Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

puri.sm

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 78 posts

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#41

Post by RandomBacon »

dangus wrote: post #38
danShumway wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use LineageOS right now. It's great, and I'm glad it exists, but it still requires me to write the majority of my apps in Java and to test them in an emulator, and it still requires me to use the Android OS for everything. I know I can theoretically compile my own ROM or something to customize the desktop environment, but... bleh. It's time-consuming for me to build things on Linux, but it is more time consuming fo…

I do agree and fully realize that being successful means finding a stable niche. I don’t expect something like this to take down Apple or anything crazy like that. I just don’t see that happening because I think the demos sort of show this for themselves. It may be fun to develop for but it doesn’t look enjoyable or practical to use. Wait and see we shall!

> I think the demos sort of show this for themselves.

I agree; I think it will be successful.

> it doesn’t look enjoyable or practical to use

You can say that about any phone (an iPhone, flagship Samsung, etc) that is not in a case. I bet it will be enjoyable and practical once they put it in a case.

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#42

Post by RandomBacon »

justforpurism wrote: post #40
RandomBacon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> another attempt to build Android/iOS ecosystem Do you understand what they are doing? They don't have to build the ecosystem, it already exists! > Purism just have shown that they wasted precious time on badly looking I think it looks good. > What a waste of time to re-write (or port) So you still have no idea what they are doing. Why are you taking the time to create new accounts and post long comments if you aren…

> So you still have no idea what they are doing. > They are making a privacy-focused, portable Linux device that makes calls. Now understand, thank you. Before your kind explanation, I indeed did not fully grasp what Purism was doing. I was naively thinking they were doing a privacy-focused device that I could someday use everyday. But instead they are doing a device that will run Linux and will occasionally make cal…

I don't understand why people seem to have it out for Purism. Did they wrong you? Are you a competitor?

It's pretty clear you are being disingenuous.

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#43

Post by dangus »

RandomBacon wrote: post #37
dangus wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally understand that these phones are very much intended for highly tech literate people with specific priorities, but Librem will not see success selling a $650 phone that can essentially only barely use a texting app, a web browser that already exists, and stumble its way through Gnome like these videos are doing. I also need to challenge you to look up a video of LineageOS and compare it to these videos. Line…

All the other Librems are Linux devices too, and thus have the same limitations. They've seen success selling those Linux laptops. > 95% of the privacy and freedom This phone is for the people who want the other 5%. It's not trying to compete with the iPhone. > stumble its way through Gnome like these videos are doing. Odd. I didn't see that at all in those videos.

The difference is that Librem laptops can run any OS like a standard PC. Many users perhaps don’t even use PureOS and put something else on.

It’s this software or nothing, essentially. I realize it’s open and that we could theoretically make our own, but phones are still an incredible beast to tame at this point.

This is going to work with basically zero carrier features and won’t even activate on important cellular networks like Verizon.

I don’t expect it to compete with the iPhone, but I have doubts that it will be a stable business for Purism. I guess we will find out.

I do see the stumbling. Have they shown us multi-touch at any point? Did you notice how this is a phone that depends on a control key to copy and paste text?

Every single finger touch screen UX convention that Apple sent down to us from the heavens in 2007 has been bafflingly ignored in this effort.

It’s a great start but this is a phone they’re shipping this year and they can’t even tell us many of the specs.

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#44

Post by the_pwner224 »

RandomBacon wrote: post #11
logicprog wrote: post #9

I want to like Librem's smartphone, I really do. I like having control over my software, and I like being able to really understand how it works and tinker with it and stuff. But I have this sinking feeling that the Librem 5 is just vaporware, or worse, that it'll get released with a half baked UI and a barebones list of apps. On that latter one, I really don't see how they'll fix the problem. On the former, the thin…

It doesn't look like vaporware to me. The videos and updates seem legit. > it'll get released with a half baked UI and a barebones list of apps. Have you even looked into the project? It's running Gnome, on Linux, all the regular apps are there. Check out the videos in this link, it's not half-baked: https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3...

I have been following this for a while and am likely to buy it if/when it is released. Even though that will require me to change to a much more expensive cell carrier.

The software seems good. After all, it is just GNU/Linux/GNOME - all you need to do is get a C compiler and hardware drivers and then it just works. An older video did show major stutter during scrolling but that can probably be mitigated.

What's concerning is the hardware side of things. I don't think many people expected it to actually ship on the original planned release date, but the delay has been getting quite large. All the stuff on their blog is about software running on the dev kit; we have no idea what progress is like on the hardware. Turning it from that bare PCB into a phone is a lot of work.

Their marketing guy also released a video a month or two ago comparing the Librem boot time to that of an old Android phone, complete with OEM crapware. If they have nothing better to do than make such stupid comparisons, then it is hard to believe it isn't vaporware.

