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Two Years of Life with PinePhone

linmob.net

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Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#51

Post by rob74 »

linmob wrote: post #38
rob74 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, the "Conclusions" section isn't that encouraging either: > My hardware has held up well, [...], I am not affected by a failing WiFi/BT chip (an issue not too uncommon by my anecdata). [...] > I know, some people will wonder if they should buy a PinePhone after reading this, and I can't really answer this question for you. Read up on PINE64's return policy, maybe; check whether your current phone network is com…

I agree with your summary. I enjoy PinePhone and Mobile Linux a lot, but if someone hates tinkering (or has no time for it) and wants a seamless experience, they should just get a different device. That said, it does not have to be a lot of work for basic functionality these days in my experience - e.g. postmarketOS 22.06 is a solid base.

Thanks for the reply and for the work you put into Mobile Linux! I enjoy (a moderate amount of) tinkering and use Linux on both my work and home PCs, but my requirements for a phone are a bit more demanding - a phone has to be a device which I can depend on to work e.g. when I get a call, if I forget to charge it overnight, when I need to quickly scan a QR code to access some website on the go etc. So I'm afraid I'm not in the market for a Linux phone right now, but I hope (thanks to people like you) it will get to that level one day...

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#52

Post by 3np »

rob74 wrote: post #51
linmob wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your summary. I enjoy PinePhone and Mobile Linux a lot, but if someone hates tinkering (or has no time for it) and wants a seamless experience, they should just get a different device. That said, it does not have to be a lot of work for basic functionality these days in my experience - e.g. postmarketOS 22.06 is a solid base.

Thanks for the reply and for the work you put into Mobile Linux! I enjoy (a moderate amount of) tinkering and use Linux on both my work and home PCs, but my requirements for a phone are a bit more demanding - a phone has to be a device which I can depend on to work e.g. when I get a call, if I forget to charge it overnight, when I need to quickly scan a QR code to access some website on the go etc. So I'm afraid I'm…

You might consider getting a refurbished Google Pixel and put in your choice of GrapheneOS or Calyx. For someone like you it may be a good compromise, and maybe at some point you get a side Linux phone to eventually transition towards.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#53

Post by squarefoot »

prox wrote: post #21

It’s a pity we are not at a level where open(-like) phones are a thing. I have been looking from time to time for one that pretty much works out of the box, but all the stories are not painting a pretty picture. What’s the showstopper into bringing an open phone to a general audience? (Aka open box, turn on, type in credentials and done.) In the meantime I hope my ancient iPhone keeps working.

> What’s the showstopper into bringing an open phone to a general audience?

Developing everything, that is, all the hardware and firmware, from scratch since iron manufacturers aren't willing to open theirs.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#54

Post by LAC-Tech »

liotier wrote: post #41
LAC-Tech wrote: post #39

Can you use whatsapp on a pinephone? I know there's web whatsapp but you need to sign into that with a native app. Honestly the browser, google maps (which works in the browser), whatsapp, SMS, phone calls, alarm, stop watch, camera... that's really about all I use on a phone. If I can find a linux device to switch that does that, I'll switch in a heartbeat. Phones are the least pleasant part of my "digital life" bec…

So, an operating system whose governance isn't against the user's interests (that means free software) - but an Android environment aboard too...

Everything I want runs on the web. Except for the apps that need to scan the qr code so they can run on the web...

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#55

Post by southerntofu »

hun3 wrote: post #18
mg wrote: post #2

I also have one for two years now: https://twitter.com/marekgibney/status/1276881389091278848 I have to say that I never found a use case for it. I remember that I hated the OS it came with. I think it was some flavor of Ubuntu that did not let you install software in any normal way. If I remember correctly, I did not even manage to get vim running. After some reading up on mobile Linux distros, I switched to Mobian,…

I suspect this is due to incoming messages waking up the cellular modem, but the host being unable to recognize them. Either spurious, or dropped.

It's a subtle problem of tradeoffs. How do you keep the system aware of incoming messages when you'd like to save as much battery life as possible?

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#56

Post by jokethrowaway »

piaste wrote: post #40
BjoernKW wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that kind of argument for EU regulation quite depressing. So, just because other vendors aren't capable of producing decent hardware to run Linux on, the EU should force competitors to open up their hardware to those vendors? Unfortunately, this seems to be a common line of thinking, not least within the EU corridors of power themselves: Instead of nurturing competition and their own tech industry or create an…

> Unfortunately, this seems to be a common line of thinking, not least within the EU corridors of power themselves: Instead of nurturing competition and their own tech industry or create an environment where such an industry can thrive, they somehow try to regulate it into being. Then why haven't "vendors [..] capable of producing decent hardware to run Linux on" sprung up in the unfettered entrepreneurial utopias of…

Because it's a hell of a task, regardless if the outcome will be open or closed.

