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SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

sailfishos.org

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Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#131

Post by poetaster »

dredmorbius wrote: post #61

What distinguishes, say, a mobile OS from a more traditional desktop OS? What would not be acceptable in a tuned/configured Linux / Windows OS on a smaller-form-factor touch- and voice-enabled device? I'm excepting the obvious issue raised elsewhere of closed app stores and the tendency for ever more interactions (commercial, government, educational, institutional) to rely on these. That discussion has been had many…

The main distinguishing feature is that you generally lack a keyboar / mouse /pointer thing. Hence, the window manager and interaction in general are tuned for touch interactions, single handed use and the like.

It's for this reason I like SFOS. I've tried android and ios. But they suck.

As a developer, I also appreciate the flexibility even within the limits. Gradle and co. suck.

Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#132

Post by poetaster »

shmerl wrote: post #129
fractallyte wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's a commercial venture - how would they feed their developers?

I doubt that's their way of feeding them. At one point they explicitly said they'll do it, but never did.

Not true. Gradual but slow progress. https://github.com/sailfishos

They also recently split the automobile UI part off from the Phone bits. That joint work was part of the problem for FOSSing everything, since they have deals with Car manufacturers which depend on their IP.

Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#133

Post by poetaster »

MayeulC wrote: post #123
ho_schi wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that. Don’t call out the bad examples (there are some!). The never mention the good examples? ioQuake3 - still work's CS2 - still works HL1, HL2, CS1,CSGO - still works Unrailed - still works? UT2003 - there it is getting hard, unmaintained since ca. 2003. But it is doable if you want it. Quake3 - same as above. Most bad ports were made by inexperienced developers. And honestly, these people need to learn!…

Most of these are actively maintained though. Older ports, such as UT2004, still work but a few upgrades give a much better experience: SDL2-compat (and now SDL3-compat) really helps, as it brings compatibility with newer APIs (pulseaudio, Wayland, newer controllers, etc). Please use SDL when targeting Linux!

Exactly! SDL2 apps run well on SFOS :)

Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#134

Post by devjab »

m4rtink wrote: post #44
devjab wrote: post #6

As cool as this is there won't be an European alternative as long as all the apps you'd want to use on a smartphone require either Google Play or the Apple App store.

Aren't you basically describing a chicken and egg problem?

I think it's more of an EU problem. We have so many public apps that rely on two big American tech companies solely because the EU has yet to figure out an alternative app store with enough security to make those apps available. This likely made sense 10 years ago, but today with all the talk about digital sovereignty it's frankly a little weak. It's not the OS that is the issue though, I could use graphene or similar just fine, but they wouldn't let me run a single of the apps that are the sole reason I have a smartphone. Well.. maybe the Microsoft authenticator?

I mean, I have to write exit strategies from Azure because the EU might demand our industry to leave non-EU infra. Yet ironically the digital company ID I would need to sign new contracts with within Europe aren't available without one of the two app stores. It's not that I can't sign those contracts without the ID, but I'd probably have to go to Germany in person.

Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#135

Post by numpad0 »

kube-system wrote: post #82
izacus wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you'll need to talk to your monopolistic carriers then. US mobile innovation is dead for the foreseeable future due to them, all new innovation is happening in China and other SE Asian markets. You just need to be a good consumer and buy that iPhone that Verizon orders you to have with their blessing.

Carriers in the US restricted the phones people used in the 00s and early 10s, back when there were short model whitelists, CDMA networks, and radios with only a few bands… but not so much today. Global market GSM phones activate pretty much on any US carrier just fine today. 2/3g deprecation and VoLTE is precisely because US carriers are pushing forward with new tech.

There were no activation for GSM phones. You insert a whitelisted SIM and the phone would just register(login) to the network. The network doesn't care. Phone might care, but it's processed instantly on the modem. It was Apple that added online "activation" gimmick to it.

"CDMA" networks built on proprietary Qualcomm cdma2000 standards used its equivalent of eSIM, and that was why it required special trusted phones for OTA programming. It was also used by Verizon which IIUC had better coverage than others so lots of people would have had memories of having to go through something akin to Apple activation.

Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#136

Post by ho_schi »

MayeulC wrote: post #123
ho_schi wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People say that. Don’t call out the bad examples (there are some!). The never mention the good examples? ioQuake3 - still work's CS2 - still works HL1, HL2, CS1,CSGO - still works Unrailed - still works? UT2003 - there it is getting hard, unmaintained since ca. 2003. But it is doable if you want it. Quake3 - same as above. Most bad ports were made by inexperienced developers. And honestly, these people need to learn!…

Most of these are actively maintained though. Older ports, such as UT2004, still work but a few upgrades give a much better experience: SDL2-compat (and now SDL3-compat) really helps, as it brings compatibility with newer APIs (pulseaudio, Wayland, newer controllers, etc). Please use SDL when targeting Linux!

True.

Re: SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes

#138

Post by rzerowan »

mpol wrote: post #113
ho_schi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone know if Jolla ever published the full source-code? The promised back in 2013.

There are plans now in 2025 to work on this slowly. A few apps have recently been opened up. More are coming. So it is underway. In 2015 Jolla were bought by Russian owners. They didn't understand open source or free software, they just wanted something for the Russian market. In 2021 these ties were broken, but it took a long time since the Russian owners didn't respond in any way. It is only two years or there abou…

The OS was 'licensed' to a Russian distro as AuroraOS , not sold.Its still belongs the Finnish company.Note , that was their biggest install base and revenue source they cut themselves off from.
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