6 ms·

That's cool and all, but who is actually out here using a linux phone?

fartcannon 5y ago
Hey there!
fsflover 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959506 And I'm using a Pinephone as a daily driver, too.
- Arnavion 5y ago
  (Note that kop316, who has the second comment there complaining about lack of MMS support, went on to implement MMS support themselves by writing mmsd-tng. Many distros added it recently and it supposedly should work with Phosh's Chatty and on SXMO.)
  - kop316 5y ago
    Yep, I wrote most of the support in for Chatty myself as well. Chatty works pretty well with MMS, and I have been using a Pinephone/Librem 5 full time for almost 2 months now.
dleslie 5y ago
I have a Pinephone. I tried, in earnest, to use it as a daily driver; but the software stack was hideously unperformant and the camera was just too awful. I have young kids; I need to take pictures quickly on occasion. I couldn't rely on the phone to do that, not by a long shot, and so it remains a pointless curiousity that I purchased.
- taeric 5y ago
  I can't rely on any phone's camera for speed. Sucks to hear this one is even worse than normal.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    The camera is so bad that it's even a shame that they bothered adding it. The additional cost for the hardware clearly wasn't worth it.
    - floren 5y ago
      Seconded. It's been several years of development time and I still think I'd get better pictures with one of those cameras that saved pictures on floppy disks. I've bought two Pinephones and I hope things go well but man, I install Mobian and wonder what exactly their long term plan is... it runs like an absolute dog, worse than a $30 Android prepaid phone. The only way to get reasonable performance has been to use sxmo, which is ok for me but not the experience normal people want.
      - fsflover 5y ago
        If you need a good camera, consider Librem 5 instead.
        seba_dos1 5y ago
        Note that while it's already possible to get really good looking photos out of L5 camera, there's still quite a lot of software work left to do for it to work in an effortless point-and-shoot fashion. It will come, just be aware it's not there yet.
    - ben-schaaf 5y ago
      If Pine64 didn't include hardware that wasn't fully software supported at any arbitrary point in time then the PinePhone as a whole wouldn't exist in the first place. The thing with the cameras is there's hardly anyone putting effort into them - on average around ~1 person is working on the entire camera stack in their free time (there's a number of people, but none spend their whole time on the cameras). So it's honestly pretty amazing how far we've already come.
  - kaba0 5y ago
- bogwog 5y ago
  To be fair, the Pinephone store very clearly states that this is a beta device intended for experience linux developers/early adopters only. It’s not meant to be a daily driver yet.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    It's not Beta. At the time I purchased it, it wasn't even Alpha. Beta, as a game developer, implies to me that there's a few outstanding show-stoppers but on the whole the product is safe to show to eager end-consumers who are willing to tolerate some rough edges. The PinePhone isn't even that, yet; I couldn't conscientiously hand it to a non-techy and ask them for feedback because I'm not even sure it would reliably respond to their touch input, let alone do anything else.
    - asddubs 5y ago
      Seems like you're just arguing semantics. The pinephone is very clearly advertised as aimed at developers
      - dleslie 5y ago
        The question was if anyone was using a Linux phone. Did I use it to tinker with mobile Linux? Sure. Did I find success using it as a phone? No. It's nowhere near ready to be used as a phone outside of tinkering.
        asddubs 5y ago
        Well, I don't disagree with that, my point was just that you're arguing semantics regarding the word beta, because their marketing is very clear about what it is (and I'd also argue that beta for hardware is a different standard than for games, but I guess now I'm arguing semantics)
      - selfhoster11 5y ago
        Do you think even a developer will want to use something that falls apart in their hands like wet sawdust as a daily driver? As a developer, hell no. I'll give Linux phones a couple more years before I try that.
- ben-schaaf 5y ago
  With my recent kernel patches megapixels starts in 2s, which is less than my android phone. It wasn't too long ago the camera app ran at 2 fps and it's now at 60. I feel like a lot of people are criticizing the PinePhone from the perspective of a product, instead of the labour of love that it really is. Things are constantly improving, but it's not many of us that are spending our free time to do so.
