15 ms·

Pine64 November Update: KDE PinePhone CE and a Peek into the Future

239 points by 3np 6y ago

3np 6y ago
Been keeping a casual eye on Pine64 updates over the past year and this is is the most impressive so far IMO. The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver. Their involvement with the larger community is great; collaboration with KDE, donating to pmOS, incentivizing contributors to make truly open wifi and bt a reality. Pinephone state and ecosystem seems to be continuously improving. And at long last some news on the SOEdge module. I kind of wish I could buy shares in this company :P Keep up the great work!
- megous 6y ago
  > The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver. I'm not looking forward to that. For example, mainline lowlevel software stack for RK3399 used in Pinebook Pro still doesn't support suspend to RAM, and RK3399 is quite popular, with many devices based on it. There's barely any recognizable community around RK SoCs.
  - entropicdrifter 6y ago
    Just as a mild counterpoint, it's nice to see the Panfrost team getting official support from ARM. They've been able to make some really rapid progress on bug fixes and efficiency improvements just by re-designing based on the official design docs instead of relying on reverse engineering.
  - oAlbe 6y ago
    Your argument sounds a lot like "This COVID vaccine has been in development for 9 months and still does not support being stored at room temperature for more than six weeks. I'm not looking forward to it".
    - megous 6y ago
      So? I'm not looking forward to Rockchip SoC based Pinephone. Hopefully Allwinner will get its act together and create some higher performing A* series SoC based on some better performing mali GPU. That would be a win for Pinephone.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
threevox 6y ago
OS seems to have gotten much slicker-looking in addition to a host of exciting updates. Been following these guys for a while and it's really great to see them releasing a cheaper phone. Excited to see what's next!
ChuckNorris89 6y ago
I love the concept and would buy it in a heartbeat, even at Apple level premiums, but that spec sheet.... 2/3 GB RAM is not enough in the Android world of 2020/2021. And eMMC storage instead of UFS? Oooof. Shame, I really want to support the own your phone initiative(user replaceable battery, no more walled gardens, no more telemetry out the wazoo) and willing to pay the premium but I also want my device not to be a huge downgrade on my daily driver and go back to 2012 Andorid hardware.
- weikju 6y ago
  It has to start somewhere, with hardware where it IS possible to run open-source software without too much reverse-engineering and fighting NDAs and so on. Supporting them NOW means that later, what you want, will be possible. It's an investment into a better future..
- fsflover 6y ago
  Maybe you will like Librem 5 smartphone then: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
  - simon1573 6y ago
    That also have 3GB RAM and eMMC, or am I missing something?
    - fsflover 6y ago
      Yes, but it's other specs [0] make a big difference [1,2,3]: [0] https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-phones/6827/1 https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-p... [1] https://social.librem.one/@dos/104767537943894609 https://social.librem.one/@dos/104767537943894609 [2] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#16-how-does-the-librem-5-compare-to-other-linux-phones-pinephone-volla-phone-cosmo-etc https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... [3] https://social.librem.one/@dos/105227250087524796 https://social.librem.one/@dos/105227250087524796
amenod 6y ago
Any idea how this fares as a daily driver? The things that matter to me, in descending order: - calls - SMS - battery life - mobile data - wifi - (optional) MMS I tried looking for this info on their web page but had trouble finding it (not surprising - I assume there is lots of development going on).
- johnchristopher 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25101115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25101115 One of the dev behind plasma mobile commented on that a few days ago.
  - wiz21c 6y ago
    not about the battery life though. My understanding is that applications must be updated to make the life of the battery manager easier. But that's just guessing on past articles read here and there.
    - biktor_gj 6y ago
      Right now, on Mobian, you will get more or less 2-3 hours of screen on time, with everything enabled (modem, wifi, bluetooth, max screen brightness and doing stuff with it If you just let it sleep (modem on registered to the network, allowing for voice calls, all the rest of the phone suspended), you'll get about 24 hours of runtime. I think there's still more power management fixes that can be done, mostly in BT/Wifi, but it's not bad at all for a phone that's still tagged as "dev"
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kop316 6y ago
  For the majority of distros: - calls -> yes (to include VoLTE on a lot of US carriers) - SMS -> yes - battery life -> not very good (3-4 hours screen time?, less than a day standby) - mobile data -> yes - wifi -> - (optional) MMS -> no
the_duke 6y ago
I love the Pine lineup of devices. They are really helping the Linux phone by providing a dev platform, partnering with different OS implementations and mainlining as much as possible. I do wish they had a Pinebook Pro and Pinephone with a bit more oomph. And for them to focus heavily on RISC-V in the future once that becomes viable, which sadly seems a few years off.
