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SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes
- eth0up 1y agoI was really excited about the Jolla, which fizzled out before I could grab one. The deghoulgled cellphone sphere (us) is pretty depressing if affordability is a factor.
- shmerl 1y agoThey should open source their UI layer.
- fractallyte 1y agoWhy? It's a commercial venture - how would they feed their developers?
- shmerl 1y agoI doubt that's their way of feeding them. At one point they explicitly said they'll do it, but never did.
- poetaster 1y agoNot true. Gradual but slow progress. https://github.com/sailfishos https://github.com/sailfishos They also recently split the automobile UI part off from the Phone bits. That joint work was part of the problem for FOSSing everything, since they have deals with Car manufacturers which depend on their IP.
- panzi 1y agoThat still exists? When I first heard of it many many years ago I had hopes for it. Never heard of it again. I see it is still on Qt5.
- OsrsNeedsf2P 1y agoYes, they've even come out with a phone, but it's only available in Europe[0] [0] https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
- grg0 1y agoVideos on that page have more information than the post's link.
- indolering 1y agoMy understanding is that it met some government requirements that Android did not. Niche for sure but useful in some contexts.
- saidinesh5 1y agoQt 5.6 that too. Probably so that they can keep most of their user space closed source.
- cultofmetatron 1y agothere's an easy roadmap to make this popular. make it so that I can dock it and use it as a full fat OS on a desktop. If they wanna market this as an open phone, they need to make it first class as a primary computing device. so far only samsung is willing to enter this territory with a glorified chromebook. if I could install the rust toolchain and vscode on it and use it in a customizable desktop environemnt by plugging it into a USBC monitor, you bet I'd buy it. Id happily pay 1-2k+ euros for it. Sadly as is, it functionally does less than my locked down iphone so whats the point?
- Alive-in-2025 1y agoThat would be nice, plug in usb-c to a display and keyboard. But there's another way, can't someone implement their own implementation of the core google services apis and then you can just load a regular app off the app store and run it? Google would absolutely want to block this as their control and monopoly depends on it. But it shouldn't be against the law. It's obvious, so it means someone must have tried and it was not reasonably possible.
- seba_dos1 1y agoIt's obvious, someone has tried it, it works and is commonly used on those more FLOSS-conscious and de-googled "ROMs" - it's called microG. It's not Play Services that are the limit, it's device attestation. Same with the device proposed by the parent - I can plug my Librem 5 in to a display and keyboard and it runs a regular GNU/Linux distro while working well as a phone, without Halium or any other Android bits. We had these things for many years now, just look around harder :)
- fsflover 1y ago> make it so that I can dock it and use it as a full fat OS on a desktop. Here you go: https://puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of-librem-5-convergence/ https://puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of-librem-5-convergence/
- poetaster 1y agoThere are a number of rust developers building for SailfishOs. Rubdos maintains a Signal client in rust. The toolchain also runs on the build service maintained by Jolla (obs). I'm not sure what the editor has to do with it. I use vim for most of my SFOS development but sometimes use the SDK, sometimes I use Godot.
- devjab 1y agoAs cool as this is there won't be an European alternative as long as all the apps you'd want to use on a smartphone require either Google Play or the Apple App store.
- muyuu 1y agoit does run some sort of Android emulation layer
- hkt 1y agoIt runs Android apps. Presumably, it has access to the Play store in some capacity, or a viable alternative.
- rchaud 1y agoAccess to the Play Store requires the proprietary Google Play Services code, so I doubt this has it. The alternative would be installing apps via APK files.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rst 1y agoAccording to Wikipedia,there are apps that provide an emulated Android environment ("Easy Abroad", "Droitong"), they're incomplete and glitchy, and a lot of important apps won't run at all (including banking apps and streaming services).
- poetaster 1y agoPeople often use micro-g and co.
- nicce 1y agoHuawei just created new OS and removed all traces of Android and Linux. Just like that. If there is will, it is possible.
