[HN Gopher] The $149 Smartphone That Could Bring the Linux Mobil...
___________________________________________________________________
The $149 Smartphone That Could Bring the Linux Mobile Ecosystem to
Life
Author : ollieparanoid
Score : 181 points
Date : 2021-06-13 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vice.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vice.com)
| michelledepeil wrote:
| This review is totally correct and I share the hope/idea that
| this might be the big linux-on-phones jumping-off point. I've
| been daily driving the Librem 5 with postmarketOS/phosh for a
| couple of months now, and though I certainly wouldn't give it to
| my grandmother right now, I can already start to imagine her
| using a maybe PureOS/phosh on a librem 5-v3 five years from now.
| luke2m wrote:
| Source: https://tedium.co/2021/05/26/pinephone-mobile-linux-
| review/
| jokoon wrote:
| Why not just use android on such phone, and remove google
| dependencies?
|
| Android is open source. Android is already using linux. I really
| don't get it. I wish somebody could answer this question with
| convincing arguments, because writing another mobile OS doesn't
| seem like a trivial task.
| richardwhiuk wrote:
| Then fork Android?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| So, the problem is that Android is open source in concept and
| name only, not in practice: Code is developed in the dark, and
| then published later, it's not a collaborative environment. And
| the important part is that Google fully controls what direction
| Android development moves in. So they're going to design it to
| advantage themselves and disadvantage others.
|
| So the first problem with that is that the work to remove their
| influence becomes progressively harder, and the bigger problem
| is that if you want to maintain app compatibility, you
| basically have to accept nearly everything Google decides to do
| as is... you can't really "just fork it" without losing the
| main perk of running Android: Running Android apps.
|
| As it is, most Android apps won't work on a device without
| Google Play Services, because Google has pushed app developers
| year after year to switch from depending on Android platform
| APIs over to Google Play Services APIs for basic functions like
| location.
| fsflover wrote:
| There is a project trying to do that:
| https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=10613.
| amelius wrote:
| It might not be possible in the future to remove google
| dependencies.
| midwestemo wrote:
| I would buy a pinephone at the moment but the performance is just
| not that much compared to Android phones. It's not good for a
| daily phone to use at the moment. Until then, I'll stick with my
| OnePlus 7 Pro until there's a linux phone with good performance,
| even if it costs more.
| testific8 wrote:
| If you are interested in postmarketOS linux, I think there are
| some faster phones that have been bootstrapped:
| http://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
| yyyk wrote:
| Nope. The Linux ecosystem for some reason is fixed on recreating
| a purist GNU/Linux experience and toolchain which simply doesn't
| suit smartphones, or making 2nd class copies of typical
| smartphone interfaces.
|
| By comparison, the toolchain isn't so bad for Desktop, the copies
| are mature or experimenting in their own ways, and there's wine
| (Wayland is unfinished, but most users can still use X for now).
| Still Linux Desktop has a minute marketshare.
| errantspark wrote:
| My only phone is a Pinephone. I don't "daily" drive it because
| I'm not really much of a phone user but it's still loads better
| than the experience I had with Android/iOS.
|
| I feel like the phone respects me. It's a computer and when I
| decide that I want to do [X thing a computer can do] it lets me
| do that. It feels much better to struggle against real problems I
| can solve than it does to struggle against fake problems
| inflicted upon me by other people in order to extract value from
| me.
|
| I would seriously much rather deal with "Which file do I pipe `1`
| into using a shell on a phone screen in order to turn on the
| flashlight LED?" than having to deny Google location tracking
| privileges for the millionth time because they will just keep
| asking me until I accidentally hit yes instead of no one day.
| slim wrote:
| Can you receive calls on it?
| fsflover wrote:
| Calls have been working on both Pinephone and Librem 5 for a
| long time already.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| It's all about killer apps for me. My phone is for anki, taking
| notes that my other devices can read, using authy, and for
| podcasts, and a password manager app. A discord app would be
| convenient but optional. A step counter. Once pinephone or librem
| can do all those, I'm sold
| smoldesu wrote:
| This is probably gonna come as a shock to some people, but I
| wholly think I could live with a Linux smartphone today. I really
| only use my phone for two things: text/calling and staying
| connected to my desktop/laptop. As long as it supports the
| KDE/GDE connect protocol (I doubt it doesn't), I could see myself
| actually being one of the early adopters here.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I would be totally fine using such a phone for almost
| everything I do. The only big gap would be using Sweden's
| identification app BankID and the money transferring app Swish.
| Unless these were ported to the phone, I would unfortunately
| lose one of it's most important functionalities for me.
|
| Of course I could just have an Apple/Android phone sitting at
| home for such purposes, but it is definitely less convenient.
| pmontra wrote:
| Same for banking apps here in Italy and the OTP generator of
| our id system.
|
| Plus some apps I don't strictly have to use but I want to:
| WhatsApp (to use the web app I should run the android one
| somewhere it can receive messages with my phone number,
| cough), Telegram (probably OK), OSMAnd, NewPipe as a YouTube
| adless replacement (YouTube web is not OK), Google Street
| View and satellite maps (the web app is vastly worse), car
| sharing apps (less of that now), random apps from my
| customers.
|
| All considered I'll have to carry an Android phone anyway so
| I'm carrying only an Android phone. No Linux phone. But I've
| been using Ubuntu as my only OS since 2009.
