3 ms·

> that announcement video of the new OS is pretty droll The whole post is droll, it's a big fat nothing-burger based on my casual perusal. Felt like they just

> that announcement video of the new OS is pretty droll The whole post is droll, it's a big fat nothing-burger based on my casual perusal. Felt like they just needed to say something about the version number changing on their distro.

fsflover 5y ago
So you think that convergence is nothing? Perhaps you know some other vendor developing and selling phones with a desktop OS and desktop apps?
- pengaru 5y ago
  Based on my understanding of how all this "convergence" stuff is integrated into GTK/GNOME apps; by explicit integration of libhandy, I know this is a rather unsubstantial post because I didn't see anything illustrating GTK+ apps I actually care about working "convergently". i.e. there was no demonstration of GIMP working in a phone/tablet touch interface being dragged into a desktop monitor seamlessly. So, what exactly am I supposed to be impressed by here? Maybe I need to revisit the post, since I did skim it pretty quickly.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > GIMP working in a phone/tablet touch interface being dragged into a desktop monitor seamlessly. It's a desktop OS. If you connect an external monitor, you can use any desktop software, including GIMP. Works fine on my Pinephone with phosh.
    - pengaru 5y ago
      > It's a desktop OS. If you connect an external monitor, you can use any desktop software, including GIMP. Works fine on my Pinephone with phosh. How is that any different than literally any other distro you can boot on a handheld? You're basically confirming my point; nothing especially "convergent" about pureos to see here, no?
      - fsflover 5y ago
        Not sure what you're talking about. Which other phones allow to run unmodified desktop apps?
        mynameisvlad 5y ago
        That’s not what convergence generally means, though. It means the same apps working across devices in their native formats. People aren’t going to connect their phones to a monitor and dock to use GIMP. People might use GIMP on their phones if it were available.
        fsflover 5y ago
        Using full desktop apps with an external screen is definitely one part of the convergence. Another part, as you say, is a possibility to use desktop apps on the phone screen. There are many already working apps, including desktop Firefox and more: https://forums.puri.sm/t/list-of-apps-that-fit-and-function-well-post-them-here/11361 https://forums.puri.sm/t/list-of-apps-that-fit-and-function-.... Upd: here is GIMP for you: https://social.librem.one/@eliasr/105589789106877911 https://social.librem.one/@eliasr/105589789106877911.
        m4rtink 5y ago
        There is even the (proprietary) desktop like interface called DeX on Samsung devices - so there is definitely potential.
        pengaru 5y ago
        > Not sure what you're talking about. Which other phones allow to run unmodified desktop apps? I'm not sure what you're talking about. We've had the ability to run unmodified desktop linux apps on handhelds since the bad old FPU-less days of the Sharp Zaurus. That's ancient history, and the whole f!cking promise of "convergence" AIUI is to make those applications usable in touch interfaces while being capable of transitioning seamlessly back into a desktop point-and-click interaction model when you dock the handheld. It's basically just an Android thing to be a linux-based handheld that actively obstructs running conventional desktop linux software. And even in that world you can coax it by adding the missing userspace bits, isn't there an android app that does just that (termux)? https://github.com/termux/x11-packages/issues/144 https://github.com/termux/x11-packages/issues/144 Anyways, this feels like a pathetic strawman discussion at this point, I have better things to do today, cheers.
- megous 5y ago
  Pine64. :)
  - fsflover 5y ago
    They're using Purism software mostly.
