GNU/Linux Smartphone Librem 5 Evergreen Update: Mold and Milestones
puri.sm
puri.sm
Also, here is a detailed comparison of the phones: https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-p...
It's not 5x, it's less than 4x.
The $199 PinePhone is the one that should be used in comparisons
You can use these phones as desktops with connected display and keyboard. You can in principle run any desktop software (they call it “convergence”). Of course you need that power.
At this point I don't know what I'd want a Linux phone for anymore, and with that performance when would I use it? This will at best run as well as a $100 2GB pinebook since it is the same specs and that runs Linux poorly. Now I have to install custom scripts with a Bluetooth keyboard or ssh from my computer, with power savings so it'll be even slower. Linux on phone sounds like the equivalent of installing Gentoo on a desktop. After installing PostMarketOS on one phone I found out that you can root Android, ssh into Android, run a browser that can use desktop chrome extensions and be pretty happy with Android. Not sure what the killer app would be with those qualifications satisfied.
As far as I know, no other phone is slated to have it.
https://jaylittle.com/post/view/2019/10/the-sad-saga-of-puri...
I also made a forum post (on Purism, not Reddit) about asking how to charge the battery after a deep discharge (turns out I just needed to keep it plugged in to get it charged). That guy apparently goes through the Purism forum to find posts like mine because he THEN posted it to Reddit as proof that anyone investing in it is a moron and how I specifically am a moron.
He also said he personally despises the CEO of Purism.
That post was also before there was any hardware shipped. He was convinced hardware didn't exist and Purism was scamming everyone.
I say that to say I personally think that person is a troll or has some deep personal issues. I would not pay any attention to what he says.
...I'm fine with the wait. Phones are _hard_. Harder than laptops by a lot. RF optimization and certification makes grown engineers cry.
I think a lot of people think of cellphones as just smaller versions of laptop components, but it's really not like that at all. Much of the criticism seems to be from folks who either A) think crowdfunding is a store, B) have a personal bone to pick, or C) have no idea how engineering works.
I say this because a group at work (adjacent to my group, I work on their team sometimes) has been going through exactly the same struggles on a device that includes cellular data functionality. Many rounds, many thousands of dollars per round, and every time you think there should just be one more round. And going into it, we all thought it would be like the other embedded devices we've designed, plus radios, how hard can that be?
The current update is encouraging, and with the world having gone sideways since the last update, the shipping delay is neither surprising nor unwarranted. I'm excited for the RYF certification, because few others seem to be chasing it, and I think it's important to support this work. Maybe I even get a neat phone out of the deal.
That's not to say there's been no issues with Purism, but using that individual as a reference doesn't produce a fair representation of the situation.
That post was discussed here on HN almost a year ago, where jaylittle said in the comments that Purism was a Ponzi scheme: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21369733#21372146
- Can handle phone calls and texts
- Cellular data works most of the time
- Has the Signal app
- Has a working web browser
I don't know if signal works in a web browser?
The hardware killswitches for the baseband, mic, and camera are amazing. But the linux desktop security model is super scary, especially on a phone.
Depends on your threat model. If you want to run random untrusted apps, then yeah it's not great. If you run apps you trust out of curated repos, does it matter? If you want, stick stuff in firejail to close the gap.