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My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all, something that is hard to figure out from the marketing but their GitHub repos does have hybris-rela

by Hamcha 1y ago

My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all, something that is hard to figure out from the marketing but their GitHub repos does have hybris-related stuff. That makes it a non-Linux device to me. Hybris breaks a lot of linux stuff that should just work like flatpak, something I found out incredibly quickly when using SailfishOS. I don't think depending on Android drivers and having to run a small android just to access said hardware makes it a "linux phone". Especially when the linux experience is compromised because of it. postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers (in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else) so there isn't a "flagship" device. If I were to overspend on a linux device I want it to actually run Linux, not a handicapped version of it. And even then, why stop at the OS? Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?). People in this niche don't want just a Linux phone, they want a phone that respects them.

upheaval7276 1y ago
I agree with you, and especially identify with the last sentence. However, I’m fed up with Apple and Google, and any alternative that doesn’t tie me to Google and has all functioning hardware and usable 5G or at least LTE with reasonable specs is a major win in my book. I’ve preordered the FLX1s. The FLX1, which is no longer in production, had a replaceable battery, but lack of a replaceable battery or non-pure Linux in an alternative phone certainly isn’t going to keep me chained to Apple or Google.
toasteros 1y ago
It uses halium and libhybris. Flatpak apps work perfectly fine on my FLX1. I have no usability issues with the phone at all.
- thephotonsphere 1y ago
  you don't really need flatpak
  - NewJazz 1y ago
    I don't really need a cell phone, either.
kop316 1y ago
> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all From what I have been able to tell, the folks behind Furilabs are also behind Droidian, which is Halium/libhybrys based. Furilabs/FuriOS is the commercial version of it.
- 1oooqooq 1y ago
  seems correct. https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/blob/forky/furios_phosh.yaml#L36 https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/blob/forky/furi...
neilv 1y ago
> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all, That would be a showstopper for now, IMHO. Doing it with maintainable open source Linux drivers is the hard part of having a viable device, from everything I've seen. Another concern are that I can't find who the developers are, nor even definitively what country they're based in. (I don't see it on their About Us page, ~~and the GitHub repo contributors are hidden.~~ I saw a reference to Sydney, but unclear.) (Edit: my mistake regarding GitHub contributors; they aren't hidden) Also, it would be nice to have the option of a better hardware provenance than a generic whitebox(?) phone from some unidentified manufacturer in China. Even for individual hobbyist users, and certainly for corporate ones. (This is why I'd like hardware options combinations like Purism for the premium device, and a cheaper device that runs the same software but is still from a brand that at least has a reputation to preserve, like Pine64 or (ha) Google.)
- toasteros 1y ago
  Github repo contributors are not hidden. eg: https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/graphs/contributors https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/graphs/contribu...
  - neilv 1y ago
    Thanks, my bad.
- Klonoar 1y ago
  It is not nor should it be a showstopper. A functioning device that can be widely used helps build eg an app ecosystem. That part needs to exist and it doesn’t really matter if it’s Hallium or not. This isn’t an all or nothing situation.
  - neilv 1y ago
    I guess I might agree, so long as that ecosystem is shared with Purism Librem 5 (a potentially sustainable device, if not affordable), and so long as a more affordable but also sustainable device (which means non-Hallium) will actually appear in response to this ecosystem stimulus. At all times during the ecosystem stimulus, someone has to be keeping an eye on the real goal. Which is getting those affordable, trustworthy, sustainable hardware devices to become available. (I've seen Linux handheld/phone projects fail for ~25 years, wasted lots of time and money on them, and would be happy to see something solve the hard problem of open drivers.)
stonogo 1y ago
> postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers this is why halium exists. OEMs don't produce drivers beyond whatever kernel they ship with, so this is an attempt to build a system that leverages the crap they do ship. > why stop at the OS? Because the OS is the only thing you control. The reason the Librem 5 costs so much for a decade-old platform is because they didn't grab a predesigned device from another OEM. Doing everything yourself is going to be the only way to produce a first-class linux phone.
Arnavion 1y ago
>(in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else) Nit: The Pine64 PinePhone's cameras at least have been fully functional since 2021. It's a very shitty pair of cameras, but they're definitely fully functional. I know the wiki.postmarketos.org page for it says the camera support is "Partial" and that a bunch of drivers are out-of-tree. This and much of the rest of the page is extremely outdated, and I (maintainer) just haven't had the time to go through that page and fix it up.
- MarsIronPI 1y ago
  I'm not a PostmarketOS user (I prefer Mobian), but thanks for maintaining the PmOS Pinephone port. It's thanks to people like you that real Linux distros on phones can continue to work and get better.
jolmg 1y ago
> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else I wish usb cameras were sold in the same form-factor as phone thermal cameras. Then the missing drivers for the built-in cameras wouldn't matter as much.
- IshKebab 1y ago
  Not many people want to have to have an extra camera plugged into their phone because the built in ones don't work. HN sometimes...
  - nine_k 1y ago
    No: this would allow such cameras to be internally connected to a custom-built phone via USB, but without the connector, oor using a tiny connector. Think Framework laptop peripherals, only built-in
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - IshKebab 1y ago
      "I wish usb cameras were sold in the same form-factor as phone thermal cameras."
      - nine_k 1y ago
        Once you have the camera-controlling binary blob separated in an MCU behind a USB interface, you can run a modern kernel (maybe not even Linux), without running the binary blob in it.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- 1y ago
Klonoar 1y ago
> Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?) Go lurk in their Matrix chat. They've noted in there that they didn't exactly have a ton of choice in stuff like this because you don't really get a ton of options as a small operation.
seba_dos1 1y ago
> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else My Librem 5's camera is fully functioning just fine. Many entries in that table are either outdated or pmOS-specific, or marked as "partial" because they require some tiny manual intervention that's not a big deal in practice.
- Hackbraten 1y ago
  The pictures I shoot on my Librem 5 look nothing like the (pretty good) ones that you regularly post to the Fediverse. My photos are just a faded, grey, blurred, grainy mess. I can take the time and manually set focus (autofocus never works) but the manual focus slider and button are so difficult to read that by the time I figure out whether or not the slider is enabled, the photo opportunity is long gone. When I look at your photos, I often wonder what I might be doing differently than you. But after two years of daily driving my Librem 5, I decided to no longer care, and just stopped making photos altogether.
  - linmob 1y ago
    I think that's because Sebastian develops software for the Librem 5 and thus is likely not running a stock PureOS Byzantium. I managed to get similar results in my holidays in late August(on postmarketOS 25.06 with Millipixels 0.23.0 and a patched kernel [1]). Please note that I just used the Librem 5 as my "mainline Linux camera" and have not had a SIM in it in a while, and thus can't comment on how well postmarketOS 25.06 would work for daily driving. [1]: Based on the APKBUILD in postmarketOS (https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/blob/master/device/community/linux-purism-librem5/APKBUILD https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/blob...) with https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux/-/merge_requests/816.patch https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux/-/merge_requests/816.pa... added on top.
    - seba_dos1 1y ago
      The only major thing these kernel changes introduce is RAW10 support, which helps photos with high dynamic range that would have visible banding in the shadows otherwise. There are more changes, but their effects are either subtle or unrelated to still photos. Most of the pictures I post have been taken without these changes, only some of the most recent ones used them.