- josteink 6y ago
  > I do wish they had a Pinebook Pro and Pinephone with a bit more oomph. The new SOC they say they have planned for their 2021 lineup seems to be just that. I wonder if I will be able to buy a simple mainboard upgrade to my existing PinePhone once they have something shipping. I certainly wouldn't mind more "oomph" in my PinePhone and it would be nice not having to buy a new device entirely.
  - linmob 6y ago
    I doubt we are going to see the RK3566 in PinePhones in 2021. That sounds more like a 2022 thing to me – unless getting proper mainline Linux support is going to land extraordinarily fast for that new SoC. Knowing Pine64 I think they might provide upgrade boards unless it turns out that revising other aspects of the PinePhone hardware (e.g. screen, camera, battery) can be revised and improved cheaply so that this would not make sense economically.
  - the_duke 6y ago
    The announcement says the new SOC is for "non-pro" devices. They seem to have something more powerful in the pipeline for those.
    - Iolaum 6y ago
      I think the chip for pro devices is likely to be the rk3588.
- fsflover 6y ago
  Not sure what you consider 'viable', but here is a RISC-V mobile development platform: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor.
qwerty456127 6y ago
I certainly feel like migrating to a PinePhone in near future but where can I view the list of the apps available anyway? The most important app I need (I wouldn't even need a smartphone otherwise) is Telegram - it's the major way we communicate in the company and in the family. Is it there?
- fsflover 6y ago
  The list of apps depends on the operating system. There are >13 OS available [0]. On Debian, which I prefer, Telegram works very well. [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Operating_Systems https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Operating_System...
  - thdrdt 6y ago
    I seriously consider going away from Android (Google). Is Linux a viable option as mobile OS? I've got a feeling that it is almost as a 'dumb' phone. You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it. Or would going to something like LineageOS be a better option?
    - fsflover 6y ago
      > I've got a feeling that it is almost as a 'dumb' phone. You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it. GNU/Linux phones are full personal computers in your pocket. They can do everything a computer can do: terminal, desktop Firefox, games, convergence (external screen, keyboard, mouse) etc. See my other links about Librem 5 in this thread.
      - pjmlp 6y ago
        Some of my Android devices as well, I just don't bother doing it.
        fsflover 6y ago
        No previous phones provided real convergence (not just connecting the external screen, but using desktop apps). This is also not all differences. See here for more details: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#15-how-innovative-is-the-librem-5 https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....
danielEM 6y ago
I want 3 USB-C in PinePhone please, please, please!!! :-) RK3566 supports 3 USB
- megous 6y ago
  Buy a hub. Instead of 3 USB, I'd like USB 3. :D
  - danielEM 6y ago
    Well, this would be sort of integration of hub in a phone (aside from that that the new chip already has built in 3 usb ports) thus a big advantage for daily driver phone that you would use as portable PC. USB3 is already supported AFAIK.
    - megous 6y ago
      I think usability of a single port is better. With multiple ports you'd have to teach users which ports support what, like charging, display port, gadget mode, USB 3, etc, despite all ports looking the same. At most you'd get 2 ports anyway, if you want to use USB internally for other purposes (connecting to the modem, etc.)
      - danielEM 6y ago
        > With multiple ports you'd have to teach users which ports support what Probably you're not aware, but that is actually already happening: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_logo_usage_guidelines_final_as_of_august_3_2018_locked.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_logo_usage_gu... Power Delivery negotiations should technically allow charging from any port, but still you can go simple and use appropriate USB logo (as USB certification requires). > At most you'd get 2 ports anyway Two is still better than one ;-) Three is better than two ;-)
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  You can already use a USB hub/dock?
jcun4128 6y ago
Wonder when the 8GB one will release. Main concern for me is the sms/call being reliable and if it will "just work" on carriers like Boost mobile. Also when using as a "desktop" be nice to have some simple toggle to reduce GUI load by going into something like i3-wm
_wolfie_ 6y ago
In the comment section there was a mention of keyboard case possibly comming in the December update, can't wait to throw my money at them.
snvzz 6y ago
Pinecil and pinecone seem attractive. I hope they actually decide to sell pinecone modules.
vfclists 6y ago
Isn't it more important for the community to fight against closed drivers at the level of legislation than engage in these endless reverse engineering battles? Why don't all these Pinephone fans put more of their time and their money into funding an international effort to reverse closed blobs instead of repeated crowing over the success of their reverse engineering efforts and how willing they are to fork out good money on outdated hardware?