| jraph wrote:
| > NewPipe as a YouTube adless replacement (YouTube web is
| not OK)
|
| Actually, Invidious and the likes (viewtube?) are quite
| good for this. SponsorBlock even works there.
|
| FreeTube makes the phone very hot and is very slow,
| unfortunately.
|
| Something like NewPipe would be neat though.
|
| > OSMAnd
|
| Something like this is sorely missing. A-GPS isn't
| integrated in current distros too (a script can load AGPS
| data in the Phone's modem)
| ognarb wrote:
| There is a nice plasma mobile replacement for newpipe:
| https://apps.kde.org/plasmatube/ For telegram the official
| client works, but you could also use Tok
| (https://invent.kde.org/network/tok), but yeah for the rest
| there is no real solution yet :(
| m4rtink wrote:
| This is one of the things I worry about - a duopoly not just
| backed by two wealthy and shady megacorps but also
| effectively by law as it mandates a mobile app for some
| things yet the app only exists for iOS and Android & no
| public API is available.
| amelius wrote:
| Shouldn't they at least support the Web?
| jlokier wrote:
| Even when using the web, some of the banks' websites
| require a step that involves your phone.
|
| The phone app is effectively used as a hardware security
| token.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| Several of the "challenger" / "FinTech" banks in the UK
| (e.g. Monzo, Starling) require the use of their app. They
| offer limited read-only views via web, but only offer all
| features via app. No iOS / Android phone? Go to a
| different bank.
| db579 wrote:
| Starling do offer an API anyone can use to interact with
| their own account. Doesn't allow full functionality yet
| though.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| While I'm not entirely sure on the specifics, this is where
| Anbox can hopefully create a workable Android runtime layer.
| While it would be a bit overly optimistic to assume that
| "secure" authentication type apps would work, it could help
| with adoption for people like me who are missing that one
| vitally important app required to make the PinePhone a daily
| driver.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Unfortunately, Anbox isn't a longterm solution for non-
| libre Android apps. The problem is that more and more
| Android apps require passing SafetyNet. It started with
| banking apps, then spread to games, and Google may one day
| simply encourage every app to require it. Even Android ROMs
| stripped of Google services like LineageOS are finding it a
| challenge to pass SafetyNet, let alone Anbox.
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| Ah okay, that's unfortunate but thank you for clarifying.
| ognarb wrote:
| Mobile banking apps will probably be the hardest challenge in
| the long term. In my cases, for social media and
| communication, it's easy. I don't use whatsapp and facebook
| messengers on Android, and for Telegram there is a native
| client that works well enough (and Tok[1]), for Matrix I
| wrote NeoChat[2], for mastodon, I'm writing Tokodon[3], there
| is also some activity around a QML Signal client and
| implementing other open protocols is doable.
|
| But for banking there is absolutely nothing and bank in the
| EU requires a mobile phone app to unlock the account. I fear
| that the only way to solve that is at a political level but
| this probably also means something unreachable for now. This
| sucks.
|
| [1]: https://invent.kde.org/network/tok [2]:
| https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat [3]:
| https://invent.kde.org/network/tokodon
| gentleman11 wrote:
| I have never heard of kde connect. Remote Desktop?
| krastanov wrote:
| This is the first time I hear of KDE Connect and I am amazed!
| Thank you, you just made my electronic-related life
| significantly easier!
| gizdan wrote:
| I'm not convinced. I'd love a Linux phone but there must be
| some standard that ensures apps are easy to develop and the
| apps must grow significantly for this to catch on. Otherwise
| it'll be just like Linux on the desktop. It'll become a mess of
| 15 different standards and apps devs will not bother with that.
|
| I really hope it'll work out, but we'll see.
| syshum wrote:
| This is about like saying that Javascript will never catch on
| unless there is a single Framework that all developers use to
| create applications....
|
| Not only is that unnecessary, it is also not practical as the
| entire purpose of Open Source is that if you do not like
| something you fork it and make it your own.
|
| Linux on the Phone should absolutely avoid the Wall Garden
| draconian approach of iPhone and modern Android
| lbotos wrote:
| I'm curious, what apps do you use day to day that need to be
| native?
|
| For me, 99% could easily be web-based, which makes "mobile
| web" the standard, and not necessarily "linux-phone."
| jlokier wrote:
| For me it's banking apps, og which I have many.
|
| Some can be operated via the web but they tend to require a
| hardware authentication token, which is as inconvenient as
| carrying a second phone (each bank requires a different
| token or card reader).
|
| Some can be operated via the web but use their phone app as
| an authentication token for web access.
|
| And some don't provide full functionality via the web at
| all.
|
| Plus, the apps are way more convenient than logging in via
| the web in practice.
| testific8 wrote:
| There are many standards on linux, but in my experience they
| are mostly inter-compatable. I have KDE/X11 programs running
| just fine in my GNOME/Wayland environment. I also have alsa,
| pulseaudio and pipewire playing nice on my laptop.
|
| I've heard binary distribution is a problem, with many
| overcomplicated methods like Appimage, Snap, and Flatpack.
| But it doesn't matter because linux users will prefer
| installing from source code or a trusted repository anyways.
| And they should: This is the more secure way of doing things.
| Closed source programs need not apply.
| pjmlp wrote:
| And so commercial vendors decide to apply to Android
| instead.
| okennedy wrote:
| KDEConnect is supported in KDE/Plasma-based distros. Work is in
| progress to add it to Gnome/Phosh. KDEConnect is definitely a
| killer app!