by Hamcha 1y ago

upheaval7276 1y ago

I agree with you, and especially identify with the last sentence. However, I’m fed up with Apple and Google, and any alternative that doesn’t tie me to Google and has all functioning hardware and usable 5G or at least LTE with reasonable specs is a major win in my book. I’ve preordered the FLX1s. The FLX1, which is no longer in production, had a replaceable battery, but lack of a replaceable battery or non-pure Linux in an alternative phone certainly isn’t going to keep me chained to Apple or Google.

toasteros 1y ago

It uses halium and libhybris. Flatpak apps work perfectly fine on my FLX1. I have no usability issues with the phone at all.

thephotonsphere 1y ago
you don't really need flatpak
- NewJazz 1y ago
  I don't really need a cell phone, either.

kop316 1y ago

> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all From what I have been able to tell, the folks behind Furilabs are also behind Droidian, which is Halium/libhybrys based. Furilabs/FuriOS is the commercial version of it.

1oooqooq 1y ago
seems correct. https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/blob/forky/furios_phosh.yaml#L36 https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/blob/forky/furi...

neilv 1y ago

> My biggest question is if they use Halium/libhybrys at all, That would be a showstopper for now, IMHO. Doing it with maintainable open source Linux drivers is the hard part of having a viable device, from everything I've seen. Another concern are that I can't find who the developers are, nor even definitively what country they're based in. (I don't see it on their About Us page, ~~and the GitHub repo contributors are hidden.~~ I saw a reference to Sydney, but unclear.) (Edit: my mistake regarding GitHub contributors; they aren't hidden) Also, it would be nice to have the option of a better hardware provenance than a generic whitebox(?) phone from some unidentified manufacturer in China. Even for individual hobbyist users, and certainly for corporate ones. (This is why I'd like hardware options combinations like Purism for the premium device, and a cheaper device that runs the same software but is still from a brand that at least has a reputation to preserve, like Pine64 or (ha) Google.)

