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I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

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Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#491

Post by fooqux »

inigyou wrote: post #424
fooqux wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't go in person. That just wastes everyone's time as corporate will never hear about it. Instead, call them. Insist to talk to a human. Corporate really doesn't like call center calls, and they usually have monitoring set up to track why people are calling.

Doubt that. They care about average call metrics but not why people are calling, and the call center operators have absolutely no ability to fix anything and will just work to get you off the call as quickly as possible.

Doubt all you like. Customer support is a huge O&M cost to these companies and they will do nearly anything to reduce calls. I know they track why people are calling, or at least my place does. Half of my career has been spent writing software and making changes to our websites to reduce call volume.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#492

Post by handedness »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #487
handedness wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that thread you're stating just months ago that Librem 5 owners no longer need to manually develop raw photos to get decent results. Truly atrocious video quality. I say the camera's not good enough for me, and I suspect the market agrees. The tram photo is arguably the best output of the lot and it's got a ton of problems by contemporary standards. Fun photo, if you didn't buy the phone for the camera and you wan…

> and it's got a ton of problems by contemporary standards No shit Sherlock. A processing pipeline written in a few weeks by someone who was just learning what color actually is while writing it, with lots of TODOs left around, can't compete with the state of the art? Who would have thought? The post that started this subthread simply asked "Is this a good enough camera for you?", which is a valid question. For some…

>> it's got a ton of problems by contemporary standards > No shit Sherlock.

You're supporting my point. A device which first shipped seven years ago still requiring someone to properly configure a post-processing software stack to get viable pictures out of it (with no path to viable video) kind of makes my point for me. That the hardware can perform significantly better with post-processing is more of an indictment of the overall device than it is an endorsement of the camera hardware itself.

For me, from a camera standpoint (among others) the device isn't good enough to be a viable alternative to switch from Android (the post's topic), or from iOS (likely the most commonly used device family by HN readers). Even with your stack. As I said, your photos are the most convincing I've seen, at least the ones in the most forgiving circumstances. It's not personal.

As switcher targets go, the Librem 5 is a poor one. Ask any normal person to do what you call basic to get them looking like a midrange camera from a decade prior. And yet, when switching comes up, the same few suggest it as if it's a genuinely good option for anything but very niche cases.

No break needed. That's it.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#493

Post by seba_dos1 »

handedness wrote: post #492
seba_dos1 wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it's got a ton of problems by contemporary standards No shit Sherlock. A processing pipeline written in a few weeks by someone who was just learning what color actually is while writing it, with lots of TODOs left around, can't compete with the state of the art? Who would have thought? The post that started this subthread simply asked "Is this a good enough camera for you?", which is a valid question. For some…

>> it's got a ton of problems by contemporary standards > No shit Sherlock. You're supporting my point. A device which first shipped seven years ago still requiring someone to properly configure a post-processing software stack to get viable pictures out of it (with no path to viable video) kind of makes my point for me. That the hardware can perform significantly better with post-processing is more of an indictment…

> A device which first shipped seven years ago still requiring someone to properly configure a post-processing software stack to get viable pictures out of it (with no path to viable video) kind of makes my point for me.

Except it doesn't. The photos I showed are as they come by default out-of-the-box on the default OS the device ships with. You're just making things up again.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#494

Post by handedness »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #489
handedness wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time someone says we need a better open Linux phone, the Librem 5 and PinePhone crowd shows up to tell us not to believe our lying eyes, that our standards (which are already more open to tradeoffs than the general public's are) are wrong, that they love daily driving a device and therefore extrapolate that into some kind of viability as a commercial offering for anything other than novelty hobbyists. They're f…

It's just as if people weren't a single hive-minded entity and they all had differing needs and opinions. Of course we need better phones. Librem 5, the one I personally still consider the best out there right now, is now 6-7 years old! It wasn't a low-end device back then, but it wasn't high-end either, and time flies. Yet at the same time I keep seeing people going "I wish we had XYZ" when XYZ was something I was e…

It's difficult to frame it as something that was mid-range in its time, as many, maybe most original backers probably didn't receive theirs until much later. COVID certainly compounded things and they can't be faulted for that.