- zb3 1y agoThey're about to make a new phone: https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/next-gen-jolla-phone/23882 https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/next-gen-jolla-phone/23882
- spankibalt 1y agoThe voting results/behavior makes one weep. "Winner was Fingerprint after 9 rounds" in the additional wishlist category.
- beefnugs 1y agoDamn i know we need this competition hard, but also needs so much scrutiny about who is running it. For some reason i had written this os off a few years ago i dont even remember why now
- ho_schi 1y agoSailfishOS and the Jolla One were good (awesome usability) But the integration of Android was a horribly failure. It is like WINE, half working applications preventing native ports of quality. I left the boat. After that Jolla failed with the tablet. Then they didn’t deliver a successor device for Jolla One and provided SailfishOS only as aftermarket OS. You remember the Android problem from above? The hardware of others, without official support? That is calling for problems. And to make everything worse Jolla started a cooperation with Russia in 2015. According to Wikipedia they quit it in 2021. Hint about compatibility and APIs Never try to be compatible to an environment which doesn’t want to maintain interoperability with you.
- mempko 1y agoThe android support improved a lot such that all the apps I used worked there.
- ho_schi 1y agoThanks. Jolla stopped porting newer Android APIs to the Jolla One early. Which rendered the Android support quickly useless.
- usr1106 1y agoThe Android environment is completely different now. The old one stopped at 4.4 for many years. The new one is version 13. Problem was the kernel. Not something Sailfish as a small company could really control.
- pfix 1y agoFunny. This is the opposite of what https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/ https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/ states :D And there's a lot going on with Proton and the Steam Deck, so I don't think this is a valid argument.
- ho_schi 1y ago
- katsura 1y agoLast I heard of them they filed for bankruptcy. Are they back then?
- m4rtink 1y agoI thin tjey did that twice by this point and it both cases survived. :-)
- dredmorbius 1y agoYes, article in Finnish: <https://www.is.fi/taloussanomat/art-2000010451277.html https://www.is.fi/taloussanomat/art-2000010451277.html> Via Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla#History>
- rzerowan 1y agoFunnily enough the only viable deployment was AuroraOS in Russia , which they cut ties with after the war started (pretty shortsighted IMO) as the equivalent US ops merely paused their operations with options for future return. I think Google only stopped monetization of play store from Visa/MC CC ban , while maintianing their operations there. Meanwhile the sailfish guys set their largest successful deployment on fire with no recourse for reapprochment once the peace returns. As im thinking the RU market would be drifting more towards Chines tech ala HarmonyOS etc if they want alternatives to Android/IOS.
- throwuxiytayq 1y agoDon’t be silly, nobody wants that rep.
- rzerowan 1y ago'In Europe' , as noted American ios/androis and their stores still work .At a reduced capacity yeah , but ready to restore links when the time comes around.Ditto for all other major brands (US) even though they arent issuing press releases. From a purely biz perspective they could have gone 'yeah were pausing until blah blah ..' instead of salting the earth on one of their largest/succeesful deployments.
- Nextgrid 1y agoTechbros are bowing down to Trump and the rise of fascism in the US. Why don’t you think they would do the same for Putin the second the geopolitical winds turn around? Reminds me of a joke - paraphrasing: someone from the US is speaking to someone from the Soviet Union and at some point the conversation mentions Soviet propaganda. The US person asks “you have propaganda?”. (the punchline in case my terrible paraphrasing doesn’t make it clear is that the Soviet person is aware they are swimming in propaganda, while the US person is totally oblivious to their own gov’s one).
- throwuxiytayq 1y agoThere’s a slight difference between whatever is going on in EU/US, even at its worst (and it’s getting plenty bad in the US!), and countries like Russia and North Korea. Attempts to make these sound comparable betray a silly worldview, that - coincidentally? - echoes RU propaganda points.
- BoredPositron 1y agoI am not a fan anymore I used it for over a year on a XPERIA XA2. It's usable but barely so. The Android layer usually craps out with heavier apps or crawls to a halt. Most of the native apps are really basic I would compare them to early Windows Phone apps in functionality and UX. The UX itself is an odd mix of really intuitive and absolute horrible. It seems like they are missing focus and the felt development stalled for some years now. I hope plasma or gnome get more momentum because this isn't a viable alternative for 90% of smartphone users. Meego was better and I don't understand why they pivoted in the direction they are going now. It's certainly opinionated.
