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Anyone at all, as long as there are millions of them and they want to actually buy those phones, not just rant about Android and Apple online.

by slver 5y ago

megous 5y ago
What consumer problems this solves depends on who the consumer is. For me as a dev/consumer and a long time Linux user it solves a lot of usability issues. For people used to Android, who don't want to develop anything, or don't care about software licenses, or being able to debug and control their devices when issues happen, it solves little, compared to a random locked down Android phone. For people who just want to phone people/send receive SMS, it solves nothing either, because they can just use a dumbphone. So the answer depends on who the consumer is.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- slver 5y ago
  You've defined your market, it seems, as enthusiast developers who want Linux. But stock Android (without the Google services) is that already. It's FOSS, it uses the Linux kernel, and it comes with the infrastructure to run mobile apps. Even better, it's compatible with many Android apps (as long as they don't need Google Services). So what problem would another Linux mobile OS solve?
  - megous 5y ago
    To me GNU/Linux is the simpler more familiar ecosystem. Android is big and complicated, with different tooling, different APIs, different everything. On GNU/Linux phone I can write apps in regular electron if I like (not some cordova mess), I can access any Linux API and don't need to split my knowledge between mobile and desktop. I can write my phone apps with LAMP or node stack if I want and it would not be some limited kludge or some custom runtime. I can run any of the many apps I've already made over the years there, with miniscule porting effort. I can run postgresql on my phone to store data locally, and not invent some special data backend just for the phone. I don't need to package anything, just copy a file and run it. I can probably do all that with Android too, but it just seems like it would be a horrible kludge.
    - slver 5y ago
      So you don’t just want Linux on the phone. You want basically the desktop Linux ecosystem on the phone. That’s a no go from the start. Even Apple didn’t do that when they made iOS. And the problem we solve with this is so you don’t have to learn something new. That’s honestly a poor problem to have.
      - megous 5y ago
        Funny. :) I've learned much more using pinephone than I ever did using Androids or iPhones I had been lent for testing from a companies I did jobs for. Here's what I've learned for example: https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html I just don't want to learn something that will be completely useless to me, because I'm not interested in commercial mobile apps development for Android, and that's about anything that learning android development will gain me, other than hobby points. Learning general Linux programming and system design has cross-over effects into pretty much everything I do as a hobby or for my clients. With pinephone (or any other GNU/Linux phone, for that matter), pretty much anything I wrote is portable to all other devices I have use for, incl. my desktop and I re-use code very often. Devices like e-book reader I've reverse engineered, which is not based on Android, or other weird little devices I have and like to mess around with that don't run Android. I can learn some obscure Android API abstraction that works only on Android, or I can learn lower level Linux API (that it's using under the wraps anyway), that is fixed in stone, and usable everywhere Linux runs. I just choose what to learn based on what I can use more widely and will stay around longer. If anything it's people who will not consider anything else but Android, and just handwavily reject anything else like many posters in the comments under this article, who seem resistant to learning something new.
        slver 5y ago
        How come you're the guy who said: "To me GNU/Linux is the simpler more familiar ecosystem. Android is big and complicated, with different tooling, different APIs, different everything." And now also says: "If anything it's people who will not consider anything else but Android, and just handwavily reject anything else like many posters in the comments under this article, who seem resistant to learning something new." Honestly it takes quite the logical contortions. I look at it like that: do you want to target a platform that has proven tools and existing audience, your options are iOS and Android. If you think you'll shame people into using PinePhone because it's something new, most people don't just go for "something new", they go for something new that also has a purpose. I'm not sure what's the purpose of PinePhone is. It seems like a niche within a niche within a niche. If that's all it has going for it, that it appeals to people like you, because you're familiar with Linux, it'll fail. And all your investment in it will be for nothing. I don't say this because I want to be a dick, I say this because this is my prediction of what will happen. And I don't decide what happens.