    - megous 5y ago
      I don't think so. Or is KDE now a Purism project? Or is Sailfish? Or sxmo? Or is p-boot? Or Linux kernel when no drivers overlap between the two SoCs? Or is crust? Or modem manager? Or all the work going into modem's kernel and firmware? Or is megapixels a purism project? Or debian/arch linux arm and all the packaging effort done there that many distros with pinephone support rely on? Pinephone software support is so much more than re-using PureOS components. Anyway your question was: > Perhaps you know some other vendor developing and selling phones with a desktop OS and desktop apps? And that doesn't require any PureOS components for full functionality. I run i3wm on my Pinephone for convergence. Easy to dual-boot into i3wm/arch linux or any other mobile distro for use on the go (mobile wayland based DEs have terrible performance with dual monitor use anyway, compared to plain old Xorg, and if anything is less needed is to fluidly swap between desktop and mobile UI, when reboot takes a few seconds anyway). Maybe some people really need that kind of convergence, but dual boot is enough for me. I've made this project to showcase that functionality to people, and to also show that there's not just PureOS/phosh https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/ https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GjXQFnMHGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GjXQFnMHGY
      - fsflover 5y ago
        I actually said mostly. More than half users use phosh on their Pinephone AFAIK (including myself). I don't argue that it's all there is to software on the Pinephone. There are definitely many other important pieces. But I don't like how they do not sufficiently acknowledge the Purism contributions IMO. Thank you for the p-boot, it's great and I'm using it myself. However I don't think that volunteer development is sustainable in the long-term and can lead to a usable (daily driver for non-nerds) GNU/Linux phone without commercial contribution.
- chipotle_coyote 5y ago
  The problem is that it doesn't do a super good job of explaining why non-nerds -- or arguably, nerds! -- should care about "convergence" in this regard, and how it improves over existing solutions. I mean, I'm over here in Apple-land, walled garden etc. etc. etc., but there are a lot of applications that I have that exist in both macOS and iOS versions. This is true for most of Apple's own apps, and actually true for a lot of third-party apps, too: in a practical sense, I've had "convergence" for many years now. Sure, these aren't usually literally the same pieces of software running on the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. But from what I can tell, that's not literally true on Purism, either, because the software is going to have to be recompiled for different CPU architectures. So now we're actually a lot closer to what Apple's been doing the last few years with Catalyst (and kind of slouching toward a grander strategy with SwiftUI). And again, not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't actually care in practice how much code is shared between the versions of my prose editor I'm running on the desktop and on the phone, given that they function the same way and edit the same files. (And share them all completely transparently, because they're using iCloud. Walled garden etc. etc., but this is a real selling point.) Purism's real argument is free-as-in-freedom software. And that's a good argument. But I think they need to get a lot better at reaching the "casual but concerned" audience, and that means getting better at writing press releases and product announcements. Speaking as a professional writer, the PureOS 10 announcement page is really, really bad. You may not think it's fair to judge the quality of the product based on that, and it isn't, but it's still going to happen. (Judging from the comments here they also need to get better at, well, shipping hardware, which is an even more serious problem, granted.)

