Live data from Hacker News

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

sailfishos.org

151–160 of 173 posts

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

#151

there's an easy roadmap to make this popular. make it so that I can dock it and use it as a full fat OS on a desktop. If they wanna market this as an open phone, they need to make it first class as a primary computing device. so far only samsung is willing to enter this territory with a glorified chromebook. if I could install the rust toolchain and vscode on it and use it in a customizable desktop environemnt by plu…

There are a number of rust developers building for SailfishOs. Rubdos maintains a Signal client in rust. The toolchain also runs on the build service maintained by Jolla (obs). I'm not sure what the editor has to do with it. I use vim for most of my SFOS development but sometimes use the SDK, sometimes I use Godot.

I have no doubt sailfish is a reliable build target. I mean, can I dock it and code in an IDE/text editor in sailfish the way I currently do in osx or linux distro

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

#152
post #49

I tried this briefly on a pine phone ~2 years ago as I was going through the different options trying to see if there was something viable. It was useless then, the phone barely worked, and I’m pretty low maintenance, I basically just wanted mobile date, wifi, email, and browser. I don’t really remember sailfish specifically as I was quickly cycling thought the options but I know I tried it and found it unsuitable. P…

Initially, due to the PinePhone not using libhybris but a mainline kernel, the SailfishOS browser and mail app was not working at all. At least the browser was fixed; mail later on AFAIR too. Generally, judging an OS that has officially supported hardware by an unfinished community port is not something I would call fair or useful ;-)

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From other comments in this thread though it seems to be stuck on quite old versions of ESR though. Seems like it took until about September 2024 to go from a mid-2020 version (78) to a late-2021 version (91) according to this [1]. I don’t have any first-hand experience but from the comment that linked that blog, and the site itself, it’s not clear whether the browser engine has been updated since… 1. https://www.fly…

Afaik the problem is the lack of embedding API in the Firefox core, so they have to adapt their patches every time they need to update Firefox version. This is also why you see Chome being used as a core in all kinds of applications and frameworks - AFAIK it has the necessary API for this.

There's GeckoView which one'd use for embedding Firefox in an Android app. Can't use that on Sailfish OS of course, but it'd help in figuring out what of core Firefox to bind to to make a similar layer.

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

#154
I used Sailfish.

Then I discovered that "encryption" for them was using Luks with the numeric unlock pin as encryption key (which most people sets to 4 digits). They marketed themselves as a secure OS.

No passphrase option. I brought up that it was trivially brute-forceable in the forums and they vehemently fought the idea. My post eventually disappeared.

They were doing government contracts in Russia etc. Iirc. I put some dots together and phone rests in a drawer ever since. I have no idea how things are now though.

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

#155
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> native ports Native ports have huge problems as well. Most of them are hardly maintained and stop working years down the road.

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!…

Don't forget all the opensource ports/engine recomps that (still) work great on Linux:

- OpenJazz (port of Jazz Jackrabbit)

- OpenOMF (One Must Fall 2097)

- OpenMW (Morrowind)

- Devilution X (Diablo)

- SDLPoP (Prince of Persia)

- RVGL (Re-Volt)

- R.E.L.I.V.E. (Abe's Oddysee)

- Ship of Harkinian (Zelda OoT)

- 2Ship2Harkinian (Zelda Majora's Mask)

- Super Mario Bros Remastered

... and probably lots more that I missed out.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there is Android app support. Firefox should work without major problems (I use it rarely.) But it's kind of backwards, first offering a Gnu/Linux phone, but then a fundmental application like web browser should be run under Android.

Is it actually run in an Android VM? I use an OS as a step to run applications. Why would someone use Sailfish if it can not run applications, or do they expect mobile development firms to start supporting a distant third OS? Serious question, there is a real chicken and egg problem here. I think that I have simple needs from a mobile OS. CalDAV and CardDAV sync, provide a mobile hotspot, record calls. On Android tho…

It runs a container within which runs AOSP. Cal/CardDAV sync is provided with (official) plugins for the stock Calendar/Contacts apps, mobile hotspot is built-in in Settings, and call record is built-in in Phone app.

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

#157
post #25

I thought this was vaporware?

Jolla has been selling on real hardware since the Nokia N900 of which it's a direct descendant. That platform has been shipping for 20 years. It's been around longer than iOS or Android. What on Earth do you mean "vapourware"? I have 2 handsets here currently. It is completely real.

Are there any made in the last 5 years? I too was a huge fan of Maemo but where can I buy hardware made in recent years that runs this as well as my Maemo experience in 2008?

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

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

I had people that got blocked on their fully working Xiaomi phones in US (and which still work when they roam on a foreign SIM card) in ~2024 when AT&T decided to block off all "unknown" phones. So I'm not sure why do you thing that's a thing of the past.

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

#159

Mhm, this is a proprietary OS developed by a dilapidated company… Here is another OS sharing the Nokia/MeeGo heritage, except fully open source and actively developed (not ready for general use either, AFAICT [yet]): https://nemomobile.net/

Comparing Jolla to Nemo with the argument 'actively developed' is a huge stretch.

Nemo is a great project, but only build by one guy (neochapay) in his spare time.

Jolla still has ~5 full-time engineers and a super active community.

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

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jolla has been selling on real hardware since the Nokia N900 of which it's a direct descendant. That platform has been shipping for 20 years. It's been around longer than iOS or Android. What on Earth do you mean "vapourware"? I have 2 handsets here currently. It is completely real.

Are there any made in the last 5 years? I too was a huge fan of Maemo but where can I buy hardware made in recent years that runs this as well as my Maemo experience in 2008?

Last year, with the C2 https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
Post reply on HN