|
| Can't speak for the other distros, but Mobian/Phosh has reached
| a point where it's usable as a primary phone. Tons of work from
| the community has brought battery lifetimes up from ~1 hour to
| the point where it lasts me the day under normal use. Firefox
| is usable, and most every piece of software I need has a
| workable counterpart.
|
| That said, the experience is still quirky (think c.a. 2000
| linux on desktops). Most things work, but the final mile still
| requires a decent amount of poking at config files and trawling
| wikis. Doable, but not everyone's cup of tea.
|
| (Posted from a pinephone)
| pmontra wrote:
| GNOME has gsconnect. It talks with KDE connect apps using
| their protocol. I've been using it for years until a couple
| of months ago, when it started to eat into CPU and make all
| my desktop lag. There is an open issue for that. I'll check
| if new releases fixed the issue. My devices can still talk
| between themselves.
| amelius wrote:
| What sandboxing/app-deployment systems does Linux offer today,
| and which one is the most promising?
|
| Are they secure, and do they offer fine-grained permissions?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Sandstorm.io is a sandboxing/app-deployment system that runs on
| Linux servers, which uses capability-based security and fine-
| grained permissions. (As a note, it sandboxes individual
| "grains", which are single-documents/instances, not entire
| apps.
|
| Of course, Sandstorm is built to present a cloud-like web app
| interface, not local desktop or mobile apps.
|
| I still think personal servers are the eventual way to go, such
| that people's mobile devices they carry with them aren't the
| definitive location of lots of their valuable data.
| fsflover wrote:
| https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...
| zozbot234 wrote:
| FlatPak is working on adding support for fine-grained
| sandboxing, but they're not there yet.
| Shadonototro wrote:
| linux ecosystem?
|
| with what apps? cat, ls, htop?
| linmob wrote:
| There are a few more than just these:
| https://linmobapps.frama.io
| ergocoder wrote:
| I want something small like Palm Phone, which is beautiful and
| refined.
|
| But Palm Phone totally screws it up by marketing themselves as
| "companion phone" (your second mobile phone, why would I have 2
| phones??) and the battery life is 5h (wtf is this??).
|
| Other minimal phones focuses on calling, and guess what? 99% of
| my calls in the past few years were with spam.
|
| Currently, there is absolutely no minimal small smart phone.
| butz wrote:
| I've got Unihertz Jelly 2. It is smaller than "Palm Palm" in
| width and heigth, but a bit thicker in depth, which is a good
| thing. Screen is a bit tad too small, but good enough for calls
| and other basic functions. Typing in portrait mode is tricky,
| at least.
| Groxx wrote:
| I had an earlier version of one of these, when they had a
| ridiculous sale (it was like $40 or something).
|
| It ran quite well. Most apps worked fine. It was a little
| slow, but it almost never had _problems_. Typing aside, I 'm
| surprised how reasonable it was, I used it as my only phone
| for a few days and I really had no complaints.
| ergocoder wrote:
| I look at it. Its design looks bulky...
|
| Small is good though.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| What about the Palm phone? It's waterproof, 2oz, and has a
| feature that cuts power to the cell and wifi chips when the
| screen is turned off, so no calls or texts until you turn it
| back on. I love it as my daily driver for a year now.
|
| https://palm.com/
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The problem for me with a non-(Android, Iphone) mobile is that
| the apps I use for banking are unlikely to work.
| peterwandering wrote:
| Banks have websites :P
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I am tempted to create a phone case sticker::
|
| "My Other Phone is Pine64"
| sfgweilr4f wrote:
| This is a good start.
|
| Bring on the real spec Linux phones with flagship CPU / ram /
| cameras. If only to act as a catalyst to improve the other
| platforms. But mostly so I can run What I Want (tm).
|
| But first, the market needs to be tested. So, these early devices
| are a good idea.
| tontonius wrote:
| FWIW, I just overheard a colleague the other day saying that
| "2021 could be the year of the Linux smartphone"
| danielEM wrote:
| Love the idea of Pinephone, but I don't see even remote
| plans/talks to get to 1/3rd of modern phones performance, my 300$
| phone is literally 11 times faster (multicore).
|
| Once you'll get decent hardware performance a lot of devs will
| happily give up on their laptops and switch to mobile. And that
| will bring a lot of traction to software for mobile linux...
| ruined wrote:
| can you message on signal without a matrix bridge yet
|
| pls moxie let me foss
|
| axolotl is cute but it's not canonical, you know
| draklor40 wrote:
| Unpopular Opinion: I don't want a Linux Desktop (XFCE, KDE, etc)
| on my phone. I don't care about being able to run terminals or
| `chown -R user xyz` or `htop` on my phone.
|
| I want a phone with a decently polished OS, smooth (given
| hardware constraints) that can run apps that I control (deny ads,
| location info. etc) and provides an alternative to the
| Android/IOS duopoly.
|
| I just hope that the Pine Community will realize this and focus
| energy and work towards having a canonical OS on the PinePhone
| that just works.
| fsflover wrote:
| In this case Librem 5 would be a better fit for you I guess.
| This is how Purism advertise their phone.
| leshokunin wrote:
| I want the PinePhone to work. The Librem too. In fact I had
| preorders for both. I canceled them looking at the performance.
