5 ms·

For me the main pain point of the current PinePhone is not its performance, it's the driver and firmware issues. Mainline Linux does not work well with the curr

For me the main pain point of the current PinePhone is not its performance, it's the driver and firmware issues. Mainline Linux does not work well with the current PinePhone and various patches are not upstreamed or not even written yet to fix the remaining bugs. The cameras don't work with most software, the out-of-tree WiFi driver has stability issues to the point where I rather use LTE or USB, the USB-C firmware is flunky, the modem firmware crashes and needs a lot of workarounds. I hoped they chose components for the PinePhone Pro that work out of the box in terms of firmware and having no downstream Linux patches in the near future, but it seems quite similar to the current PinePhone, only slight improvements. The camera OV5640 is the same (hopefully someone came up with better v4l2 integration since the second camera is different?), the modem EG25-G is the same, no info on the used USB-C chip, but at least there is a better WiFi chip.

megous 5y ago
Wifi is different, with mainline driver and regularly updated firmware from cypress (same as Rpi4 wifi chip). Type-C stuff is different, more sane. Main camera is different and selected to already have mainline linux support... I don't think this complaint is fair. Only major thing that's the same is the modem, but that would be quite annoying thing to change, because it would void the hard work of people working on the FOSS Linux stack for EG25-G modem.
- Klasiaster 5y ago
  Great to hear about the USB-C situation improving and confirmation about better WiFi! Do both cameras already work with common V4L2 applications like Firefox, Cheese etc? Yes, it's sane to keep the EG25-G modem only because there is one guy doing an enormous work with https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk
  - megous 5y ago
    That's not a problem with camera drivers but with firefox and cheese using old APIs. Cameras are v4l2 subdevices, cheese ignores all that. Firefox is the same I guess. It will improve once these big apps switch to libcamera, like Chrome is doing.
MartijnBraam 5y ago
The ov5640 is the same, but it's now the front camera instead of the rear camera. It's replacing the gc2145 front sensor on the pinephone that's not doing great. The new imx rear camera also already has a driver in mainline that can be built on. The majority of the work will be getting the rk3399 side of the cameras to work
guerrilla 5y ago
I think your expectations may not be aligned with what they're selling. From the website: > We’re not in the business of selling empty promises – a much faster mainline Linux smartphone won’t make the existing operating systems more refined, nor will it magically spawn software replacements for your iOS or Android applications. There is a long road ahead of us, all of us, and it will require time and effort for the software to reach a degree of maturity that would satisfy mainstream users.
- Klasiaster 5y ago
  I'm not a hardware guy and think it's a question about the approach: do you build something and throw it to the kernel devs to see if they can make it work, or do you build something and see yourself if it works well with existing software.
CameronNemo 5y ago
Weird that they advertise how this is a mainline Linux experience, while at the same time claiming video output through the typec port. I own a PinebookPro. The only way I get video output through the typec port is through some hacky patchset that will not be accepted upstream, and which occasionally breaks on new kernel releases. Some people report that it does not work whatsoever. I actually have to flip the typec plug to get it to work -- the video output is not reversible for some reason. They also mention that the Pinephone Pro will support a suspend mode, which is something I have never been able to get working on my PinebookPro. The best that device can do is 1.7W while idle. I'm glad to see this announcement, because I hope that these new rk3399-ish devices will improve software support for my PBP, but I implore anyone who is concerned about the above two features to wait and see. I certainly won't be buying another rk3399 device anytime soon, even though it is one of the best supported high performance offerings for mainline TF-A, U-Boot, and Linux.
Fnoord 5y ago
> but at least there is a better WiFi chip. Strangely, it sports Bluetooth 4.1, while 5.1 is from December 2019.

megous 5y ago

Wifi is different, with mainline driver and regularly updated firmware from cypress (same as Rpi4 wifi chip). Type-C stuff is different, more sane. Main camera is different and selected to already have mainline linux support... I don't think this complaint is fair. Only major thing that's the same is the modem, but that would be quite annoying thing to change, because it would void the hard work of people working on the FOSS Linux stack for EG25-G modem.

Klasiaster 5y ago
Great to hear about the USB-C situation improving and confirmation about better WiFi! Do both cameras already work with common V4L2 applications like Firefox, Cheese etc? Yes, it's sane to keep the EG25-G modem only because there is one guy doing an enormous work with https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk
- megous 5y ago
  That's not a problem with camera drivers but with firefox and cheese using old APIs. Cameras are v4l2 subdevices, cheese ignores all that. Firefox is the same I guess. It will improve once these big apps switch to libcamera, like Chrome is doing.

MartijnBraam 5y ago

The ov5640 is the same, but it's now the front camera instead of the rear camera. It's replacing the gc2145 front sensor on the pinephone that's not doing great. The new imx rear camera also already has a driver in mainline that can be built on. The majority of the work will be getting the rk3399 side of the cameras to work

guerrilla 5y ago

I think your expectations may not be aligned with what they're selling. From the website: > We’re not in the business of selling empty promises – a much faster mainline Linux smartphone won’t make the existing operating systems more refined, nor will it magically spawn software replacements for your iOS or Android applications. There is a long road ahead of us, all of us, and it will require time and effort for the software to reach a degree of maturity that would satisfy mainstream users.

Klasiaster 5y ago
I'm not a hardware guy and think it's a question about the approach: do you build something and throw it to the kernel devs to see if they can make it work, or do you build something and see yourself if it works well with existing software.

CameronNemo 5y ago

Weird that they advertise how this is a mainline Linux experience, while at the same time claiming video output through the typec port. I own a PinebookPro. The only way I get video output through the typec port is through some hacky patchset that will not be accepted upstream, and which occasionally breaks on new kernel releases. Some people report that it does not work whatsoever. I actually have to flip the typec plug to get it to work -- the video output is not reversible for some reason. They also mention that the Pinephone Pro will support a suspend mode, which is something I have never been able to get working on my PinebookPro. The best that device can do is 1.7W while idle. I'm glad to see this announcement, because I hope that these new rk3399-ish devices will improve software support for my PBP, but I implore anyone who is concerned about the above two features to wait and see. I certainly won't be buying another rk3399 device anytime soon, even though it is one of the best supported high performance offerings for mainline TF-A, U-Boot, and Linux.

Fnoord 5y ago

> but at least there is a better WiFi chip. Strangely, it sports Bluetooth 4.1, while 5.1 is from December 2019.