a shock to some people, but I wholly think I could live with a Linux smartphone today. I really only use my phone for two things: text/calling and staying connected to my desktop/laptop. As long as it supports the KDE/GDE connect protocol (I doubt it doesn't), I could see myself actually being one of the early adopters here.
I would be totally fine using such a phone for almost everything I do. The only big gap would be using Sweden's identification app BankID and the money transferring app Swish. Unless these were ported to the phone, I would unfortunately lose one of it's most important functionalities for me. Of course I could just have an Apple/Android phone sitting at home for such purposes, but it is definitely less convenient.
Mobile banking apps will probably be the hardest challenge in the long term. In my cases, for social media and communication, it's easy. I don't use whatsapp and facebook messengers on Android, and for Telegram there is a native client that works well enough (and Tok[1]), for Matrix I wrote NeoChat[2], for mastodon, I'm writing Tokodon[3], there is also some activity around a QML Signal client and implementing other open protocols is doable.
But for banking there is absolutely nothing and bank in the EU requires a mobile phone app to unlock the account. I fear that the only way to solve that is at a political level but this probably also means something unreachable for now. This sucks.
[1]: https://invent.kde.org/network/tok [2]: https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat [3]: https://invent.kde.org/network/tokodon
Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life
#40Recently went to a security conference and really wanted a secure low-feature phone to coordinate with friends and keep up with email/web... Speed and features don't matter, don't need games or even video. Can't imagine I'm alone... is this a niche market for a linux smartphone to take off?
Nope, not alone. I would go with an oldschool mobile, but I need navigation and modern, encrypted internet-based communication. Tethering, calls, SMS, mail, Signal, GPS, OSMand, calendar. Maybe a good camera and payment stuff, but that’s probably too much niche then. But no web, no social networks, no games, no music/podcasts/video. Can be thick as a can of sardines for all I care, but please be operational with a single average hand (not just men’s average hand).
Minimalism/down-sizing is a lasting trend, I think quite a few people are fed up with being hooked to modernity’s love bombing and are up for making the phone a tool again.