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Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

puri.sm

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Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#81

Post by blackcain »

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".

That's why the support channels were setup. Also, there still isn't a lot of details to share in the first place. The problem comes down to sending the initalization codes to the panel, which for some reason is not working. The conversations continues. Now you're as up to date as the rest of the librem 5 team.

I didn't want to drop into overly technical detail as not everyone wants that. You are of course welcome to participate in the community forum that was setup to chat about the state of the dev kit.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#82

Post by stamps »

kbenson wrote: post #22
stamps wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX on a phone?

There are librem laptops shown on the site.

Ah, the laptops are great as well though a bit outdated now with the core counts climbing.

I do have one and it works perfectly with most linux distros. I use manjaro to be specific.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#83

Post by bpye »

dcbadacd wrote: post #78
mlok wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Until they can say "Mainline Linux kernel can run on the device without modifications", I don't believe them about the "don't throw away after a few years"-aspect.

Isn't that the intent?

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#84

Post by bpye »

floatboth wrote: post #53
hawski wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. Although I think that most are just lurking around even when positive. There is not much to be said if you just like the project. But people can always complain. I like the project with some minor reservations, but there is not much to discuss at this point. I'm not gonna cheerlead. My biggest regret is price and size. I'm waiting for more information on Necuno Mobile [0] as I believe it will be in my…

> an iMX8M laptop 8M is really weak. That would be pretty much a Pinebook with Vivante graphics. The i.MX 8 QuadMax at least has two A72 cores, similar to Rockchip RK3399.

Have Purism explained their processor choice anywhere? It would have been nice to have used the i.MX 8 QuadMax - it would have given a little more hope for the phone lasting.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#85

Post by ucaetano »

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…

Anybody is capable of supply chain. I can fly into Shenzhen, shop around for ODMs and in a day have an order for a custom designed phone based on an ODMs white label model, with my logo, brand name, app preloads, etc.

Anyone can do it, because it can all be outsourced. But they don't talk about any of it.

Not only that, but they say that the cash from preorders will be used for development, which raises the question: who will pay for the actual devices of those who pre-ordered?

Give it another year or so and they'll inevitably fold, not returning any money to those who pre-ordered and posting a cute, self-pitting story about all the challenges they faces on such a honorable mission.

Just like everyone before.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#86

Post by blackcain »

megous wrote: post #65
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)

The modem audio is not sent over i2s with the SIMCom SIM7100, it is going over a USB connection as raw PCM and is managed by haegtesse. https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/haegtesse

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#87

Post by megous »

blackcain wrote: post #86
megous wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The modem audio is not sent over i2s with the SIMCom SIM7100, it is going over a USB connection as raw PCM and is managed by haegtesse. https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/haegtesse

Interesting. Perhaps I can investigate if USB audio is possible with a USB connected 3G module I'm using in a tablet, too. That would certainly simplify some things.

Thank you very much for a lead!

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#88

Post by jammygit »

simias wrote: post #69
mlok wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The ubports team developed something called halium to address this: its more or less an android emulator that has apparently been working for a couple of years now in testing at least. Its in the purism future goals to add this iirc.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#89

Post by skykooler »

simias wrote: post #69
mlok wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's sort of the issue the OpenMoko faced. It was designed to be a device with long-lasting support - but support died quickly because so few people had one.

Re: Librem 5 dev kits are shipping

#90

Post by AsyncAwait »

pjmlp wrote: post #63
AsyncAwait wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

a.) Yes, which is why they're targeting enthusiasts first.

b.) When I am talking GTK, I mean GNOME here, as that's what the Librem 5 will run out of the box. There's all the APIs GNOME exposes for your dev pleasure + any other that you can utilize on standard desktop Linux, including bluetooth, contacts etc. [1] [2] [3].

c.) The majority of devs that are on iOS and Android, sure. but since there's plenty of Linux desktop applications already, I suspect the initial set of apps would be these, optimally ac customized to a mobile screen.

That'll give them a functional edge from their Android/iOS equivalents pretty much from the get go. which is also the major advantage of this effort compared to Ubuntu Touch/Firefox OS - the fact that if you're on Linux. you're already on the Librem 5.

d.) This is very much ideology-driven at this point. It is very important for efforts like this to exist. It probably won't ever be as big as Android/iOS, but it's important to do for the smartphone what Stallman set out to do in the 80s for computers. And few believed in him then. I don't see how "being skeptical" is furthering any cause.

I believe in a free, open-source, privacy-focused smartphone, in the post-Snowden age and an age where war on general-purpose computing is heating up. If this ships, even in less than ideal state, I'd welcome it with open arms. I realize that others may not be so inclined, but there must be people who push the boundaries in order to preserve free computing. I count myself among them.

1 - https://developer.gnome.org/references

2 - https://developer.gnome.org/gnome-bluetooth/3.20

3 - https://developer.gnome.org/libebook-contacts/3.10

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