28 ms·

Do you really want Linux phones

• happyjack 6y ago
  I personally don't. Unless the phone distribution is something like Red Hat enterprise Linux and it won't break, bend, or do anything fishy. I'm a Linux desktop guy, but use an iPhone (I don't sign in with appleID). Privacy and libre arguments aside Linux on the phone sounds great at first until you need to make a call and it suddenly drops. Just my 2 cents
  • Daho0n 6y ago
    >Linux on the phone sounds great at first until you need to make a call and it suddenly drops. You must be holding it wrong.
  • chillfox 6y ago
    RedHat patches breaks the applications running on it several times a year. I am with you about the Linux desktop, iPhone thing though.
  • BearOso 6y ago
    Don’t you need an Apple ID to update anything on the iPhone?
    • easton 6y ago
      No, unless you want the App Store. Software Updates can be downloaded unauthenticated.
      • happyjack 6y ago
        This is indeed true. Just stock applications. It keeps my distractions to a minimum.
  • eertami 6y ago
    >sounds great at first until you need to make a call and it suddenly drops. Agreed, I had an N900 running maemo long ago. It was a novel idea to have a Linux device in my pocket, and being able to just drop in to a terminal or do some X11 forwarding over ssh was kinda neat. But when you start missing phone calls because the screen becomes unresponsive, or the camera is failing to save a picture due to some driver bug, it's a little hard to convince yourself it's worth it. A couple of years after the N900 launched and WhatsApp had taken over the (European) world, suddenly the lack of support elevated from minor annoyances to full blown disappointment and having awkward conversations about why I couldn't join the group chat. The much cheaper Nexus 4 would replace it with a much better experience all round. Though I still have a soft spot for that slide out keyboard.
  • MartijnBraam 6y ago
    Hah but it seems nobody actually wants a Linux phone with RHEL stability, they want the newest thing and absolutely can't wait a single day for an update, even if it's completely untested and will break core functionality.
    • happyjack 6y ago
      I can't agree more!
  • thekyle 6y ago
    Since you don't sign in with an Apple ID how do you download apps? Or do you only use the stocks ones?
    • happyjack 6y ago
      I just use the stock applications. Mail, calendar / contacts through webdav / carddav, phone / text, and the browser. I've found I don't need anything more on a phone.
• phendrenad2 6y ago
  Probably an unpopular opinion, but I don't think most people who buy a Linux phone actually want a Linux phone. They want an open-source phone. The Linux philosophy isn't important to them, they essentially want open-source iOS (with all of the polish and out-of-the-box doodads). They want the ability to make modifications, and they want the freedom and transparency that open-source gives them, but they don't necessarily want to open a PR against the camera app if they want it to more closely match the polish of iOS.
  • samatman 6y ago
    You're probably right but— why buy a Linux phone then? There's LineageOS and F-Droid, or even Replicant if you're all-in on free software and don't mind running on a Galaxy 8. I'm maybe not the guy to ask, I have curiousity and professional interest in open source phone stuff but I've had an iPhone since the 4, and plan to spend a total of less than 5 hours a year debugging my phone for the foreseeable future. I'm not sure that pruning apps off my homescreen or rebooting a few times a year to solve some heisenbug really counts as debugging, but it's already closer than I care to be.
    • SilverRed 6y ago
      Because when you rely on the android ecosystem, the rug gets pulled out more and more. LineageOS works on less and less new and common phones and SaftyNet blocks you from more and more features. Android also comes with a bunch of anti features like an api to block the user from taking screenshots. Its better to completely replace the OS with something Google doesn't control.
      • jhasse 6y ago
        Name one SafetyNet app that works on the Pinephone or the Librem 5.
      • sofixa 6y ago
        > Android also comes with a bunch of anti features like an api to block the user from taking screenshots. When it came out there's a malware campaign that tries to extract MFA codes from Google Authenticator by taking screenshots, there was a lot of criticism towards Google for not setting the flag that activated that API and made screenshots impossible, and it's a good solution, there's no viable scenario in which you'd want to screenshot your MFA TOTP codes. I admit that i'm sometimes annoyed with it's use in banking apps, but IMHO it's a needed feature for security.
• alanbernstein 6y ago
  > There are 18 distributions now for the PinePhone ... Still people want to create more distributions instead of actually implementing missing features in the existing distributions or fixing issues in the upstream applications those use. Sounds like linux to me!
  • taf2 6y ago
    If I’m working on something for fun I’m gonna choose to work on the puzzles I enjoy... if it’s work and I’m being paid I’ll probably consider your less interesting bugs:)
    • lumost 6y ago
      This in essence is the tragedy of the commons for consumer Linux applications. Contributing to complex consumer software is hard, the people who do it in their spare time are inclined to satisfy their own itch. Linux works exceptionally well in the areas where large companies with many developers pay to make it work well.
      • gerdesj 6y ago
        I think you'll find that Linux works quite well regardless of your current inclination. Your tragedy is unfortunately your own. Soz, we'll crack on
      • r3trohack3r 6y ago
        The purpose of freedom respecting software is that you can take it, make it your own, and contribute back. No expectation that it is suitable for your use in its current state. But it is suitable for the use of its maintainers. Put in the elbow grease, sponsor someone else to put in the elbow grease, or settle for non-free software where your itches seem to come pre-scratched. Personally I encourage you to scratch your own itch and contribute back.
        • tsimionescu 6y ago
          So freedom respecting software is for people who can program or pay someone else to program for them. That's why there will never be widespread use of it?
• kokx 6y ago
  Yes I want a Linux phone. But I also want one that has similar app support to Android and iOS. The problem is not with the Linux phones that are out there, it is that no apps are and likely never will be compatible with (non-Android) Linux phones. Until that is solved, most people (like me) could not switch out their phone for a Linux phone as a daily driver, however much they would like. Having Linux as an alternative for Windows is a lot easier than having Linux as an alternative for Android/iOS. A lot of the Windows applications we use can be replaced by opensource applications on Linux. And browser based applications already work on both. However, apps on Android/iOS are mostly tied to cloud services. Unfortunately services that most people need in this age. Messaging systems like WhatsApp and Signal are usually tied to your phone, and going without them would result in social isolation for a lot of people. But also for banking and sometimes government services, you likely need to use their apps. And there will never be opensource alternatives for such apps.
  • justaguy88 6y ago
    Why can't linux run android apps? https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/ exists, I'm sure it could become a more integrated thing on a linux phone
    • Ardon 6y ago
      Some distros on the pinephone can run android apps with anbox!
    • kokx 6y ago
      Yes, Anbox exists, and has done some amazing things. But can this run apps that require Google Play Services, such as WhatsApp, most banking apps, and governmental apps? It is very unfortunate that so much of the Android ecosystem relies on a very proprietary and cloud-connected piece of software. Without it, most apps simply refuse to work. MicroG has done amazing things here, but unfortunately a lot of things still break when using it, to no fault of the MicroG developers.
      • Mediterraneo10 6y ago
• winrid 6y ago
  I just want a phone that works well. Android would probably be considered very polished compared to many Linux distros, and even there there is a ton of weird UX and bugs that you wouldn't expect for something so mainstream (as a fellow Android user). :)
• qwerty456127 6y ago
  Sure, but not necessarily. LineageOS is fine. What I really want is more good Android apps without Google (or any other) dependencies, without ads/tracking or in-app purchases (classic single-time pay is Ok). I wouldn't mind dialing numbers from command line though.
• ISL 6y ago
  Yes. With a linux phone, there is a solid chance that I won't be forced to replace my phone in order to continue security updates. I very much look forward to pulling my software from a DFSG-approved repository. As long as there is enough interest to keep the manufacturing line open, the rest of the ecosystem will continue to grow.
