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I have a PinePhone and I've been running Manjaro on it for a couple weeks. It's terrible and it's also the only phone I've been truly excited about, well ever.

I have a PinePhone and I've been running Manjaro on it for a couple weeks. It's terrible and it's also the only phone I've been truly excited about, well ever. I managed to watch some TV shows on it the other day! It's really cool stuff having a phone that's actually a proper little computer. The power management is terrible, the front camera doesn't have drivers, it's near impossible to do things that seem trivial (play an audiobook at 2x speed) without resorting to the command line. It often ends up in states that need a reboot. It's extremely rough around the edges but I can use it to post on HN while walking around Mountain View, so it's a huge step toward something real exciting. :) Seriously, I love the thing.

Oomoo0sh 6y ago
> It often ends up in states that need a reboot Are you using Phosh? On Mobian, I found Phosh often freezing, especially when I'm downloading big files on my laptop (one of my main uses for my phone is as 4g hotspot). When it happens, I found that I don't need a full reboot, I just have to ssh to the phone and run `sudo service phosh restart` - which is cool, because I don't have to reconfigure the hotspot or even just lose connection, that way.
bitwize 6y ago
That's exactly how I feel about mine. It runs PostmarketOS and I swapped out Phosh for SXMO which, despite being out of left field UI-wise, is way less janky and frustrating. It's still not within spitting distance of Android in terms of UX, let alone iOS, but it is the smartphone revolution we were all hoping for: hackable to the bone, runs all your favorite Linux software and only the software you want, open hardware (but for a few blobs) and hard kill switches for the camera, microphone, and radios. Great things will be built upon a platform like this.
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  > but it is the smartphone revolution we were all hoping for: hackable to the bone I'm starting to get into this stuff, and your comment has me so excited!!
- senorsmile 6y ago
  I've loved sxmo. There's a lot to be done still (4g data out of the box), but it's so low on resources, and really is the most performant distro for the pinephone that I've tried.
- ptx 6y ago
  > open hardware (but for a few blobs) Only firmware blobs, right? I don't think you need any proprietary blobs running on the main CPU.
swiley 6y ago
It really is good, and it's constantly getting better. The pine64 kernel has a patch merged that supposedly fixes the bluetooth driver crashing on suspend (I haven't tried it yet.) Once you have that installed you can suspend the phone when its locked and the battery life is much better (Personally I have mine set up to suspend anyway and just tolerate the occasional panic.) IMO: most of the weirdness comes from trying to replace CLI/X11 stuff with phosh. If you install a normal WM/DE like fluxbox or mate everything works like it would on a laptop.
jbob2000 6y ago
This isn't a good thing, smartphones are cheap products, all we're doing with this device is making a toy that will gather dust after a few months. It's wasteful to ship a product like this where 90% of it doesn't work. Your love of it probably comes from the familiar feeling you have from being abused by Linux distros on desktop - it's Stockholm syndrome. I'm glad you are able to post to a message board on your phone, that's a huge step, yes, but this is sounding eerily familiar to the "huge steps" desktop linux distros have been making for decades.
- nix0n 6y ago
  > 90% of it doesn't work Sure, but 50% of what a smartphone does are anti-features anyhow. Maybe having to drop to CLI a few times a day is better than being spied on, for some people.
  - jbob2000 6y ago
    I wouldn't call what smartphones do "spying". But if you're already at a place where you consider these devices adversaries, then sure, cutting off your nose to spite your face is the right move.
  - criddell 6y ago
    A smartphone by its nature is a surveillance device no matter what operating system is on it. As long as the cellular radio is on and you are connecting to towers, your location is being tracked.
    - fsflover 6y ago
      That's why Pinephone and Librem 5 have the killswitches.
      - criddell 6y ago
        You mean airplane mode? I think most phones can selectively turn off the cellular, wifi, and bluetooth radios.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
>It's terrible and it's also the only phone I've been truly excited about, well ever. The IKEA effect.[1] >"The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created" >without resorting to the command line I want a command line only DE for PinePhone. • On screen keyboard (Although hardware keyboard case is coming soon to PP). • A section for realtime interrupts like calls, messages and notifications. • Rest of the screen for native shell to do everything else, browsing? Lynx. Advantage of this kind of DE is that it can allow us to create phones out of low power hardware like RPi zero as well. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect
- boogies 6y ago
  Have you seen https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/ https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/? It has eg. “Calls & Texting: (via dmenu scripts/mmcli) Compose texts in $EDITOR / vim-like editor, read texts in $PAGER, make calls (and audio-route) via dmenu script utilizing modemmanager”
  - Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
    Thank you, I didn't know about it and it seems to be on the lines of what I need. I'll be exploring it further.
tremon 6y ago
Not to be glib, but can it make phone calls? Last I checked, neither the Librem 5 nor the PinePhone were useful as a daily driver. Not that I use the phone itself that much, I mostly use text-based messaging, but I don't want to carry two separate devices with me everywhere. If it's just for in-house use, I'd rather choose a larger tablet than a tiny phone.
- slothtrop 6y ago
  Last I checked they both can make calls now. Aside from perhaps lacking apps people want, you can probably get by with a Librem 5 depending on your needs - check youtube videos, people post them all the time particularly after updates.
- fsflover 6y ago
  I have a Pinephone and the phone calls work for me (Mobian). Concerning Librem 5, they work too: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellular-Providers https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellul...

