My thoughts after the discussion yesterday are that I'm going to open up the case of a PineBook Pro or PinePhone Pro anyway so it isn't a big deal to have to swap the eMMC module to another machine to write it. I can live with not being able to boot them from SD.
PINE64 has let its community down
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Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#12I write it as someone who does not follow this space…
…does “letting community down” matters? The phones and the open source seems to be open, can’t you just… put your own OS on there or whatever?
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#13What alternatives do we have? Don't mean this as a dismissal, genuinely want to know more about the state of open source hardware.
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#14Manjaro is and always has been a joke. I won't even consider PINE products given their relationship...it completely tarnished any reputation they may have had.
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#15I write it as someone who does not follow this space… …does “letting community down” matters? The phones and the open source seems to be open, can’t you just… put your own OS on there or whatever?
I don't know how much it matters, either. Nor why I should care that much.
Pine64 wants to ship working products. It can't do that if it wants to support 30 different Linux distributions or phone products simultaneously. Most of which don't even have extremely basic features working, like cameras or the ability to make phone calls.
Maybe Manjaro isn't the most ideal choice in the world, but it's a hell of a lot better than not making one.
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#16I write it as someone who does not follow this space… …does “letting community down” matters? The phones and the open source seems to be open, can’t you just… put your own OS on there or whatever?
> …does “letting community down” matters?
Yes. A lot of contributors from the community put countless hours on making software work on this hardware. And a lot of work still needs to be done.
If the hardware vendor turns its back on the community, that'll drive developers away, demotivate them or burn them out. See also: https://blog.brixit.nl/why-i-left-pine64/
> can’t you just… put your own OS on there or whatever?
You can put your own OS on pretty much any hardware. But you need A LOT of effort, and if you drive contributors away, that goal also moves further away. If the hardware vendor doesn't collaborate, it's even harder.
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#17I have no ties to these people, but say after a pandemic and recession, a corner restaurant raises prices, drops your favorite dish and the rest come in smaller portions and don't taste as good. Would you shout that they let community down and demand an apology, or would you just accept that running a small business is hard and many don't make it, or fail to cater to any customer. Non-Android Linux phone is already a niche, your own distro is niche of a niche, like vegan gluten free keto dishes. Maybe they just can't figure out how to pay for such support rather than being malicious jerks? Even tech giants drop features all the time
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#18My thoughts after the discussion yesterday are that I'm going to open up the case of a PineBook Pro or PinePhone Pro anyway so it isn't a big deal to have to swap the eMMC module to another machine to write it. I can live with not being able to boot them from SD.
You don't have to. I have the PinePhone Pro, you can flash Tow-Boot to the SPI without having to fiddle with the hardware. After that, you can chose to boot on the MMC, or the SD Card by pressing some buttons without issue.
But the important issue being discussed here is not a technical issue. It is a community / social issue.
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#19On a more positive note - I’m delighted with my new pinecil soldering iron. Oh and fun fact - the power bricks of (some) old Asus laptop are the right connector and voltage and wattage.
What kind of power does it actually use? The specs seem to indicate that it can take in up to 72W but is that legitimate? I currently have a no name 40W iron and have been eying the Pinecil for a while but don’t know if this will be good enough to solder thicker gauge wire.
Re: PINE64 has let its community down
#20On a more positive note - I’m delighted with my new pinecil soldering iron. Oh and fun fact - the power bricks of (some) old Asus laptop are the right connector and voltage and wattage.
the connector is almost the only thing that matters to make it work -- you can wire up LIPOs with varying numbers of cells and it will happily work, so long as you don't go too far above specs. I've run mine in 3S, 4S, and even a 6S config, though 6S is probably really too far.