• Elaine-H 6y ago
  Yes, I would like to have a phone running libre software
• numpad0 6y ago
  I think people wants something other than iOS/Android user interface paradigm, or at least I do. I don't care if Kernel reports version as Darwin 20.3.0 or Linux 2.6.26 or Linux 10.0.23456.0, I want some ... I don't know, something other than "it".
• eikenberry 6y ago
  The article seems to claim that all the complaints are about features.. wouldn't that mean that what is done is reliable?
• johnklos 6y ago
  No.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• edoceo 6y ago
  Yea, I do. I spend time and money trying these things. And I dont want apps or anything! Phone, SMS and Browser would be fine. (Maybe address book?) Like, Xfce with those three apps on my com-set would be "done" and shippable to the eager market. Get the the core-com-set features working and let a marketplace/app-store mature around it. Don't try to 1=1 to iOS for mass market. It's not Lean.
• Waterluvian 6y ago
  When it comes to mobile devices, UX is more important than ever. Any time I see a "Linux phone" I just see a complete disaster of Linux quality UI and usability. What I want is a 100% iOS or Android phone, with a USB port that I can plug into a keyboard/mouse/monitor dongle on my desk, and get a desktop Linux environment that shares my same media. No clever apps that work in both. No clever Linux UI nonsense. A Phone that's 100% android or iOS in my hand, and 100% Linux or MacOS when plugged in to my workstation. I shouldn't have any clue that it's a Linux phone when I'm walking around with it.
• andrecp11 6y ago
  Hell yes.
• ZebusJesus 6y ago
  Nokia n9 was the best phone I ever had
• haolez 6y ago
  I want convergence. I want my smartphone to be my daily driver machine when I connect it to an external monitor, keyboard and mouse. My Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ kind of delivers this with Samsung Dex, but it feels sluggish and clunky and there are some minor but very annoying bugs and glitches. I'm hoping that Linux phones will deliver on that.
• spodek 6y ago
  I prefer the software under a free license. I consider the distinction between free and open source relevant. I expect that a free as in speech phone ecosystem would eventually overtake non-free ones like Wikipedia did Britannica.
• mastrsushi 6y ago
  If you don't have privacy or overall security concerns, Linux phones are dissapointing. They are very stuck in the early 2010's. The author's description of his app MegaPixels and the community is living proof. I used to dream of Linux phones and achieving the DIY freedom of desktop Linux. But just like desktop Linux stuck recreating XP era apps, what are we recreating, Ice Cream Sandwich era apps? I'd love to see the benefits of shell modularity implemented so users can drag together scripts with their fingers. Also, why is GTK and QT being used for these projects? It's already a drag that we are stuck using local GUI subsystems on desktops. They should be using layout engine platforms like Electron or React Native. That would increase portability, attract existing projects, and promote cross compatibility
  • nyanpasu64 6y ago
    > They should be using layout engine platforms like Electron or React Native. That would increase portability, attract existing projects, and promote cross compatibility GTK and Qt run slowly enough on the PinePhone's anemic processor and GPU, and Electron or React Native would perform even worse.
    • mastrsushi 6y ago
      GTK and Qt were designed for desktops. Why would you expect them to perform as well?
• fartcannon 6y ago
  I want options.
• lykr0n 6y ago
  I want a linux phone. But you know what I want first? I want a Visual Studio level IDE that I can develop Linux GUI application in. GTK is an amazing piece of software, and there are some beyond amazing GTK based applications that I found and started using. As someone who has not done linux GUI development before, the biggest issue is getting started. Android has first class development support, and so does iOS. Linux has Glade for GTK and QtCreator for QT apps. Vala is an amazing first step, and the code makes design & development super easy. But there is still a disconnect between design and development that hinders adoption. If there was a nice "all in one" application where development can be done like. You could see the hype, and then disappointment, when https://github.com/akiraux/Akira https://github.com/akiraux/Akira was announced and it looked like such an IDE. But alas. The Rust GTK Bindings also look really good, but I think the biggest hurdle that needs to be overcome is making Glade either more user friendly and making it tie into an IDE like Builder, or have an IDE like IntelliJ support it.
  • MartijnBraam 6y ago
    Gnome Builder is basically the reference GTK IDE, such a shame that the developers are so stereotypically gnome and are just not supporting any usecase outside of flatpak at all
  • lostmsu 6y ago
    I was thinking along the same lines. Some time ago GNOME seriously considered Mono to be a good platform to develop Linux apps. There is now an active project Avalonia, that provides WPF-like GPU accelerated framework, that is cross-platform, and can potentially work well on PinePhone with .NET Core.
  • dhbradshaw 6y ago
    Flutter in vscode is quite good. And although Flutter has historically been for ios and android, I actually prefer writing Flutter apps while running them on my Ubuntu box. It feels lighter and faster running them natively in Linux than running them in an emulator.
• axelthegerman 6y ago
  I have a pinephone but it's not too useable yet. It's a chicken and egg problem. Once it's actually starting to be useable and a lot of basics are in place, e.g. stable base OS, apps will follow. Another issue for apps might just be the lack of resources to get started. Kudos to you for all the work you're doing on Megapixel. Let's keep iterating and true FOSS fashion share what we've learned so we all can benefit. And we can simply ignore all the "reviews" that complain about the lack of apps, compare to Android/iOS for polish. Also for people complaining about performance, the code will be optimized, graphic acceleration will be used, and finally more powerful device will become available. Of course a $200 Linux phone with immature software does not compare to $1000 subsidized spying devices
  • axelthegerman 6y ago
    Besides looking at megapixels, any other resources to get started on app development for Linux phones?
    • swiley 6y ago
      Don't write Linux phone apps, just write Linux apps and publish the source.
    • 29083011397778 6y ago
      Basically as was said below, just write applications for desktop. Some caveats I've found though, is to minimize the horizontal of your app (to even just a couple hundred pixels wide), and verify that treating your mouse as touch input works (such as scrolling) and testing like that. When pretending your app is running on a pinephone works properly-ish, I'd call it good. Any functional client or service is a boon to mobile Linux; and even if it's imperfect, so is everything else for now :)
• augusto-moura 6y ago
  Is funny because Android is linux, and it's the most popular phone OS by a large margin. I don't think we have the right definitions here, are we talking about GNU/Linux phones? Other distributions/Linux? Or about anything that is Open Source?
  • gavodavo 6y ago
    Android is technically Linux, sure. But it doesn't share the Linux ecosystem. GNU/Linux would be a way to distinguish, but it would exclude distros such as postmarketOS, which are part of the Linux ecosystem.
  • MartijnBraam 6y ago
    Android is only technically Linux, not in spirit. Labeling things is hard
  • smegger001 6y ago
    maybe posix? i don't know that GNU is necessary but a open posix/unix complaint environment with root access is.
• atum47 6y ago
  Yes. I've been meaning to get one since I first heard about ubuntu phone (that turns into desktop). Unfortunately, living in Brazil I never get the chance to get one, with the exception of importation.
• sabellito 6y ago
  I'd be amazing if someone with a lot of motivation, or perhaps a company, got React Native (and perhaps Flutter) to run on Linux.
  • dhbradshaw 6y ago
    Flutter runs on Linux. I use it as my primary development target when iterating on an app.
• throwitaway1235 6y ago
  Can someone explain to the layman (me) why non-Android/Apple phones carry such a hefty price with such poor specs?
  • threeseed 6y ago
    Because no-one wants them. And as such they don't have the economies of scale when paying for components, manufacturing, marketing etc.