|
| They're excellent toys. Great effort to ship such a difficult
| product. But if your phone is going to struggle with running
| things besides terminal, it's not going to be a great daily
| phone.
|
| I'd love them to be on par with the latest Android flagships in
| terms of power. Cost is not an issue. I just want to be able to
| actually use Linux on a phone, rather than just run it.
|
| I've been keeping an eye on the Windows side of things. Windows
| 10x looked really promising on top of the Surface Neo, but both
| seem to be shelved. Now the closest alternative is handheld
| devices like the GPD Win 3, but that lacks LTE unfortunately. No
| ditching Android just yet.
| grawprog wrote:
| Personally, I'd rather something equivalent to a mid-range
| android phone. Something that works decently well, but still
| affordable enough adoption isn't limited only to the wealthy
| looking for toys. I see most flagship phones that way myself.
|
| For me, i need more than what the pinephone offers, but it
| doesn't need to have all the features of a high end phone. A
| decent processor and RAM would make the pinephone a lot more
| appealing just by itself.
|
| if it was equivalent to a $300-$500 android phone, you still
| wouldn't have all the bells and whistles, but it would be a lot
| more viable for daily use.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > A decent processor and RAM would make the pinephone a lot
| more appealing just by itself.
|
| The 3GB of the bigger model are enough for most users
| (LibreOffice or Firefox with several tabs open can run on a
| XFCE PC deskop with 2GB), but the CPU is indeed limited, and
| battery life is short. Admittedly just by optimizing the
| software they recently squeezed out a lot more compared to
| the first iterations of the software, however we're not there
| yet. I wonder if having a much beefier battery could allow
| the use of faster processors although not aimed at the mobile
| world. Personally I can't even keep in my hand a modern phone
| without it risking to fall, I find their thinness extremely
| uncomfortable, and would be thankful if producers made a full
| 1.5 - 2cm thick one with the additional space occupied by a
| decent battery.
| hakfoo wrote:
| I don't need much performance-- my present phone is a 2-year-
| old $220 Umidigi F1, and it's entirely performant for my
| needs-- but the problem is the likelihood of showstopper app
| needs.
|
| I don't want to carry two devices, or have to reboot twice
| daily, so that I can still the weird 2FA app my employer
| uses. I wonder if the ideal endgame is a VM style model-- you
| have an Android VM that you give 2% of CPU to, just enough to
| keep that app alive, but normally spend your day in LumeOS or
| whatever your flavour is.
| linmob wrote:
| I have heard rumors that something on a level of a mid-range
| Android phone would already be on sale, but the component
| shortage has introduced delays.
| fsflover wrote:
| It's not just about performance:
| https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-
| wiki/-/wikis/Freque....
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I think if they can nail the low-end or mid-end phone, and get
| enough volume out there to make an ecosystem possible, ramping
| up to high-end phones is the easy part. It's not like the
| factories manufacturing these phones don't know how to make
| high-end phones.
|
| But the problem with $800 phones is people can't afford to buy
| them unless they're daily driver ready. At $150, you can buy it
| as a testing phone/a spare phone, and start building apps for
| it.
|
| Windows Mobile was murdered first and foremost by the lack of
| wider support and a larger app ecosystem. Getting as many
| phones out there as possible is the key to avoiding this with
| Linux phones.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| This is why we're really very lucky, IMO: We have two
| companies doing both, right now. We have an $800 device for
| the "high" end, and a cheaper device to get the word out. The
| timing seems better than if it had been one or the other.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| The biggest threat to Linux on phones could be Fuchsia. If/when
| Google decides to switch to a Fuchsia base for Android, all the
| chipset vendors will follow suit and that will make it even
| harder to find chipsets that can be used with a Linux kernel -
| upstream or not. That will dry up the amount of effort put into
| making Linux a good mobile platform.
|
| Maybe the stable binary api of Fuchsia drivers will be usable on
| Linux with a wrapper, but that obviously won't be open enough for
| projects like the Librem5 (I'm not sure what is Pine64 position
| on binary drivers).
| testific8 wrote:
| The pine64 position on binary drivers is not as hard as the
| purism one (perhaps they try to balance more with cost), but
| there are still projects to reverse-engineer and replace some
| non-free firmware, such as the modem firmware:
| https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk.
|
| I agree that Fuchsia will become a problem going forwards, even
| if Fuchsia drivers can be reverse-engineered. It's also
| possible that phone hardware is commodified enough that google
| will be unable to lock us out, or that google abandons or
| delays the Fuchsia project.
| posguy wrote:
| The PinePhone has the same security properties as the Nokia
| N900 where the modem is connected over USB rather than an
| interface with direct memory access (eg: PCIe) where the
| proprietary software running on the modem can read anything
| in main memory.
| UbrtrbNchDneRle wrote:
| Don't you think we will see more general computing ARM chips
| with the M1's success? Aren't we approaching a world where your
| phone, tablet (hopefully eating the laptop...), desktop and
| server all run more or less the same chip?
| candiodari wrote:
| CPU standardization is already here, your iPhone runs ARMv8-A
| does that allow you to replace the kernel on your iPhone?
|
| What it is about android that allows you to do so is the
| copyleft license on the linux kernel. Chips can be locked
| down, and they generally are.
| UbrtrbNchDneRle wrote:
| Yes, but I don't understand how Fuchsia prevents pine64 to
| offer a Linux compatible chip. Not being able to unlock an
| android/fuchsia/iOS phone doesn't really matter, does it?