- Andrex 1y agoMan I wish more dev work was put into the mobile Gnome Shell. It's so, so close to being there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6vCWFleBHk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6vCWFleBHk
- tdhz77 1y agoRead this as to dominate mobile OSes, and thought that’s a different Linux attitude
- zer0zzz 1y agoI thought this was vaporware?
- lproven 1y agoJolla has been selling on real hardware since the Nokia N900 of which it's a direct descendant. That platform has been shipping for 20 years. It's been around longer than iOS or Android. What on Earth do you mean "vapourware"? I have 2 handsets here currently. It is completely real.
- zer0zzz 1y agoAre there any made in the last 5 years? I too was a huge fan of Maemo but where can I buy hardware made in recent years that runs this as well as my Maemo experience in 2008?
- mrbn100ful 1y agoLast year, with the C2 https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
- zer0zzz 1y agoThank you sir.
- poetaster 1y agoI've also been using hardware that some of the Jolla team worked on 20+ years ago. N9, N900 to currently Sony and Volla/Gigaset devices.
- pxc 1y agoI used Sailfish ten years ago or more, and loved it. But I gave up hope on getting it to run on many devices, as well as access to a good Android emulation layer that I could use for "utility" apps like Uber or whatever. My impression was that this platform was only becoming less and less viable. Other problems: it's proprietary and only really runs well on any phone you've ever heard of if it's on top of an Android kernel with some kind of hardware abstraction layer.
- m4rtink 1y agoThe Android emulation layer is quite good and it runs on many mass market Xperia phones from Sony: https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/ https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/ It is not using Android kernel - it uses a Linux kernel with android features enabled and compile time & runs Android binary drivers for hardware that has no native Linux driver via a binary adaptation layer called libhybris (also used by some Ubuntu Touch devices). The Android emulation layer nowadays runs in a container that talks to the Android bits in the kernel and to the blobs via libhybris.
- prmoustache 1y agoafaik Uber can be used perfectly with the website.
- MrDrMcCoy 1y agoI would seriously consider SailfishOS if it shipped on decent (recent) hardware that was available in the US. The last good experience I had with it was on the Xperia XA2, but that hardware was turned into ewaste by the VoLTE requirements of US carriers. Although they claim to run on more recent Xperia phones, they don't have full hardware support, and aren't on the most recent models. If I'm going to pay for a phone OS and hardware to support it, I want some assurance it won't be total jank.
- mouse_ 1y agoGosh I miss my XA2.
- not_another_hat 1y agoXA2 was the perfect fit for my hand. I cracked the screen pretty badly, but now it has a second life as a timelapse shooter :) Recently I bought another to have a spare. Cost me 50 €.
- BoredPositron 1y agoThe battery life was insane for the time.
- m4rtink 1y agoI have been using Xperia 10 III as my main phone for years with Sailfish OS just fine. Looks like they also support up to Xperia 10 V & there is the Jolla C2 community device: https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/ https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/
- MrDrMcCoy 1y agoI remember not too long ago seeing a similar table from Jolla that showed these devices, but also included a breakdown of specific hardware features that were not fully working. Was there a major update in the last few months that cleared that up?
- TheAceOfHearts 1y agoMany years ago I backed the Jolla Tablet, which never shipped and they never gave me a refund. At the time the company kept pretending like things were perfectly fine with every update right until they let everyone know that the project was being cancelled. There was zero transparency and accountability, and from that day I vowed to never support this company ever again. I would've been fine if the project had failed and they had been transparent and honest about their ongoing struggles with every update, but the complete lack of transparency was too much for me. I don't know if the values and leadership at Jolla have changed since then, but it's not a company that I would trust to deliver and communicate honestly in good faith.
