I get the feeling that Martijn's situation was very much death by a thousand cuts and that didn't quite get captured well by the focus on the SPI issue - which Pine64 seems to have defended reasonably well here.
Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
101–109 of 109 posts
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#102Earlier 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.
What's up with those "can't even do the phone thing"? It's not 2007 anymore, GNU/Linux phones can do phone calls, and PinePhones aren't different.
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#103Earlier 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.
Or, Pine should sponsor a kernel dev or 2 for mainlining hardware that pertains to them (and helps the community as a whole).
Software takes time. But their plan is "cobble shit together in an untested and unmaintained state and YOLO".
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#104Earlier 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.
Webcams work in a completely different way than phone cameras. There's no point in comparing them at all.
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#105So they included all the hardware requested by Martijn. What remains the rub here?
They ship devices with a completely broken OS[1], I could never recommend their products to anyone, except maybe someone who is a technical type and comfortable going through the process of installing another distro + happy to spend time doing that. [1] At least as of a couple of months ago. I'm talking basic functionality being broken, like for example trying to add an icon to the home screen and the phone crashes.…
To be fair, I had a very similar experience on my very first minutes with an iPhone on one of the .0 iOS releases. So many glitches and broken things, even on the onboarding process, many of them reliably reproducible. That said, when I grabbed that iPhone the next time and updated it a few minor releases further, most of them were fixed.
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> even if the bootloader is loaded from eMMC, in what way is the user impeded? The "bootloader" isn't just a bootloader, it's effectively a critical firmware component. If the "bootloader" is missing or garbled, the board is bricked and can only be recovered by removing the eMMC, which would be very difficult for most users. Such a thing should not be stored on a data partition and managed like any other distribution…
> only be recovered by removing the eMMC, which would be very difficult for most users. No, it would require an SD-card to recover.
Are you quite sure about that?
A lot hinges on a fact like that. It's the difference between not-convenient and not-possible.
Will the device actually know how to boot from sdcard if the part they are talking about is broken?
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole story has killed any interest I had in their products. I was interested in buying a Pinebook and Pinephone, but not anymore.
Me too, I was hoping to get a Linux phone at a price that match the current lack of polish (for me the pinephone had that price) but Linux means community and diversity for other OS'es to me. So if they don't work with the community, then half the value of the phone disappears... I will now consider buying second hand phone with postmarketOS support. It means I'll have to accept proprietary hardware but, as it will b…
You could also get a second-hand PinePhone (just buy postmarketOS CE or later to avoid bad hardware bugs).
Regarding other postmarketOS supported devices, I quite like the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 and the OnePlus 6 - but be aware that bootloader unlock on the Xiaomi is a bit painful and charging on the OnePlus 6 is really slow (although that might have been fixed lately/be fixed soon).
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
They ship devices with a completely broken OS[1], I could never recommend their products to anyone, except maybe someone who is a technical type and comfortable going through the process of installing another distro + happy to spend time doing that. [1] At least as of a couple of months ago. I'm talking basic functionality being broken, like for example trying to add an icon to the home screen and the phone crashes.…
To be fair, I had a very similar experience on my very first minutes with an iPhone on one of the .0 iOS releases. So many glitches and broken things, even on the onboarding process, many of them reliably reproducible. That said, when I grabbed that iPhone the next time and updated it a few minor releases further, most of them were fixed.
the difference is that there were perfectly good distros for the PinePhone, but then it was decided to start shipping it with a half-baked one. It's as if Apple went back from those later iOS releases to the earlier one.
The original "Why I left Pine64" article adds more info about what went on.
Re: Pine64’s response to “Why I left Pine64”
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "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
If you want to buy a phone that Just Works, buy a Samsung Galaxy or a Google Pixel.
You can also buy a Pine64 product and if you do not like the hardware you are free to modify it to your heart's content. However, they don't owe it to you to perform the modifications you want, certainly not if there is a shortage of the part you want them to install.