fsflover 5y ago

So you think that convergence is nothing? Perhaps you know some other vendor developing and selling phones with a desktop OS and desktop apps?

pengaru 5y ago
Based on my understanding of how all this "convergence" stuff is integrated into GTK/GNOME apps; by explicit integration of libhandy, I know this is a rather unsubstantial post because I didn't see anything illustrating GTK+ apps I actually care about working "convergently". i.e. there was no demonstration of GIMP working in a phone/tablet touch interface being dragged into a desktop monitor seamlessly. So, what exactly am I supposed to be impressed by here? Maybe I need to revisit the post, since I did skim it pretty quickly.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > GIMP working in a phone/tablet touch interface being dragged into a desktop monitor seamlessly. It's a desktop OS. If you connect an external monitor, you can use any desktop software, including GIMP. Works fine on my Pinephone with phosh.
  - pengaru 5y ago
    > It's a desktop OS. If you connect an external monitor, you can use any desktop software, including GIMP. Works fine on my Pinephone with phosh. How is that any different than literally any other distro you can boot on a handheld? You're basically confirming my point; nothing especially "convergent" about pureos to see here, no?
    - fsflover 5y ago
      Not sure what you're talking about. Which other phones allow to run unmodified desktop apps?
      - mynameisvlad 5y ago
        That’s not what convergence generally means, though. It means the same apps working across devices in their native formats. People aren’t going to connect their phones to a monitor and dock to use GIMP. People might use GIMP on their phones if it were available.
        fsflover 5y ago
        Using full desktop apps with an external screen is definitely one part of the convergence. Another part, as you say, is a possibility to use desktop apps on the phone screen. There are many already working apps, including desktop Firefox and more: https://forums.puri.sm/t/list-of-apps-that-fit-and-function-well-post-them-here/11361 https://forums.puri.sm/t/list-of-apps-that-fit-and-function-.... Upd: here is GIMP for you: https://social.librem.one/@eliasr/105589789106877911 https://social.librem.one/@eliasr/105589789106877911.
        m4rtink 5y ago
        There is even the (proprietary) desktop like interface called DeX on Samsung devices - so there is definitely potential.
      - pengaru 5y ago
        > Not sure what you're talking about. Which other phones allow to run unmodified desktop apps? I'm not sure what you're talking about. We've had the ability to run unmodified desktop linux apps on handhelds since the bad old FPU-less days of the Sharp Zaurus. That's ancient history, and the whole f!cking promise of "convergence" AIUI is to make those applications usable in touch interfaces while being capable of transitioning seamlessly back into a desktop point-and-click interaction model when you dock the handheld. It's basically just an Android thing to be a linux-based handheld that actively obstructs running conventional desktop linux software. And even in that world you can coax it by adding the missing userspace bits, isn't there an android app that does just that (termux)? https://github.com/termux/x11-packages/issues/144 https://github.com/termux/x11-packages/issues/144 Anyways, this feels like a pathetic strawman discussion at this point, I have better things to do today, cheers.
megous 5y ago
Pine64. :)
- fsflover 5y ago
  They're using Purism software mostly.
  - megous 5y ago
    I don't think so. Or is KDE now a Purism project? Or is Sailfish? Or sxmo? Or is p-boot? Or Linux kernel when no drivers overlap between the two SoCs? Or is crust? Or modem manager? Or all the work going into modem's kernel and firmware? Or is megapixels a purism project? Or debian/arch linux arm and all the packaging effort done there that many distros with pinephone support rely on? Pinephone software support is so much more than re-using PureOS components. Anyway your question was: > Perhaps you know some other vendor developing and selling phones with a desktop OS and desktop apps? And that doesn't require any PureOS components for full functionality. I run i3wm on my Pinephone for convergence. Easy to dual-boot into i3wm/arch linux or any other mobile distro for use on the go (mobile wayland based DEs have terrible performance with dual monitor use anyway, compared to plain old Xorg, and if anything is less needed is to fluidly swap between desktop and mobile UI, when reboot takes a few seconds anyway). Maybe some people really need that kind of convergence, but dual boot is enough for me. I've made this project to showcase that functionality to people, and to also show that there's not just PureOS/phosh https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/ https://xnux.eu/p-boot-demo/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GjXQFnMHGY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GjXQFnMHGY
    - fsflover 5y ago
      I actually said mostly. More than half users use phosh on their Pinephone AFAIK (including myself). I don't argue that it's all there is to software on the Pinephone. There are definitely many other important pieces. But I don't like how they do not sufficiently acknowledge the Purism contributions IMO. Thank you for the p-boot, it's great and I'm using it myself. However I don't think that volunteer development is sustainable in the long-term and can lead to a usable (daily driver for non-nerds) GNU/Linux phone without commercial contribution.
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
The problem is that it doesn't do a super good job of explaining why non-nerds -- or arguably, nerds! -- should care about "convergence" in this regard, and how it improves over existing solutions. I mean, I'm over here in Apple-land, walled garden etc. etc. etc., but there are a lot of applications that I have that exist in both macOS and iOS versions. This is true for most of Apple's own apps, and actually true for a lot of third-party apps, too: in a practical sense, I've had "convergence" for many years now. Sure, these aren't usually literally the same pieces of software running on the Mac, the iPhone, and the iPad. But from what I can tell, that's not literally true on Purism, either, because the software is going to have to be recompiled for different CPU architectures. So now we're actually a lot closer to what Apple's been doing the last few years with Catalyst (and kind of slouching toward a grander strategy with SwiftUI). And again, not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't actually care in practice how much code is shared between the versions of my prose editor I'm running on the desktop and on the phone, given that they function the same way and edit the same files. (And share them all completely transparently, because they're using iCloud. Walled garden etc. etc., but this is a real selling point.) Purism's real argument is free-as-in-freedom software. And that's a good argument. But I think they need to get a lot better at reaching the "casual but concerned" audience, and that means getting better at writing press releases and product announcements. Speaking as a professional writer, the PureOS 10 announcement page is really, really bad. You may not think it's fair to judge the quality of the product based on that, and it isn't, but it's still going to happen. (Judging from the comments here they also need to get better at, well, shipping hardware, which is an even more serious problem, granted.)