- dredmorbius 1y agoI'm not familiar with the background here. There was a blog post committing to refunds given sufficient cashflow, posted in 2017: <https://blog.jolla.com/summer-2017-ceo-update/ https://blog.jolla.com/summer-2017-ceo-update/> HN discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14637748 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14637748> It does appear that Jolla has shipped other products (SailfishOS, the Jolla Phone in 2013, some tablets, and others, see Wikipedia: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla#Sailfish_OS_products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolla#Sailfish_OS_products>). Since 2017 the company has gone through bankruptcy and re-launched. It should be remembered that kickstarter / crowdfunded ventures, as with any other, are speculative and risky. A good-faith effort to deliver on spec is itself credible, and the landscape is littered with the husks of far more failures, especially in the mobile space, including from former (and current) giants: RIM, Palm, Microsoft, Mozilla, Canonical, off the top of my head). Google and Apple are the only present significant OS options standing, Apple (again) and Samsung dominate hardware, though there's increasing competition largely from China.
- not_another_hat 1y agoI can't recall how many tablets were shipped, but I was lucky enough to get mine.
- dman 1y agoI never got a refund or a tablet. They were very unprofessional through the entire situation.
- andy99 1y agoI tried this briefly on a pine phone ~2 years ago as I was going through the different options trying to see if there was something viable. It was useless then, the phone barely worked, and I’m pretty low maintenance, I basically just wanted mobile date, wifi, email, and browser. I don’t really remember sailfish specifically as I was quickly cycling thought the options but I know I tried it and found it unsuitable. P.S. unless there is a sailfish browser that ships separately with a different OS and I’m remembering that. P.P.S. I would love a Linux phone that lets me take calls and has mobile data, wifi, web browsing and GPS/navigation. I don’t care about apps other than navigation. AFAIK there is not currently something that fits the bill and works out of the box.
- m4rtink 1y agoThe Sailfish browser is using Firefox rendering core BTW, so you might have used it elsewhere. ;-)
- stephen_g 1y agoFrom other comments in this thread though it seems to be stuck on quite old versions of ESR though. Seems like it took until about September 2024 to go from a mid-2020 version (78) to a late-2021 version (91) according to this [1]. I don’t have any first-hand experience but from the comment that linked that blog, and the site itself, it’s not clear whether the browser engine has been updated since… 1. https://www.flypig.co.uk/?to=gecko&list_id=975&list=gecko https://www.flypig.co.uk/?to=gecko&list_id=975&list=gecko
- m4rtink 1y agoAfaik the problem is the lack of embedding API in the Firefox core, so they have to adapt their patches every time they need to update Firefox version. This is also why you see Chome being used as a core in all kinds of applications and frameworks - AFAIK it has the necessary API for this.
- Wicher 1y ago
- raphman 1y agoI have been using SailfishOS phones as my main driver for ten years now. Some random, personal, possibly uninformed thoughts: - It is not for everyone. Some Linux experience and willingness to tinker with it is helpful. - Despite the many limitations, I love the UI, the spirit, the platform, and the community. I fear the day where I have to switch to a different OS. - Many Android apps can be run via the AlienDalvik/AppSupport middleware. However, raw BLE is not supported. Thus, most e-scooter apps won't work. My banking app runs okay-ish. - Google Play Store and Google Play Services can be installed by following non-trivial tutorials. I don't use them. - The hardware abstraction layer that makes proprietary Android drivers work with SailfishOS is cool. - QML and C++/Python/JS allow for easy, rapid app development. The custom widgets have a unique, consistent, simple style. - As most of the UI is written in QML, it is