5 ms·

I, for one, don't understand the push for Gnome here. I am a backer of librem, and I really don't get it. KDE Plasma Mobile is something that actually cares ab

by jbk 8y ago

I, for one, don't understand the push for Gnome here. I am a backer of librem, and I really don't get it. KDE Plasma Mobile is something that actually cares about mobile, is developed by an actual community and still needs a lot of work. Developing another Mobile Shell, on Gnome (that don't seem to care about anything else than Linux desktop) feels like NIH and a waste of time and resources... Doing a Mobile Shell (+toolkits +all basic applications) that works reliably is a lot of work and doing it twice is a bit sad.

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
As someone who is using Linux (on/off Desktop, continously on servers) since root.tgz times: Frameworks and window managers did their share to splinter and prevent Linux Desktop, why shouldn't we try again to prevent Linux mobile becoming a thing? But if this is a phone for Linux enthusiasts, why not?
Fnoord 8y ago
Nokia already tried this with Maemo/MeeGo, and they eventually bought Trolltech (and hence Qt) and went that route. Ubuntu Touch (although not a community project) also used Qt5. Sailfish OS (successor of Maemo/MeeGo/Moblin) also uses Qt. And both use libphys by Carsten Munk et al for the Android emulation layer (you are going to need backwards compatibility for your users). Why not follow the footsteps of giants instead of trying to reinvent your own path? Why not base your OS on either of these?
- nwah1 8y ago
  The funny part is that Purism was originally going to be based on KDE, then they switched and said it would support both KDE and an in-house environment based on Gnome. Now they seem to be saying it will be based on the Gnome boondoggle. Can't say this gives me much faith in them. Totally agree about the wastefulness of coding your own UI from scratch.
chrismorgan 8y ago
The impression that I get, with no basis in data whatsoever, is that these days, people that explicitly like KDE use KDE, a few people with strong opinions or definite resource restrictions use other environments like XFCE, LXDE or a tiling window manager, and pretty much everyone else is using GNOME, and so the momentum is behind GNOME, with even Ubuntu recently switching back to GNOME. I think that this is targeting the sorts of people that are more likely to be familiar with and like GNOME than KDE, so there is advantage in using the same software, and producing software that will be able to, as depicted, run on a laptop as well as a phone without feeling out of place anywhere. Note also that they’re working with both GNOME and KDE, so that both will have first-class support: https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/ https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/, https://puri.sm/posts/gnome-and-kde-in-pureos-diversity-across-devices/ https://puri.sm/posts/gnome-and-kde-in-pureos-diversity-acro... (that latter link includes content very similar in meaning to my remarks above).
- stiGGG 8y ago
  But isn't the whole mobile story so far telling us, that it's more important to build something which just works good (enough) for the people, instead of building something which they are already familiar?
- niftich 8y ago
  There's a fair bit of people who use GNOME because it's the default (in their distro), and if I made an unsubstantiated assertion that those people outnumber those who are discretionary, deliberate users of GNOME, I don't think I'd be wrong. But Purism's project is heavily focused on relatability and advancing the community's current state-of-the-art [1], which is different from the more common model we've seen from other players, where they start fresh, get it working, dump the code in a public repo where it sits largely unused because it's so divergent and specific to their custom setup, and although the code is technically open, much more effort is required on part of volunteers to apply that anywhere else. Purism seems intent on actually architecting their software such that all of it can be upstreamed. GNOME, which doesn't have a strong answer to a touch-first UI metaphor, can greatly benefit from this. KDE has already done a lot of this hard work, so in a post like this, there would be fewer custom things to show off. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/ https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/
seba_dos1 8y ago
Yeah, it feels very Openmoko-like, in a bad way... The only difference is that Openmoko's NIH syndrome affected also work done earlier by Openmoko itself ;D
confounded 8y ago
This comes up in a recorded Q&A with the CEO, here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVw0EhYccu4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVw0EhYccu4 It’s been a while since I watched it, but IIRC it comes down to control, and being able to decide which parts to focus on before the thing ships. IIRC it sounded like Purism’s efforts are the GNOME roadmap, and they’re hiring GNOME developers. That makes sense if you have to ruthlessly prioritize to ship on a deadline. I wouldn’t be surprised if Plasma Mobile ends up being the superior shell in the fullness of time, but I’d be happy to give GNOME a go. It would be kinda annoying to reskin an app from GTK to Qt, but it probably won’t be necessary a lot of the time, and if it is, it seems like a pretty minor annoyance in the grand scheme of mobile development.
blihp 8y ago
I think it's pretty simple: Gnome has the momentum and seems relatively a stable-ish (well, stable for Linux) choice that to a business probably seems like a safe bet. As someone who's been reluctantly using Gnome 3.x as a primary DE for years now, I think you're completely off-base and that Gnome seems to care about anything but the desktop (see swipe up to login on a desktop, for an obvious example) It would be great to see something better, and more community oriented, displace Gnome but I don't see it happening any time soon. A combination of lack of resources and inability of the alternatives to get their acts together seems to all but guarantee Gnome's dominance for the foreseeable future. Seriously, they need to pool resources, come up with a coherent plan and execute. How many desktop environment forks exist now fighting for the same 5-10% of users? Sure, choice is good but if they lack stability, features, polish, etc for years on end... well, Gnome wins by default.
yndoendo 8y ago
Prisum's phone is the only smart device I have actually looked forward to. Finally having a vanilla solution the community can work with and improve, distro independent.

by jbk 8y ago

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

As someone who is using Linux (on/off Desktop, continously on servers) since root.tgz times: Frameworks and window managers did their share to splinter and prevent Linux Desktop, why shouldn't we try again to prevent Linux mobile becoming a thing? But if this is a phone for Linux enthusiasts, why not?