|
| Either way, I was hinting at a possible liberation through
| the laptop/desktop/server ARM SoC market, which is
| certainly coming. I think x86 is "over".
| spankalee wrote:
| Fuchsia is a much more secure and updatable platform. It'd be
| wonderful if there was a Pine-like for Fuchsia, especially if
| they can use open drivers.
| testific8 wrote:
| I disagree. Fuchsia will eliminate the need for the hardware
| vendor to supply open-source drivers. In this regard, it is a
| major step backwards in security and upgradability.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| It will definitely be more secure, but probably drastically
| less open, since there won't be any GPL code underneath for
| people to demand copies of.
|
| Fuchsia, once it reaches the level of polish required of
| proper Google products, will be as closed as iOS. And
| security will be the justification for it.
| spankalee wrote:
| The Fuchsia code itself is open, and while a vendor could
| make changes and not release them, a project like Pine
| wouldn't do that. That would indeed be a major motivation
| to use a Pine-like over other vendors.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > The Fuchsia code itself is open
|
| For now. It doesn't yet have all of the proprietary bits
| added in, nor has it been shipped to OEM devices using
| mobile device hardware. Most of the proprietary Google
| bits of Android are proprietary by choice, there's no way
| Google is going to be any more open with Fuchsia.
| testific8 wrote:
| pine64 and purism are lot smaller than qualcomm and the
| like. They don't have that type of leverage.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Pine does not contribute device drivers, the SoC vendors
| and groups like Linaro&Collabora write them primarily.
|
| Hopefully SoC vendors and IP vendors release the source
| for their device drivers.
| lupire wrote:
| Is something wrong with using Fuchsia kernel insted of Linux?
|
| It's open source and it has a modern, secure capability
| architecture.
|
| Running Linux _binaries_ , not just source code, is a design
| goal of Fuchsia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26104667
| [deleted]
| ognarb wrote:
| Most (all?) the drivers will be closed source since the
| license allows it.
| Google234 wrote:
| At least they won't break with every minor update.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| Unless the OEMs customize the whole stack to only allow
| the kernel to talk to their drivers. That is only
| enforceable by legal constraints from Google akin to the
| CTS [0].
|
| [0] https://source.android.com/compatibility/cts
| posguy wrote:
| Worse yet, the OS itself is non-GPL, an OEM can modify
| Fuchsia outside just the drivers to support their device
| (eg: create a board support package) and never release
| their modifications to their customers, meaning the
| community can't compile their own updates to the software
| running on the device (worse than our current Android
| situation).
| posguy wrote:
| Fuchsia has separated the drivers from the kernel[1],
| enabling proprietary drivers that are never updated to become
| acceptable. This can result in Blueborne[2], GPU
| vulnerabilities[3], and any other proprietary driver
| remaining permanently vulnerable as the hardware manufacturer
| has no incentive to update the driver.
|
| In Fuchsia's model, you can run the latest OS with these
| vulnerable, non-updated drivers, or your device ODM could
| even release nothing and you don't have the GPLv2 to fall
| back on to get the Board Support Package for your hardware to
| build your own updates with.
|
| 1 - https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/8/22163225/google-
| fuchsia-o...
|
| 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueBorne_(security_vulnera
| bil...
|
| 3 - https://redd.it/s48lz
| spankalee wrote:
| Those types of driver vulnerabilities are exactly why
| Fuchsia's sandboxed driver model is needed.
| fabrice_d wrote:
| Fuchsia has a lot of good features technically, there is no
| doubt about that - it was time to revisit how an OS should be
| designed given the usage patterns of devices it powers. I
| hope the capability model will put to rest the insanity that
| is SELinux (just look at the amount and complexity of SELinux
| rules in AOSP). The license choice for the kernel is more
| controversial, but no one expected Google to ship under the
| GPL.
|
| It _also_ happens to solve some of the pain points with
| Android: in a way it is "Project Treble on steroids" aiming
| to resolve the issue with fragmentation and lack of long term
| support from Android chipsets and OEMs.
| Proven wrote:
| Reading the comments, everybody wants a Linux phone at a shit
| price but even that not just yet - first it has to gets close to
| Android and iOS performance. Such fans!
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I've seen the pinephone in action and while I'd love to
| contribute to it, there is an immense amount of work that still
| needs to be done. Even the basic text editor they have for it
| takes a while to load up. The phone call app barely worked as
| well. I mean, the idea is awesome and I want it to succeed. But
| in order for me to put a dime up for it, phone calls have to work
| without question, I need a text editor of virtually any kind, a
| web browser that doesn't take ages to start, a calendar app that
| works, and the ability to simply listen to mp3's. The phone
| hardly has any of those features working in a remotely feasible
| state right now.
|
| I really do admire the project, but it's far from ready. It needs
| financing I know, but I don't like funding things for a subpar
| experience. I certainly do have excess cash to devote to these
| projects, but I have no recourse that they will get at the state
| I want it in in a reasonable time frame.
|
| That all being said, I can't wait until this gets better.
| ashneo76 wrote:
| Using a low power phone for everyday use, for a year now. I would
| say the "convergence" of the android and iOS devices is creating
| a device that is tuned to suck you into the marketing and
| advertising of google, apple, etc.
|
| Android and iOS devices are tools and platforms to gather data
| and use the consumer as a product more than anything else.