    • throwitaway1235 6y ago
      Thank you.
    • fsflover 6y ago
      They also don't profit from ads and tracking.
• Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  The author complains about a lack of people interested in developing for the Pinephone, but IMHO the elephant in the room is simply that the PinePhone is too underpowered to enjoyably develop on. Its A64 processor is weak as fuck, and some of us who ordered the PinePhone got the original version with just 2GB of RAM. Not only does it take a long while to build software on the phone, but UI lag for your finished program is long – you will probably have to wait a good 5 seconds just for a window to open. Back in the Nokia N900 days I did a great deal of hacking on that phone, but that device (even though its specs are much lower than a modern phone’s) had a much more responsive UI and it was actually enjoyable to test out what you had developed.
  • meepmorp 6y ago
    Why are you building software on the phone? Can't you cross compile on a more powerful machine? Serious question.
    • CameronNemo 6y ago
      Or have an aarch64 VM or SBC to compile on. GTK is allergic to cross compilation.
      • ncmncm 6y ago
        I had not heard about this. Qt cannot have this problem... but I could imagine KDE afficted. It only takes one.
      • pabs3 6y ago
        GTK apps are definitely cross-compilable, here is a random example from the Debian cross-compile testing service: http://crossqa.debian.net/src/xdemorse http://crossqa.debian.net/src/xdemorse
        • CameronNemo 6y ago
          Sure, but you must have taken special care to ensure that the gobject introspection tools are run using qemu. Or maybe this does not use GIR at all because it is plain C (which I would not recommend for new apps, and neither does GNOME AIUI).
• OnlyOneCannolo 6y ago
  I could maybe like a Windows phone if they try that again and it's completely different than last time.
• igetspam 6y ago
  I want a phone with a map, slack for work, unfortunately), signal and a browser. I want it to not feed Google. That's it. Don't even care if it dials or texts. It just had to fit in my pocket. Linux is just a bonus because it already runs on everything else use daily.
• endisneigh 6y ago
  I wish I could just pay an extra $100 and unlock my iPhone such that I can do anything technically possible with it. Take my money Apple, ugh. Linux phones are cool - I had a Nokia N900 and N800, but polish in general is more important to me these days.
  • whoomp12342 6y ago
    Sounds like you want a linux distro that copies iphones UI as much as possible without getting sued
• shuringai 6y ago
  "Still people want to create more distributions instead of actually implementing missing features in the existing distributions" If people would document their stuff and would bother to give the slightest hint what should be done next for a newcommer to their project, people wouldn't have to restart everything from scratch. "I want a truly libre, open phone! ... MY truly open libre phone that i own and brand and get rich on!"
• catchmeifyoucan 6y ago
  I would love a Linux phone, to develop my own interfaces away from iOS and Android. I think the challenge is really the native stack for the development for me. For example, just last week I was trying to mess with the Framebuffer on the remarkable tablet, but I know way too less. For new developers (e.g young 20s) we grew on JavaScript, Python and heavily abstracted UI frameworks. I think sometimes the problems are too abstract and ambiguous in this area and make it a little daunting for newcomers since it seems so low-level. As young and new developer, I have time to hack around, but it doesn’t seem like one of those getting started tutorials I can do by myself.
• dnndev 6y ago
  I think we need one. A lot like the pc industry need macos and windows and Linux. It’s for those who want extreme control more so than a polished ui. I use iOS by the way. Android is the worst of both worlds.
• stjohnswarts 6y ago
  As long as they're as good as the current crop of Android and Apple phones I think it would be great.
• tjmc 6y ago
  No. I just want the right to put whatever apps I like on my iPhone.
• nyanpasu64 6y ago
  > Still people complain about how they don't like that there's an extra file they don't want (the dng) or photo upload is missing. ITS A SCRIPT, CHANGE IT. Do you really want a Linux phone? Browsing and editing files on PinePhone is substantially more cumbersome than doing so on a PC, unless you have SSH (takes time to setup, requires a separate computer, has issues finding the IP address, maybe laggy) or an external keyboard (tiny screen, USB dongle, can't easily charge at the same time).
  • analognoise 6y ago
    If somebody can't handle that... do they really want a Linux phone?
• motohagiography 6y ago
  Yes, but the question should be, what do you want a phone to do?
• sakebomb 6y ago
  I am surprised no one in here has mentioned Sailfish OS. It is Linux based. I really enjoy mine. I own it like I own my couch. I highly recommend it for those that are interested like myself. Sure, I do not have the latest phone model, I have it on my Sony XA2 and Cosmo communicator. It has issues with some playstore things, but I also do not care. I can do 90% of what I want on them and the rest I save for my computer. I like the separation.
  • shmerl 6y ago
    They still didn't open source the UI itself. But really like their design ideas. Way better than Android. Something like Plasma Mobile should just use those ideas and make an open UI.
• jrochkind1 6y ago
  If I understand right, the argument is that to really want a Linux phone means to want to write your own code for your phone? Does that mean that Linux in general is only for people who want to write their own code? I kind of thought some people thought Linux could be for anyone, not just for coders. Despite it not really taking off as a consumer desktop, I remember when people thought it could/should and it would be good if it did. Are those days gone? Now people think linux is just for coders, and if you don't want to write your own code you shouldn't use linux?
  • gameswithgo 6y ago
    You can absolutely use linux without writing your own code. You might find the experience frustrating if you don't enjoy, or don't have time for, tinkering with your computer a lot though. There are rough edges, there are dozens of distros, dynamic linking is popular even when it makes no sense which causes lots of programs to not work until you track down the right dependencies etc. On the other hand Linux can be allright for people who don't do anything interesting, who just use firefox all day, that works fine in linux.
• searchableguy 6y ago
  Almost all budget and mid range android phones come with invasive tracking, bloat, and ads now. The worst part is you cannot flash a custom rom without crippling your device to almost a feature phone. Many apps use safety net now. You can temporarily bypass it using magisk but Google will get rid of it soon through hardware key attestation. Flagship phones are too expensive for me and they don't come with features like a good charger, headphone jack, big battery, etc. Most of them also suffer from Android ecosystem problems. Slow security updates and trash apps in the playstore. iPhone is expensive too and iOS limits your freedom even more. You cannot customize the layout or app drawer too much. You cannot use non-web kit browser. Adblockers are crippled on iOS. Notch and suffers from the same problem as Android flagships. Lack of easy side loading. All I want is a phone which respects me. I don't care if it's Linux based or not.
  • BelenusMordred 6y ago
    This is one of the reasons I highly respect Xiaomi and Google Pixels. They are basically the only phones left that make this painless to do without resorting to dodgy hacks. Xiaomi have an official bootloader unlock and are simple to put LineageOS on. Pixels are the only phones that are supported by GrapheneOS, which offers substantial security benefits over any other Android phone. It's giving the consumer freedom and environmentally friendly for when the updates run out/planned obsolescence kicks in. I have a spare phone lay around from 2014 running up-to-date 2021 Android patches and it works perfectly fine, the battery went bad once but this was the days of replaceable batts and it cost $15 online for a new one. If you can accept the tradeoff with no further physical firmware updates it's a much better deal than the rampant consumerism and e-waste that plagues the mobile market.
  • spijdar 6y ago
    > Many apps use safety net now. You can temporarily bypass it using magisk but Google will get rid of it soon through hardware key attestation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't really a criticism of Android as a platform but that apps use DRM for tamper proofing. I suppose Android could try to make this harder but I'm sure hardware vendors would step in with their solutions. You're totally free to do as you please with android/rooting as long as you don't care about those apps -- which I have a strong feeling will never be available on more open platforms, unless somehow they gain market dominance.
