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The problem with linux phones right now is not the price, but the usefulness/software. The UB Ports edition of the phone doesn't have a working camera, and the
by tpxl 6y ago
The problem with linux phones right now is not the price, but the usefulness/software. The UB Ports edition of the phone doesn't have a working camera, and the Mobian can only use one camera at a time, with a script to switch between them. In about a year when these issues are resolved I'm going to recommend them to everyone I know and probably buy them for my family.
As far as high end goes, Librem 5 from Purism has better specs (still a lot worse than high end Androids/iPhones. That's open source firmware for you).
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoThis. I am fine with Pine hardware. On the surface it should be sufficient. Oddly, my experience with Ubuntu OS is just plain awful. It made me miss Android almost instantly. I genuinely expected more. The physical switches are nice, but you still need to have some decent functionality to make it a daily driver. Sadly, it is not there yet. Since we are talking about it, if someone can recommend good alternative to Ubuntu for my UBports edition, that would be awesome. I am slowly preparing to try other OSs on Pinephone, but since it is not super easy process ( and since you have full access, you can easily brick your phone ), I have thus far spent more time learning about it than just trying to jump on one of the other OSs.
- fsflover 6y agoYou cannot easily brick your phone. You just use dd to write any image to the microSD and the phone just boots from it. Also see here concerning the internal memory: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9444 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9444 Many people like Mobian. It has a very nice UI (Purism's Phosh) and the full GNU/Linux under the hood. I personally would recommend to try Sxmo: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9913 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=9913. It is unbelievably fast, capable and has a cool geeky UI.
- qchris 6y agoFwiw, I've tried UBports, pmOS, and Mobian on mine, and Mobian is definitely my favorite and the one I'm sticking with for now. And as you've said, installation is just like most other computers/SBCs, by flashing the uSD card.
- lioeters 6y agoSxmo ("Simple X Mobile") looks great. > Sxmo, or Simple X Mobile, is a collection of simple and suckless X programs and scripts used together to create a fully functional mobile UI adhering to the Unix philosophy for the Pinephone. https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/ https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/ It reminds me of working with text-based user interface in the terminal, with intuitive window manager. I love it!
- ben-schaaf 6y agoI don't have my pinephone yet, but everyone I've heard of currently recommends Mobian.
- tpxl 6y agoMobian seems to be closest to upstream there is, so it should have the best support (assuming stuff gets backported).
- RealStickman_ 6y agoI like Mobian. It's based on Debian and allows you to do the same stuff as on a normal desktop (technically). That's also the reason why I almost immediately threw UBPorts off my PP UBPorts CE. You can't do anything like you would it in Linux. For example, mounting the SD card automatically on boot with fstab wasn't possible as it always reset itself to default values. The root partition is also read only. No thanks. For trying other OSs. Just flash them to an SD card and put them in the phone. It'll boot from the SD card before booting from the eMMC.
- m463 6y ago> Librem 5 from Purism has better specs (still a lot worse than high end Androids/iPhones... What I would say from booting linux on apple hardware is: apple has a LOT of fat to cut away. macos/ios run an enormous number of unnecessary processes, and apps themselves use tremendous resources as well. So a lot of resource use is for business reasons and not technical ones.