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Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

puri.sm

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Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#61

Post by mlok »

simias wrote: post #49
subsubsub wrote: post #7

Every time Purism is mentioned on HN there are always people chiming in with negativity around how it's not open or secure or free enough, based on some unachievable metric of those things and with an side dose of utopian fantasizing. Buy one of these phones because you - Want a 'free' phone to exist in the future - Want an open source phone to exist in the future - Want a secure phone to exist in the future It may n…

I'm impressed and very much respectful of what the Purism folks are trying to achieve but I just don't think their business plan is viable as it is. As such I really don't really believe that getting a few geeks on HN to support the project will really make much of a difference. They need a much broader market share if they want to have a chance to survive in the long term and I don't see how they can get it. As it s…

The difference could be : a phone that you're not supposed to throw away after two years. Something that would be maintained over the long run. Lots of people would buy a phone that can last 5-7 years. I am one of them. My mother is one of them. My father too. Not everybody is fond enough of phones or tech to want to change often. If it runs apps and has a good camera, it's fine. A phone that lasts 5-7 years would also be good for the planet, and that's a bigger market share than FLOSS enthusiasts.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#62

Post by jononor »

letstrynvm wrote: post #24

I have one of these on the way. The main surprise for me is they're shipping it without the lcd panel working. They can control the backlight. But no video. Now I'm participating in the gamble that can be made to function without rework, I'd at least like complete details, not "we are talking to the panel vendor".

Hmm, that's ballsy. Not a good sign that they are making such risky moves, so soon in the project.

But hardware is never easy. Lets hope it works out.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#63

Post by pjmlp »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #55
pjmlp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just went through their SDK docs. https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Apps/index.html Looking at their guides, the app APIs usability is a joke from Android point of view, even Tizen has better docs. https://developer.tizen.org/development/api-references/nativ... Best of luck I guess.

a.) This is all very much WIP. b.) As long as you develop a standard GTK app for Linux, it should be easy to adopt it for Librem 5. c.) Are you seriously comparing their WIP docs to someone who has put billions of dollars and over a decade into their platform and has a JetBrains powered IDE?

a.) Fine, but they are runner ups on an well established market.

b.) What is the standard GTK way to access Linux desktop services like address book, NFC or Bluethooth LE?

c.) Yes I am, because that is what the large majority apps developers will be expecting to even loose a day of their income playing around with it.

I don't forget the corpses of OpenMoko, Maemo, Moblin , FirefoxOS. Even Jolla, Tizen and webOS aren't something that have managed to move the needle, in spite of the amount of money that has been wasted on them to this day.

So yeah, I am sceptical that it won't be yet another attempt joining them in a couple of years.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#64

Post by megous »

letstrynvm wrote: post #26
alexkavon wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a resource directly from them: https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/

Maybe I missed it, but it doesn't seem to cover setting up a cross toolchain and rebuild everything from source.

One thing about this is that it's nothing special/custom. You can use your regular GNU/Linux knowledge and the internet. It's all standard GNU/Linux userland.

There's plenty of information and tools on the internet for doing what you're after. You don't need one true way of doing this from Librem.

I don't like complexity so I have just a bunch of simple scripts for this. But it's also possible to use buildroot, crosstool-ng, Arch Linux ARM mixed system building, where you drive the build from the target device, but compile object files remotely on x86_64 using a cross-compiler, etc., etc.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#65

Post by megous »

letstrynvm wrote: post #24

I have one of these on the way. The main surprise for me is they're shipping it without the lcd panel working. They can control the backlight. But no video. Now I'm participating in the gamble that can be made to function without rework, I'd at least like complete details, not "we are talking to the panel vendor".

According to the status matrix, there's also no I2S from the BT/WWAN, meaning no audio from the modem and bluetooth. (probably meaning it's untested, or the driver/DT is missing)

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#66

Post by oelmekki »

pksadiq wrote: post #10
freedomben wrote: post #4

Would be interested in some links to SDKs and/or style guides. As a developer, how do I get started writing my app to target the Librem 5? Went through the website and many forums but haven't found any definitive.