• gameswithgo 6y ago
  I want a phone that is just a computer. I don't want a phone that tells me where I am allowed to install software from, or where I am allowed to get it from. I just want a computer that is small and has a phone in it. I don't care if it is linux, I don't care if it is open source!
• williesleg 6y ago
  This is THE year of Linux on The Phone.
• Ologn 6y ago
  I write apps for Android for a living. This summer I wanted to hack with LineageOS or something like that. XDA developers said there was a good build for a new Samsung Android tablet so I bought it. I guess I should have read more as Samsung does not use the standard Android bootloader to flash but something called Odin, which is not available (although some people say they have a Windows tool that works). I could query some other non-Samsung Android devices I had with the Android flash tool, but there were no good builds for them or I was unable to build, or I didn't want to risk flashing that specific device. I might try again this year. I'll look to see what non-Samsung tablets are selling near around here, then look online to see what might have a decent LineageOS or similar build, and then get it. If I flash and brick some cheap, new Android tablet it's not that big of a deal. It's one of the reasons I got into Android programming in the first place, that it is free/open and I can hack around on it like I can my Linux laptop. I thought by 2020 it would be easier to flash a tablet and install LineageOS but I guess it takes a little more effort. I did miss some things though like that Samsung does not use standard Android flash. If I really needed it I would have done it already, but I was doing it on the weekend for fun, so when I ran into trouble and other things came up, I shelved it for a little while.
• stakkur 6y ago
  This is the year of Linux on the smartphones
• luxuryballs 6y ago
  sudo fone —-call Mom
• yyyk 6y ago
  AOSP ports (like lineage) provide a better experience. Yes, compatibility is an issue, but with raw Linux we end up reimplementing everything anyway. So why not start from a solid base that works and fork if one feels it's useful, rather then having to create a Camera app all over again?
• gbolcer 6y ago
  Now do blackphone.
• swiley 6y ago
  I have a Linux phone because I'm really just tired of fighting against OS vendors to do basic shit like file management or text editing or scheduling background processes or running chat clients or compiling apps (god forbid compiling the OS or running a self hosting dev environment on the device) or pretty much anything other drooling while scrolling through <insert favorite drug>. I honestly don't mind when something is legitimately broken, especially when I have the tools to work around it. For the first few months the dialing app didn't work, fine, I just wrote some shell scripts to poke AT commands into the modem myself. The thing that makes Linux phones much nicer is the much weaker distinction between users and developers. If something is broken then you can just go fix it (or rip it out or hack around it.) I strongly dislike palm OS style UIs so I switched my phosh session file out for flux box. Many people won't like that and I don't have to care.
• FpUser 6y ago
  I want a phone that behaves like windows/linux desktop where I can freely download any application from any website and run it. And where the development can be as simple as hooking said phone to bigger screen, keyboard, mouse, launching some IDE and where I can code / design gui (delphi like) / compile (native please) / debug. Modern phone hardware has enough power for these tasks being done in place. It should also have some low power built in core dedicated strictly to phone tasks that would have a priority over everything else. Add to that decent hardware.
  • nwotnagrom 6y ago
    I have also been craving the same and have found myself utilizing a VM on my phone to access the OS of my liking (Manjaro KDE) and being able to do things that I definitely could not do on my phone when I was away from my desktop. I do think at the end of the day, all we yearn for is having the THE desktop experience on our phone.
• willjp 6y ago
  I have a linux phone, and I love it. I love being able to provision it like a server. I love that I can write applications in just about whatever language I want. True, there is a lot of room for improvement - but I'm a programmer, it's a great excuse to try out some new things and learn about cellular networks.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• anta40 6y ago
  Do I want a Linux phone? Yes, as a mobile app dev, I found our current situation a bit "boring": you either pick Android, or iOS (or on certain situations.... both). That's it. There's no another major player.
• usr1106 6y ago
  I have used a Linux phone for 12 years or so. First the N900 and later the Jolla/Sailfish ones. None of them has been a great product. The software has limited features and there are few apps. The lack of manpower in development cannot be hidden. I cannot buy a subway ticket in several cities and I get difficulties with banks, because I have no Google playstore and we live in a world worse than Orwell's 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 could imagine. When I want to tinker I have a shell, can become root and I know what I am doing. Yes, I want a Linux phone.
  • panny 6y ago
    I had a Motorola a1200 in 2006 :) >None of them has been a great product The a1200 ming was pretty slick for its time. It had a 2MP camera when everything else shipped with 0.3MP at best. Touch screen, stylus, see through flip so you could see the screen when closed. That was a pretty cool phone.
  • paulcole 6y ago
    > we live in a world worse than Orwell's 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 could imagine You have read those books right?
    • usr1106 6y ago
      I did finish 1984 on 31-Dec-83. Maybe I need to read it again, don't remember too many details... For Fahrenheit 451 I have seen the movie twice and I remember it quite well. No idea how much it is different from the book, have not read it. Of course not all aspects of those fiction works apply, especially outside of China, Russia and the like. But Orwell would be not have foreseen how Google/Apple/Facebook can use positioning info or face detection of their users or how Russian internet trolls can influence US presidential elections or German vaccination opponents.
      • theon144 6y ago
        I really don't mean to rail on you, but this confirms the parent comment's suspcisions quite precisely - having "seen the movie" about a book whose major point is the eradication of books in favor of more easily digestible media like movies; and having read the other book you mentioned almost 40 years ago, whose themes are completely irrelevant to Russian trolls or face detection...
• alinuxphone-no 6y ago
  Nope. LTE-capable watches will replace cell phones. Phones are the thing of the past, I don't think it's worth the time anymore. Of things relevant, watches is the present and AR is the future. Both are a challenge from FLOSS point of view: watches and AR involve very latest hardware/tech which is very proprietary AND those devices are not very interesting from the "general-purpose computer" point of view. They have very narrow purpose/function, and they become obsolete very quickly (due to newer tech being objectively better and better). Very useful devices in everyday life, but not interesting to play with. Unlike a laptop, or a desktop or a breadboard/rpi, which are general-purpose devices and are actually interesting to play with and learn from. Would I like a truly open/libre Linux on my, say Apple Watch or Apple Glasses? Sure, but realistically it ain't gonna happen within the tiny time span of high-tech relevance. And it'd be a travesty if bright minds would spend their valuable time on that hopeless endeavor. There are so many more interesting and more valuable things to do: improve man pages, or cure cancer...
• AzzieElbab 6y ago
  I want a phone decoupled from google and apple, I don’t care if it runs Linux or vax/vms, as long as it does work, and also does work with my car and other devices. Just get me out of this data driven hell, I will pay
• rainyMammoth 6y ago
  What I want is a phone that doesn't spy on me (Android) and doesn't cost 1500$ and is a closed garden on which I have very little control (iPhone) Yes, there is a need for a 3rd reliable phone OS.
  • notsuoh 6y ago
    I don't even care about the cost. I would pay a premium for the non-closed garden phone if it had apps and support. I would happily pay $1,500 for a Pinephone or similar with capability to run the small subset of apps I use -- phone, sms/signal, brave, maps/nav, and maybe a handful of others.
  • rodgerd 6y ago
    There was one. Not enough people bought them, and Microsoft stopped development.