|
| Break the slab like form factor and my addictive habits dropped,
| drastically. Break the app stores, and marketing and I got a lot
| more time back in my life.
|
| I have a separate hotspot for internet, a tablet for internet
| access, a phone only simple communication with a 2GB plan and an
| offline GPS. The convergence of these is an optimized tool to
| farm the consumers.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| So what are you using? A feature phone in a 'flip' form factor?
| I'm wondering what the options are.
| squarefoot wrote:
| One point that should be repeated ad infinitum for those reading
| about the Pinephone for the 1st time: it's all about the freedom,
| not performance. One doesn't buy the Pinephone to brag about its
| technical achievements with friends, but rather to contribute
| building an ecosystem, even just by spreading the word, of people
| who put freedom and privacy above everything. I also should be
| repeated ad infinitum why its hardware is limited compared to
| other devices, and I don't mean the well known ones but also
| those built by the hundreds of thousands by Chinese factories
| then relabeled under a dozen different lesser known brands. The
| reason is that Pine64 had to make all of it from scratch since
| obtaining any meaningful technical information from those
| hardware makers is impossible, so they had literally to pick what
| hardware had the most open documentation available. Supporting
| them is our way to send a strong message: "we've had enough of
| your black boxes". Big players of course won't give a flying damn
| since the market of privacy conscious users wouldn't represent a
| fraction of a fraction of their user base, but hopefully that
| will help convincing other manufacturers to publish their specs.
| Phones aside, there are other ways to help them. I'm waiting for
| a beefier version of the Pinetab, am considering the PineBook pro
| (with EU keyboard which is out of stock) and in the meantime got
| their mini solder iron which works surprisingly well (and I have
| two Wellers).
| amelius wrote:
| > in the meantime got their mini solder iron which works
| surprisingly well (and I have two Wellers).
|
| Looks interesting, what temperature can it reach?
| [deleted]
| Bancakes wrote:
| It's sad to see free hardware is so comically behind commercial
| one.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| FOSS and OSH will always sit a few years behind companies
| which are investing billions of dollars in R&D. But we can
| try to lift what we can and catch up sooner or later.
| api wrote:
| FOSS UI/UX is at least two decades behind and the gap is
| growing.
|
| A major problem is that people almost always underestimate
| the difficulty of a good UI. Good UIs can be a lot harder
| than the rest of a system and a modern UI toolkit has a
| feature set and difficulty level approaching that of a good
| 3D game engine like Unity.
| testific8 wrote:
| I think the new GNOME is pretty comparable to the Windows
| and MacOSX interfaces. Is there something I'm
| overlooking?
| kazen44 wrote:
| i disagree, KDE has one, if not the best ui out there. it
| is consistent, customizable and not a resource hog.
| windows's UI has been a mess since the XP days, and osx
| is atleast consistent, but hides a lot of functionality
| in name of clean design.
| mbreese wrote:
| And I disagree with you. And it's not because I think KDE
| is horrible... it's not. I prefer the Gnome style but KDE
| is quite polished.
|
| But I disagree because it is _really_ rare to have a
| completely unified UI with Linux. We have separate
| applications for Gnome and KDE for most tasks. Sometimes
| one is better than the other, or one has a feature you
| need, but you have many different competing applications.
| If you want to use the "best", you end up with a mix of
| different styles.
|
| Or, if you want to use an office suite, Libre Office is a
| different style altogether!
|
| So, you say KDE has a unified style. That's great. But
| KDE != Linux. And Linux is never going to have a unified
| style. That's just the nature of the beast. There isn't
| one group out there that can make UI/UX decisions for all
| of Linux. No group that can set priorities and make
| decisions about what features stay and what can be
| removed.
|
| But that's okay. That's the trade off we get when working
| with FOSS software. We get to make those decisions for
| ourselves. But it rarely results in a "unified" UX.
| Powerful, yes. unified? No.
|
| I am interested to see how the new KDE/pine64
| relationship plays out though. Hopefully it will be
| great. And maybe I'm just a bit pessimistic after the
| last time with Nokia/Qt.
| blihp wrote:
| That's a function of the state of the SoC options currently.
| There are _very_ few options for an open source phone design
| to choose from that have sufficient public documentation. The
| ones that do tend to be several generations behind on process
| nodes and have more modest capabilities generally as they are
| often targeting the low end of the market.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| To be fair, it's also priced dramatically lower. It's not
| fair to compare a current iPhone, priced at more than $1200
| on the open market, with the Pine Phone priced at $150. This
| is where they chose to bring a phone to market and I think
| it's a smart move. They'll attract a bigger audience and make
| it easier for people to sim-swap and experiment.
|
| When the distros get good enough, they can price out higher
| end hardware.
| eric__cartman wrote:
| I'm all for having tuxphones but even a $100 Android phone
| creams the Pine Phone in every aspect regarding
| performance. The sad truth is until the soc vendors don't
| start properly supporting a mainline Linux kernel and offer
| open source drivers we will be stuck with devices that
| haven't left the "wow this is cool but I wouldn't use is as
| my only phone" territory.
| axiolite wrote:
| > even a $100 Android phone creams the Pine Phone
|
| That $100 Android phone is going to be carrier locked
| (subsidized by the carrier) and probably an older model
| where the R&D has already been paid-off, not an all new
| device. Once the Pine64 has been out for a few years,
| it's possible its price will drop to similarly
| competitive levels.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| To me the PinePhone and other Linux phones are _also_ about
| performance. Yes the MVP prototypes will always suck and you
| would only buy these for freedom 's sake, but a truly unified
| software platform encompassing both mobile and mainstream
| computing all running on openly documented reference hardware,
| will be far superior technically to what we have today.