The closest thing I can think of is Apple taking BSD and making Darwin.

Which company would be happy to risk so much, in such a busy market as mobile OS?

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#57

Post by southerntofu »

BjoernKW wrote: post #27
urthor wrote: post #15

Unfortunately the hardware is incredibly subpar. I see no real future for Linux mobile unless the EU makes some law that forces Apple/Samsung to make flashing easier.

I find that kind of argument for EU regulation quite depressing. So, just because other vendors aren't capable of producing decent hardware to run Linux on, the EU should force competitors to open up their hardware to those vendors? Unfortunately, this seems to be a common line of thinking, not least within the EU corridors of power themselves: Instead of nurturing competition and their own tech industry or create an…

As a counter-argument, i don't understand how it's even legal to sell hardware without the proper manual and schematics.

If you're worried about competition, hardware specs is what fuels competition, both for hardware manufacturers (so clients can make an informed decision about what they buy) and for software vendors (so clients have a choice).

The software competition/interop problem is very well summed up in this article: https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/mmu_man/2021-10-04_ok_lenovo_w...

Just imagine if you bought a house and the schematics were under an NDA you have no access to. You would have to contract a specific company to perform any repairs/adjustments, and said company could proclaim your house EOL any day and stop providing support for the many cracks and leaks its bad designs created in the first place. That would be a nightmare situation, don't you agree? Why is the equivalent supposed to be acceptable when it comes to phones?

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#58

Post by linmob »

Terry_Roll wrote: post #45
linmob wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. The blog post is not meant as a discouragement, but as a report. It does not help anyone if people get a PinePhone (or other Linux Phone) with the expectation that it's just going to work like their big-platform-high-volume smartphone, and then cry a river because mobile Linux is not as refined. Maybe I should have highlighted the personal success stories I have had more (contributing to mobile-config-fi…

Maybe you should make this clearer to your readers?

I trust my regular followers (blog, videos, social media) to somewhat know my tone by now (I've been writing over a hundred blog posts over the past two years), and it’s them I wrote this for.

I don’t really know how to make it clearer in the limited time I can justify for low-content-value posts like this – and I did not intend for this to land on the hn front page. My best idea is that I could add a caveat box is reading "Hey, i don't like to brag, it's been fun, so read it it more positively than it's written, but don't ignore the negatives fully.", but that would be super weird.

I have a day job that I have to attend now, so I can really only change anything once the attention has moved on to something different.

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#59

Post by southerntofu »

jokethrowaway wrote: post #56
piaste wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, this seems to be a common line of thinking, not least within the EU corridors of power themselves: Instead of nurturing competition and their own tech industry or create an environment where such an industry can thrive, they somehow try to regulate it into being. Then why haven't "vendors [..] capable of producing decent hardware to run Linux on" sprung up in the unfettered entrepreneurial utopias of…

Because it's a hell of a task, regardless if the outcome will be open or closed. The closest thing I can think of is Apple taking BSD and making Darwin. Which company would be happy to risk so much, in such a busy market as mobile OS?

> Because it's a hell of a task, regardless if the outcome will be open or closed.

Disclaimer: i'm no hardware engineer

I believe this is utterly false. There is a strong distinction between selling open hardware (the real stuff, not just open board design) and selling closed hardware.

If all you care about is board schematics, it's not hard to buy various chips and assemble them into functioning hardware. It's then often (though not always) possible to use the various binary firmware and drivers provided by the vendors for a certain platform (say Android device tree, or Windows driver) and make the hardware usable under a specific system.

Now, if you're trying to do real open hardware and have 100% schematics available, good luck: it's technically possible to acquire an open hardware micro-controller/CPU (though you have to look for it), but then you need open hardware GPU and network card and i don't think that even exists (at least not fulfilling our 2022 feature expectations).

These problems are detailed in various sources. My two favorites are an article about Lenovo hardware support in HaikuOS and a recent talk about operating systems design for interfacing with hardware:

https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/mmu_man/2021-10-04_ok_lenovo_w...

https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi21/presentation/fri-ke...

Re: Two Years of Life with PinePhone

#60

Post by linmob »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #54
liotier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, an operating system whose governance isn't against the user's interests (that means free software) - but an Android environment aboard too...

Everything I want runs on the web. Except for the apps that need to scan the qr code so they can run on the web...

Megapixels (the most popular PinePhone camera app) can scan QR codes (but it's obviously limited by the overall quality of PinePhones camera hardware).
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