- linmob 6y ago
  We should definitely do that, but given that e.g. EU politicians still don’t understand why crypto-backdoors are a terrible idea, I have very little hope for succeeding on that level.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  Personally, while that sounds appealing, I think we also still need the RE efforts. Hardware that's built to run free software out of the box is important, and it would be ideal if all those blobs were gone and we didn't have to worry about them. I'd absolutely be on board with an effort to enforce free drivers for the hardware we buy. But... in the short term, given that's not currently the case, we still need a way to move forward, right? And it's much easier to demonstrate why free drivers are important if you have working software to show for it. ("Hey, there's this whole phone OS and app ecosystem that we could run on this hardware if it had free drivers!") That said, yes, the endless reverse engineering required to keep the devices you've bought secure beyond the 2 or 3 years that the manufacturer supports it is ridiculous. I wish it weren't so. But given that that's unfortunately the situation we're in, I applaud anyone contributing to the RE efforts. (But I sure am keeping an eye on hardware that doesn't require it!)
- megous 6y ago
  What legislation? Mandating that all OS level software/firmware has to be under FOSS license? Mandating a release of detailed HW documentation (datasheets for all the parts + device schematics) prior to being able to sell devices would also be an interesting experiment.
- fsflover 6y ago
varispeed 6y ago
Why they cannot use something like Snapdragon? I am contemplating buying a new phone, but it seems like most of the new ones have call recording disabled, so a phone with an open API and privacy conscious is something I could pay for, but it seems like this one is lacking in the hardware department. If I bought it that would certainly be a downgrade from my current old Samsung phone (which is running old OS and call recording works fine).
- swiley 6y ago
  There aren't open source graphics drivers for most Qualcomm SoCs.
- 3np 6y ago
  > Snapdragon > Open Because these two are incompatible. The new SoC for 2021 is a big step up over the RK3328, though!
- drago-1 6y ago
  I've seen this explanation coming up quite often in discussions around Qualcomm or other similarly sized players: you have to be ordering (very) large numbers to be able to get their attention. Documentation is provided under NDAs I hear, and if you'd let's say, decide to buy a small(er) number of boards off the grey market (from one of their direct customers), you'd still have the problem of lack of support (firmware/code, docs, etc).
  - varispeed 6y ago
    That makes sense. I hope the development of Risc V will be akin to what Arm is to Intel now in near future. I am thinking I am probably still going to buy Pine phone just to support the developers even if I won't be using it.
christophilus 6y ago
I’d love to hear from anyone who uses mobian (or really, any Linux distro) as a daily driver. How do you like it? What’s the biggest drawback?
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Mobian is as fast-moving as any OS on the PinePhone. Every week I see substantial improvements. It's not my daily driver yet. Soon. Probably before I get my Librem 5, which I have already waited 2 years for, and expect will like less than the PP.
ac42dgu 6y ago
Is there an emulator available that one can try the distros on without owning the device?
LibertyBeta 6y ago
This makes me hopeful we'll see an improved PineTab....
NoSalt 6y ago
Does anybody know if the PinePhone has NFC? I looked at all the specs and didn't see it at all. That would tell me that (1) the phone does not have NFC, or (2) NFC is such a given so why would they list it, because "duh"?
- kop316 6y ago
  It does not. What I would offer is it has 6 back bogo pins that speak I2C, so someone who wants to build it in can.
  - NoSalt 6y ago
    I googled "bogo pin" ... I don't think I got the correct results: https://www.google.com/search?q=bogo%20pin https://www.google.com/search?q=bogo%20pin
    - kop316 6y ago
      https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Pogo_pins https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Pogo_pins Here you go!
    - hedora 6y ago
      In Duck Duck Go, it’s not the first result, but it is on the first page (once you click through the spell checker warning about rewriting “bogo” to “pogo”): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22bogo%22+pin&norw=1&t=iphone&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22bogo%22+pin&norw=1&t=iphone&ia=...
- megous 6y ago
  https://linuxsmartphones.com/swappable-pinephone-back-covers-will-bring-wireless-charging-nfc-and-a-keyboard/ https://linuxsmartphones.com/swappable-pinephone-back-covers...
aitait 6y ago
Can I run a decent Jabber client on the phone? Does Dino run on it? https://dino.im/ https://dino.im/
- mouldysammich 6y ago
  I think dino has patches for it to run better on small devices. the default texting app runs on libpurple so it has support for jabber, i dont know if it constitutes decent though, I have nobody to talk to on jabber :(
leafmeal 6y ago
Nice job on the video update! Despite (because of?) the amateur video vibes, I found it really entertaining.
ncmncm 6y ago
I wonder why Pine64 has no love to requite Mobian's. It should be as good a platform for KDE as Manjaro. Mobian is showing PinePhone an awful lot of love, so there is a lot to requite.