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#45

Post by EvangelicalPig »

danShumway wrote: post #34
dangus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the hardware kill switches and replaceable battery, I think this experience is going to compare poorly to LineageOS, which has a lot of the same software freedom and privacy advantages with a much more refined and complete operating system. This phone is months from shipping and we haven’t even been shown multi touch have we? Is that even a feature being promised? Ultimately the difference between this and th…

I use LineageOS right now. It's great, and I'm glad it exists, but it still requires me to write the majority of my apps in Java and to test them in an emulator, and it still requires me to use the Android OS for everything. I know I can theoretically compile my own ROM or something to customize the desktop environment, but... bleh. It's time-consuming for me to build things on Linux, but it is more time consuming fo…

There is Anbox[0] for running Android applications under Linux, and I've heard some people claim it's "less clunky" then an AVD. I haven't yet tried it myself but will soon.

I don't disagree that there are some suboptimal things about Android but to bootstrap a new mobile OS platform from almost nothing, and being on-par not even matching Android especially with regards to security (sandboxing, a proper permission model) seems like it would require a dedicated team several years of development time, which Purism doesn't have.

[0]: https://anbox.io/

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#46

Post by justforpurism »

RandomBacon wrote: post #42
justforpurism wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you still have no idea what they are doing. > They are making a privacy-focused, portable Linux device that makes calls. Now understand, thank you. Before your kind explanation, I indeed did not fully grasp what Purism was doing. I was naively thinking they were doing a privacy-focused device that I could someday use everyday. But instead they are doing a device that will run Linux and will occasionally make cal…

I don't understand why people seem to have it out for Purism. Did they wrong you? Are you a competitor? It's pretty clear you are being disingenuous.

> I don't understand why people seem to have it out for Purism. Did they wrong you? Are you a competitor?

I love Purism. I mean no sarcasm here.

But you have to know history and learn from previous mistakes, and try something different. If Purism's approach is the same as to what Openmoko was, it is not going to end well. I hope they will try something different.

But, so far, they do exactly same thing as to what Openmoko was doing. I loved Openmoko, I bought their phone (and a debug board), but I was never able to use it as a phone. It did make calls. Due to limited resources (and all small companies have limited resources), they could never master native UI. I still don't believe that a small company can make all-encompassing software apps for a phone, thus I suggested to try something different: use existing web apps, don't spread already thin resources on "porting" native apps yourself.

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#47

Post by the_pwner224 »

RandomBacon wrote: post #12
learnfromstory wrote: post #7

Just shockingly ugly. If you're going to do a pixels-under-glass UI, you really have to start with a toolkit that isn't awful, or you end up with the openmoko which looked exactly like these demos but 12 years ago. You end up with, in short, a phone where the user adjusts the volume using alsamixer in an xterm because the UI wasn't really thought through.

> Just shockingly ugly. Are you sure about that? It looks amazing: https://puri.sm/posts/runs-on-the-librem-5-smartphone-week-3...

I'd say its better than most modern phones with their stupid flat UIs. I use KDE on the desktop for its featured richness, but gnome is still much more 3d and I envy its appearance. Buttons very clearly look like buttons and text boxes look like text boxes and the whole thing just looks 'nice.'

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#48

Post by dangus »

RandomBacon wrote: post #41
dangus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree and fully realize that being successful means finding a stable niche. I don’t expect something like this to take down Apple or anything crazy like that. I just don’t see that happening because I think the demos sort of show this for themselves. It may be fun to develop for but it doesn’t look enjoyable or practical to use. Wait and see we shall!

> I think the demos sort of show this for themselves. I agree; I think it will be successful. > it doesn’t look enjoyable or practical to use You can say that about any phone (an iPhone, flagship Samsung, etc) that is not in a case. I bet it will be enjoyable and practical once they put it in a case.

Huh?

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#49

Post by flukus »

justforpurism wrote: post #26

Registered just to post this. Love Purism, want it to succeed. But... IMHO, the effort is going to fail miserably, unless folks stop wasting time trying to build a phone UI, i.e. another attempt to build Android/iOS ecosystem. There were Sailfish, MER, Openmoko, and whatnot attempts to make a pure Linux-running cell phone. Just stop it. You will burn through your money doing half-baked UI, there will be no adoption,…

> The only surviving plan for any Linux-phone: make it web-centric. You have to port ONE app: Firefox.

You are aware of the failure of firefox OS right?

> Purism just have shown that they wasted precious time on badly looking GNOME Clocks, Emacs, Password manager, a game, a half-baked music player, Torrent client (on a phone!), and Drawing app made with their native UI.

They haven't wasted time, pretty much all of these are existing apps, you can run most of them on a gnome desktop.

> Focus on releasing the hardware

That is what their doing and what differentiates them from most previous efforts like sailfish, they are a hardware company making a phone the runs linux, others were trying to re-create android and leave the hardware for others.

Re: Runs on the Librem 5 Smartphone – Week 2

#50

Post by flukus »

RandomBacon wrote: post #42
justforpurism wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you still have no idea what they are doing. > They are making a privacy-focused, portable Linux device that makes calls. Now understand, thank you. Before your kind explanation, I indeed did not fully grasp what Purism was doing. I was naively thinking they were doing a privacy-focused device that I could someday use everyday. But instead they are doing a device that will run Linux and will occasionally make cal…

I don't understand why people seem to have it out for Purism. Did they wrong you? Are you a competitor? It's pretty clear you are being disingenuous.

> Are you a competitor?

justforpurism and learnfromstory, 2 brand new accounts just created to shit on purism, it certainly seems like someone has a bone to pick.

Post reply on HN