> how do I get started writing my app to target the Librem 5? For commandline applications all you need is to develop for GNU/Linux. It should work pretty fine on Librem 5 too. If you want to develop GUI applications see libhandy[0], a GTK+ widget library developed by Purism for Librem 5. If you need to, you can get motivations from https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Design/app-mockups and HIG guide for GNOME is availabl…

Btw, I wonder : I intend to use KDE on librem 5 (at least eventually, if it's not ready on phone release). Do you know if mixing GTK and QT apps on the system will be as easy as on desktop?

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#67

Post by emXdem »

spotman wrote: post #43
ucaetano wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spend it, preorder one. It most likely will never make it to production. At this point in time, if the creators were being honest, they would either have announced an OEM sign up, or have announced that it has already been delayed beyond Spring 2019. As much as I like donations to causes, donations to doomed causes who aren't honest about the probability they'll ever come close to a reality are useless. They advertis…

regarding date and supply chain uncertainty i would tend to agree. in this case however, they do sell laptops. so, they aren’t completely incapable of supply chain. depending on if the laptop is really an in-house design, or not, they may be certainly going from a very basic to an extremely sophisticated supply chain. or it could be that it’s not an in-house design fully and someone else is doing the supply chain and…

Have you tried to order a laptop? I did... After 2 months of waiting I cancelled my order and it took another month to get refunded.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#68

Post by emXdem »

dannyw wrote: post #12

Has anyone who pre-ordered the cancelled Librem 11 from Purism got their refund? I put money down more than a year ago. They didn't meet their MoQ, and so offered refunds or applying it to another product. I chose a refund almost two months ago, and I still have not received it despite many follow ups and shifting deadlines. I'm concerned that Purism may be having cash flow issues?

This was my exact experience with their laptops. All of them.

Great that there is a company that wants to do this. Not great that they have 0 transparency around refunds and supplychain.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#69

Post by simias »

mlok wrote: post #61
simias wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm impressed and very much respectful of what the Purism folks are trying to achieve but I just don't think their business plan is viable as it is. As such I really don't really believe that getting a few geeks on HN to support the project will really make much of a difference. They need a much broader market share if they want to have a chance to survive in the long term and I don't see how they can get it. As it s…

The difference could be : a phone that you're not supposed to throw away after two years. Something that would be maintained over the long run. Lots of people would buy a phone that can last 5-7 years. I am one of them. My mother is one of them. My father too. Not everybody is fond enough of phones or tech to want to change often. If it runs apps and has a good camera, it's fine. A phone that lasts 5-7 years would al…

I agree with you on all counts but in order for the phone to be supported for a long time (both by Purism and by third parties) it needs to be reasonably successful. Otherwise nobody is going to even remember it existed two years from now, much less port and maintain apps for it.

That's my main problem really, I have Spotify, WhatsApp and a couple other closed-source applications on my smartphone that I need in order for said phone to be useful. If there are no ports or alternatives maintained on the Librem I'd just be buying a very expensive paperweight. And I don't think I'm a heavy app user compared to most of my friends who often have a couple social network apps, games etc...

Sibling comments mention that MS could probably make a profitable phone but they don't have the same objectives and I say that it's irrelevant. The problem is third parties and app supports. I need my phone to do more than calling and texting these days, I need decent driving directions, a multimedia player (ideally something that interfaces with Spotify, but I know that's asking for a lot), a chat application that can connect to WhatsApp (I won't convince all of my contacts to switch to Signal, Jabber or IRC) etc...

I need that stuff to be maintained and updated for at least a few years. And ideally after that I'd like to know that I can count on a Librem n+1 being available so that I won't have to change ecosystem once again.

I've bought a few open source/homebrew systems over the years, mainly handheld consoles to run emulators. It works but the software is often rather lackluster and very amateur looking. It's also generally maintained for a little while then the contributors move on to something else. It's fine for a toy emulator console, not so much for a smartphone.

The hardware is not the issue, the ecosystem is.

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