toasteros 1y ago
Github repo contributors are not hidden. eg: https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/graphs/contributors https://github.com/FuriLabs/rootfs-templates/graphs/contribu...
- neilv 1y ago
  Thanks, my bad.
Klonoar 1y ago
It is not nor should it be a showstopper. A functioning device that can be widely used helps build eg an app ecosystem. That part needs to exist and it doesn’t really matter if it’s Hallium or not. This isn’t an all or nothing situation.
- neilv 1y ago
  I guess I might agree, so long as that ecosystem is shared with Purism Librem 5 (a potentially sustainable device, if not affordable), and so long as a more affordable but also sustainable device (which means non-Hallium) will actually appear in response to this ecosystem stimulus. At all times during the ecosystem stimulus, someone has to be keeping an eye on the real goal. Which is getting those affordable, trustworthy, sustainable hardware devices to become available. (I've seen Linux handheld/phone projects fail for ~25 years, wasted lots of time and money on them, and would be happy to see something solve the hard problem of open drivers.)

stonogo 1y ago

> postmarketOS has no hybris and everything works great, but no device has all the drivers this is why halium exists. OEMs don't produce drivers beyond whatever kernel they ship with, so this is an attempt to build a system that leverages the crap they do ship. > why stop at the OS? Because the OS is the only thing you control. The reason the Librem 5 costs so much for a decade-old platform is because they didn't grab a predesigned device from another OEM. Doing everything yourself is going to be the only way to produce a first-class linux phone.

Arnavion 1y ago

>(in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else) Nit: The Pine64 PinePhone's cameras at least have been fully functional since 2021. It's a very shitty pair of cameras, but they're definitely fully functional. I know the wiki.postmarketos.org page for it says the camera support is "Partial" and that a bunch of drivers are out-of-tree. This and much of the rest of the page is extremely outdated, and I (maintainer) just haven't had the time to go through that page and fix it up.

MarsIronPI 1y ago
I'm not a PostmarketOS user (I prefer Mobian), but thanks for maintaining the PmOS Pinephone port. It's thanks to people like you that real Linux distros on phones can continue to work and get better.

jolmg 1y ago

> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else I wish usb cameras were sold in the same form-factor as phone thermal cameras. Then the missing drivers for the built-in cameras wouldn't matter as much.

IshKebab 1y ago
Not many people want to have to have an extra camera plugged into their phone because the built in ones don't work. HN sometimes...
- nine_k 1y ago
  No: this would allow such cameras to be internally connected to a custom-built phone via USB, but without the connector, oor using a tiny connector. Think Framework laptop peripherals, only built-in
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - IshKebab 1y ago
    "I wish usb cameras were sold in the same form-factor as phone thermal cameras."
    - nine_k 1y ago
      Once you have the camera-controlling binary blob separated in an MCU behind a USB interface, you can run a modern kernel (maybe not even Linux), without running the binary blob in it.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
1y ago

Klonoar 1y ago

> Why is this overpriced "linux" phone not boast having user-friendly and sustainable things like a replaceable battery (probably because it doesn't?) Go lurk in their Matrix chat. They've noted in there that they didn't exactly have a ton of choice in stuff like this because you don't really get a ton of options as a small operation.

seba_dos1 1y ago

> in fact, no device at all is reported as having a fully functioning camera, let alone everything else My Librem 5's camera is fully functioning just fine. Many entries in that table are either outdated or pmOS-specific, or marked as "partial" because they require some tiny manual intervention that's not a big deal in practice.

Hackbraten 1y ago
The pictures I shoot on my Librem 5 look nothing like the (pretty good) ones that you regularly post to the Fediverse. My photos are just a faded, grey, blurred, grainy mess. I can take the time and manually set focus (autofocus never works) but the manual focus slider and button are so difficult to read that by the time I figure out whether or not the slider is enabled, the photo opportunity is long gone. When I look at your photos, I often wonder what I might be doing differently than you. But after two years of daily driving my Librem 5, I decided to no longer care, and just stopped making photos altogether.
- linmob 1y ago
  I think that's because Sebastian develops software for the Librem 5 and thus is likely not running a stock PureOS Byzantium. I managed to get similar results in my holidays in late August(on postmarketOS 25.06 with Millipixels 0.23.0 and a patched kernel [1]). Please note that I just used the Librem 5 as my "mainline Linux camera" and have not had a SIM in it in a while, and thus can't comment on how well postmarketOS 25.06 would work for daily driving. [1]: Based on the APKBUILD in postmarketOS (https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/blob/master/device/community/linux-purism-librem5/APKBUILD https://gitlab.postmarketos.org/postmarketOS/pmaports/-/blob...) with https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux/-/merge_requests/816.patch https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux/-/merge_requests/816.pa... added on top.
  - seba_dos1 1y ago
    The only major thing these kernel changes introduce is RAW10 support, which helps photos with high dynamic range that would have visible banding in the shadows otherwise. There are more changes, but their effects are either subtle or unrelated to still photos. Most of the pictures I post have been taken without these changes, only some of the most recent ones used them.