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PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

pine64.org

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Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#31

Post by linmob »

unicornporn wrote: post #18

I'd would not like to run "other operating systems", but rather Android/Replicant[1]. The PinePhone is listed as a supported device[2], but I'm finding next to no reports on how it is actually working. [1] https://replicant.us/ [2] https://replicant.us/supported-devices.php

I am not aware of any Replicant build for the PinePhone, otherwise I would have had to try it out and make a video about it [0]. GloDroid [1] has incomplete support for the PinePhone (no support for anything the EG25-G does), that‘s all in terms of Android aside from Anbox or WayDroid that run on top of Linux.

[0] https://linmob.net/videos

[1] https://github.com/GloDroid/glodroid_manifest/releases

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#32

Post by tomas789 »

Smartphones are often used as a brain for many robotics applications. They tend to be well equipped, physically rebosu, include battery and reasonably fast CPUs. All that for a fraction of the price of the proper robotics equipment (RPi/Jetson, IMU, display, camera, battery, …).

This seems like a great compromise between closedness of iOS/android and robustness of the phone based solution.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#33

Post by larodi »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #12
katmannthree wrote: post #3

The pinephone is great, in fact I'm typing this comment from mine. That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it's slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive / answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work). Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline…

> Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution. I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The realit…

open source is form of distribution of source code. that is all. open source is technically the same thing for Microsoft and pine and red hat and IBM, etc...

now remembering that open source is typically not democracy but rather fairy autocratic in respect to the project owner you can have - more inclusive or fairly non-inclusive community around it. so the source may be available but the community and the project may be as closed as it seems fit towards individuals that fail to cross certain threshold of required technical (or other) skills.

then software development is encompassed with number of other things - specifications, testing, devops and various integration activities that does not necessarily benefit from being open source. these activities that complement the software/hardware production are actually an important precursor for the perceived quality. it just so coincides that an open source project with proper amount of contributors will naturally benefit from peer-reviews of the code - as long as more than one person i sable to works on certain component of course.

for successful business or entrepreneurship one needs more than software development though - accounting, finance, marketing, packaging and in Pine's case - production of hardware... etc. these are not typically as open as the ... source in the software part. an even if they were - it does not mean they are automatically gotten right.

so to be absolutely fair - open source does not immediately on its own mean a better or even viable product. it means that parts of the system are available for independent review and potentially are free from license burden to be reused in other systems.

it seems a form of cognitive bias to assume that all components of products that are result of partial or entirely open-source process are by definition better to closed-source process.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#34

Post by pessimizer »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #12
katmannthree wrote: post #3

The pinephone is great, in fact I'm typing this comment from mine. That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it's slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive / answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work). Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline…

> Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution. I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The realit…

The reason Linux phones suck at calls has nothing to do with the quality of the software, it's that the hardware vendors make it very very hard to do a very basic thing in a FOSS way.

I honestly think the government should step in.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#35

Post by NhanH »

throwawayswede wrote: post #30
gm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.

That's a poor argument. Usually this happens to "tech savvy" people when they like to tinker with their system on daily basis and use bleeding edge software (since you have unlimited customizability, unlike the competition), you're bound to have issues. Normal users can just use an LTS release and (for the average user) they won't even be able to tell the difference. Talk to anyone who installs beta iOS versions and…

There is a fairly high chance that beta iOS would smoke even Debian stable out of the window in term of stability for end users. I run Windows with Windows Insider enabled with Dev channel (basically the most beta Windows there is), and no Ubuntu version I've used came close to that Windows setup with regards to stability.

I choose to use Linux despite the bad UX and bad stability for end user. Linux server (and packages) are supremely stable, but any package involving end-user stuffs (sounds, graphics, even Firefox) is an entirely different story altogether.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#36

Post by pessimizer »

gm wrote: post #24
deltaonefour wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. The most importa…

LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.

It's very difficult to make most proprietary enterprise trash work with Linux. That will always be the case, no matter how superior or inferior the OS is, because unlocked hardware/OSes are bad for some business models based on lock-in/subscriptions, and that are meant to be a portion of entire ecosystems that are being sold. The only reason most of them work eventually is because Linux users are tinkerers, and usually completely against the wishes of the software vendors.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#37

Post by cto_of_antifa »

throwawayswede wrote: post #30
gm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can't get their audio/video working for routine meetings? If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a desktop effectively.

That's a poor argument. Usually this happens to "tech savvy" people when they like to tinker with their system on daily basis and use bleeding edge software (since you have unlimited customizability, unlike the competition), you're bound to have issues. Normal users can just use an LTS release and (for the average user) they won't even be able to tell the difference. Talk to anyone who installs beta iOS versions and…

So really what it means I that some developers would rather have arch then be able to do their job.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#38

Post by axegon_ »

katmannthree wrote: post #3

The pinephone is great, in fact I'm typing this comment from mine. That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it's slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive / answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work). Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it'll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline…

> buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive / answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work).

Out of curiosity, how do these bugs/unreliability manifest in realty? I've been fiddling around with making a mobile Linux distro specifically for a car navigation/entertainment system so I'm curious to get some circumstantial feedback.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#39

Post by cto_of_antifa »

throwawayswede wrote: post #23
deltaonefour wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you're in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. The most importa…

> From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior. That's just preposterous. Linux user friendliness has not been slow or fragmented, it has come really far just in the last five years. Windows on the other hand has gotten relatively worse since the 'high' periods of early NT kernel OSes. > The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability…

On the other hand, they wouldn’t have to do any additional research to boot a useable system if they weren’t on Linux.

Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects

#40

Post by pessimizer »

NhanH wrote: post #35
throwawayswede wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a poor argument. Usually this happens to "tech savvy" people when they like to tinker with their system on daily basis and use bleeding edge software (since you have unlimited customizability, unlike the competition), you're bound to have issues. Normal users can just use an LTS release and (for the average user) they won't even be able to tell the difference. Talk to anyone who installs beta iOS versions and…

There is a fairly high chance that beta iOS would smoke even Debian stable out of the window in term of stability for end users. I run Windows with Windows Insider enabled with Dev channel (basically the most beta Windows there is), and no Ubuntu version I've used came close to that Windows setup with regards to stability. I choose to use Linux despite the bad UX and bad stability for end user. Linux server (and pack…

Not a chance. I resent greatly the huge amount of time I spend troubleshooting Apple product when I would never use it. The quality is fine, but not exceptionally good, and things that are trivial on other OSes are often impossible or forbidden on Apple product. Even to a further extent than Microsoft, who have the disadvantage of not owning the hardware.
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