jcelerier 5y ago
If my Jolla phone hadn't kicked the bucket i'd definitely still use it
- m4rtink 5y ago
  I have Xperia 10 II with officially supported Sailfish OS as my primary device, with family member using Xperia X in similar capacity. :)
kop316 5y ago
I am. I have used a Pinephone with Mobian daily for a while, I am currently using a Librem 5 with PureOS. I only turned on my Android phone once since December, and that was to factory reset it since I wasn't using it.
asddubs 5y ago
I'm not, but I would love to some day. I fucking hate my android phone (and the iphone is just as terrible, in slightly different and often the same ways). Thank god for the people tinkering on pinephones and purism phones, paving the way for something less awful, with control in the hands of the user We're not there yet, but we won't ever be unless people put effort into it. The linux desktop used to suck, too
- nomel 5y ago
  To me, phone os is an easy way to get to apps, switch between apps, and handle notifications. It appears to be something else for you. What is an ideal phone for you, and how would Linux help achieve that experience?
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Not the person you're replying to, but I have the same issue. The phone OS is indeed a way to get to apps for me. And the problem is that the "alternative" phone OSes don't have access to apps that I've woven into my day-to-day-life: banking apps, contactless payments, video streaming, music streaming, etc. None of these are available on platforms other than iOS or Android, unfortunately. Some of them have web experiences, but they're terrible on mobile when compared to their app. I, too, would love to run a mobile-optimized Linux desktop on my phone, but it's not about the desktop, it's about the apps and functionality it gives me access to. So I'm stuck with Android for the time being. What would be really cool is if these alt mobile OSes could perfectly emulate Android to the point that Google's SafetyNet would believe that everything is a-ok. Not sure if that's even technically possible, but could help bridge the gap and allow alternative OSes to gain some market share among people who aren't willing to give up many of their usual mobile apps. > What is an ideal phone for you, and how would Linux help achieve that experience? The main bits for me are privacy and control. I refuse to use an iPhone because I viscerally hate Apple's stranglehold over the platform. I very reluctantly use Android, hating that Google is always watching. A fully-open mobile OS where I get to choose what runs on it, how it runs, and what access it gets would solve both of those problems.
  - asddubs 5y ago
goodpoint 5y ago
A bunch of people are. If you compare the efforts of communities of volunteers against the investments in google/apple phones you can already call FOSS phones a big success.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  The idiotic silent downvotes are unnecessary.
  - Arnavion 5y ago
    This board has a real hate-boner for the PinePhone for some reason. Any phone that isn't 100% as capable as a flagship iOS or Android gets defined as "not ready to be a daily driver", because people think their definition of "daily driver" is some universal constant that everyone abides by. The rest of us who happily use it as a daily driver apparently don't exist in their worldview. Already in this subthread there's "We're not there yet", "I couldn't conscientiously hand it to a non-techy", "It's nowhere near ready to be used as a phone outside of tinkering", "something that falls apart in their hands like wet sawdust", ...
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      I wonder if it's a sign of the HN crowd moving from startups to FAANGs. So much for the "hacker" news...
    - dang 5y ago
      > This board has a real hate-boner for the PinePhone for some reason What a strange thing to say. It's hugely popular on HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=pinephone%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=pinephone&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
      - Arnavion 5y ago
pinephoneguy 5y ago
I do. I run Fluxbox on PostMarketOS. I use dino with jmp.chat for mms. I use emacs diary+git for calendar. I have some custom power management service I wrote shortly after getting the phone so it gets long battery life. My bank and brokerage both have decent web sites. I'll never go back to a non-Linux phone, I'd rather not have a phone at all than tolerate the older mobile OSes.
seba_dos1 5y ago
I am, typing from my Librem 5 right now during my usual morning browsing.
urthor 5y ago
Unlikely to, soon. If I could flash Android hardware I would... one day. Phones are battery operated. Performance per watt is mission critical.