Oomoo0sh 6y ago

> It often ends up in states that need a reboot Are you using Phosh? On Mobian, I found Phosh often freezing, especially when I'm downloading big files on my laptop (one of my main uses for my phone is as 4g hotspot). When it happens, I found that I don't need a full reboot, I just have to ssh to the phone and run `sudo service phosh restart` - which is cool, because I don't have to reconfigure the hotspot or even just lose connection, that way.

bitwize 6y ago

That's exactly how I feel about mine. It runs PostmarketOS and I swapped out Phosh for SXMO which, despite being out of left field UI-wise, is way less janky and frustrating. It's still not within spitting distance of Android in terms of UX, let alone iOS, but it is the smartphone revolution we were all hoping for: hackable to the bone, runs all your favorite Linux software and only the software you want, open hardware (but for a few blobs) and hard kill switches for the camera, microphone, and radios. Great things will be built upon a platform like this.

bergstromm466 6y ago
> but it is the smartphone revolution we were all hoping for: hackable to the bone I'm starting to get into this stuff, and your comment has me so excited!!
senorsmile 6y ago
I've loved sxmo. There's a lot to be done still (4g data out of the box), but it's so low on resources, and really is the most performant distro for the pinephone that I've tried.
ptx 6y ago
> open hardware (but for a few blobs) Only firmware blobs, right? I don't think you need any proprietary blobs running on the main CPU.

swiley 6y ago

It really is good, and it's constantly getting better. The pine64 kernel has a patch merged that supposedly fixes the bluetooth driver crashing on suspend (I haven't tried it yet.) Once you have that installed you can suspend the phone when its locked and the battery life is much better (Personally I have mine set up to suspend anyway and just tolerate the occasional panic.) IMO: most of the weirdness comes from trying to replace CLI/X11 stuff with phosh. If you install a normal WM/DE like fluxbox or mate everything works like it would on a laptop.

jbob2000 6y ago

This isn't a good thing, smartphones are cheap products, all we're doing with this device is making a toy that will gather dust after a few months. It's wasteful to ship a product like this where 90% of it doesn't work. Your love of it probably comes from the familiar feeling you have from being abused by Linux distros on desktop - it's Stockholm syndrome. I'm glad you are able to post to a message board on your phone, that's a huge step, yes, but this is sounding eerily familiar to the "huge steps" desktop linux distros have been making for decades.

nix0n 6y ago
> 90% of it doesn't work Sure, but 50% of what a smartphone does are anti-features anyhow. Maybe having to drop to CLI a few times a day is better than being spied on, for some people.
- jbob2000 6y ago
  I wouldn't call what smartphones do "spying". But if you're already at a place where you consider these devices adversaries, then sure, cutting off your nose to spite your face is the right move.
- criddell 6y ago
  A smartphone by its nature is a surveillance device no matter what operating system is on it. As long as the cellular radio is on and you are connecting to towers, your location is being tracked.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    That's why Pinephone and Librem 5 have the killswitches.
    - criddell 6y ago
      You mean airplane mode? I think most phones can selectively turn off the cellular, wifi, and bluetooth radios.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

>It's terrible and it's also the only phone I've been truly excited about, well ever. The IKEA effect.[1] >"The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a disproportionately high value on products they partially created" >without resorting to the command line I want a command line only DE for PinePhone. • On screen keyboard (Although hardware keyboard case is coming soon to PP). • A section for realtime interrupts like calls, messages and notifications. • Rest of the screen for native shell to do everything else, browsing? Lynx. Advantage of this kind of DE is that it can allow us to create phones out of low power hardware like RPi zero as well. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect

boogies 6y ago
Have you seen https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/ https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/? It has eg. “Calls & Texting: (via dmenu scripts/mmcli) Compose texts in $EDITOR / vim-like editor, read texts in $PAGER, make calls (and audio-route) via dmenu script utilizing modemmanager”
- Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
  Thank you, I didn't know about it and it seems to be on the lines of what I need. I'll be exploring it further.

tremon 6y ago

Not to be glib, but can it make phone calls? Last I checked, neither the Librem 5 nor the PinePhone were useful as a daily driver. Not that I use the phone itself that much, I mostly use text-based messaging, but I don't want to carry two separate devices with me everywhere. If it's just for in-house use, I'd rather choose a larger tablet than a tiny phone.

slothtrop 6y ago
Last I checked they both can make calls now. Aside from perhaps lacking apps people want, you can probably get by with a Librem 5 depending on your needs - check youtube videos, people post them all the time particularly after updates.
fsflover 6y ago
I have a Pinephone and the phone calls work for me (Mobian). Concerning Librem 5, they work too: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellular-Providers https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Cellul...