• kop316 6y ago
  OK I'll bite. I wrote a plugin to get mmsd to function with modem manager and I wrote a reference implimentation to integrate MMS functionality into chatty. I also took the time to make sure my patches were upstreamable, and I have taken and worked on every feedback to ensure my patches are upstream able. I filed the ITP bug to include mmsd into Debian proper. I did all of this back from December to February. I still have no idea when Debian will bother to look at the mmsd packaging to include it into their repository, nor when my changes for chatty will be integrated. The ofono mailing list and IRC channel (i.e. the original authors of mmsd, but i think they abandoned it as they have said it hasn't been maintained in 8 years) have ignored me, so I doubt my changes will ever go back into upstream mmsd (I just consider what I have a fork now). I'm waiting on the chatty dev to finish off a current project to then get to integrating my MMS patches into chatty. I still really want to help, but there's not much for me to do except wait for upstream devs to get around to integrating my work. Being frank, I'm frustrated that I spent all of that time to implement a feature I want and I know a lot of other folks want, but now I'm just in a limbo hoping that others will get around to it. So I'll ask, if you want folks to help on the boring things or missing functionality, how do you prevent that from happening?
  • MartijnBraam 6y ago
    A ton of people want mms support, I really appreciate your work on it. The MMS support is also one of the hard problems nobody wanted to pick up, like the camera support. The mms stuff in postmarketOS is also still in progress as far as I know, I'm un europe myself, like a lot of the pinephone developers and mms just isn't really a thing which makes integrating these thing quite hard. Do you have a link so I can look it up?
    • kop316 6y ago
      > A ton of people want mms support, I really appreciate your work on it. The MMS support is also one of the hard problems nobody wanted to pick up, like the camera support. I get it, and I get your frustrations too, that's why I just picked it up myself. I really do want to help. https://source.puri.sm/kop316/mmsd/ https://source.puri.sm/kop316/mmsd/ There is my mmsd fork. https://source.puri.sm/kop316/chatty/-/tree/wip/sadiq/mm-account https://source.puri.sm/kop316/chatty/-/tree/wip/sadiq/mm-acc... This is where I have my reference MMS implementation for chatty. You are also welcome to get a hold of me on Matrix, I am on the pmOS matrix channel!
• JetAlone 6y ago
  To be totally honest, I don't even really want a phone at all. It's just corporate and governmental bureaucracy that demands me to have one. I'd rather just use email, internet and VOIP to communicate with people from laptops/desktops, and give my ears an eyes a break when I'm on the go.
  • mantlepro 6y ago
    ^ This is exactly what I started doing three years ago and love it. No more tiny rectangle screens stealing my attention; no more endless scrolling, notifications, tiny keyboards, or app stores; no more feeding the data monsters or being forced to upgrade when things fall out of support. Tons more time to think more deeply about things. Still very well connected via email, www, and VoIP, and I do have a work phone, but it's only used for work-related calls and SMS.
• ineedasername 6y ago
  As the author said, there certainly should be an adversarial Librem vs PinePhone split. We need choice and diversity in the ecosystem, different approaches. There doesn't need to be convergence on interface or anything else. Ideally there will just be hardware standardized enough that users can choose between a wide variety of distros that themselves converge on different solutions, allowing users to choose both hardware and software independently of each other.
• robomartin 6y ago
  I don't care if it's Linux, Windows, iPhone or Android. I want a phone that melts into my computer as a first class citizen/appendage. Just today, as an example, I had to send someone a link from my desktop. I had to send it to their email. The next best option would have been to use Messenger on Facebook. Why can't I simply have the phone appear as a window on the my desktop (almost like a virtual machine) and have access to its full functionality, including, copy, paste, transfer, file system, etc. It's 2021. Microsoft might want to think about bringing back Windows Phone and doing it right this time. Call me. I'll design it for you.
• azernik 6y ago
  There is a very popular Linux phone OS. It's called Android. This sounds somewhat pat and snarky, but I am trying to make a real point. Let's go to some of what the article says: ================== Having an "one true way" to use the UI and tons of preinstalled apps is the reason I dislike the android ecosystem... Megapixels has a fully user-configurable post-processing pipeline basically since the start. It allows you do anything you want after clicking the shutter button in the app since it's a shell script. Still people complain about how they don't like that there's an extra file they don't want (the dng) or photo upload is missing. ITS A SCRIPT, CHANGE IT. Do you really want a Linux phone? ================== If you're defining "a Linux phone" as "a phone that uses bash scripts for configuration and where nothing works out of the box", then no. People don't want a Linux phone. But then, by that standard Ubuntu isn't catering to a "true" Linux audience. I don't think this is a useful definition of the word.
• SpliffnCola 6y ago
  Nope, it'll suffer from the same lack of vision that the Linux desktop has and continues to have.
• butterisgood 6y ago
  No
• dave_sid 6y ago
  Okay
• wdkrnls 6y ago
  One of those 18 distributions doesn't look so bad: https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/ https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/
  • MartijnBraam 6y ago
    It's definetly very nice :D
• nutanc 6y ago
  I want a Linux phone. I want to buy something which I can just own and do what I want with it without some overlord deciding that I have violated some terms and conditions. All I need is for some basic apps like email, Maps(OSM is fine),Spotify, Twitter, WhatsApp/Telegram and my banking app to work. It covers 90% of my use cases of my phone. In any case we all have more than one phone in our house. An extra Linux phone will give me and my family options. The junk stuff and games etc can go on my Android.
  • swiley 6y ago
    Spotify is a big ask because google would have to port widevine (the web DRM.) I've been switching to sound cloud because of this. I'm guessing you're from Europe and that's why your bank needs an "app" instead of just having a website. Here in the US think or swim (the fancy Canadian robinhood style UI for stock trading) works fine in icecat if you turn off librejs. I think everything else is there. Also Linux games are generally better than Android ones IME. (although I haven't run any besides nethack on my pinephone.)
    • nutanc 6y ago
      I am actually from India. The bank mobile websites are good enough. But the apps have some good user flow for P2P payments etc. But yeah, I can live with a good mobile website.
    • lawl 6y ago
      > Spotify is a big ask because google would have to port widevine (the web DRM.) Spotify shouldn't be a problem [0][1] using librespot [2]. As for banking, I can't speak for all of Europe, but web apps are generally optimized for desktop use, apps have some convinient features, like scanning the QR code of a bill and pay it with one tap, instead of having to type in everything manually when it's on paper, or copy paste it from a PDF. Additionally some banks require an app for 2FA for the web interface on PC too. [0] https://github.com/kraxarn/spotify-qt https://github.com/kraxarn/spotify-qt [1] https://github.com/xou816/spot https://github.com/xou816/spot [2] https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot
• ntw1103 6y ago
  Yes I do. and I am working on a web browser(including rendering engine) for the pinephone.
  • jcun4128 6y ago
    Hopefully it's better than the performance of Firefox/the other stock browser... I know I know... I can't write one myself can I criticize.
• jfb 6y ago
  No -- I want a phone that is not subject to Google's data vampirism that competes with Apple for the dollars of the actual humans who use them. If that phone runs Linux and is free, great! If not, less good, but still acceptable. I wish Microsoft hadn't bungled Windows Phone quite so thoroughly.
• Koliakis 6y ago
  Yes, my next phone will be a Linux phone. I'm just done with Android and iOS. They're terrible operating systems run by massive companies with entirely way too much control, money and power.
• amatecha 6y ago
  I want an OpenBSD phone :)
• ExcavateGrandMa 6y ago
  Send one, maybe I'll start hacking on it...
• etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
  The PinePhone only achieved about 1% the LTE speed of an iPhone on the same cell network. This means that no matter how much I fiddle with the device, it's just not going to be practical.