239 points by 3np 6y ago

3np 6y ago

Been keeping a casual eye on Pine64 updates over the past year and this is is the most impressive so far IMO. The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver. Their involvement with the larger community is great; collaboration with KDE, donating to pmOS, incentivizing contributors to make truly open wifi and bt a reality. Pinephone state and ecosystem seems to be continuously improving. And at long last some news on the SOEdge module. I kind of wish I could buy shares in this company :P Keep up the great work!

megous 6y ago
> The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver. I'm not looking forward to that. For example, mainline lowlevel software stack for RK3399 used in Pinebook Pro still doesn't support suspend to RAM, and RK3399 is quite popular, with many devices based on it. There's barely any recognizable community around RK SoCs.
- entropicdrifter 6y ago
  Just as a mild counterpoint, it's nice to see the Panfrost team getting official support from ARM. They've been able to make some really rapid progress on bug fixes and efficiency improvements just by re-designing based on the official design docs instead of relying on reverse engineering.
- oAlbe 6y ago
  Your argument sounds a lot like "This COVID vaccine has been in development for 9 months and still does not support being stored at room temperature for more than six weeks. I'm not looking forward to it".
  - megous 6y ago
    So? I'm not looking forward to Rockchip SoC based Pinephone. Hopefully Allwinner will get its act together and create some higher performing A* series SoC based on some better performing mali GPU. That would be a win for Pinephone.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

threevox 6y ago

OS seems to have gotten much slicker-looking in addition to a host of exciting updates. Been following these guys for a while and it's really great to see them releasing a cheaper phone. Excited to see what's next!