possible to adjust and extend most of the UI shell and the base applications just by editing these resource files on the phone. For example, one can add additional widgets to the lock screen or change animation speeds. - A nice tool, Patch Manager allows transparently and reversibly applying such modifications. This is so cool, even though the patches often have to be adapted for each major OS version. - Jolla, the Finnish company behind SailfishOS is tiny and had to let go a lot of engineers and supporting staff a few years ago. Development has slowed down significantly. - There are about two dozen very active developers in the community who write awesome apps. There are native clients for Discord (no voice/video), Signal, Telegram, Slack, Mastodon, Hacker News, etc. - Unfortunately, the browser is stuck with outdated Gecko (despite heroic efforts by a developer who upgraded it from ESR 78 to ESR 91 [1]). - Only a few smartphones are supported by SailfishOS - either officially supported by Jolla (e.g., some Sony phones and some Jolla-branded ones) or supported via community ports. Often the hardware support is a little bit buggy. EDIT: of course, if you visit the forums, you will see quite some criticism of Jolla - and some of it is well deserved. It would be great if there were better hardware, fewer bugs, better support for Android apps, etc. Personally, I feel that Jolla is really trying to make SailfishOS better but that they lack really stable sources of income and have made some less-than-ideal decisions in hindsight. The best solution would be to get EU funding for stabilizing the platform and finding a business model that generates recurring income from large organizations. Selling to private customers without being able to extract recurring income and being dependent on badly-documented hardware is not going to work. [1] https://www.flypig.co.uk/?to=gecko&list_id=975&list=gecko https://www.flypig.co.uk/?to=gecko&list_id=975&list=gecko
- not_another_hat 1y agoI've been using SailfishOS since 2014. Jolla 1, Xperia X, Xperia XA2 and currently Xperia 10III. I also have used Android phones and iPhones at work. For some people the downsides are lack of apps. The few Android apps I use work just fine with the current hardware. Sadly I still have to use WhatsApp for a while, but for Signal there is a native app, WhisperFish. The main thing to me is that SailfishOS is a Linux on your pocket. You can ssh into it, sync stuff with rsync or syncthing, edit your stuff with vim, have cron do stuff, or what ever you like. My old phones I use as remote sensors now. There was a point that I tried to switch to iPhone. I struggled for a long time to get on par with the usability that I had with SFOS. I came pretty close, but the card house of different apps I had to build was pretty unreliable. My phone is also my wifi hotspot. If I turn on vpn on my phone, then all the traffic from every connected device goes via vpn. I couldn't get iPhone to do this. The team behind SailfishOS is pretty small, and regrettably shows in many areas. But still for me the clear winner of these three. It's not for everyone, but if you know your way around Linux it's great :) So, not an Android or iPhone killer, but a good solid platform. The newest version 5.0.0.71 came out just a few days ago.
- dredmorbius 1y agoWhat distinguishes, say, a mobile OS from a more traditional desktop OS? What would not be acceptable in a tuned/configured Linux / Windows OS on a smaller-form-factor touch- and voice-enabled device? I'm excepting the obvious issue raised elsewhere of closed app stores and the tendency for ever more interactions (commercial, government, educational, institutional) to rely on these. That discussion has been had many times and is if I may suggest relevant, but stale.
- poetaster 1y agoThe main distinguishing feature is that you generally lack a keyboar / mouse /pointer thing. Hence, the window manager and interaction in general are tuned for touch interactions, single handed use and the like. It's for this reason I like SFOS. I've tried android and ios. But they suck. As a developer, I also appreciate the flexibility even within the limits. Gradle and co. suck.
