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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

#41

Post by linmob »

pabs3 wrote: post #27
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. This sentence reminded of the OpenMoko days, hopefully the hardware choices were better than in that era.

I had a FreeRunner back in the day and have had a PinePhone for over a year now, and it has gotten me back to blogging [0] and creating videos after years of not doing that.

The hardware choices are in so far better, as this looks like a normal phone, is not limited to GPRS in a world where connected services based on 3G are taking off, and there‘s also no graphics decelerator built in. Imho, the biggest design flaw is the size of the battery: You don’t get much screen on time with this.

The AllWinner A64 is clearly not the most advanced piece of Silicon though, and support in Linux for that old chip is still advancing so things are a lot better than they were a year ago.

As far as user space software is advancing, there‘s more and more coming which I try to list at [1].

The key difference here is that PINE64 is just providing the hardware and is not very involved in software at all. Thankfully Purism make software for their Librem 5 (which would have been shipping for real by now, but than a component shortage hit the industry), which also runs on PinePhone and works quite well.

Projects like Plasma Mobile are catching up, and long standing Mobile Linux efforts like Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch have also been ported over.

[0] https://linmob.net

[1] https://LINMOBapps.frama.io

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

#42

Post by unicornporn »

linmob wrote: post #31
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

Oh, I'm pretty darn sure I saw it on the supported devices page yesterday. Can't see it now. Hallucinations? :) It's very strange to me that no Android ROM has made it to the PinePhone yet.

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

#43

Post by yosito »

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…

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones

Open source vs commercial is a false dichotomy. But having migrated out of the Google/Facebook world, I find having sometimes less polished software that does what I want is a much better experience than big tech platforms that only allow me to do what they want.

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

#44

Post by prox »

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…

Reading the comments, and weighing your comment, you say we need to have Android to be successful.

Before that you say “we need apps”, that’s the heart of your comment.

It can be successfully argued that we don’t need more of what we already have (aka closed walled, ad ridden, privacy off by default - solutions)

We (as in developers) should start believing in these projects and adopt them. Blender for a long time couldn’t match the big boys of 3D creation. Right now it’s really gaining traction. I see a couple of factors for its succes:

- a well managed project with a equally good vision that adapted to changes and demands. - a crowd that believed it could be great - a funding path to attract devs and hire them for a wanted feature - a different way of looking at these projects instead of “we don’t have x from this ecosystem” , how can we as devs be the forerunners in creating something that supersedes it.

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

#45

Post by danielheath »

yosito wrote: post #43
that_guy_iain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones Open source vs commercial is a false dichotomy. But having migrated out of the Google/Facebook world, I find having sometimes less polished software that does what I want is a much better experience than big tech platforms that only allow me to do what they want.

This is a way better way to describe it.

Open source projects will almost always provide a less polished product.

It'll often be better in ways that matter to me (eg availability of a given bit of software over a decade+ span of time, finer control over UX). But those things are not important to everyone, and that's fine.

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

#46

Post by f6v »

pessimizer wrote: post #36
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.

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 usual…

An OS isn’t just an OS, it’s OS + apps. Doesn’t matter who’s fault it is. The bottom line is that productivity is affected.

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

#47

Post by onli »

deltaonefour wrote: post #20
matkoniecz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives. > How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? In many cases they win by default. If "no leaking of personal data"…

>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…

The common Linux interfaces are very easy to decipher and have a good usability. Usability is measurable property, so that's not a guess, just a fact. Add to that the higher task purpose you can get with Linux (partly boosted by not having annoying blockers to get work done, like Windows ads and forced reboots) and the infinitely higher customizablity (for the user's needs and wants) and for general computer usage, there is no question that usability of Linux is higher.

Of course, usability always depends on the specific task you have to do in a given context. It's possible that for the specific software you have to run for that task, that Windows or Apple software has the better usability. But that's far from the norm.

Compatibility Linux wins though in general, it supports way more hardware and software. If you think proprietary software is better there: Get out of your bubble :)

To get a bit away from this OT discussion: The PinePhone is just a very early project. It's also cheap. Of course it has issues, and they should be made clear to potential buyers. But to try to use that to smear FOSS software in general is dishonest trolling.

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

#48

Post by Buxato »

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 projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones" not true, Kicad, Blender, Krita, Ardour ... But in this case hardware is on the mix, and it will take years to deliver an ecosystem competitive, also would be nicer to have middle class hardware and no ultra low cost. We will see if openhardware movement reach a decent quality. But I am agree with you that it will be almost impossible to reach the quality of latest Android and Iphone ones, but maybe we will reach a mid-class very productive phone with added privacy value.

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

#49

Post by numpad0 »

gm wrote: post #19
that_guy_iain wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm with you, but this is the wrong place to come and say that. That attacks the ego of many people on here. EDIT: But read the other comments on here and they actually prove you right: First hand reports of low build quality by the same manufacturer (downvoted, of course), someone saying "someone should just add X feature and I'd buy it" (as opposed to true-to-open-source "I'll add X feature, which will make it it a…

I think the “open source vs commercial” framing can be adjusted slightly: Proprietary UI products are great and FOSS CLI software are great too.

The difference is that businesses require scaling, parallelism, distributed stake holding always, and that many parts of non-code product developments scale, while code authoring don’t/must not be.

That causes open source UI to be just under-resourced development compared to proprietary, and proprietary code to be just failed development because of over-distributed decision making.

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