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It's an Android device with an old unsupported kernel that runs a hacked up Debian-ish userspace on top of Android layer. While that may be good enough for some

It's an Android device with an old unsupported kernel that runs a hacked up Debian-ish userspace on top of Android layer. While that may be good enough for some, it's not what some of us want. I'll stay with my Librem 5, which is also totally usable, runs actual Debian, runs Waydroid too, and does not bring me Halium pain.

Rooster61 2y ago
Most of what I have read has indicated that the Librem 5 is NOT a great daily driver (which was a huge letdown for me). How do you like it?
- margalabargala 2y ago
  Looking at what's missing from their roadmap here: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ No videos? Fine, I rarely take videos. No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the 3.5mm jack, I could live without it. No GPS? This one would be a deal-breaker for me. But depending on the person I can see it being usable.
  - AAAAaccountAAAA 2y ago
    Ouch. It seems to be even more incomplete than I thought. The lack of Bluetooth and GPS is kind of surprising, since those things have worked on Linux laptops for at least a couple of decades or so.
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      Both work fine on Librem 5 as well and have worked for years now.
      - brewdad 2y ago
        Then why haven't they updated their site to inform potential users? It would make me worry it's about to be an abandoned project. I've dealt with enough of those in my life.
  - teddyh 2y ago
    That image is seriously out of date. Bluetooth, GPS, and even recording video all work fine.
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      Video recording implementation could be better though, but other stuff works well indeed :) In fact all things from that chart are there and have been there for years now, including 20h battery life and encrypted SIP calls.
      - pengaru 2y ago
        20h battery life? Mine comes nowhere close to that with all hw switches off and only playing mp3's... Are you quoting a when suspended figure or something?
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        It can get up to 20h either when idle with all hw switches off or when suspended with the modem on (less with poor signal coverage, of course). Looking at a power meter right now I'd roughly expect at least 12h of music playback.
        pengaru 2y ago
        Using the latest greatest stock pureOS? My L5 gets nowhere near that listening to MP3s on road trips.
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        Check whether you get a high load average whenever Wi-Fi kill switch is off. If so, keeping it on and turning Wi-Fi off in software may give you better results. There are patches to fix that, but they need more work not to cause troubles with older cards (Redpine). There was also another issue that may have caused interrupt storms when kill switches were set to off, but that has been already fixed recently. There are some small power consumption improvements coming in kernel updates soon too, though these shouldn't make a drastic difference, just an extra hour or so.
  - jasode 2y ago
    >No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the 3.5mm jack, I could live without it. For most people, it can be difficult to predict future scenarios for Bluetooth that's unrelated to wireless earphones. I always use wired earphones and didn't think I ever needed Bluetooth and always had it disabled. However, I was later forced to use it to configure new devices. E.g.: - internet router (Eero) from ISP has no buttons or a status display so required Bluetooth on smartphone to configure it - battery backup power station (Delta Ecoflow) require Bluetooth to configure them The common theme is for device manufacturers to avoid adding elaborate LCD displays or touchscreen interfaces to the actual device and instead -- offload the configuration UI to the customers' smartphones... which necessitates pairing via Bluetooth.
