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OP's setup looks actually pretty similar to my one, though where the pinephone really - really - shines is pentesting. The compatibility with external Wifi USB

OP's setup looks actually pretty similar to my one, though where the pinephone really - really - shines is pentesting. The compatibility with external Wifi USB adapters and BT hardware like the ones from scott's gadgets make it an amazing pentesting device. For serious mobile-friendly usage I don't think that we can build UIs the way they're built on Linux systems anymore. I challenge every defender of that GTK/QT crap to build a swipeable sidebar into their native and responsive UI. If it takes more than 10 minutes, you lost, cause that's what it takes to use CSS, even without any IDE or toolkit. I wish GTK wasn't built inhouse and would focus on using established toolchains instead of reinventing their own programming language ecosystem with every new release. Nobody wants to use vala. Nobody wants to use glade. Nobody wants to use any of the ecosystem, because it's much more pain than any established UI framework's methodology. There's a reason why everyone uses electron, and the reasons are not the same why you think your GNOMey toolchains matter. And this has to stop. Otherwise everybody will hop on QT at some point. I still hope that webkit, javascriptcore and nodejs can be combined into something that allows to easily call C-ABI compatible libraries without 300MB of build size like electron. [1] [1] https://github.com/tholian-network/retrokit https://github.com/tholian-network/retrokit

OJFord 5y ago
> I still hope that webkit, javascriptcore and nodejs can be combined into something that allows to easily call C-ABI compatible libraries without 300MB of build size like electron. Have you seen Tauri? (Happy user, for a couple of side tinkerings, not otherwise affiliated.)
- cookiengineer 5y ago
  Yeah I've seen tauri, but they're just using the glib bindings for webkit-gtk. So they're just sharing the preinstalled browser for rendering inside a webview. My goal, compared to tauri (or webview/webview), is to offer an alternative, slimmed-down version that can be used to bundle apps on mobile and embedded devices. I mean, from a security point of view you have to assume that Edge and Chrome are compromised, so all your tauri apps will be compromised too. So in retrokit I removed things like the massive plugin legacy in webkit, or pdfkit integrations and other stuff that was unnecessary, or webgl, or canvas, or the static geolocation API (which comes with a static copy of the ip<>geolocation database) etc.
CyberRabbi 5y ago
> I still hope that webkit, javascriptcore and nodejs can be combined into something that allows to easily call C-ABI compatible libraries without 300MB of build size like electron. [1] Build it
Terry_Roll 5y ago
> though where the pinephone really - really - shines is pentesting. Its worth having some near field communication pentesting apps on it, as many mental health hospitals use NFC bracelets for locking people up and to control what corridors they can get access to within the building so it could be an easy way to walk out of those sorts of establishments where lock and key are no longer used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication#Criti... https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/near-field-communication-nfc-technology-vulnerabilities-and-principal-attack-schema/ https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/near-field-comm...
- 3np 5y ago
  Pinephone doesn't have built-in NFC hardware and while an NFC back-cover was talked about in 2020, nothing available yet. So one would have to either DIY something through the pogo pins or go over USB as of now.
chefandy 5y ago
Worth noting that it's not just the technical end of UI construction that's lacking. Many open-source web projects have crappy UIs, too. I'm a long-time full-time developer, decades-long linux user, and also wrapping up a BFA in design, so I think my perspective is pretty balanced, here. With amateur developers, their code becomes less reliable the further you get from their development environment. The effect is similar the further you move from a developer's primary keyboard/mouse/big screen computing interface. The difference between interfaces intentionally designed by specialists and functionality exposed through a GUI by a developer becomes more consequential. Sadly, most open source projects not run by larger funded organizations are kind of allergic to usability contributions from domain specialists, so that knowledge just doesn't get rolled in like it does with commercial projects. Most of the other developer/designer types I know don't even bother submitting design and usability improvements to open source projects. It's just not worth fighting people to make their software less awful to people who aren't already experts in it. It's a lot of work to put into something that will just get bikeshedded into oblivion by people emotionally attached to a bad ui. I don't know any developer who'd submit code to a repo controlled by people hostile towards code improvements, either. The Nielsen Norman group has some good stuff on usability within hierarchical organizations— I'd love to see similar organization-level reasoning about this stuff for small dev groups. I'm positive these two adjacent and necessary roles can function together without a product manager saying so. In their original usability matrix, "developer-centric usage" was directly above "usability hostile" but they've combined those categories, and especially with non-desktop platforms, that's absolutely the right move.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  >The Nielsen Norman group has some good stuff on usability within hierarchical organizations Can you give a link?
  - chefandy 5y ago
    Way too many to enumerate, but this is a good start: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stage-1/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stage-1/
- 5y ago
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I challenge every defender of that GTK/QT crap to build a swipeable sidebar into their native and responsive UI. If it takes more than 10 minutes, you lost, cause that's what it takes to use CSS, even without any IDE or toolkit. You get this for free with Qt's QML Drawer type, and it's also a declarative UI, so you don't have to implement anything yourself[1]. It's swipeable by default. You also get it for free with Flutter's NavDrawer. [1] https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquickcontrols-sidepanel-example.html https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquickcontrols-sidepanel-example.htm...
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but I'm fairly sure it's also "for free" with GTK2/3's "stack" dialogue. Don't think it's still the case with GTK4 though, I'm pretty sure all that gesture functionality was broken out into a separate library...
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm not familiar enough with modern GTK to speak on its behalf.