Hey there!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24959506 And I'm using a Pinephone as a daily driver, too.

Arnavion 5y ago
(Note that kop316, who has the second comment there complaining about lack of MMS support, went on to implement MMS support themselves by writing mmsd-tng. Many distros added it recently and it supposedly should work with Phosh's Chatty and on SXMO.)
- kop316 5y ago
  Yep, I wrote most of the support in for Chatty myself as well. Chatty works pretty well with MMS, and I have been using a Pinephone/Librem 5 full time for almost 2 months now.

dleslie 5y ago

I have a Pinephone. I tried, in earnest, to use it as a daily driver; but the software stack was hideously unperformant and the camera was just too awful. I have young kids; I need to take pictures quickly on occasion. I couldn't rely on the phone to do that, not by a long shot, and so it remains a pointless curiousity that I purchased.

taeric 5y ago
I can't rely on any phone's camera for speed. Sucks to hear this one is even worse than normal.
- dleslie 5y ago
  The camera is so bad that it's even a shame that they bothered adding it. The additional cost for the hardware clearly wasn't worth it.
  - floren 5y ago
    Seconded. It's been several years of development time and I still think I'd get better pictures with one of those cameras that saved pictures on floppy disks. I've bought two Pinephones and I hope things go well but man, I install Mobian and wonder what exactly their long term plan is... it runs like an absolute dog, worse than a $30 Android prepaid phone. The only way to get reasonable performance has been to use sxmo, which is ok for me but not the experience normal people want.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      If you need a good camera, consider Librem 5 instead.
      - seba_dos1 5y ago
        Note that while it's already possible to get really good looking photos out of L5 camera, there's still quite a lot of software work left to do for it to work in an effortless point-and-shoot fashion. It will come, just be aware it's not there yet.
  - ben-schaaf 5y ago
    If Pine64 didn't include hardware that wasn't fully software supported at any arbitrary point in time then the PinePhone as a whole wouldn't exist in the first place. The thing with the cameras is there's hardly anyone putting effort into them - on average around ~1 person is working on the entire camera stack in their free time (there's a number of people, but none spend their whole time on the cameras). So it's honestly pretty amazing how far we've already come.
- kaba0 5y ago
bogwog 5y ago
To be fair, the Pinephone store very clearly states that this is a beta device intended for experience linux developers/early adopters only. It’s not meant to be a daily driver yet.
- dleslie 5y ago
  It's not Beta. At the time I purchased it, it wasn't even Alpha. Beta, as a game developer, implies to me that there's a few outstanding show-stoppers but on the whole the product is safe to show to eager end-consumers who are willing to tolerate some rough edges. The PinePhone isn't even that, yet; I couldn't conscientiously hand it to a non-techy and ask them for feedback because I'm not even sure it would reliably respond to their touch input, let alone do anything else.
  - asddubs 5y ago
    Seems like you're just arguing semantics. The pinephone is very clearly advertised as aimed at developers
    - dleslie 5y ago
      The question was if anyone was using a Linux phone. Did I use it to tinker with mobile Linux? Sure. Did I find success using it as a phone? No. It's nowhere near ready to be used as a phone outside of tinkering.
      - asddubs 5y ago
        Well, I don't disagree with that, my point was just that you're arguing semantics regarding the word beta, because their marketing is very clear about what it is (and I'd also argue that beta for hardware is a different standard than for games, but I guess now I'm arguing semantics)
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      Do you think even a developer will want to use something that falls apart in their hands like wet sawdust as a daily driver? As a developer, hell no. I'll give Linux phones a couple more years before I try that.
ben-schaaf 5y ago
With my recent kernel patches megapixels starts in 2s, which is less than my android phone. It wasn't too long ago the camera app ran at 2 fps and it's now at 60. I feel like a lot of people are criticizing the PinePhone from the perspective of a product, instead of the labour of love that it really is. Things are constantly improving, but it's not many of us that are spending our free time to do so.

