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The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

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Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#141

Post by fitzie »

m463 wrote: post #114
zozbot234 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the PinePhone and other Linux phones are also about performance. Yes the MVP prototypes will always suck and you would only buy these for freedom's sake, but a truly unified software platform encompassing both mobile and mainstream computing all running on openly documented reference hardware, will be far superior technically to what we have today.

As a purism owner, and a long-time linux user... I think that is a fantasy statement. Theoretically, there could be an open platform like the PC (with usb + pcie + ATX case/power supply + etc..) with open interfaces. However the reason this came into existence was by microsoft's design to commoditize the hardware to drive software sales of its (closed) operating system. With cellphones all of those interfaces are bei…

totally agree. while I'm optimistic that arm chips will be more open in the data center and embedded space, looks like mobile arm id becoming more proprietary. Intel could shake things up if it starts to work on riscv and brings some of its graphics and wireless tech over to it.

while it is nice to have a powerful phone, it really doesn't need to be any more powerful than what is in a tv set.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#142

Post by squarefoot »

amelius wrote: post #135
squarefoot wrote: post #55

One point that should be repeated ad infinitum for those reading about the Pinephone for the 1st time: it's all about the freedom, not performance. One doesn't buy the Pinephone to brag about its technical achievements with friends, but rather to contribute building an ecosystem, even just by spreading the word, of people who put freedom and privacy above everything. I also should be repeated ad infinitum why its har…

> in the meantime got their mini solder iron which works surprisingly well (and I have two Wellers). Looks interesting, what temperature can it reach?

Didn't test its maximum temp, however connected to a laptop power supply (from memory: about 20V, 4A) it reaches enough temperatures to do clean shiny solder joints on fairly big contacts compared to its size. I think it's mainly conceived for portability and soldering small parts, however it seems powerful enough to be used as a general purpose solder iron as well.

edit for more information: all tests done with leaded solder.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#143

Post by okennedy »

pmontra wrote: post #15
okennedy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

KDEConnect is supported in KDE/Plasma-based distros. Work is in progress to add it to Gnome/Phosh. KDEConnect is definitely a killer app! Can't speak for the other distros, but Mobian/Phosh has reached a point where it's usable as a primary phone. Tons of work from the community has brought battery lifetimes up from ~1 hour to the point where it lasts me the day under normal use. Firefox is usable, and most every pie…

GNOME has gsconnect. It talks with KDE connect apps using their protocol. I've been using it for years until a couple of months ago, when it started to eat into CPU and make all my desktop lag. There is an open issue for that. I'll check if new releases fixed the issue. My devices can still talk between themselves.

GSConnect (which I already use) is written as a GNOME shell extension in order to provide support for clipboard sharing. Unfortunately, none of the mobile-friendly shells/desktop managers support GNOME extensions (yet). There's an effort to port GSConnect to Phosh-based environments (https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phosh/-/issues/514), but that's still exploratory. It's also possible to install KDEConnect on Mobian, but it doesn't work fully and the UI isn't quite mobile-friendly yet.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#145

Post by int_19h »

api wrote: post #102
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FOSS and OSH will always sit a few years behind companies which are investing billions of dollars in R&D. But we can try to lift what we can and catch up sooner or later.

FOSS UI/UX is at least two decades behind and the gap is growing. A major problem is that people almost always underestimate the difficulty of a good UI. Good UIs can be a lot harder than the rest of a system and a modern UI toolkit has a feature set and difficulty level approaching that of a good 3D game engine like Unity.

I would argue it's the other way around - FOSS UI/UIX is two decades ahead, because it didn't participate in the UX regression that has plagued us in those past two decades.

This isn't entirely true, because e.g. Gnome has been an enthusiastic adopter of all those anti-patterns. But, unlike other platforms, you still have other DE options to choose from.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#146

Post by ghaff »

cptskippy wrote: post #139
m463 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a purism owner, and a long-time linux user... I think that is a fantasy statement. Theoretically, there could be an open platform like the PC (with usb + pcie + ATX case/power supply + etc..) with open interfaces. However the reason this came into existence was by microsoft's design to commoditize the hardware to drive software sales of its (closed) operating system. With cellphones all of those interfaces are bei…

> However the reason this came into existence was by microsoft's design to commoditize the hardware to drive software sales of its (closed) operating system. Couldn't get past your rewriting of history just to paint MS in bad light because you don't like them.

What rewriting of history? The PC (and then volume server) era very much saw previous vertical silos tiled into a horizontal structure with x86 at the processor layer and Windows at the operating system layer. In the 1990s, a lot of computer companies were ready to concede the OS crown to Windows.

(To the degree I'd argue with the statement, it's that it was as much Intel's doing as Microsoft's; Andy Grove even dedicated part of one of his books to this.)

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#147

Post by tetrisgm »

fsflover wrote: post #119
tetrisgm wrote: post #5

I want the PinePhone to work. The Librem too. In fact I had preorders for both. I canceled them looking at the performance. They’re excellent toys. Great effort to ship such a difficult product. But if your phone is going to struggle with running things besides terminal, it’s not going to be a great daily phone. I’d love them to be on par with the latest Android flagships in terms of power. Cost is not an issue. I ju…

It's not just about performance: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... .

I mean, I just stated that I cared about performance. Your opinion may differ.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#148

Post by tetrisgm »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #85
tetrisgm wrote: post #5

I want the PinePhone to work. The Librem too. In fact I had preorders for both. I canceled them looking at the performance. They’re excellent toys. Great effort to ship such a difficult product. But if your phone is going to struggle with running things besides terminal, it’s not going to be a great daily phone. I’d love them to be on par with the latest Android flagships in terms of power. Cost is not an issue. I ju…

I think if they can nail the low-end or mid-end phone, and get enough volume out there to make an ecosystem possible, ramping up to high-end phones is the easy part. It's not like the factories manufacturing these phones don't know how to make high-end phones. But the problem with $800 phones is people can't afford to buy them unless they're daily driver ready. At $150, you can buy it as a testing phone/a spare phone…

I’m not convinced that low cost devices are the way to go. Android has it covered. Tizen tried and failed. If Linux can be a viable system that most of the Chinese and Korean manufacturers can adopt and push, I would agree. But I don’t see how that would shape up in practice.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#149

Post by ognarb »

krastanov wrote: post #49
smoldesu wrote: post #2

This 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.

This is the first time I hear of KDE Connect and I am amazed! Thank you, you just made my electronic-related life significantly easier!

It also works on Windows, Android, from a computer to a computer and is experimental on macOS.

Re: The PinePhone could bring the Linux mobile ecosystem to life

#150

Post by Valkhyr »

int_19h wrote: post #145
api wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FOSS UI/UX is at least two decades behind and the gap is growing. A major problem is that people almost always underestimate the difficulty of a good UI. Good UIs can be a lot harder than the rest of a system and a modern UI toolkit has a feature set and difficulty level approaching that of a good 3D game engine like Unity.

I would argue it's the other way around - FOSS UI/UIX is two decades ahead , because it didn't participate in the UX regression that has plagued us in those past two decades. This isn't entirely true, because e.g. Gnome has been an enthusiastic adopter of all those anti-patterns. But, unlike other platforms, you still have other DE options to choose from.

We can all discuss whether or not a certain UI/UX pattern is appropriate or not (and I certainly agree that many of the changes Apple have made in the last decade have been for the worse). But all personal preferences aside, Linux UI/UX feels to me at less consistent than macOS - both aesthetically/visually (between different UI toolkits etc) and in terms of behaviour (keyboard shortcuts, how well they work with touch screens, etc).
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