| m463 wrote:
| As a purism owner, and a long-time linux user... I think that
| is a fantasy statement.
|
| Theoretically, there could be an open platform like the PC
| (with usb + pcie + ATX case/power supply + etc..) with open
| interfaces. However the reason this came into existence was
| by microsoft's design to commoditize the hardware to drive
| software sales of its (closed) operating system.
|
| With cellphones all of those interfaces are being subsumed so
| the trend is one chip + a display + a battery. The chip is IP
| of many vendors.
|
| Additionally, the linux distributions have _not_ had the
| highest performance. For example, frequently there is poor or
| no graphics acceleration.
|
| I think Linux will always be behind commercial/proprietary
| platforms. One could arguably say that the iphone is a multi-
| billion dollar platform, with more careful engineering,
| development and tuning than any other device on the planet.
|
| That said - I do believe linux based phones are nearing that
| "good enough" stage where dedicated users can make it work
| for them and people may at least have a choice.
| cptskippy wrote:
| > However the reason this came into existence was by
| microsoft's design to commoditize the hardware to drive
| software sales of its (closed) operating system.
|
| Couldn't get past your rewriting of history just to paint
| MS in bad light because you don't like them.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I think Linux will always be behind
| commercial/proprietary platforms. One could arguably say
| that the iphone is a multi-billion dollar platform
|
| One could have expected the same wrt. proprietary *NIX
| workstation and server hardware in the 1980s and 1990s, and
| where are those today? Linux is dominating that market.
| Embedded brings more trouble because the hardware, far from
| being a "multi billion dollar" endeavor, is all-too-often
| entirely undocumented and sloppily hacked together, where a
| barely workable state is considered "good enough" for
| shipping. But even there, Linux is easily gaining ground
| over proprietary OS's. The underlying dynamic is clear
| enough.
| znpy wrote:
| > I think Linux will always be behind
| commercial/proprietary platforms.
|
| the dumb thing of this whole situation is that 50% of the
| "commercial/proprietary platforms" in this market are
| android phones, still using Linux as kernel.
| fitzie wrote:
| totally agree. while I'm optimistic that arm chips will be
| more open in the data center and embedded space, looks like
| mobile arm id becoming more proprietary. Intel could shake
| things up if it starts to work on riscv and brings some of
| its graphics and wireless tech over to it.
|
| while it is nice to have a powerful phone, it really
| doesn't need to be any more powerful than what is in a tv
| set.
| squarefoot wrote:
| My hopes are that 5 years from now free hardware will be much
| faster than today. By then, even the bottom of the list
| should be able to support a working mobile environment.
| _joel wrote:
| Unless they manage to get the apps then they'll always be
| hobbyist or not a daily driver for the vast majority of users.
| Sure it's fun it's linux but nobody else in my family would use
| one if they couldn't access banking apps etc.
| meristohm wrote:
| Since I no longer play games on my mobile device, I'm comfortable
| with lower performance (to run Anki, a password manager, Firefox,
| text editing, play music and podcasts and audiobooks and text-to-
| speech ebooks--this might be resource-intensive?, record and view
| photos and videos, send and receive texts and calls). Battery
| life is also important, though most of my phone use is while it
| is plugged in.
| mhitza wrote:
| The biggest performance issue is going to be the browser.
| Because for any type of rendering performance hardware
| acceleration is a must. And Firefox disables that by default on
| Linux (needs to be manually enabled in about:config).
|
| The second issue, which I saw based on reviews alone was a very
| slow camera interface.
|
| One surprise with PinePhone optimized distros is Ubuntu Touch
| (ubports). Not sure what type of magic they are on, but
| accelerate 1080p video in the browser and fluid mobile
| interfaces.
|
| Check out the Short Circuit youtube channel for their PinePhone
| video. Watched it expecting to see just laggy interfaces, but
| ubports really takes it to the next level.
| testific8 wrote:
| Speaking from experience with the pinephone, the browser
| situation is actually pretty good on postmarketOS because
| they have a custom firefox configuration for mobile:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co6qnlw4hgE
|
| I can also confirm that the camera interface is slow. It
| takes like 30 seconds to dump a single image and render it
| into a jpeg. The main camera app is called "Megapixels". I'm
| not sure, but i've heard there are some paralellism changes
| coming downstream that may improve performance somewhat now
| that they have updated to gtk4.
| bserge wrote:
| I would not buy one of these when I can get a used phone with
| better specs that was "hacked" for Linux support.
| asah wrote:
| Recently went to a security conference and really wanted a secure
| low-feature phone to coordinate with friends and keep up with
| email/web... Speed and features don't matter, don't need games or
| even video. Can't imagine I'm alone... is this a niche market for
| a linux smartphone to take off?
| llaolleh wrote:
| You are not alone!
| UbrtrbNchDneRle wrote:
| Nope, not alone. I would go with an oldschool mobile, but I
| need navigation and modern, encrypted internet-based
| communication. Tethering, calls, SMS, mail, Signal, GPS,
| OSMand, calendar. Maybe a good camera and payment stuff, but
| that's probably too much niche then. But no web, no social
| networks, no games, no music/podcasts/video. Can be thick as a
| can of sardines for all I care, but please be operational with
| a single average hand (not just men's average hand).
