5 ms·

I honestly do not see what is so remarkable about it. It just never seemed to me like a unique vision but instead an effort to adapt some existing X11 tools to

by md8z 5y ago

I honestly do not see what is so remarkable about it. It just never seemed to me like a unique vision but instead an effort to adapt some existing X11 tools to a mobile workflow. Which is a fine thing to do if you like those tools, but that's different from having some grand new vision. To elaborate: The use of a tiling window manager with explicit workspaces doesn't really make sense to me on a phone since every app runs fullscreen anyway. The use of shell scripts doesn't really make sense since editing text on a phone is awful. I don't understand what the definition of "power user" means here either. What does this do that other phones and shells can't do? I can edit shell scripts in Termux on Android too, but it's still awful and unpleasant. Unfortunately I just wasn't able to figure out any reason to use it. And just to be clear, I would not describe any Linux phone as a grand new vision. They're sadly all playing catch up. Maybe that will improve in the next few years. Edit: I forgot to mention, the use of volume buttons to control a device with a touchscreen is pretty ridiculous. I mean, come on, you have that big nice touchscreen and you're not going to use it? Or has this improved recently where you don't have to do that anymore? Please let me know, thanks. Maybe I'll try it again if this is any better.

fsflover 5y ago
> The use of shell scripts doesn't really make sense since editing text on a phone is awful. You don't have to write the scripts on the phone. You can ssh into it from your desktop. Or connect a keyboard and screen.
- md8z 5y ago
  Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) I've seen some neat code editors on iOS/Android that do some fun things like: - Have a special keyboard that contains only symbols for the target language - Handles all editing at the AST level so you can't make typos - Make heavy use of completions everywhere possible There seems to be no reason we can't also have that here.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) No, I would say it opens up infinite possibilities for useful customizations. Even if you aren't a programmer, someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case.
    - md8z 5y ago
      I mean if you have to transfer files from your computer or connect a keyboard just to do something on the phone. That's really inconvenient, I've tried to use my Pinephone that way and it's unpleasant. The other platforms have figured this out, where the "someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case" becomes "someone likely writes a relevant app for your use case" and you just go to the app store and download it. No need to mess with scripts or plug in a keyboard, and you still get to have plenty of customization. I believe flatpak has started to add categories for mobile apps so that is bringing us closer to where things need to be. Edit: I found the Purism blog post where they talk about this, the metadata should be usable by anyone doing packaging or building a mobile shell. https://puri.sm/posts/specify-form-factors-in-your-librem-5-apps/ https://puri.sm/posts/specify-form-factors-in-your-librem-5-...
zozbot234 5y ago
> I mean, come on, you have that big nice touchscreen and you're not going to use it? The best case with a desktop-like environment like sxmo is to just reuse the touchscreen digitizer as a plain old touchpad, with some tweak for other gestures (e.g. tap for clicking, double tap for dragging). AIUI, this is how mobile clients for VNC and RDP work already, so enabling this on the mobile desktop itself would be quite straightforward.
- md8z 5y ago
  I don't know, that just seems to me to defeat the purpose of having a touchscreen. I've tried to use those mobile VNC clients and the experience is really bad. It's something I would use if I really had to access some important files on my desktop, but I wouldn't try to log in to my desktop with a mobile VNC client every day just to do work.

by md8z 5y ago

fsflover 5y ago

> The use of shell scripts doesn't really make sense since editing text on a phone is awful. You don't have to write the scripts on the phone. You can ssh into it from your desktop. Or connect a keyboard and screen.

md8z 5y ago
Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) I've seen some neat code editors on iOS/Android that do some fun things like: - Have a special keyboard that contains only symbols for the target language - Handles all editing at the AST level so you can't make typos - Make heavy use of completions everywhere possible There seems to be no reason we can't also have that here.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) No, I would say it opens up infinite possibilities for useful customizations. Even if you aren't a programmer, someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case.
  - md8z 5y ago
    I mean if you have to transfer files from your computer or connect a keyboard just to do something on the phone. That's really inconvenient, I've tried to use my Pinephone that way and it's unpleasant. The other platforms have figured this out, where the "someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case" becomes "someone likely writes a relevant app for your use case" and you just go to the app store and download it. No need to mess with scripts or plug in a keyboard, and you still get to have plenty of customization. I believe flatpak has started to add categories for mobile apps so that is bringing us closer to where things need to be. Edit: I found the Purism blog post where they talk about this, the metadata should be usable by anyone doing packaging or building a mobile shell. https://puri.sm/posts/specify-form-factors-in-your-librem-5-apps/ https://puri.sm/posts/specify-form-factors-in-your-librem-5-...

zozbot234 5y ago

> I mean, come on, you have that big nice touchscreen and you're not going to use it? The best case with a desktop-like environment like sxmo is to just reuse the touchscreen digitizer as a plain old touchpad, with some tweak for other gestures (e.g. tap for clicking, double tap for dragging). AIUI, this is how mobile clients for VNC and RDP work already, so enabling this on the mobile desktop itself would be quite straightforward.

md8z 5y ago
I don't know, that just seems to me to defeat the purpose of having a touchscreen. I've tried to use those mobile VNC clients and the experience is really bad. It's something I would use if I really had to access some important files on my desktop, but I wouldn't try to log in to my desktop with a mobile VNC client every day just to do work.