Librem 5 April Update | Hacker News Reader

Librem 5 April Update

puri.sm

110 pointsianopolous36 comments

I'm most interested in the Librem 5 from the point of view of Privacy: I don't consent to Google or Apple tracking me just because they made the phone/OS on the phone I bought. I just hope essential apps like Wire, Signal, KeePassXC, FastMail, ProtonMail and MySudo are quickly available for the Librem

Just curious, what's the real advantage here of a manufactured Linux phone over just booting Ubuntu Touch on a compatible model, provided it were in a more mature state?

It has hardware kill-switches for Bluetooth, WLAN, microphone the camera and the GSM/Baseband controller (this is the killer-feature for me -- pun indended). Replacable parts (screen, camera, battery, data-storage) -- allowing you to repair your own device, when it fails, thus being independent from mainline manufacturers.

You cannot run "Linux" on your "Linux phone" as in going to kernel.org, downloading the source, compiling it and installing it.

There are a handful of devices that can run mainline kernels via postmarketOS: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

That being said, the project is still early, almost nothing supports cellular data, SMS, or phone calls.

Yes, thing is, the amount of work that seems to be needed to bring up a mainline kernel "properly" on even one of the most open and best-documented SOC's in industry (the one Purism chose for this phone) is already a bit scary as shown by the OP post. Now imagine multiplying that by the zillions of phone models that Cyanogenmod used to support or that LineageOS still supports today. That's basically the scope of work that pmOS has to manage... It's not very easy.

Most devices are basically unusable because they lack documentation and specification. It can be painstainkingly and slowly reengineered, but when is that done, if ever? I think the easier way is to spend money on devices with proper documentation.

More and more the most important question I have when I consider to buy a device is whether the mainline kernel is supported and can be installed. If not, I move on.

In addition to the things the other replies stated: Ubuntu Touch is discontinued, and was never really good enough to suggest for daily use with a straight face (source: I used it daily for about 6 months).

I liked Ubuntu touch while I used it. The only reason I switched was the missing apps: anki, authy, a couple of others.

But it's not. It's now community supported.

I wonder what it would take to port electron apps to the platform

The platform is basically Debian (with important customizations, of course), so if you do not care much that the app will look "out of place" and will be sluggish because of electron, then there is no substantial work involved.

Electron apps on my Librem 5?? Filling up RAM and draining the battery at the speed of light? No thanks.

Why not run something like AOSP with only open source software from F-Droid and a personal firewall? I did something like that back when CopperheadOS was around.

OT, sorry, but still desperately trying to fill the CopperheadOS void - what are you running?

Not sure what device you have, but Rattlesnake OS [0] might be suitable. You can also build LineageOS for many devices and forgo installing Google Apps Framework.

0. https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack

GrapheneOS exists now, from the same developer that worked on CopperheadOS after he took a bit of break and got going again.

https://www.reddit.com/r/grapheneos

Thanks very much!

For convergence...one OS on different devices: https://puri.sm/posts/converging-on-convergence-pureos-is-co...

Also I think they have a goal to integrate an android emulator, so you can still run F-Droid apps.

They intend to integrate anbox so can run android apps in it...but that feature is not built in just yet: https://forums.puri.sm/t/is-it-possible-to-use-android-apps-...

I love to see that Purism is progressing a lot with their open smartphone. I look forward to have a 100% Linux phone. Hopefully people who care about privacy, customization and owning their phone will get what they deserve.

> I look forward to have a 100% Linux phone.

Is this really what's special about it? IMO what matters is that it runs free software to the greatest extent possible.

I suspect that most people who will be buying it don't care whether it runs Linux or a BSD or even something like Minix, as long is it presents the familiar POSIX-like interface, has good software available (GNOME, Plasma Mobile), and is loyal to the user instead of to a coroporation [== the user has control over it and can hack on it].

Probably Linux is the most pragmatic choice, because Android is based on Linux and vendors produce drivers specifically for Linux.

AOSP would probably be the most pragmatic choice.

Drivers for Android are not drivers for Linux. You cannot get them and compile them together with the kernel from kernel.org and install it. That is why the devices are stuck on unmaintainable ancient kernel versions.

What do you mean they are not drivers for Linux? AFAIK they are blobs for Linux. Of course you can't compile them, as they are proprietary, but they are drivers for Linux.

If you have a binary blob that works only in conjunction with the specific kernel version 3.14.69 with a specific patch set, is that then a driver for Linux? It comes down to what information you are trying to convey and what the receiver understands. If you say something is a "driver for Linux", then that unqualified statements implies that you can grab Linux and combine them with the driver and make it work, which is not true.

There are drivers for Linux which work on virtually any kernel version. In contrast, the blobs that are in Android are binary blobs that happen to work with one specific kernel binary, they are not drivers for Linux.

Want to get this phone so badly. Won't care about the moving of shipping date at all as long as they delivered the phone with little to no problems, I'm good. (If I we're to order one)

Gotta get that touchmove latency down at some point. I'm hoping it's just that GPU-accelerated scrolling was not yet working for that demo they posted a month or so ago.

First time I've heard of Librem 5 looks really exciting.

I can see my dream of being able to use my phone as a dockable computer coming true where I just use the phone to remote desktop to my more powerful development PC.

Anyone recommend a linux remote desktop client that you can connect to windows with?

I use remmina everyday, works good.

Genuinely intriguing stuff:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem

If you weren't familiar with them, I'll say I switched to one from a 2013ish Macbook Pro ("the best laptop ever made") and have been very happy with the Librem 13 hardware quality and battery life. Add in hardware kill switches for mic/video and networking, and as FOSS as possible from the firmware on up.

Originally the phone was expected in January, i'm surprised the aren't mentioning the latest shipping date estimate.

Order page states Q3 now.

> i'm ... aren't

Encoding glitch?

That's a single-quote, so yes.

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