• KingMachiavelli 6y ago
  I want a Linux phone because Android even when fully degoogled and secured like in GrapheneOS is still beholdened to Google's grip on their proprietary Play Services framework and 'SafetyNet'. Basically tons of apps are crippled and non-functional unless you let Google's code run as a system app. Sure it can be tricked, spoofed, and mocked for the time being but doing so basically destroys the security model of Android in the process. There's also a lot of badwill between the 'secure' Android ROM groups which isn't great when the selling point is security and reliability. A proper Linux phone with a Secure Boot/Verified Boot implementation would be great. Linux phone's ATM seem to be more concerned with userland stuff like camera apps. In a way, a Linux computer in the form factor of a phone with a modem is probably best but it's the complicated nature of the ARM ecosystem getting in the way. e.g how many forms of a secure boot system for ARM exist between Android, Apple M1, Samsung Knox, et al. Regarding the camera... I don't quite see why a camera system using MPV + standard webcam capture tool can't be used... I guess it's not user friendly but it would be simple. It's not like Linux+Camera is anything new.
  • tholdem 6y ago
    This is quite misinformed. GrapheneOS is not "degoogled", it's build from the same open-source code as Googles Android, but that's it. AOSP does not have any Google service installed. I'm using GrapheneOS as my daily driver and I've got about 45 apps installed. All but 1 has not worked without Googles play services and I can easily manage without that app. Also, those pure Linux phones will take a decade to match the security of current Android and iOS phones. Have fun waiting for that verified boot and proper app sandboxing. insert the image of a skeleton in an armchair.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• Apocryphon 6y ago
  The article seems a little bit dismissive. > People even want to use Flutter to make UIs, was the phone lacking in google technologies for your liking? If a company makes a tool that can repurposed for a system not by them, then why shame people for using that tool? > But even weirder, there's tons of people asking for Android roms for the PinePhone. What's the point? Do you believe in the church of papa Alphabeticus, the pope of the internet? People want to use apps that the environment current lacks. Again, there's no reason to shame them for it, FFS. > It's the community that against "the other side". It's the developers that are actually working together to make something. And yet, this is made after scorning users for not truly wanting to use a Linux phone on the basis of them possibly incorporating software that were from Google. How can the author hypocritically call for a Kumbaya within the Linux community, when they are already indulging in gatekeeping and confrontational behavior of their own? And at what point is this arbitrary purism satiated? Is a completely ad-less Google-originated technology like Go to be rejected? Should Protobufs be considered harmful because of where they come from? When did Google become the '90s Microsoft of '20s Linux, anyway? > People are still complaining to other people that they have chosen wrong. This is Linux, you can do what you want with your device. And yet the author has the audacity to question people wanting to try different things with their mobile distros, even things they don't want, such as 'Having an "one true way" to use the UI and tons of preinstalled apps.' Just rampant naked hypocrisy. Do they really want a Linux phone?
• nsuinteger 6y ago
  NO
• megous 6y ago
  Hard to say. I don't phone much, especially these days during the pandemic, without travel, I don't need mobile devices for anything really. Smartphones are barely useful for anything to me these days. I thought about it and I basically want desktop experience but in a small form factor of a smartphone, because that's what I'm used to using most of the time. Small portable computer that I can actually program and compile stuff on. Device where I am able to script and modify any aspect of it in case of need, without needing to install appstore apps for every little stupid thing I know how to shell script in 5 lines by combining existing tools. Something small enough that it would be more portable than a notebook, but just as generically programmable, and can host any of the usual scripting languages, databases, servers and tools I may want to run on the go, and already know all too well. Something on the way between a dumb phone and a general computer. And the phone part would ever be interesting to me only if I could hook it, script it, and control it via some personal rules in a detailed manner. Otherwise just using a dumb phone has way better ergonomics than any smartphone ever had for me.
• jcun4128 6y ago
  I have one. I look forward to the day when it matches the specs of a flagship eg. 12-16GB of RAM without the $2K price tag. I want to be able to do VMs inside it and other things... I have a Pinephone now, I think it would be possible to run QEMU in it to do a VM but the current hardware specs are not great for this... like ARM VS Code had 3-5 second lag per click. Also as a side note, I bought an LG Stylo 6 from Boost and I wanted to smash the phone out of the box due to the bloatware. I know "install ADB bro, uninstall the bloat" but like the voice mail message literally forces you to choose an ad to use it like wtf is that.
• apatheticonion 6y ago
  I just want a phone that turns into a full desktop when connected via USB-c to a dock with two monitors, keyboard and mouse. I'm not talking sandboxed inside a guest user within my iPad OS, I am talking full fat administrator access Ubuntu Gnome, MacOS or Windows. If that happens to be a linux distro, open source, or otherwise, I'm not fussed.
• squarefoot 6y ago
  I don't necessarily want a Linux phone, I want a trustworthy portable communication terminal. As of today the smartphone is de facto the standard in portable communication terminals, and Linux is the standard in open, therefore trustworthy (PEBKAC issues aside), operating systems for general use. It is then normal for many people to want a Linux phone, but give us a BSD, or whatever, based phone, and we're in business. The gist is that most of us simply find unthinkable to use a piece of hardware that we don't 100% trust, for personal communications, writing or receiving mail, keeping personal data and documents, banking etc. therefore we need an open platform because allowing public scrutiny of the code base - device drivers and user apps included - is the only working method to prevent both software and firmware from doing nasty things behind the user. So far, a Linux phone is the closest we can get to that dream device.
• travisgriggs 6y ago
  All too often, a Linux gadget shows up to an established market place, with its academically superior ideology (which I love and support) and then wonder why it always feels like a has-been, a Johnny-come-lately to the party. I don't know about others, but what I would want in alternative phone is something that is different in a different way. For example, a simple and open hackable phone that enables creativity. If Linux is part of that story, fine. But I'd be open to other options. Basically it's the Raspberry Pi. And the arruino thing. Sure proving that I could do some sort of actual development on a pi might be fun for a while, but what makes the Pi fun is that it's simple and straightforward and approachable enough that it encourages creativity. People make cool and fun things with Pi's. I would want a phone platform that would enable that same type of exploratory creativity in the phone hardware space. Linux kind does that for the Pi.
  • d--b 6y ago
    Couldn't agree more. If I get a Linux phone, I don't want to get a smartphone that tries and fails to be an Android phone. I am perfectly fine if the phone only has a terminal interface, where I can type "call 212 555 5555" to make a phone call. Especially if I could then hack the audio input/output with some other terminal tool that would allow me to record, or change my voice.
    • megous 6y ago
      This is the thing I don't understand. People say they want this, but... You can already do that with PinePhone, right now. All that's needed for this use case is already there. (since 8 months ago, really) The drivers are all there if you really want this, and it's a few weekends project to write a bunch of scripts that will make PinePhone do exactly what you want just by using common Linux tools. You can use fbkeyboard and write a bunch of shell scripts. Calling is no more than a few AT commands that you can wrap in a shell functions or whatever. If you really want to be fancy, you can write something that will allow you to queue AT commands and call your scripts on unsolicited indications from the modem. You don't even need a modem manager or any other complicated SW like that, if you don't like complexity. Mobile data can be entirely handled by the kernel too, with just some generic configuration commands to set it up. No complicated usersapce needed, no daemons needed, not even pppd, like with older GPRS modems. Audio is solved at this point, and I documented all the controls and have a suggested setup for the very flexible calling setup where you can monitor, playback, record, modem audio, your mic/earphone, in whatever combination you want. There's even a tool that can do the setup based on some config flags, no need to mess with individual controls or ALSA tools. No audio daemon is necessary for basic use cases. I even have this documented on my website: https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html if you click through various links in the features table. All you need is just start and implement your ideas. No kernel hacking needed, or any complicated stuff like that. It's just there for the taking. People who actually did something like this can probably be counted on one hand. There's sxmo, and there are 1 or 2 people I remember writing to me personally, that seemed to have some similar low-tech but extremely flexible and hackable custom setup.