- dredmorbius 1y agoThanks, that was on my list. And itself could fairly easily be addressed through a window manager or contained environment which served touch-only apps. Other factors so far as I can read them: - Insanely good power management, particularly relative to features. A dumb/feature phone can of course see much better battery life, but offering a small fraction of the services of a smartphone. (Whether or not this is a reasonable trade-off is another question.) Much of this is through chip hardware optimisation (meaning that emulated Android environments would perform poorly), and aggressive culling of background processes (which means that a full-featured desktop OS would perform much more poorly on its own as well). - Various HW phone features, particularly display quality and cameras. To a lesser extent, audio output. - Extreme wireless data dependency, whether cellular networking (4/5G) or WiFi. - Cloud-based storage of virtually all data, largely implemented/enforced at the app level. Corrolary is that it's quite difficult/challenging to share data or files between applications, not to mention that it's often a bad idea to do so. - Identity attestation, including at the network (SIM) and hardware level. I'd think that an NFC chip, identity token (e.g., Yubikey), or worn identity token (e.g., NFCRing) could stand in for this. - Generally an update/upgrade model that the mass public seems to find acceptable (though I ... have my doubts). And, though I said I'd exclude it: the apps ecosystem, both in terms of popular social networking tools, and a rich market for developing highly-specific applications for particular niche needs, whether commercial, institutional, activity-specific, or recreational. The touch-based environment really seems like it should be possible to meet within a desktop/laptop context, and given existence of AndroidOS (or similar/compatible) emulators / environments, I suspect is. Battery life is probably the biggest direct technical challenge. While reading your reply the thought occurs that with SoC/SBC systems, it might be possible to run a low-power mobile module which is independently active when mobile-only services are required, with data sharing through storage to the main system. Further offloading comms load (4/5G networking, voice comms) to external devices (mobile hotspot, dedicated feature phone) could provide yet further optimisations.
- KeyBoardG 1y agoI currently have hopes / am watching Apostrophy who are building on top of Graphene but at least they acknowledge that people need Google Play and are attempting to support that while not sacrificing the entire device to privacy issues. https://www.apostrophy.ch https://www.apostrophy.ch
- fractallyte 1y agoOnly Android needs Google Play. The thrust of this post is that there's a third alternative which is neither iOS nor Android - and that's a killer feature. Now it's up to capricious EU leadership whether to support a sovereign OS, including mandating that banks and other institutions open up their requirements to use solely US-controlled devices.
- laserbeam 1y agoThis is a mobile OS, right? I go to the homepage. Zero screenshots. I go to the User Experience page. Zero screenshots. I even go to Design Principles under the UX page. Zero screenshots. Talking about mobile phone design is like dancing about architecture. Show the thing or bust.
- usr1106 1y agoI type these words on my year old Sailfish device. I had 2 other ones for roughly 10 years altogether. The UI is astonishingly polished. It has not changed a lot for 10 years, but still nice to use. There is e.g. the tutorial video that comes installed on every device. Sorry, probably won't have time to share it later, I have a funeral to organize when I get out of bed. Maybe some other user can if it's not on Youtube. The biggest problem areas IMHO: - No hardware that meets my reqirements. The current one is too big for my pockets / my taste. It's not very good HW either, in the period when Sony Xperia were supported the situation was different. Even the original Sailfish phone over 10 years ago was relatively better at the time. - Predictive keyboard is gone. I understand it's a licensing issue that they cannot offer it anymore. Blame Apple and Google for killing all small players. - There is a severe maintenance backlog in many places and it's probably also growing. The browser is based on Firefox with a 2 digit version number. It crashes on many bloat sites and Cloudflare blocks it for being too old. I severly hope it won't crash now before I click reply. (I guess most users use a Browser on the Android compatibility environment)
- laserbeam 1y agoMy point is not that it’s bad UX or not, my point is the website is bad at selling me their product and could never convince me that it’s good.
- usr1106 1y agoI understood your point. As a long time user I am not familiar with their Web site. I suffer from their lack of technical resources. But I have no doubt they also have a lack of marketing resources. They are just too few people.
- willi59549879 1y agoSailfish OS looks nice. but i am not sure if their strategie for applications is the way to go. Applications need to be specifically built for Sailfish OS with their IDE which uses Qt. That means you can't run just any linux software on it.
- usr1106 1y agoYou can run any CLI software in the terminal emulator ;) You might need to build it, if it is so rare that no binary is readibly available. Yeah, with GUIs thats a different story...
- poetaster 1y agoNope. You can use SDL2, which is behind the Godot port for Sailfish (3.5 still). Supertuxcart, Openlara a bunch of games stuff is viable. There is an active Lua Love porter and and and ...