Purism was a case study in how not to handle delays, and faulting consumers for being overly picky or not supporting the product financially ignores the broader context.

Some people may also object to buying a phone that struggled for years to...make phone calls. (And by some contemporary accounts still does.) It takes potato quality videos. It was an absolute mess as of 2025: https://forums.puri.sm/t/it-is-normal-for-the-librem-5-to-ha...

Its existence does not obligate anyone wanting a genuinely good device to exist to contribute to that project, and it's naive to think a lack of sales is what's prevented Purism from shipping a better device.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#495

Post by handedness »

fooqux wrote: post #490
handedness wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't heard much bad about Purism. That's surprising. They burned through a ton of goodwill by holding many people's money for many years, while being non-responsive to depositors, refusing refunds if they did respond, and so on. A lot of ink and footage has been spilled over it. Their laptop effort seems to have evolved into something almost reasonably non-scummy, but the Librem 5 put a lot of people off. Curr…

Thanks for writing all that! Of course I knew that the Librem5 existed, but at the time I was thrown off by the price and the smell of "impending shitstorm" the device reeked of. Afterwards, I was too deep into the Pine side of things to pay attention to what was going on over at the Librem side. It's sad that these two devices have derailed open phones so much. Obviously there's a ton of things to figure out, radio…

> It's sad that these two devices have derailed open phones so much.

Agreed. Those two have made such a mess of things that I think if something interesting does sprout up, it'll come from somewhere else.

I think one issue is that the hard-liners who are willing to make the compromises necessary to daily drive one of these things as an actual phone aren't interested in any solution unless it's fully open, and certified as such. Which I get, but desktop Linux more or less evolved on hardware containing significant proprietary blobs and closed code, and at many levels. It wasn't perfect, but the OS had room to mature on genuinely good and useful hardware.

Instead, these two companies are trying to push molasses up a sandy hill. Virtuous though it may be, it seems kind of doomed to failure, and this doesn't feel like one of those situations where the glory is in the trying.

Eschewing genuinely excellent hardware because it's imperfect, all while running a hot mess of an operating system, also strikes me as a losing strategy.

Give me a modern SoC with modern radios, strong contemporary security features, all running a well-supported distro, and I'd be there in a heartbeat, despite whatever misgivings I held about the non-FSF-approved nature of the hardware, because that's exactly my current desktop, laptop, and server computing situation (modern security features aside). If I saw a viable open phone hardware project happening I would be happy to support it, but for some people there's a real "you are either with us, or against us" mentality about it, and if someone's going to make me choose...

> I fear that the corporations have learned from what happened during the "PC compatible" era of computing and openness will be a thing of the past.

We both hope you're wrong, but some things certainly seem to be trending that way, and quickly.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#496

Post by handedness »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #493
handedness wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it's got a ton of problems by contemporary standards > No shit Sherlock. You're supporting my point. A device which first shipped seven years ago still requiring someone to properly configure a post-processing software stack to get viable pictures out of it (with no path to viable video) kind of makes my point for me. That the hardware can perform significantly better with post-processing is more of an indictment…

> A device which first shipped seven years ago still requiring someone to properly configure a post-processing software stack to get viable pictures out of it (with no path to viable video) kind of makes my point for me. Except it doesn't. The photos I showed are as they come by default out-of-the-box on the default OS the device ships with. You're just making things up again.

I'll put it more succinctly: there's no photo on that page I'd be satisfied with out of an $800 device in 2026.

If it was actually strong at everything else, it may well have a shot as a second device, but the Librem 5 doesn't come close there.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#497

Post by mrheosuper »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #394
mrheosuper wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Linux need another "Wine" moment, but for android/ios.

In theory, Waydroid exist. In practice, I've failed to ever get it running on several attempts so far.