ChuckNorris89 6y ago

I love the concept and would buy it in a heartbeat, even at Apple level premiums, but that spec sheet.... 2/3 GB RAM is not enough in the Android world of 2020/2021. And eMMC storage instead of UFS? Oooof. Shame, I really want to support the own your phone initiative(user replaceable battery, no more walled gardens, no more telemetry out the wazoo) and willing to pay the premium but I also want my device not to be a huge downgrade on my daily driver and go back to 2012 Andorid hardware.

weikju 6y ago
It has to start somewhere, with hardware where it IS possible to run open-source software without too much reverse-engineering and fighting NDAs and so on. Supporting them NOW means that later, what you want, will be possible. It's an investment into a better future..
fsflover 6y ago
Maybe you will like Librem 5 smartphone then: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
- simon1573 6y ago
  That also have 3GB RAM and eMMC, or am I missing something?
  - fsflover 6y ago
    Yes, but it's other specs [0] make a big difference [1,2,3]: [0] https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-phones/6827/1 https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-p... [1] https://social.librem.one/@dos/104767537943894609 https://social.librem.one/@dos/104767537943894609 [2] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#16-how-does-the-librem-5-compare-to-other-linux-phones-pinephone-volla-phone-cosmo-etc https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... [3] https://social.librem.one/@dos/105227250087524796 https://social.librem.one/@dos/105227250087524796

amenod 6y ago

Any idea how this fares as a daily driver? The things that matter to me, in descending order: - calls - SMS - battery life - mobile data - wifi - (optional) MMS I tried looking for this info on their web page but had trouble finding it (not surprising - I assume there is lots of development going on).

johnchristopher 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25101115 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25101115 One of the dev behind plasma mobile commented on that a few days ago.
- wiz21c 6y ago
  not about the battery life though. My understanding is that applications must be updated to make the life of the battery manager easier. But that's just guessing on past articles read here and there.
  - biktor_gj 6y ago
    Right now, on Mobian, you will get more or less 2-3 hours of screen on time, with everything enabled (modem, wifi, bluetooth, max screen brightness and doing stuff with it If you just let it sleep (modem on registered to the network, allowing for voice calls, all the rest of the phone suspended), you'll get about 24 hours of runtime. I think there's still more power management fixes that can be done, mostly in BT/Wifi, but it's not bad at all for a phone that's still tagged as "dev"
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
kop316 6y ago
For the majority of distros: - calls -> yes (to include VoLTE on a lot of US carriers) - SMS -> yes - battery life -> not very good (3-4 hours screen time?, less than a day standby) - mobile data -> yes - wifi -> - (optional) MMS -> no

the_duke 6y ago

I love the Pine lineup of devices. They are really helping the Linux phone by providing a dev platform, partnering with different OS implementations and mainlining as much as possible. I do wish they had a Pinebook Pro and Pinephone with a bit more oomph. And for them to focus heavily on RISC-V in the future once that becomes viable, which sadly seems a few years off.

josteink 6y ago
> I do wish they had a Pinebook Pro and Pinephone with a bit more oomph. The new SOC they say they have planned for their 2021 lineup seems to be just that. I wonder if I will be able to buy a simple mainboard upgrade to my existing PinePhone once they have something shipping. I certainly wouldn't mind more "oomph" in my PinePhone and it would be nice not having to buy a new device entirely.
- linmob 6y ago
  I doubt we are going to see the RK3566 in PinePhones in 2021. That sounds more like a 2022 thing to me – unless getting proper mainline Linux support is going to land extraordinarily fast for that new SoC. Knowing Pine64 I think they might provide upgrade boards unless it turns out that revising other aspects of the PinePhone hardware (e.g. screen, camera, battery) can be revised and improved cheaply so that this would not make sense economically.
- the_duke 6y ago
  The announcement says the new SOC is for "non-pro" devices. They seem to have something more powerful in the pipeline for those.
  - Iolaum 6y ago
    I think the chip for pro devices is likely to be the rk3588.
fsflover 6y ago
Not sure what you consider 'viable', but here is a RISC-V mobile development platform: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/precursor.

qwerty456127 6y ago

I certainly feel like migrating to a PinePhone in near future but where can I view the list of the apps available anyway? The most important app I need (I wouldn't even need a smartphone otherwise) is Telegram - it's the major way we communicate in the company and in the family. Is it there?

