Earlier quoted context omitted.
"... jut a phone and a mainline linux distribution." From the OP: "... the PinePhone runs mainline Linux as well as anything else you'll get it to run." Linux is great but being able to run several different OS is, IMO, on a whole `nother level. For example, I am interested in running NetBSD. About 12 years ago, there was a phone called the T-Mobile Sidekick. What OS did it run. That phone was allegedly the first to…
The Danger Hiptop was branded as the T-Mobile Sidekick; later T-Mo used the Sidekick name for some other devices. DangerOS required all applications to be written in Java and distributed via their store; if you stopped paying your subscription fee you would lose access to the store and to the online backup service as well. Microsoft bought Danger and eventually closed it, killing all usage. For a while it was the bes…
PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
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Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Danger Hiptop was branded as the T-Mobile Sidekick; later T-Mo used the Sidekick name for some other devices. DangerOS required all applications to be written in Java and distributed via their store; if you stopped paying your subscription fee you would lose access to the store and to the online backup service as well. Microsoft bought Danger and eventually closed it, killing all usage. For a while it was the bes…
"DangerOS required all applications to be written in Java..." Was Java a requirement of the OS or was it just a design choice by the developers. The OS was NetBSD AFAIK; of course one can run a JVM on NetBSD but that's not a requirement; I never do. Is Pinephone limited only to running Java applications. I want more programming options than just Java.
Pinephone is completely orthogonal to this.
Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#63Earlier 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.
I've can't recall ever have an issue getting my sound working that didn't involve opening settings and making sure the right input/output were selected.
I feel the need to add this to the conversation so people are not dissuaded from trying great open source projects.
Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#64Earlier 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.
- Webex doesn't provide screen sharing in larger meetings via WebRTC. It really sucks, since it works in smaller ones and people really get suprised by this.
- The last time I used Webex via their "desktop" app, they didn't properly support pipewire.
- Same with zoom, except that they don't seem to provide browser meetings at all sometimes & their app doesn't seem to support pipewire
I've had no issues with jitsi or bbb in the meantime, since they simply allow me to use my browser. Same with other screen recording software. For me, it's pretty clear that the issue lies with vendors trying to make people install their software and then not properly supporting it on linux.
This impedes the usability of linux for this purpose, but there's little that can come from people other than the vendors. Open Source software seems to work fine.
Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#66Earlier 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…
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, t…
I feel like this is true only sometimes and even then probably from a particular point of view. For example, i use XFCE for my desktop computers with DEB based distros.
Most of the time, things just work, do so pretty fast and not in a too resource intensive way (which would be a different story with GNOME, Cinnamon or KDE, all of which come close to the Windows desktop resource usage in some cases). However, there is also a lot of software out there, that relies on configuration files instead of UI configuration to get things done.
Take Redshift (a bit like f.lux) as an example, in which you can't edit the screen colors at the different times of day through the UI, but rather have to look up how and where to create a configuration file with the values that you need.
Furthermore, there is also a lot of software out there for *nix that doesn't have GUI front ends in the first place (unless someone has written one) or need to be installed from PPAs and such, or even necessitate messing around with AppImage or Flatpak ways of installation - all of those have their own reasons for existing, be it historical reasons or having to support a variety of system configurations, unlike just packaging an .exe file with some sort of an installer, but the bottom line is that this hinders usability for the common folk out there.
> Of course, usability always depends on the specific task you have to do in a given context.
Of course, the situation with drivers can also be somewhat challenging at times, unless you use the proprietary ones and even then you sometimes have to rely on solutions such as Wine (or Proton, but only for select games) to be able to enjoy games and some other interactive content. There is the upside of being able to use Mono to also run some of the .NET software and honestly the cross-OS interoperability of at least some software feels amazing just because it even exists in the first place, but admittedly there is too much Windows centric software out there that people will have to give up when moving to Linux distros.
This definitely cannot be ignored, since many workflows out there are built around particular tools and their interfaces as well, which won't always be ported, given that they're proprietary. Actually, if Linux had a bigger market share, it'd get more attention, but sadly it's only dominant in the server space and has largely gone under the radar for desktop software. It seems to be changing, but slowly.
To sum up: in my opinion, there are definitely plenty of challenges and thorns that make Linux harder to use. Many are not due to any fault of its own, but rather the historic market conditions. That said, i'm glad that it's even a viable option for desktop computing nowadays and things do seem to be getting better!
Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#68Earlier 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.
Personally I prefer Linux, especially for software development. But the company’s default Linux distro (Fedora) can make life “interesting“ when working remotely. E.g. most screenshare only sort of works with Wayland. And now the audio fails, seemingly at random. (At least, I haven’t worked out the trigger yet.)
Unfortunately, as others have noted, there isn’t a huge incentive for companies to support desktop Linux. But it seems worth persisting to avoid the total dominance of one OS controlled by one company.
Having said that, given day to day needs like video calls, it’s probably worth using a less cutting-edge Linux distro at work!
Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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 r…
In the case of "Linux on a phone" I think it makes more sense to take advantage of all the work Google has put into Android and just throw out the tracking and Google apps, like various projects are doing.
No, it doesn't: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph....
Re: PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects
#70Earlier 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…
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 cou…