|
| Minimalism/down-sizing is a lasting trend, I think quite a few
| people are fed up with being hooked to modernity's love bombing
| and are up for making the phone a tool again.
| georgeoliver wrote:
| My Pinephone doesn't work for me as a primary phone (yet), but I
| think it's still a very capable device at home with good
| integration (via KDE connect).
|
| Without millions of dollars in corporate support, hardware
| vendors like Pine64 and Linux on mobile developers need user
| support to make progress. If you want a performant Linux phone,
| put some skin in the game.
| pinkybanana wrote:
| > If you want a performant Linux phone, put some skin in the
| game.
|
| The reality is that this ain't going to happen. There will be
| never enough volunteer-based work to enable the level of effort
| that it requires to develop consumer devices like smartphones.
| Commercial actors have so much money and power, and people have
| bills to pay. This is something where full open source model
| just doesn't work.
| suby wrote:
| Why is Linux Desktop viable (I'm certainly very happy with it
| at least) but phones are too much work?
| stirfish wrote:
| Great question. This probably isn't the answer, but it
| feels to me that I've had the same desktop hardware since
| the earth cooled, but a new phone comes out every 2 weeks.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It certainly isn't viable to make a living selling software
| to those customers, hence why most app vendors never care
| and rather target Android.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Because state-of-the-art desktop hardware tends to work
| with Linux, due to the historical origins of the PC as a
| relatively non-proprietary technology. The same cannot be
| said of modern mobile phone hardware.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Non-proprietary only because IBM failed to sink Compaq
| reverse engineering efforts, and weren't able to drive
| the PC industry into MCA, PS/2 architecture.
| wcarss wrote:
| I think the idea is the array of phones is so comparatively
| vast, and their release schedule is so frequent, that it's
| just much harder to reach any really reasonable market
| coverage for things like good drivers.
|
| (I'm not sure I agree, I just think that's the argument)
| johnchristopher wrote:
| It took decades to get a usable stack that I am confident
| on running on most of today's consumer computers.
|
| And things like Wayland and Mir and some desktops
| reinventing their own wheels all the time are/were
| seriously putting that into jeopardy.
| mwilliaams wrote:
| Developing open source hardware is much more difficult.
| fsflover wrote:
| You mean it's difficult to open the specs? Open-source
| community will develop the drivers themselves (it's
| happening with Pinephone).
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Even Linux desktop suffers from a lack of contributors.
| Even many core-infrastructure projects are shockingly
| dependent on 1-2 devs who have been unsuccessful in
| attracting more contributions.
|
| One example of where the manpower just isn't there for both
| Linux desktop and the PinePhone is a solid maps app. All
| solutions are little more than tech demos compared to
| OSMAnd on Android. Yes, OSMAnd itself has grown through
| contributions from the community, but it basically soaked
| up already what little manpower there is. There are other
| examples where running Android apps on the PinePhone under
| a compatibility layer is seen as a necessity to get around
| the PinePhone's lack of manpower.
| paulcarroty wrote:
| > Even Linux desktop suffers from a lack of contributors.
|
| After IBM intervention and their contribution to GNOME 40
| - I'm not sure about suffering anymore.
|
| So yeah, we need more players on mobile Linux field.
| fsflover wrote:
| Purism puts a lot of effort in FLOSS development for
| Librem 5 (compatible with Pinephone). They are also
| working on the maps.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Sure, Purism puts in a lot of effort. But after a year of
| the PinePhone drawing on Purism's effort, the community
| can plainly see that it a drop in the bucket of what
| needs to be done.
|
| Everyone I know working on something PinePhone-related is
| concerned about the small size of the dev community.
| linmob wrote:
| I don't think Anbox is not so much about man power. It's
| for proprietary services or services that don't have a
| decent Linux app. I recall the early days of Android very
| well [0], it had a similar lack of apps (then compared to
| Symbian and Windows Mobile). I don't think it's wise to
| say "this is not going to happen" one year after the
| first Community Edition PinePhones were delivered.
|
| For an overview of the current PinePhone app landscape I
| suggest a look at https://LINMOBapps.frama.io -
| contributions welcome!
|
| [0] I recently brought back old posts to my blog
| https://linmob.net that I wrote 1.2 years after the G1's
| initial US release.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| rektide wrote:
| In general I really like that this is a low-end device,
| affordable. I feel like phone prices have gotten totally out of
| control, but meanwhile we have very low cost pretty excellent
| chips available. It feels like ARM has let their low end cores
| languish, which seems to be changing, and I'm hoping we see some
| natural, logical follow ups to this phone in ~2023.
|
| That said, Snapdragon 845 is inching towards becoming a good
| general purpose Linux platform, with decent upstream support, and
| some phone platforms supported. Alas, like the rest of the
| Android ecosystem, only like 2% of the phones made with this
| chipset have unlocked bootloaders & will be able to be good long
| term devices that are well supported by mainline kernels. The
| rest of these devices are already running out the end of their
| support life, either no longer getting security updates or real
| soon about to end support.
|
| I feel like once a device manufacturer no longer offers security
| support, then is when Right to Repair laws have a moral, ethical,
| legal obligation to step in & demand the bootloader be unlocked,
| so it's possible for owners to maintain their devices, given that
| the manufacturer wont.
| danielEM wrote:
| What phone platforms you mean?
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