Very similar to how wine used to be.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#498

Post by handedness »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #486
handedness wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then read more closely. I didn't say the components existed a decade ago. The performance level of that SoC would have been challenging to get what typical phone users would consider a good experience out of a decade ago. The 2016 Pixel 1, for example was a much higher performance device. Apple's iPhones from that era required considerable tradeoffs to achieve the performance they did. Some owners apparently disagree…

Sorry? Pixel 1 was a 2016 high-end mainstream phone that costed about the same as a niche and low-volume Linux phone in its crowdfunding campaign just a year later. It's actually fairly similar spec-wise to Librem 5, with exception of its noticeably more powerful GPU. Both these phones have some features the other doesn't. Some owners disagree, others agree. For what it's worth, I don't disable JavaScript on my phone…

So, a 2016 flagship phone available for purchase in 2016 benchmarks at about 2x the Librem 5, not factoring in the noticeably more powerful GPU, as you mention. The Pixel 3a, a midrange phone that shipped in 2019, opens that gap up considerably. By the time many (most?) people got their Librem 5, the 3a was already an old device.

Of course, I don't expect a low-volume crowdfunded niche Linux phone to hit a major OEM's price/performance targets. Nobody should.

What I don't see a good way around is framing it as anything other than low-to-midrange performance chipset even in its day (whenever that actually was). Which is fine, tradeoffs were made, but tradeoffs they were. Something can still be viable for a small subset of people, while ultimately quite long in the tooth for the broader market.

I'm glad you're happy with it as a device. Thanks for posting your photos.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#499

Post by handedness »

jolmg wrote: post #485
handedness wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me: We need a phone. You: We're there. It's a bad phone. This thing works as a laptop replacement. You'll even be able to use it as a trackpad some day! This reads like satire. You guys are so out of touch with consumer expectations that you can't even string together a coherent argument in favor of these devices you so love. Even if it was a viable phone, are we really calling mid-tier 2016 performance, from a devic…

> Me: We need a phone. You: >> I would genuinely carry my Linux ThinkPad with a cellular radio everywhere before [..] PinePhone or Librem 5 If you're thinking of M.2 modems, they generally can't do calls AFAIK. A ThinkPad isn't really going to serve you as a phone...

I actually have one that does.

But you're making my point for me: that's how bad they are as phones.

A laptop with an iffy phone situation would at least be a highly useful laptop, if nothing else.

A PinePhone or Librem 5 is just kind of meh-to-bad at almost everything.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#500

Post by seba_dos1 »

handedness wrote: post #494
seba_dos1 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just as if people weren't a single hive-minded entity and they all had differing needs and opinions. Of course we need better phones. Librem 5, the one I personally still consider the best out there right now, is now 6-7 years old! It wasn't a low-end device back then, but it wasn't high-end either, and time flies. Yet at the same time I keep seeing people going "I wish we had XYZ" when XYZ was something I was e…

It's difficult to frame it as something that was mid-range in its time, as many, maybe most original backers probably didn't receive theirs until much later. COVID certainly compounded things and they can't be faulted for that. Purism was a case study in how not to handle delays, and faulting consumers for being overly picky or not supporting the product financially ignores the broader context. Some people may also o…

> as many, maybe most original backers probably didn't receive theirs until much later

Original backers got it in 2020-2021. It took until 2023 to catch up with preorders made already after the original campaign ended.

> Purism was a case study in how not to handle delays

Agreed.

> faulting consumers

I haven't faulted anyone. I just made a "if I had a dollar for each time..."-style remark.

> It was an absolute mess as of 2025

You linked to a post about a faulty unit and about how another unit with exact same software didn't have the listed problems...

> it's naive to think a lack of sales is what's prevented Purism from shipping a better device

It's exactly what prevented Purism from shipping the successor so far. It's also what prevented it from keeping a whole team of developers hired that worked not just on the specific device, but on the entire software platform and whose work is now being used across various devices. The Librem 5 project was a massive cost sink that left its fingerprints all over the place across the GNU/Linux stack, and more sales was exactly what would be needed to let it continue at that pace. The reasons why it didn't sell well enough can be argued, but the inarguable fact is that more sales would bring more progress.

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