- tipst 1y agoAh, SailfishOS; the zombie of mobile device OS. Even longtime supporters (endusers) turned away b/c of little supported HW. And even if, then not all features. It's Maemo and webOS all over again. > The main thing to me is that SailfishOS is a Linux on your pocket. You can ssh into it, sync stuff with rsync or syncthing, edit your stuff with vim, have cron do stuff, or what ever you like. My old phones I use as remote sensors now. I don't use the cron part, but you can deffo do all things w/o hassle on a regular Android thingy. These arguments for "Linux in your pockets" have long, umm, sailed? > There was a point that I tried to switch to iPhone. I struggled for a long time to get on par with the usability that I had with SFOS. I came pretty close, but the card house of different apps I had to build was pretty unreliable. IMHO iOS is for mongos / simpletons that just use apps casually. Just look at their keyboard implementation, the cursor positioning and where characters / digits are accessed drives me crazy! Don't know if Apple permits 3rd party keyboards to be installed, i have to live with this shitbox as-is as it's a company device.
- remix2000 1y agoMhm, this is a proprietary OS developed by a dilapidated company… Here is another OS sharing the Nokia/MeeGo heritage, except fully open source and actively developed (not ready for general use either, AFAICT [yet]): https://nemomobile.net/ https://nemomobile.net/
- mrbn100ful 1y agoComparing Jolla to Nemo with the argument 'actively developed' is a huge stretch. Nemo is a great project, but only build by one guy (neochapay) in his spare time. Jolla still has ~5 full-time engineers and a super active community.
- kosolam 1y agoWhy did it cost nokia and intel 1B to build the original os? Or does this figure actually include hardware dev as well?
- Paianni 1y agoAfter the tablet fiasco in 2015 they've never been able to afford to staff their OS properly; the web browser engine still lags behind Firefox by a long way (using Gecko 91 currently).
- grigio 1y agoa bet on GNOME mobile + PostmarketOS would be less risky
- Soaron 1y agoGnome on mobile? Are you serious? It’s not particularly stable or optimized on desktops either.
- fithisux 1y agoIs it running on Raspberry Pi 5?
- stuaxo 1y agoGiven Android closing itself down I can see myself revisiting this relatively soon.
- lejalv 1y agoI am surprised that nobody has mentioned yet the (seemingly) functional Linux mobile OS/device: the FLX1s from furilabs (https://furilabs.com/ https://furilabs.com/). User reviews seem very compelling, does anybody here have experience with it (especially if you can compare with unofficial Android ROMs, Sailfish OS, or Postmarket OS)?
- linmob 1y agoPlease note that user reviews are only out for the FLX1, not the FLX1s, which is about to start shipping soon. That said, as they went with the same SoC, hardware enablement is hopefully going to be fine and the software will work as well as on the FLX1. I have their FLX1 device here, but I have yet to spend more time with it (instead of my postmarketOS daily driver I am writing this on). It's humongous (the s is going to be smaller), which is holding me back - but feel free to ask questions. What's nice is that it's 5G hardware, and as they use the (4.19 IIRC) Android kernel they have a lot of hardware working which would be a huge struggle on mainline (think photography, finger print, ...). The Android integration via a Waydroid fork is also decent (but 'basic waydroid' is IMHO fine too, the hardware just needs enough RAM), and overall, it feels quite polished and the team is responsive in adressing customer feedback where they can.
- slipperybeluga 1y ago[dead]
- ktosobcy 1y agoHuge problem (for me) with SaifishOS is… annoying UI. I know that a lot of people swear by swipe navigation but it's just darn inconvenient and imprecise (or rather - require a lot of precission to select desired option)… I tried to get used to it for a long time and I simply couldn't. Having to pay effin lot of attention each time I tried to do anything with the phone was simply to much…
- hecturchi 1y agoI used Sailfish. Then I discovered that "encryption" for them was using Luks with the numeric unlock pin as encryption key (which most people sets to 4 digits). They marketed themselves as a secure OS. No passphrase option. I brought up that it was trivially brute-forceable in the forums and they vehemently fought the idea. My post eventually disappeared. They were doing government contracts in Russia etc. Iirc. I put some dots together and phone rests in a drawer ever since. I have no idea how things are now though.
- Soaron 1y agoNothing has changed.