4 ms·

Thank you for the recommendation, but I have a Pinephone Pro and I find it to be so utterly useless because of how slow it is and how buggy the software is. May

Thank you for the recommendation, but I have a Pinephone Pro and I find it to be so utterly useless because of how slow it is and how buggy the software is. Maybe what I want is just something that doesn’t exist.

jolmg 2mo ago
I get it. Got one. Compromises are many. Speed-wise, it clears the bar for me of being able to watch Youtube on Firefox and use the controls, but yeah it's got bugs and other issues. I may be able to tolerate the speed because of how I used my netbook many years ago. Windows XP was completely useless because of how laggy the GUI was. Archlinux with i3 and a focus on using the shell (e.g. hardly ever touched a file manager) with a very light terminal (urxvt; others like gnome-terminal were too heavy) and other very light apps made it very responsive. I've kept that habit of a core set of light programs even on desktop computers. On the PPP, SXMO with sway WM/composer, foot terminal, and wvkbd as a keyboard is very responsive, too. The only gripe I have speed-wise is that makepkg (an archlinux script) is weirdly slow to start up. Maybe GUIs that have animations are too laggy to be useful; I haven't tried. The eMMC is likely faster than your microSD if the disk is the problem, though I'm on a microSD without issue.
fsflover 2mo ago
Pinephone Pro had a very small developer community and thus quite undeveloped software. It was discontinued for this reason. Librem 5 is being developed by both a community and a company, so it's much more usable.
- fooqux 2mo ago
  Pine really fucked up with the PPP. That, and a few other issues around that time really soured me on Pine as a company.
  - handedness 2mo ago
    Agreed. Despite endless assertions from someone that Pine and Purism are where we should place our hope for better mobile devices, I can't put my trust in either company. Their track records are too hard to overlook.
    - jolmg 2mo ago
      I don't think the feelings are so much towards the companies themselves. They've just been the only ones to ship Linux phones that don't depend on anything Android nor significant closed source code at all. I for one just want to see the same distro diversity with the same amount of open-source OS control over HW on phones and other devices that I do see on desktops/laptops. Linux phones in general are kind of a miracle to exist, given how long we went without them. However, given the low demand for this specifically (a lot are satisfied with termux or hybris-based OSes), they're kind of a miracle within a miracle. They deliver beyond that too, with support for Alt-DP over USB-C for instance, open schematics, parts obtainable from independent distributors of electronic components, available detailed datasheets, and external batteries that can be hot-swappable (at least on PPP, haven't checked the others).
      - fooqux 2mo ago
        > I don't think the feelings are so much towards the companies themselves. I respectfully disagree. Pine's MO was basically "create hardware and hope people create software for it". A bit tongue in cheek, but that's it. Which is fine as long as they're up front about it, which they are. But in order for this to work, a community needs to form around the device. Pine doesn't have to be the ones to manage it, and some would say it's better if they don't, but they're surely a big part of it if for no other reason than they're the makers of the hardware. The infant PP community was doing quite fine until they announced the PPP and confused the hell out of everything. Couple that with some seriously brain dead choices (IMHO) around booting and charging, led to them not only torpedoing the pro but sinking the original PP as well. Probably in no small part because they split what little community had formed. The pro was obviously rushed. I personally think they saw an easy way to grab some quick cash and took it.

jolmg 2mo ago

I get it. Got one. Compromises are many. Speed-wise, it clears the bar for me of being able to watch Youtube on Firefox and use the controls, but yeah it's got bugs and other issues. I may be able to tolerate the speed because of how I used my netbook many years ago. Windows XP was completely useless because of how laggy the GUI was. Archlinux with i3 and a focus on using the shell (e.g. hardly ever touched a file manager) with a very light terminal (urxvt; others like gnome-terminal were too heavy) and other very light apps made it very responsive. I've kept that habit of a core set of light programs even on desktop computers. On the PPP, SXMO with sway WM/composer, foot terminal, and wvkbd as a keyboard is very responsive, too. The only gripe I have speed-wise is that makepkg (an archlinux script) is weirdly slow to start up. Maybe GUIs that have animations are too laggy to be useful; I haven't tried. The eMMC is likely faster than your microSD if the disk is the problem, though I'm on a microSD without issue.

fsflover 2mo ago

Pinephone Pro had a very small developer community and thus quite undeveloped software. It was discontinued for this reason. Librem 5 is being developed by both a community and a company, so it's much more usable.

fooqux 2mo ago
Pine really fucked up with the PPP. That, and a few other issues around that time really soured me on Pine as a company.
- handedness 2mo ago
  Agreed. Despite endless assertions from someone that Pine and Purism are where we should place our hope for better mobile devices, I can't put my trust in either company. Their track records are too hard to overlook.
  - jolmg 2mo ago
    I don't think the feelings are so much towards the companies themselves. They've just been the only ones to ship Linux phones that don't depend on anything Android nor significant closed source code at all. I for one just want to see the same distro diversity with the same amount of open-source OS control over HW on phones and other devices that I do see on desktops/laptops. Linux phones in general are kind of a miracle to exist, given how long we went without them. However, given the low demand for this specifically (a lot are satisfied with termux or hybris-based OSes), they're kind of a miracle within a miracle. They deliver beyond that too, with support for Alt-DP over USB-C for instance, open schematics, parts obtainable from independent distributors of electronic components, available detailed datasheets, and external batteries that can be hot-swappable (at least on PPP, haven't checked the others).
    - fooqux 2mo ago
      > I don't think the feelings are so much towards the companies themselves. I respectfully disagree. Pine's MO was basically "create hardware and hope people create software for it". A bit tongue in cheek, but that's it. Which is fine as long as they're up front about it, which they are. But in order for this to work, a community needs to form around the device. Pine doesn't have to be the ones to manage it, and some would say it's better if they don't, but they're surely a big part of it if for no other reason than they're the makers of the hardware. The infant PP community was doing quite fine until they announced the PPP and confused the hell out of everything. Couple that with some seriously brain dead choices (IMHO) around booting and charging, led to them not only torpedoing the pro but sinking the original PP as well. Probably in no small part because they split what little community had formed. The pro was obviously rushed. I personally think they saw an easy way to grab some quick cash and took it.