    - amlib 2y ago
      > offload the configuration UI to the customers' smartphones... which necessitates pairing via Bluetooth. And an app that eventually gets delisted or whatever and your interfaceless device gets turned into a pumpkin...
      - dzhiurgis 2y ago
        At least we can hope - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetooth_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetoo... Last week for the first time I've used WebUSB to configure flight controller for my drone/wing. Felt like magic.
- craftkiller 2y ago
  I'm just a single data point, but FWIW after the first week the only time I ever (literally) dust off my librem 5 is to show people what a joke of a phone I waited 4 years for. Purism had the right goals (mainline linux kernel, no run-time loadable closed sourced blobs, user-serviceable, hardware kill-switches) but the implementation is only worthy of a participation trophy. The phone would randomly drop calls (though I've heard this is finally fixed), the UI was terrible (UI elements rendered partially off-screen, a useless maps application that complained about a missing location service), the battery life is so terrible that carrying around a 2nd battery is common advice, and the hardware was anemic back when the phone was announced which made the difference even more noticeable when the phone finally came out half a decade later. I'm glad I own the phone for the same reason that I regret not holding on to my G1 (the first android phone): Its a neat piece of history. But alas, it will never see use as an actual phone.
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  It works fine for me, I'm typing this on one right now. I'm still waiting for something that could replace it as it gets older, but I don't see anything viable out there yet. The question is whether you're able to live without Android & iOS, perhaps with some limited help from Waydroid. If the answer is yes, as it is for me, then it's a great daily driver.
0_____0 2y ago
I have been using an Altair 8800 as my daily driver for about 50 years now. It's really not a big deal to enter instructions through the switch panel, especially with good gloves, and it does basically everything I want it to.
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  Good for you, though I prefer my device to be reasonably capable for real world tasks and hassle-free while providing me the ability to run the latest software and to hack on it however I want. Otherwise I would stay on N900, as I still miss its keyboard.
- kalupa 2y ago
  A+++
kernal 2y ago
The lengths people go to for a horrible Ui/UX and app experience is bewildering. I guess they justify it by not caving into Google or Apple. Of course, all of their privacy concerns and safeguards go away when the credit cards, utilities and services they use all circumvent their precious Linux phone. But hey, at least you’re running Linux on your phone, right?
- rixed 2y ago
  It is unclear to me what alternative you are proposing, apart from bending to Google and Apple?
  - kernal 2y ago
    There is no alternative. Unless you pay by cash and have verified that all of the utilities and services you consume are not laundering your data then you’re just wasting your time by putting up with a horrible phone OS experience.
    - AAAAaccountAAAA 2y ago
      The perfection fallacy?
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      I don't use GNU/Linux on my phone for "privacy". It's an added benefit, but not the point. I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful to my attention. It works the way I want it to work and it's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects that I care about less.
    - rixed 2y ago
      You are right to remind that other service providers such as banks or any online shop do routinely collect and sell an amount of personal data that should also concern us, but a phone in your pocket that is used for virtually everything and that's controlled by a third party raises more concern than just privacy of consumer data.