• sto_hristo 6y ago
  Of course i do. Phone hardware has evolved tremendously and my old android can run games that mere decade ago required full desktop computer plugged to a wall socket. It's no longer a phone, but a handheld computer with a modem that can make calls. Current popular OSes are garbage - they lock the computer, turning it into an ad platform useful only for selfies and social media. You don't even own the device - you merely rent and are at the complete mercy of the vendor. It's just about about linux. I'd take anything that gives me control over the device and turns into a real computer that i can plug to a monitor or two and use it as a desktop. Hardware is here, software isn't.
• tomcooks 6y ago
  Hardware switches, and (total?) control on the device. This is what I think people like about this.
• pmontra 6y ago
  I don't want to carry around two phones so the only phone I'm carrying around must do at least all of this: WhatsApp (not the web app, it's limited) Skype and Meet (the Linux desktop versions would probably work but I wonder what their UX would be on a small screen) Banking apps Maps with satellite and street view Location tracking / following tracks (in using OsmAnd for that) Email (Thunderbird on a small screen?) My country 2FA / digital signature app A keyboard that does swype well Then it should be small, let's say 14 cm tall (which used to be huge, oops) less than 1 cm thick, nearly no bezel, 130 g of weight. There is no Linux phone with those specifications AFAIK. So yes, I want a Linux phone but I don't think I'll buy one in the near future.
  • mrweasel 6y ago
    I need a little fewer apps, but yes. It's not really a question about what operating system I want, there's currently only two supported by at least two or three of the apps I need. An I only trust one of the companies behind those two operating systems. Personally I don't really care if there's a browser, email, any messaging beyond SMS, maps are nice to have, but not required. I can even do without banking, but I do have a few special apps for work and interacting with the government. Depending on where you live, we reached a point where you can choose to not have a SmartPhone, but good luck interacting with society, every new thing is "App first". I a few weeks we'll have Covid-19 passports, on our phones. Don't have a smartphone? I would count on the government having planned for that scenario.
    • pmontra 6y ago
      Every country is different, especially USA vs EU vs other parts of the world. I could do without banking on my phone but most bank sites in my EU country are sending a message to their banking app on the phone to do 2FA when we login. This started between fall 2019 and early 2020. One of the banks I use is still supporting a hardware token (one of those displaying random digits), the other ones are all app based. 2FA works by entering a PIN in the app or using the fingerprint reader. I wouldn't be able to do any banking without an Android or iOS device.
• anothernewdude 6y ago
  Not really. I remember when smart phones came out and I was excited at the possibilities, I've installed termux and everything, but it turns out touch screens are just garbage at typing on, and my phone is better served as a brainless newpipe device.
• jaimex2 6y ago
  Yeah, I had a great time on Maemo on my Nokia N900.
• tonfreed 6y ago
  I bought a PinePhone Manjaro edition. Thing is solid, decent hardware though not earth shattering in anyway. The one killer app for me is phonecalls and text alerts, though. I can live without anything else, but those need to work. The main issue I have with the pinephone and the reason I still use my Android is because when the PinePhone turns its screen off, it also puts the 4G hardware to sleep. I've tried it over and over, but the hardware just won't wake the phone up and make it ring. I'd love to ditch the Google shit, but unfortunately I really can't do that right now.
• parentheses 6y ago
  Linux phones will be like Linux PCs. Linux PCs are always be behind in supporting new hardware. Hardware components are always developed with the market in mind. If the market is commercial, Linux support is not a primary concern. Linux PCs give you lots of options and customizability. Customization is nice but if you don't care this is a lost benefit. Customization also means the Linux community is fragmented based on preference. This means efforts are not unified. OSS effort is mostly expended on improving data center computing. When it came to a desktop PC, running Linux only makes sense if you're a developer. Linux phones are the same. Improvements will double down on developer needs. Upgrades are dangerous. Linux PC upgrades can have major issues and render your desktop unusable until you fix things. Linux phones will likely suffer from the same problem. Customization strikes again to make supporting upgrades a nightmare. Finally, Linux's file orientation is the most granular level of control that is antithetic to an "app" model. The app model is convenient, fast and easy to manage. The file model results in more effort for the user to properly manage their device. A Linux phone is something I don't want! Linux phones will take considerable time to get to present phone quality levels.
• happy-go-lucky 6y ago
  In any given geographic region, the concept of an operating system or a platform, in and of itself, is of little importance as a clear majority of the smartphone users are not computer- or tech-savvy. They wouldn't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. It doesn't have to ring a bell with them. As a lay passenger, I wouldn't want to or have to know what planes are made of or how a flight management system works. That's not my business. Think of it from a user's perspective.
• ryan-allen 6y ago
  I got a PinePhone and the experience was pretty poor compared to everything else, I never ended up using it as a phone. But it's still cool, and I'm happy I bought it, and I think that later in the future an OSS phone is going to be amazing. However my unusual use case was that I want my phone to also be my 'computer', e.g. I arrive at work, plug my phone into the USB-C of the monitor that already has a keyboard, mouse and ethernet attached, and I get to work. I already use linux day to day at work with an ASUS PN50 4500U and it's awesome.
• nathias 6y ago
  yes
• jokoon 6y ago
  Please explain to me how android is not linux, because android is open source. I'm guessing it's the exact same problem that happened with microsoft: drivers are restricted and not open source, which prevents users to really have control over the mainstream devices they bought. It's the same loophole all over again: we don't own the thing we bought. So in the end, the problem comes with hardware vendors, but most consumers really don't understand and don't care. So why not just make an open phone, but with the same android OS everybody knows? Without the google play store? Why make a new OS, with worse hardware support?
  • ylyn 6y ago
    I guess what people mean by a Linux phone is a GNU/Linux phone. The term isn't that accurate because the userspace might not be glibc and GNU coreutils etc. But I guess that's what people mean: a phone running X11 or Wayland, and the entire stack that comes with it, as opposed to the Android userspace (which does not use X11, and has a pretty different userspace structure).
    • b3n 6y ago
      Why would X11 on a phone mean Linux? X works on many operating systems, it was never designed specifically for Linux.
  • detaro 6y ago
    For the higher layers, Linux is an implementation detail of Android. If you write an app for Android, you write it against Android APIs and get little-to-no access to the Linux part, the graphics stack is quite different, ...
• incrudible 6y ago
  "Do you want another job?" No. This is also the reason why, at times, I loathe to use Linux. I would prefer to use something like FreeBSD, which has a different culture and attitude. It's a more stable and polished experience that doesn't aim to cater to every nerd's obsessions. This is what I want in a phone, which is why I use an iPhone, despite all the tradeoffs.
  • JacobSuperslav 6y ago
    I wish there was a desktop operating system that worked as good as IOS. And, no, Mac OS is a joke.
• maelito 6y ago
  I want a Linux phone, but : - I want it to be fast (as fast as last year's flagships), because - I want to use it as my only computer. Mobile when it's in my hand, desktop when it's connected to my monitor or mobile lapdock - I want the mobile experience to be good enough (phone, message, very good browser, and support for apps that run on Ubuntu) for daily use, but not on par with e.g. Android That's already quite a planning. Thanks for your efforts on the camera app.