fsflover 6y ago
The list of apps depends on the operating system. There are >13 OS available [0]. On Debian, which I prefer, Telegram works very well. [0] https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Operating_Systems https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Operating_System...
- thdrdt 6y ago
  I seriously consider going away from Android (Google). Is Linux a viable option as mobile OS? I've got a feeling that it is almost as a 'dumb' phone. You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it. Or would going to something like LineageOS be a better option?
  - fsflover 6y ago
    > I've got a feeling that it is almost as a 'dumb' phone. You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it. GNU/Linux phones are full personal computers in your pocket. They can do everything a computer can do: terminal, desktop Firefox, games, convergence (external screen, keyboard, mouse) etc. See my other links about Librem 5 in this thread.
    - pjmlp 6y ago
      Some of my Android devices as well, I just don't bother doing it.
      - fsflover 6y ago
        No previous phones provided real convergence (not just connecting the external screen, but using desktop apps). This is also not all differences. See here for more details: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Frequently-Asked-Questions#15-how-innovative-is-the-librem-5 https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque....

danielEM 6y ago

I want 3 USB-C in PinePhone please, please, please!!! :-) RK3566 supports 3 USB

megous 6y ago
Buy a hub. Instead of 3 USB, I'd like USB 3. :D
- danielEM 6y ago
  Well, this would be sort of integration of hub in a phone (aside from that that the new chip already has built in 3 usb ports) thus a big advantage for daily driver phone that you would use as portable PC. USB3 is already supported AFAIK.
  - megous 6y ago
    I think usability of a single port is better. With multiple ports you'd have to teach users which ports support what, like charging, display port, gadget mode, USB 3, etc, despite all ports looking the same. At most you'd get 2 ports anyway, if you want to use USB internally for other purposes (connecting to the modem, etc.)
    - danielEM 6y ago
      > With multiple ports you'd have to teach users which ports support what Probably you're not aware, but that is actually already happening: https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_logo_usage_guidelines_final_as_of_august_3_2018_locked.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb-if_logo_usage_gu... Power Delivery negotiations should technically allow charging from any port, but still you can go simple and use appropriate USB logo (as USB certification requires). > At most you'd get 2 ports anyway Two is still better than one ;-) Three is better than two ;-)
yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
You can already use a USB hub/dock?

jcun4128 6y ago

Wonder when the 8GB one will release. Main concern for me is the sms/call being reliable and if it will "just work" on carriers like Boost mobile. Also when using as a "desktop" be nice to have some simple toggle to reduce GUI load by going into something like i3-wm

_wolfie_ 6y ago

In the comment section there was a mention of keyboard case possibly comming in the December update, can't wait to throw my money at them.

snvzz 6y ago

Pinecil and pinecone seem attractive. I hope they actually decide to sell pinecone modules.

vfclists 6y ago

Isn't it more important for the community to fight against closed drivers at the level of legislation than engage in these endless reverse engineering battles? Why don't all these Pinephone fans put more of their time and their money into funding an international effort to reverse closed blobs instead of repeated crowing over the success of their reverse engineering efforts and how willing they are to fork out good money on outdated hardware?

linmob 6y ago
We should definitely do that, but given that e.g. EU politicians still don’t understand why crypto-backdoors are a terrible idea, I have very little hope for succeeding on that level.
ryukafalz 6y ago
Personally, while that sounds appealing, I think we also still need the RE efforts. Hardware that's built to run free software out of the box is important, and it would be ideal if all those blobs were gone and we didn't have to worry about them. I'd absolutely be on board with an effort to enforce free drivers for the hardware we buy. But... in the short term, given that's not currently the case, we still need a way to move forward, right? And it's much easier to demonstrate why free drivers are important if you have working software to show for it. ("Hey, there's this whole phone OS and app ecosystem that we could run on this hardware if it had free drivers!") That said, yes, the endless reverse engineering required to keep the devices you've bought secure beyond the 2 or 3 years that the manufacturer supports it is ridiculous. I wish it weren't so. But given that that's unfortunately the situation we're in, I applaud anyone contributing to the RE efforts. (But I sure am keeping an eye on hardware that doesn't require it!)
megous 6y ago
What legislation? Mandating that all OS level software/firmware has to be under FOSS license? Mandating a release of detailed HW documentation (datasheets for all the parts + device schematics) prior to being able to sell devices would also be an interesting experiment.
fsflover 6y ago