Fnoord 8y ago

Nokia already tried this with Maemo/MeeGo, and they eventually bought Trolltech (and hence Qt) and went that route. Ubuntu Touch (although not a community project) also used Qt5. Sailfish OS (successor of Maemo/MeeGo/Moblin) also uses Qt. And both use libphys by Carsten Munk et al for the Android emulation layer (you are going to need backwards compatibility for your users). Why not follow the footsteps of giants instead of trying to reinvent your own path? Why not base your OS on either of these?

nwah1 8y ago
The funny part is that Purism was originally going to be based on KDE, then they switched and said it would support both KDE and an in-house environment based on Gnome. Now they seem to be saying it will be based on the Gnome boondoggle. Can't say this gives me much faith in them. Totally agree about the wastefulness of coding your own UI from scratch.

chrismorgan 8y ago

The impression that I get, with no basis in data whatsoever, is that these days, people that explicitly like KDE use KDE, a few people with strong opinions or definite resource restrictions use other environments like XFCE, LXDE or a tiling window manager, and pretty much everyone else is using GNOME, and so the momentum is behind GNOME, with even Ubuntu recently switching back to GNOME. I think that this is targeting the sorts of people that are more likely to be familiar with and like GNOME than KDE, so there is advantage in using the same software, and producing software that will be able to, as depicted, run on a laptop as well as a phone without feeling out of place anywhere. Note also that they’re working with both GNOME and KDE, so that both will have first-class support: https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/ https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/, https://puri.sm/posts/gnome-and-kde-in-pureos-diversity-across-devices/ https://puri.sm/posts/gnome-and-kde-in-pureos-diversity-acro... (that latter link includes content very similar in meaning to my remarks above).

stiGGG 8y ago
But isn't the whole mobile story so far telling us, that it's more important to build something which just works good (enough) for the people, instead of building something which they are already familiar?
niftich 8y ago
There's a fair bit of people who use GNOME because it's the default (in their distro), and if I made an unsubstantiated assertion that those people outnumber those who are discretionary, deliberate users of GNOME, I don't think I'd be wrong. But Purism's project is heavily focused on relatability and advancing the community's current state-of-the-art [1], which is different from the more common model we've seen from other players, where they start fresh, get it working, dump the code in a public repo where it sits largely unused because it's so divergent and specific to their custom setup, and although the code is technically open, much more effort is required on part of volunteers to apply that anywhere else. Purism seems intent on actually architecting their software such that all of it can be upstreamed. GNOME, which doesn't have a strong answer to a touch-first UI metaphor, can greatly benefit from this. KDE has already done a lot of this hard work, so in a post like this, there would be fewer custom things to show off. [1] https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/ https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-gnome-and-kde-collaboration/

seba_dos1 8y ago

Yeah, it feels very Openmoko-like, in a bad way... The only difference is that Openmoko's NIH syndrome affected also work done earlier by Openmoko itself ;D

confounded 8y ago

This comes up in a recorded Q&A with the CEO, here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVw0EhYccu4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVw0EhYccu4 It’s been a while since I watched it, but IIRC it comes down to control, and being able to decide which parts to focus on before the thing ships. IIRC it sounded like Purism’s efforts are the GNOME roadmap, and they’re hiring GNOME developers. That makes sense if you have to ruthlessly prioritize to ship on a deadline. I wouldn’t be surprised if Plasma Mobile ends up being the superior shell in the fullness of time, but I’d be happy to give GNOME a go. It would be kinda annoying to reskin an app from GTK to Qt, but it probably won’t be necessary a lot of the time, and if it is, it seems like a pretty minor annoyance in the grand scheme of mobile development.

blihp 8y ago

I think it's pretty simple: Gnome has the momentum and seems relatively a stable-ish (well, stable for Linux) choice that to a business probably seems like a safe bet. As someone who's been reluctantly using Gnome 3.x as a primary DE for years now, I think you're completely off-base and that Gnome seems to care about anything but the desktop (see swipe up to login on a desktop, for an obvious example) It would be great to see something better, and more community oriented, displace Gnome but I don't see it happening any time soon. A combination of lack of resources and inability of the alternatives to get their acts together seems to all but guarantee Gnome's dominance for the foreseeable future. Seriously, they need to pool resources, come up with a coherent plan and execute. How many desktop environment forks exist now fighting for the same 5-10% of users? Sure, choice is good but if they lack stability, features, polish, etc for years on end... well, Gnome wins by default.

yndoendo 8y ago

Prisum's phone is the only smart device I have actually looked forward to. Finally having a vanilla solution the community can work with and improve, distro independent.