• ruph123 6y ago
  I think the whole Linux-on-the-phone experience would (have) profit(ed) a lot from focussing on real (e.g. mainline) Linux tablets. It is easier to use the programs which are already available on the desktop due to the fact that GNOME (and probably KDE) already support touch screens. The usage of a tablet only slightly shifts from using a desktop. So it is a more gradual change. So by rolling out tablets first, development time could be spent on smoothing out hardware acceleration, supporting cameras, responsive UI, optimizing touch, etc. And then we could tackle phones. For me as a PinePhone owner, the biggest problem is not apps but overall speed. The OS feels very sluggish. And although I know that it is really old hardware, doing basic things should be much faster. This holds me back from really using it. The other big problem is battery consumption. Any distro I tried drains the battery so fast that I always have to shut off the phone when I am not using it. Even if I don't do anything. On a fresh Manjaro+KDE, I can see the battery drop by 10% after picking it up and using the browser for a few minutes. And wrt to linux tablets: The PineTab[0] is sadly having really bad resolution (one thing that is excellent on the PinePhone btw.) and it is too heavy. It is a far less attractive package compared to the PinePhone which has "pretty ok" specs througout. So I am really excited for things like the cutiepie[1] or the jingos tablet[2] (if it is not a scam). Although the latter will come with a custom linux kernel which kinda makes the advantage of a (mainline) linux tablet worthless since one still depends on some people maintaining some old linux fork. [0]: https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/ https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/ [1]: https://cutiepi.io/ https://cutiepi.io/ [2]: https://en.jingos.com/jingpad-a1/ https://en.jingos.com/jingpad-a1/
  • MartijnBraam 6y ago
    Yeah PineTab doesn't have the best specs, but at least it's very cheap :)
    • ruph123 6y ago
      Thank you for your work btw. It is much appreciated! And I plan on building apps myself in the future. But since I want to use Rust with GTK it is a bit hard to get everything fit together as a GTK-newbie (including glade).
• sp1rit 6y ago
  > Still people want to create more distributions (mostly from scratch trying to emulate an android/ios experience more) instead of actually implementing missing features in the existing distributions or fixing issues in the upstream applications those use. Even before doing that, I think the most important thing for Linux phones is getting HW-Accel to work. Any Android/iOS phone nowadays renders basically anything on the GPU and it makes the experience of using a computing device so much better. Obviously this is very hard, as free hardware drivers (especially for high-end SOCs) are rarely available.
• das4119 6y ago
  Yes. Yes I do. Make it happen. Tomorrow [1] How? the existing handset manufacturers just need to make their phones functional enough for linux and/or provide the various blobs in a straightforward manner. And a suitable stretch goal? few or no blobs. Alternative approach: release the blobs for old phones so we[2] can at least actually write our own updates. There. No weird hardware needed. Just existing handsets. Just start there. [1] next week is also good. [2] or someone who is more clever, has more time available, or otherwise more motivated.
• flippinburgers 6y ago
  Yes I want a phone that I can keep up-to-date and that allows me to swap out hardware.
• varispeed 6y ago
  I don't care much what OS is powering the phone. I just want to be able to compile all the firmware and be able to review the source code.
• taosx 6y ago
  I don't own a linux phone yet but from the last reviews I would buy one immediately if it had last generation hardware + hardware acceleration. (don't even need a camera or other gizmos).
• abdulmuhaimin 6y ago
  I wonder if there are any current phone company that is interested to jump into Linux phone in the future
• spacemanmatt 6y ago
  I shouldn't have to care. I absolutely love my P2. I would like little more than permanent support for Android on my P2. Why? I just want working hardware to be able to continue to work. It's still a great phone for me. If a "Linux phone" means the OS vendor doesn't isolate me from updates just because they have new hardware out, then yes, I want a Linux phone.
• amelius 6y ago
  I also want a Linux SmartTV.
• everdrive 6y ago
  I want a phone that doesn't track the living hell out of me, and has an OS which I can modify and reinstall myself, and most importantly, doesn't immediately stop receiving security updates after 1 year. It doesn't have to be Linux, but that seems like the best candidate. I'm very happy to be proven wrong here.
• rburhum 6y ago
  Yes
• oaiey 6y ago
  I am a C# dev. As much as I love working on Linux, how can I contribute to Linux itself. Gnome default userland killed the last C# based apps years ago when I remember right. All meaningful work (stuff which goes upstream) is in C++ ... a language where I have no joy writing code in.
• jlkuester7 6y ago
  I recently bought a PinePhone and honestly the experience of tinkering with it reminds me of what it was like to tinker with Linux back in the early 2000's. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. You get the same feeling of freedom and realization of just how locked down the incumbent ecosystems are. But, at the same time, there is little that is guaranteed to work out of the box and a willingness to tinker is required (Anyone remember trying to print from Linux to a networked Windows printer back in the day? It was possible, sometimes, but never straightforward.) I have no doubt that as ARM proliferates, the Linux phone experience will continue to improve, but it is going to take time (and as the article points out, it is going to take development effort from the community). Realistically, though, Linux phones will never reach Android/iOS levels of smoothness until you get a couple companies that want to disrupt the Android/iOS duopoly with a new Linux-based offering.... Until then, Linux phones are a no-go for mainstream users. That being said, mainstream users who just want a working phone that is not a massive data funnel back to FANG already have a really good option with https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/
• foxyv 6y ago
  I have an Asus laptop I bought 6 or so years ago that I loaded Mint Linux onto when I found I hated Windows 8. That thing is still working perfectly. Every other device seems to slow down with every single update until it's almost unusable. The tablets have all slowly degraded. The phones are worthless junk that barely even runs now. My Windows 7 laptop isn't worth the space it takes up, even after a system restore. Yes, I want a Linux phone please! Especially one I can get parts and batteries for. Something with a removable battery even. Although I must admit, Motorola does a pretty good job with their unlocked Android phones.
• wly_cdgr 6y ago
  Yes
• corobo 6y ago
  I don't want a Linux phone, I want a handheld Linux computer Put phone calls in it if you want, but I'm probably never going to use it. The sim would be for mobile data access Of course I can already SSH using my iPhone, the big thing I'm missing is a physical keyboard. Something like a Blackberry or that Nokia one with the slide out keyboard would be fantastic
• jcadam 6y ago
  A Linux phone will absolutely need something compatible with Apple CarPlay and/or Android auto. I assume most people are like me and prefer to use their phone's navigation apps rather than their car's built in navigation (which is always outdated and inferior).
• sangnoir 6y ago
  I think the author is conflating Linux "culture", for the a lack of a better term, with the Linux "tech-stack". A lot of people like the extensibility of a "Linux phone" (here, meaning the tech), but do not give 2 shits about the culture-slash-zealotry, as exemplified by a distrust/dislike of technologies just because the are from megacorps like Google: what's wrong with writing Flutter UI on the Pinephone? Is it because Flutter was originally authored by Google?
• kevinhq 6y ago
  I do. Mostly I just use my phone for browsing. So, I want my phone to only have firefox browser wit uBo installed. No need for other apps (messages, phone, contact, any 3rd party app)
• Valkhyr 6y ago
  I backed the Librem 5 and I have a Pinephone on order. Yet I can comfortably say that I don't care one bit about "Linux phones". I want a handheld Linux computer, and it just so happens that these attempts to make "phones" are the closest approximation. But if there was a mobile Linux distro that did not waste development time on features like calling, SMS or camera, and hardware that used the space wasted by camera, receiver etc for additional battery capacity, I would most certainly buy that. I'm happy to use an Android or iOS device as a smartphone. I want a pocketable computer to do things those devices cannot (or rather: refuse to) let me do.