Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

pine64.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 109 posts

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#91

Post by flatbub »

MartijnBraam wrote: post #16
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8

So they included all the hardware requested by Martijn. What remains the rub here?

I never said they didn't include SPI, it took an incredibly amount of arguing over several weeks to get it there on the PPP, then they again didn't want to ship it on the PBP. In the end the PBP does have SPI but still didn't ship with something flashed to it. While they did in the end listen and add SPI _after_ manjaro finally agreed. that doesn't mean they listened to the whole community. Ofcourse PINE64 and Manjar…

This sounds like the process of multiple stakeholders going through the tough work of forming consensus.

I'm glad you are a part of the community, championing for ease of installation across all distros.

Which other manufacturers provide any feedback channel, or engage with the community during manufacturing?

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#92

Post by megous »

noasaservice wrote: post #84
ac29 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the store right above the add to cart button it says: "The PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition is aimed at Linux developers with an extensive knowledge of embedded systems and/or experience with mobile Linux" To me thats pretty a pretty clear implication that many things may work poorly or not at all.

That indicates that hackers can do shit to get it to work. And, they call it a Pine *PHONE* Pro. It can't even do the "Phone" thing. And read up about the hardware critical failures that can destroy stuff when you plug in the wrong usb-c connection. Yes, I expect a minimum functionality. You know, like NOT FRYING SHIT. They couldn't even manage to do that.

Not sure what you'd have to plug to Pinephone Pro to destroy anything. Maybe a badly broken charger or a dirty plug.

There's nothing wrong about Pinehnone Pro's Type-C port supporting circuitry. It's pretty much a reference design this time.

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#93

Post by hammyhavoc »

Aeolun wrote: post #57
MartijnBraam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cameras are far from "the simple stuff", it's one of the more complicated systems in mobile devices with multiple high speed components from different vendors that have to work together and not very much documentation for the hardware existing.

My $5 bargain bin webcam can take pictures and video at 24hz. My $200 pinephone can, on a good day, do 0.5hz. I dunno, but I expected more.

Your $5 bargain bin webcam doesn't work without the computer and the software that runs on it though. The PinePhone isn't the problem, the problem is the lack of software. It is ridiculous to compare the two things.

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#94

Post by MartijnBraam »

megous wrote: post #67
noasaservice wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admittedly, that's doubly concerning. Pine chooses the BoM; we don't. And if they're choosing unsupported/unsupportable chips without doing the barest of legwork to get them functional (or hell, get docs public), then that's a huge problem. Pine should be showing on their pages a hardware matrix showing what works and what doesn't. The Pinephone Pro doesn't qualify for the definition "phone". If they were serious, th…

> Admittedly, that's doubly concerning. Pine chooses the BoM; we don't. Actually camera sensor was changed on request from Martijn. (or so I was told, when I was asked to add support for the cameras in the kernel)

Rear sensor was chosen as a balance of kernel code available and picture quality, I had some influence there, front sensor was originally the ov5640 but that just got replaced due to availability.

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#95

Post by MartijnBraam »

megous wrote: post #74
ddevault wrote: post #2

This is a disappointing response. I don't have a horse in this race (besides wanting to have access to good hardware for FOSS platforms), but I do have my ear on the ground in this community, so here are my thoughts on this. > [removing SPI] was based on the fact that for years SPI was largely unused on PINE64 devices. People have been arguing that a u-boot firmware needs to be installed on that flash chip for years,…

> "people who want [an SPI chip] can just solder one on." That's how many of the SBCs I own (from differen vendor) are distributed. There's a space to solder the chip. (and you can pick the size you want)

Might be acceptable for SBCs, definitely not for phones and laptops

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#96

Post by Aeolun »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #93
Aeolun wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My $5 bargain bin webcam can take pictures and video at 24hz. My $200 pinephone can, on a good day, do 0.5hz. I dunno, but I expected more.

Your $5 bargain bin webcam doesn't work without the computer and the software that runs on it though. The PinePhone isn't the problem, the problem is the lack of software. It is ridiculous to compare the two things.

The $5 bargain bin webcam comes with software.

I’d expect my PinePhone to come with software too. I mean, I guess it did, I think I just expected more from the open source community than from the nameless fly-by-night vendor.

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#97

Post by hammyhavoc »

Aeolun wrote: post #96
hammyhavoc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your $5 bargain bin webcam doesn't work without the computer and the software that runs on it though. The PinePhone isn't the problem, the problem is the lack of software. It is ridiculous to compare the two things.

The $5 bargain bin webcam comes with software. I’d expect my PinePhone to come with software too. I mean, I guess it did, I think I just expected more from the open source community than from the nameless fly-by-night vendor.

Are you sure it does and isn't just the bog-standard generic driver for your OS? Because likewise, you provided the computer, OS and everything else for it to work with.

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#98

Post by preisschild »

candiddevmike wrote: post #20
egberts1 wrote: post #13

As a veteran embedded engineer, I was shock to see that another variant of boot loader is being recommended. I’m quite sure that the bootloop is more than fixable but have my doubts that SPI is not that option. Tow-wut? Sounds something like “extoll-embrace-engulf” and Balkanization to me. Not to stand in the way, but if that fixes the low-charge/bootloop problem then so be it but it doesn’t. Still have the PinePhone…

What is the current state of bootloaders for ARM?

Depends which device tbh.

If the device has the "ARM System Ready" certification it will run most linux distros just by using an arm build, similar to amd64.

Tianocore/EDK2 also supports many devices and adds a BIOS/UEFI that is similar to the BIOS you'd see on your typical amd64 mainboard.

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#99

Post by preisschild »

Sakos wrote: post #4
ddevault wrote: post #2

This is a disappointing response. I don't have a horse in this race (besides wanting to have access to good hardware for FOSS platforms), but I do have my ear on the ground in this community, so here are my thoughts on this. > [removing SPI] was based on the fact that for years SPI was largely unused on PINE64 devices. People have been arguing that a u-boot firmware needs to be installed on that flash chip for years,…

The whole story has killed any interest I had in their products. I was interested in buying a Pinebook and Pinephone, but not anymore.

Their single board computers and soldering irons are very cool

Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”

#100

Post by GekkePrutser »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #53
mschuster91 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't get why the focus was on yet another mobile OS variant instead of creating a reasonably open hardware with an AOSP userland first. Users won't buy devices where they can't even be sure that basic functionality works. And for what it's worth, I know Android isn't without its issues - but why not build something on top of at least its Linux kernel and HAL and save so much effort in getting a system…

AOSP is terrible and doomed. It's terrible in that it's huge piles of inefficient software that can barely run on hardware that's actually pretty powerful. It's doomed in that as time passes, different FLOSS bits of it get "deprecated" and replaced with something proprietary. Or a new API appears, but Google phones actually ship a slightly better proprietary one. There's a big conflict of interest when an ad company…

LineageOS still has amazing battery life though even with MicroG. 2 weeks standby on my ancient Sony XA2.

It may be less battery efficient than Google's builds but skipping all the spyware really saves a ton of battery.

Post reply on HN