OJFord 5y ago

> I still hope that webkit, javascriptcore and nodejs can be combined into something that allows to easily call C-ABI compatible libraries without 300MB of build size like electron. Have you seen Tauri? (Happy user, for a couple of side tinkerings, not otherwise affiliated.)

cookiengineer 5y ago
Yeah I've seen tauri, but they're just using the glib bindings for webkit-gtk. So they're just sharing the preinstalled browser for rendering inside a webview. My goal, compared to tauri (or webview/webview), is to offer an alternative, slimmed-down version that can be used to bundle apps on mobile and embedded devices. I mean, from a security point of view you have to assume that Edge and Chrome are compromised, so all your tauri apps will be compromised too. So in retrokit I removed things like the massive plugin legacy in webkit, or pdfkit integrations and other stuff that was unnecessary, or webgl, or canvas, or the static geolocation API (which comes with a static copy of the ip<>geolocation database) etc.

CyberRabbi 5y ago

> I still hope that webkit, javascriptcore and nodejs can be combined into something that allows to easily call C-ABI compatible libraries without 300MB of build size like electron. [1] Build it

Terry_Roll 5y ago

> though where the pinephone really - really - shines is pentesting. Its worth having some near field communication pentesting apps on it, as many mental health hospitals use NFC bracelets for locking people up and to control what corridors they can get access to within the building so it could be an easy way to walk out of those sorts of establishments where lock and key are no longer used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-field_communication#Criti... https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/near-field-communication-nfc-technology-vulnerabilities-and-principal-attack-schema/ https://resources.infosecinstitute.com/topic/near-field-comm...

3np 5y ago
Pinephone doesn't have built-in NFC hardware and while an NFC back-cover was talked about in 2020, nothing available yet. So one would have to either DIY something through the pogo pins or go over USB as of now.

chefandy 5y ago

Worth noting that it's not just the technical end of UI construction that's lacking. Many open-source web projects have crappy UIs, too. I'm a long-time full-time developer, decades-long linux user, and also wrapping up a BFA in design, so I think my perspective is pretty balanced, here. With amateur developers, their code becomes less reliable the further you get from their development environment. The effect is similar the further you move from a developer's primary keyboard/mouse/big screen computing interface. The difference between interfaces intentionally designed by specialists and functionality exposed through a GUI by a developer becomes more consequential. Sadly, most open source projects not run by larger funded organizations are kind of allergic to usability contributions from domain specialists, so that knowledge just doesn't get rolled in like it does with commercial projects. Most of the other developer/designer types I know don't even bother submitting design and usability improvements to open source projects. It's just not worth fighting people to make their software less awful to people who aren't already experts in it. It's a lot of work to put into something that will just get bikeshedded into oblivion by people emotionally attached to a bad ui. I don't know any developer who'd submit code to a repo controlled by people hostile towards code improvements, either. The Nielsen Norman group has some good stuff on usability within hierarchical organizations— I'd love to see similar organization-level reasoning about this stuff for small dev groups. I'm positive these two adjacent and necessary roles can function together without a product manager saying so. In their original usability matrix, "developer-centric usage" was directly above "usability hostile" but they've combined those categories, and especially with non-desktop platforms, that's absolutely the right move.

DeathArrow 5y ago
>The Nielsen Norman group has some good stuff on usability within hierarchical organizations Can you give a link?
- chefandy 5y ago
  Way too many to enumerate, but this is a good start: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stage-1/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-maturity-stage-1/
5y ago

heavyset_go 5y ago

> I challenge every defender of that GTK/QT crap to build a swipeable sidebar into their native and responsive UI. If it takes more than 10 minutes, you lost, cause that's what it takes to use CSS, even without any IDE or toolkit. You get this for free with Qt's QML Drawer type, and it's also a declarative UI, so you don't have to implement anything yourself[1]. It's swipeable by default. You also get it for free with Flutter's NavDrawer. [1] https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquickcontrols-sidepanel-example.html https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtquickcontrols-sidepanel-example.htm...

smoldesu 5y ago
Not to be pedantic, but I'm fairly sure it's also "for free" with GTK2/3's "stack" dialogue. Don't think it's still the case with GTK4 though, I'm pretty sure all that gesture functionality was broken out into a separate library...
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm not familiar enough with modern GTK to speak on its behalf.