Rooster61 2y ago

Most of what I have read has indicated that the Librem 5 is NOT a great daily driver (which was a huge letdown for me). How do you like it?

margalabargala 2y ago
Looking at what's missing from their roadmap here: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ No videos? Fine, I rarely take videos. No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the 3.5mm jack, I could live without it. No GPS? This one would be a deal-breaker for me. But depending on the person I can see it being usable.
- AAAAaccountAAAA 2y ago
  Ouch. It seems to be even more incomplete than I thought. The lack of Bluetooth and GPS is kind of surprising, since those things have worked on Linux laptops for at least a couple of decades or so.
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    Both work fine on Librem 5 as well and have worked for years now.
    - brewdad 2y ago
      Then why haven't they updated their site to inform potential users? It would make me worry it's about to be an abandoned project. I've dealt with enough of those in my life.
- teddyh 2y ago
  That image is seriously out of date. Bluetooth, GPS, and even recording video all work fine.
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    Video recording implementation could be better though, but other stuff works well indeed :) In fact all things from that chart are there and have been there for years now, including 20h battery life and encrypted SIP calls.
    - pengaru 2y ago
      20h battery life? Mine comes nowhere close to that with all hw switches off and only playing mp3's... Are you quoting a when suspended figure or something?
      - seba_dos1 2y ago
        It can get up to 20h either when idle with all hw switches off or when suspended with the modem on (less with poor signal coverage, of course). Looking at a power meter right now I'd roughly expect at least 12h of music playback.
        pengaru 2y ago
        Using the latest greatest stock pureOS? My L5 gets nowhere near that listening to MP3s on road trips.
        seba_dos1 2y ago
        Check whether you get a high load average whenever Wi-Fi kill switch is off. If so, keeping it on and turning Wi-Fi off in software may give you better results. There are patches to fix that, but they need more work not to cause troubles with older cards (Redpine). There was also another issue that may have caused interrupt storms when kill switches were set to off, but that has been already fixed recently. There are some small power consumption improvements coming in kernel updates soon too, though these shouldn't make a drastic difference, just an extra hour or so.
- jasode 2y ago
  >No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the 3.5mm jack, I could live without it. For most people, it can be difficult to predict future scenarios for Bluetooth that's unrelated to wireless earphones. I always use wired earphones and didn't think I ever needed Bluetooth and always had it disabled. However, I was later forced to use it to configure new devices. E.g.: - internet router (Eero) from ISP has no buttons or a status display so required Bluetooth on smartphone to configure it - battery backup power station (Delta Ecoflow) require Bluetooth to configure them The common theme is for device manufacturers to avoid adding elaborate LCD displays or touchscreen interfaces to the actual device and instead -- offload the configuration UI to the customers' smartphones... which necessitates pairing via Bluetooth.
  - amlib 2y ago
    > offload the configuration UI to the customers' smartphones... which necessitates pairing via Bluetooth. And an app that eventually gets delisted or whatever and your interfaceless device gets turned into a pumpkin...
    - dzhiurgis 2y ago
      At least we can hope - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetooth_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetoo... Last week for the first time I've used WebUSB to configure flight controller for my drone/wing. Felt like magic.
craftkiller 2y ago
I'm just a single data point, but FWIW after the first week the only time I ever (literally) dust off my librem 5 is to show people what a joke of a phone I waited 4 years for. Purism had the right goals (mainline linux kernel, no run-time loadable closed sourced blobs, user-serviceable, hardware kill-switches) but the implementation is only worthy of a participation trophy. The phone would randomly drop calls (though I've heard this is finally fixed), the UI was terrible (UI elements rendered partially off-screen, a useless maps application that complained about a missing location service), the battery life is so terrible that carrying around a 2nd battery is common advice, and the hardware was anemic back when the phone was announced which made the difference even more noticeable when the phone finally came out half a decade later. I'm glad I own the phone for the same reason that I regret not holding on to my G1 (the first android phone): Its a neat piece of history. But alas, it will never see use as an actual phone.
seba_dos1 2y ago
It works fine for me, I'm typing this on one right now. I'm still waiting for something that could replace it as it gets older, but I don't see anything viable out there yet. The question is whether you're able to live without Android & iOS, perhaps with some limited help from Waydroid. If the answer is yes, as it is for me, then it's a great daily driver.

0_____0 2y ago

I have been using an Altair 8800 as my daily driver for about 50 years now. It's really not a big deal to enter instructions through the switch panel, especially with good gloves, and it does basically everything I want it to.

seba_dos1 2y ago
Good for you, though I prefer my device to be reasonably capable for real world tasks and hassle-free while providing me the ability to run the latest software and to hack on it however I want. Otherwise I would stay on N900, as I still miss its keyboard.
kalupa 2y ago
A+++

kernal 2y ago

The lengths people go to for a horrible Ui/UX and app experience is bewildering. I guess they justify it by not caving into Google or Apple. Of course, all of their privacy concerns and safeguards go away when the credit cards, utilities and services they use all circumvent their precious Linux phone. But hey, at least you’re running Linux on your phone, right?

rixed 2y ago
It is unclear to me what alternative you are proposing, apart from bending to Google and Apple?
- kernal 2y ago
  There is no alternative. Unless you pay by cash and have verified that all of the utilities and services you consume are not laundering your data then you’re just wasting your time by putting up with a horrible phone OS experience.
  - AAAAaccountAAAA 2y ago
    The perfection fallacy?
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    I don't use GNU/Linux on my phone for "privacy". It's an added benefit, but not the point. I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful to my attention. It works the way I want it to work and it's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects that I care about less.
  - rixed 2y ago
    You are right to remind that other service providers such as banks or any online shop do routinely collect and sell an amount of personal data that should also concern us, but a phone in your pocket that is used for virtually everything and that's controlled by a third party raises more concern than just privacy of consumer data.