3 ms·

I want to be able to replace my desktop. I don't need much power (most of the things that require performance I do on a remote machine anyway), so being able t

I want to be able to replace my desktop. I don't need much power (most of the things that require performance I do on a remote machine anyway), so being able to do whatever with my phone on the road and then plug it into a monitor and have a desktop Linux would be perfect. The pinePhone can do but it cannot switch from Android to Linux that readily and also, I don't need much power, but the pinePhone is just really not good enough for anything I use a smartphone for (which is not calling).

nine_k 4y ago
The single msat resource-intensive GUI app I have on my laptop is Firefox. (The second, Emacs + language servers.) Without a way to discard and resurrect applications, the way Android does, I don't think a device in a mobile phone form factor could last for a reasonable tine.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  > Without a way to discard and resurrect applications, the way Android does Well, there obviously are handheld devices that are underpowered and definitely are not even close to any modern Android phone, like for instance, the OpenPandora. And yet it was (probably is tbh) capable of doing everything I needed for many years (I used it while travelling into 2019) without issues. Which includes browsing. It's not comfortable because it's so slow, but it works and I rarely have anything crash on it (which is why i'm very surprised the pinephone is so crash prone) while I worked extensive periods on time on it (the battery life is amazing and I can replace the battery); when travelling, I code on 9-12 hour plane rides on it. And before that, there was the Zaurus, which also had no issues like this; it ran fine on very constraint hardware. I took it on my travels to the US to work on (and send photos from my camera sd card to my family back in the Netherlands) about 20 years ago with a linux distro on it. That was definitely phone form factor. Lovely machines actually outside the keyboard (but still better than without keyboard). It seems very possible to me to make a good experience on a handheld in a mobile phone form factor, because it has been done.
- usrn 4y ago
  Modern phones have gigabytes of memory. A normal Xorg DE with typical desktop apps does just fine these days (I know, because I run fluxbox on my Pinephone. I'm on it now in fact with a number of apps running including firefox with 6 tabs open.) What you're saying was true in the days of 512mb phones but those are long over and modern Android couldn't fit there anymore either.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Memory may be relatively plentiful, but CPU is not, if you want decent battery life. This is why suspending and re-activating applications smoothly is important. There must be a standard way to tell the app: "you'll stop executing in 5 seconds, save your state" and "you are thawed after a long period of inactivity". I suspect that this may already be present to support sleep and hibernation.
    - usrn 4y ago
      OSes have done this since before Personal computers. If you write a garbage app that's being scheduled more often than it should be you'll write a garbage app that gets thawed out more often than it should be. All of this Android crap doesn't actually solve any real problems. On Linux, when your program blocks waiting for an event (from Xorg, its tty etc) it uses zero cpu. That's why you can leave well written apps open on a device like this. I've run out of X11 Window IDs (there's a cap in a #defined constant if you check the source) because of this. My laptop from 10 years ago had excellent suspend and the OS was very stable (I often went half a year without powering it off.) Since I have a habit of accumulating Xterm windows I would eventually open more than the limit. This never noticeably affected battery life because if they're just sitting at any sort of prompt they never get scheduled (except to redraw damaged portions of the window.)

nine_k 4y ago

The single msat resource-intensive GUI app I have on my laptop is Firefox. (The second, Emacs + language servers.) Without a way to discard and resurrect applications, the way Android does, I don't think a device in a mobile phone form factor could last for a reasonable tine.

tluyben2 4y ago
> Without a way to discard and resurrect applications, the way Android does Well, there obviously are handheld devices that are underpowered and definitely are not even close to any modern Android phone, like for instance, the OpenPandora. And yet it was (probably is tbh) capable of doing everything I needed for many years (I used it while travelling into 2019) without issues. Which includes browsing. It's not comfortable because it's so slow, but it works and I rarely have anything crash on it (which is why i'm very surprised the pinephone is so crash prone) while I worked extensive periods on time on it (the battery life is amazing and I can replace the battery); when travelling, I code on 9-12 hour plane rides on it. And before that, there was the Zaurus, which also had no issues like this; it ran fine on very constraint hardware. I took it on my travels to the US to work on (and send photos from my camera sd card to my family back in the Netherlands) about 20 years ago with a linux distro on it. That was definitely phone form factor. Lovely machines actually outside the keyboard (but still better than without keyboard). It seems very possible to me to make a good experience on a handheld in a mobile phone form factor, because it has been done.
usrn 4y ago
Modern phones have gigabytes of memory. A normal Xorg DE with typical desktop apps does just fine these days (I know, because I run fluxbox on my Pinephone. I'm on it now in fact with a number of apps running including firefox with 6 tabs open.) What you're saying was true in the days of 512mb phones but those are long over and modern Android couldn't fit there anymore either.
- nine_k 4y ago
  Memory may be relatively plentiful, but CPU is not, if you want decent battery life. This is why suspending and re-activating applications smoothly is important. There must be a standard way to tell the app: "you'll stop executing in 5 seconds, save your state" and "you are thawed after a long period of inactivity". I suspect that this may already be present to support sleep and hibernation.
  - usrn 4y ago
    OSes have done this since before Personal computers. If you write a garbage app that's being scheduled more often than it should be you'll write a garbage app that gets thawed out more often than it should be. All of this Android crap doesn't actually solve any real problems. On Linux, when your program blocks waiting for an event (from Xorg, its tty etc) it uses zero cpu. That's why you can leave well written apps open on a device like this. I've run out of X11 Window IDs (there's a cap in a #defined constant if you check the source) because of this. My laptop from 10 years ago had excellent suspend and the OS was very stable (I often went half a year without powering it off.) Since I have a habit of accumulating Xterm windows I would eventually open more than the limit. This never noticeably affected battery life because if they're just sitting at any sort of prompt they never get scheduled (except to redraw damaged portions of the window.)