Anyone at all, as long as there are millions of them and they want to actually buy those phones, not just rant about Android and Apple online.

by slver 5y ago

Anyone at all, as long as there are millions of them and they want to actually buy those phones, not just rant about Android and Apple online.

megous 5y ago

What consumer problems this solves depends on who the consumer is. For me as a dev/consumer and a long time Linux user it solves a lot of usability issues. For people used to Android, who don't want to develop anything, or don't care about software licenses, or being able to debug and control their devices when issues happen, it solves little, compared to a random locked down Android phone. For people who just want to phone people/send receive SMS, it solves nothing either, because they can just use a dumbphone. So the answer depends on who the consumer is.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
slver 5y ago
You've defined your market, it seems, as enthusiast developers who want Linux. But stock Android (without the Google services) is that already. It's FOSS, it uses the Linux kernel, and it comes with the infrastructure to run mobile apps. Even better, it's compatible with many Android apps (as long as they don't need Google Services). So what problem would another Linux mobile OS solve?
- megous 5y ago
  To me GNU/Linux is the simpler more familiar ecosystem. Android is big and complicated, with different tooling, different APIs, different everything. On GNU/Linux phone I can write apps in regular electron if I like (not some cordova mess), I can access any Linux API and don't need to split my knowledge between mobile and desktop. I can write my phone apps with LAMP or node stack if I want and it would not be some limited kludge or some custom runtime. I can run any of the many apps I've already made over the years there, with miniscule porting effort. I can run postgresql on my phone to store data locally, and not invent some special data backend just for the phone. I don't need to package anything, just copy a file and run it. I can probably do all that with Android too, but it just seems like it would be a horrible kludge.
  - slver 5y ago
    So you don’t just want Linux on the phone. You want basically the desktop Linux ecosystem on the phone. That’s a no go from the start. Even Apple didn’t do that when they made iOS. And the problem we solve with this is so you don’t have to learn something new. That’s honestly a poor problem to have.
    - megous 5y ago
      Funny. :) I've learned much more using pinephone than I ever did using Androids or iPhones I had been lent for testing from a companies I did jobs for. Here's what I've learned for example: https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html https://xnux.eu/devices/pine64-pinephone.html I just don't want to learn something that will be completely useless to me, because I'm not interested in commercial mobile apps development for Android, and that's about anything that learning android development will gain me, other than hobby points. Learning general Linux programming and system design has cross-over effects into pretty much everything I do as a hobby or for my clients. With pinephone (or any other GNU/Linux phone, for that matter), pretty much anything I wrote is portable to all other devices I have use for, incl. my desktop and I re-use code very often. Devices like e-book reader I've reverse engineered, which is not based on Android, or other weird little devices I have and like to mess around with that don't run Android. I can learn some obscure Android API abstraction that works only on Android, or I can learn lower level Linux API (that it's using under the wraps anyway), that is fixed in stone, and usable everywhere Linux runs. I just choose what to learn based on what I can use more widely and will stay around longer. If anything it's people who will not consider anything else but Android, and just handwavily reject anything else like many posters in the comments under this article, who seem resistant to learning something new.
      - slver 5y ago
        How come you're the guy who said: "To me GNU/Linux is the simpler more familiar ecosystem. Android is big and complicated, with different tooling, different APIs, different everything." And now also says: "If anything it's people who will not consider anything else but Android, and just handwavily reject anything else like many posters in the comments under this article, who seem resistant to learning something new." Honestly it takes quite the logical contortions. I look at it like that: do you want to target a platform that has proven tools and existing audience, your options are iOS and Android. If you think you'll shame people into using PinePhone because it's something new, most people don't just go for "something new", they go for something new that also has a purpose. I'm not sure what's the purpose of PinePhone is. It seems like a niche within a niche within a niche. If that's all it has going for it, that it appeals to people like you, because you're familiar with Linux, it'll fail. And all your investment in it will be for nothing. I don't say this because I want to be a dick, I say this because this is my prediction of what will happen. And I don't decide what happens.