jcelerier 5y ago

If my Jolla phone hadn't kicked the bucket i'd definitely still use it

m4rtink 5y ago
I have Xperia 10 II with officially supported Sailfish OS as my primary device, with family member using Xperia X in similar capacity. :)

kop316 5y ago

I am. I have used a Pinephone with Mobian daily for a while, I am currently using a Librem 5 with PureOS. I only turned on my Android phone once since December, and that was to factory reset it since I wasn't using it.

asddubs 5y ago

I'm not, but I would love to some day. I fucking hate my android phone (and the iphone is just as terrible, in slightly different and often the same ways). Thank god for the people tinkering on pinephones and purism phones, paving the way for something less awful, with control in the hands of the user We're not there yet, but we won't ever be unless people put effort into it. The linux desktop used to suck, too

nomel 5y ago
To me, phone os is an easy way to get to apps, switch between apps, and handle notifications. It appears to be something else for you. What is an ideal phone for you, and how would Linux help achieve that experience?
- kelnos 5y ago
  Not the person you're replying to, but I have the same issue. The phone OS is indeed a way to get to apps for me. And the problem is that the "alternative" phone OSes don't have access to apps that I've woven into my day-to-day-life: banking apps, contactless payments, video streaming, music streaming, etc. None of these are available on platforms other than iOS or Android, unfortunately. Some of them have web experiences, but they're terrible on mobile when compared to their app. I, too, would love to run a mobile-optimized Linux desktop on my phone, but it's not about the desktop, it's about the apps and functionality it gives me access to. So I'm stuck with Android for the time being. What would be really cool is if these alt mobile OSes could perfectly emulate Android to the point that Google's SafetyNet would believe that everything is a-ok. Not sure if that's even technically possible, but could help bridge the gap and allow alternative OSes to gain some market share among people who aren't willing to give up many of their usual mobile apps. > What is an ideal phone for you, and how would Linux help achieve that experience? The main bits for me are privacy and control. I refuse to use an iPhone because I viscerally hate Apple's stranglehold over the platform. I very reluctantly use Android, hating that Google is always watching. A fully-open mobile OS where I get to choose what runs on it, how it runs, and what access it gets would solve both of those problems.
- asddubs 5y ago

goodpoint 5y ago

A bunch of people are. If you compare the efforts of communities of volunteers against the investments in google/apple phones you can already call FOSS phones a big success.

goodpoint 5y ago
The idiotic silent downvotes are unnecessary.
- Arnavion 5y ago
  This board has a real hate-boner for the PinePhone for some reason. Any phone that isn't 100% as capable as a flagship iOS or Android gets defined as "not ready to be a daily driver", because people think their definition of "daily driver" is some universal constant that everyone abides by. The rest of us who happily use it as a daily driver apparently don't exist in their worldview. Already in this subthread there's "We're not there yet", "I couldn't conscientiously hand it to a non-techy", "It's nowhere near ready to be used as a phone outside of tinkering", "something that falls apart in their hands like wet sawdust", ...
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    I wonder if it's a sign of the HN crowd moving from startups to FAANGs. So much for the "hacker" news...
  - dang 5y ago
    > This board has a real hate-boner for the PinePhone for some reason What a strange thing to say. It's hugely popular on HN. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=pinephone%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story&storyText=none https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=pinephone&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - Arnavion 5y ago

pinephoneguy 5y ago

I do. I run Fluxbox on PostMarketOS. I use dino with jmp.chat for mms. I use emacs diary+git for calendar. I have some custom power management service I wrote shortly after getting the phone so it gets long battery life. My bank and brokerage both have decent web sites. I'll never go back to a non-Linux phone, I'd rather not have a phone at all than tolerate the older mobile OSes.

seba_dos1 5y ago

I am, typing from my Librem 5 right now during my usual morning browsing.

urthor 5y ago

Unlikely to, soon. If I could flash Android hardware I would... one day. Phones are battery operated. Performance per watt is mission critical.