varispeed 6y ago

Why they cannot use something like Snapdragon? I am contemplating buying a new phone, but it seems like most of the new ones have call recording disabled, so a phone with an open API and privacy conscious is something I could pay for, but it seems like this one is lacking in the hardware department. If I bought it that would certainly be a downgrade from my current old Samsung phone (which is running old OS and call recording works fine).

swiley 6y ago
There aren't open source graphics drivers for most Qualcomm SoCs.
3np 6y ago
> Snapdragon > Open Because these two are incompatible. The new SoC for 2021 is a big step up over the RK3328, though!
drago-1 6y ago
I've seen this explanation coming up quite often in discussions around Qualcomm or other similarly sized players: you have to be ordering (very) large numbers to be able to get their attention. Documentation is provided under NDAs I hear, and if you'd let's say, decide to buy a small(er) number of boards off the grey market (from one of their direct customers), you'd still have the problem of lack of support (firmware/code, docs, etc).
- varispeed 6y ago
  That makes sense. I hope the development of Risc V will be akin to what Arm is to Intel now in near future. I am thinking I am probably still going to buy Pine phone just to support the developers even if I won't be using it.

christophilus 6y ago

I’d love to hear from anyone who uses mobian (or really, any Linux distro) as a daily driver. How do you like it? What’s the biggest drawback?

ncmncm 6y ago
Mobian is as fast-moving as any OS on the PinePhone. Every week I see substantial improvements. It's not my daily driver yet. Soon. Probably before I get my Librem 5, which I have already waited 2 years for, and expect will like less than the PP.

ac42dgu 6y ago

Is there an emulator available that one can try the distros on without owning the device?

LibertyBeta 6y ago

This makes me hopeful we'll see an improved PineTab....

NoSalt 6y ago

Does anybody know if the PinePhone has NFC? I looked at all the specs and didn't see it at all. That would tell me that (1) the phone does not have NFC, or (2) NFC is such a given so why would they list it, because "duh"?

kop316 6y ago
It does not. What I would offer is it has 6 back bogo pins that speak I2C, so someone who wants to build it in can.
- NoSalt 6y ago
  I googled "bogo pin" ... I don't think I got the correct results: https://www.google.com/search?q=bogo%20pin https://www.google.com/search?q=bogo%20pin
  - kop316 6y ago
    https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Pogo_pins https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Pogo_pins Here you go!
  - hedora 6y ago
    In Duck Duck Go, it’s not the first result, but it is on the first page (once you click through the spell checker warning about rewriting “bogo” to “pogo”): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22bogo%22+pin&norw=1&t=iphone&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22bogo%22+pin&norw=1&t=iphone&ia=...
megous 6y ago
https://linuxsmartphones.com/swappable-pinephone-back-covers-will-bring-wireless-charging-nfc-and-a-keyboard/ https://linuxsmartphones.com/swappable-pinephone-back-covers...

aitait 6y ago

Can I run a decent Jabber client on the phone? Does Dino run on it? https://dino.im/ https://dino.im/

mouldysammich 6y ago
I think dino has patches for it to run better on small devices. the default texting app runs on libpurple so it has support for jabber, i dont know if it constitutes decent though, I have nobody to talk to on jabber :(

leafmeal 6y ago

Nice job on the video update! Despite (because of?) the amateur video vibes, I found it really entertaining.

ncmncm 6y ago

I wonder why Pine64 has no love to requite Mobian's. It should be as good a platform for KDE as Manjaro. Mobian is showing PinePhone an awful lot of love, so there is a lot to requite.