Comment by linmob | Hacker News Reader

Comment by linmob | Hacker News Reader

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Let's go back to your original point: That the PinePhone and Librem 5 are mentioned too often, and that (sorry if I get this slightly wrong) people should pay more attention to the Planet Computer Products, and devices supported by the UBports and postmarketOS projects.

Why are PP and L5 mentioned so often? They are available as new devices and that apparently has some value of its own in our society. They also have "unique" hardware features of arguably questionable usability (hardware kill switches), and are being used by many mobile Linux developers. That's why they are popular. It's not a conspiracy.

Regarding the Gemini and the Cosmo: While nice products in principle, they by design only attract a niche of users that want this form factor. While they in theory have Linux ports, these (except for the Sailfish X port for the Gemini) are unmaintained. Debian 9 "Stretch" is just not enough these days. Therefore and because the main Android OS also feels rather abandoned, there's not much interest in these devices. I would love to use them more, but there's just no interesting software and I don't have the time and resources currently to get that Debian port back to an acceptable state.

With regards to postmarketOS or Ubuntu Touch devices, especially those that also run postmarketOS stable (Community devices) I wholeheartedly agree. They do deserve more attention. These are really nice devices that are well supported and cheaply available.

But, sadly, having been a content creator in that field for a while I can tell you: Videos about these devices get way less clicks. This might be the self-amplifying effect that leads to less interest into these devices. It's sad, and if I ever make another video, I'll make it about a non-PINE, non-Librem phone only to then be asked in the comments why I don't share an update on the PinePhone or Librem 5 instead.

Thanks for that point of view. I watched a few single Linux on Android devices videos, but there’s never many of them, almost one or two only per device but I see countless pine videos saying the same things I read about or giving no new information besides the usual boring “this still does not work unless you want a buggy tablet shaped like a phone”.

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy as much as an irrational trend. I learned here why the Cosmo and Gemini aren’t good, but it’s not the only device that came with Linux that was ignored, there was a Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition with kernel code available but no interest. https://github.com/meizuosc/m75

To me it looks like it’s just marketing that those 2 are popular.

> To me it looks like it’s just marketing that those 2 are popular.

And that's the killer feature! Librem/Pine have managed to build a community around their hardware. In theory, I could buy a Meizu phone and pick up its PostMarket OS port at the point where the last guy who tried it gave up. But trying to do it without a community would be no fun at all, and finding answers once you run into a roadblock will be an uphill battle. For instance, one of Meizu's kernel repositories has an unanswered issue from a few years ago, asking if they can release more up-to-date kernel code.

You're just focusing on the hardware's specs, but the community is what gives Librem/Pine's hardware its value.

Both are old hardware that are phone shape devices that can’t be used as a phone. This would be exciting with cool hardware, but librem is more than an iPhone with no functionality, and the pine’s hardware as an SBC wasn’t even fully functional and still isn’t, I don’t expect either to succeed over a OPO 6T with postmarketOS.

What exactly do you mean by "phone-shaped devices"? People can and do use the Librem and the original PinePhone as a primary phone. Calling, SMS, mobile data, and even MMS work at this point (however, MMS support is very recent). The original PinePhone's hardware is slow, but users of the lightweight SXMO UI report getting good responsiveness. The maker of Librem has software developers on their payroll, and their price reflects that - unlike with cheaper Android devices, you're subsidizing the development of userspace software when you buy a Librem. And you're subsidizing kernel-level development that's done "the right way" (mainlining), as opposed to the cheapest-viable-kernel-with-no-updates approach that most Android devices take.

At $450, the PinePhone Pro with Pine64's keyboard attachment has roughly comparable hardware specs to the Gemini that you link to in the original post. The Gemini sells for $680.

The state of hardware support in regard to the OnePlus is exciting - nothing wrong with going that route if you want more bang for your buck on hardware specs. Personally, I've opted for the PinePhone Pro because I don't need state-of-the-art hardware, and I value the community and the option of using FOSS firmware on its cell modem.

They’re not usually being used as daily phones with an SBC being shaped into a phone. The Gemini is never that price, it’s always on “sale”. Do you use them PPP daily? All new android phones are mainlined, it’s been years, even before either phone existed.

Let’s look at the subreddits for real user experience, who is using it daily? Where are the good experiences? Everyone is selling their L5 or getting a refund, and saying stuff like this;

> You will not get a full day of charge out of one battery, but you can take spare batteries to swap out. I'm not sure if there's a direct way of running Signal, but it looks like you can bridge it to Matrix using mautrix-signal. I have a similar setup to use WhatsApp (with the Android app running in a VM on a VPS).

>Everything else you listed works, but it may be a bit rough around the edges. I've been daily-driving my PinePhone (running Mobian) since May, so it's certainly possible, but don't expect the experience to be anywhere close to a modern Android or iPhone.

> Don't. This is beta level hardware with an alpha level OS and Software. If you're looking for functionality, you're in the wrong place. Check back in a couple years.

So you can daily drive a battery killing device if you want a bad experience if you want to use apps you rely on VMs, Anbox which doesn’t work, swapping batteries, and yes it technically works if you don’t value modern benefits like a good keyboard, browser, it’s not a standalone functional device like a Linux desktop.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Librem5

https://reddit.com/r/PinePhoneOfficial/comments/qknefi/think...

> All new android phones are mainlined, it’s been years, even before either phone existed.

Can you cite some sources for this? I believe, for example, that Qualcomm Snapdragon SoCs have a degree of Linux support which literally allows you to boot up a mainline kernel on most of their boards. But to the best of my knowledge, only a handful of devices have anywhere close to full support for sensors, cell modem, wifi/bluetooth, buttons, suspend, etc. In general, obtaining support for these missing hardware features requires someone to carry out unpaid reverse engineering work. Even the PinePhone, which was specifically designed around the goal of being easy to mainline, required quite a bit of reverse engineering work from the community, and isn't yet fully mainlined.

> Do you use them PPP daily?

I don't; as far as I'm aware, the dev units haven't even shipped yet. Its device drivers are still a work in progress, and that will probably be the case for the next month or two. But I've pre-ordered one, and I plan to use it as my only phone starting early next year. (To be clear: I'm a very abnormal phone user. I never owned a cell phone until a few years ago; I now own an iPhone, which I literally use for nothing except texting and calling.)

> Everyone is selling their L5 or getting a refund

Much of the Librem 5 criticism is totally justified; they over-promised and under-delivered. They accepted payments on orders that they weren't able to ship, and they promised an unrealistically polished product which they weren't able to produce.

On the other hand, Pine64 has been unambiguous in their messaging: the PinePhone is a phone for hackers, not for average consumers. Some people ignore the messaging, buy it with unrealistic expectations, and then complain about it on the internet; but that's life. If you need Android apps, if battery life is a high priority for you, or if you want iOS-tier polish, then Linux smartphones are the wrong choice for you. It's the right choice if you value software freedom, enjoy hacking, don't mind getting your hands dirty, and don't need Android apps or multi-day battery life.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3306443/what-is-projec...

https://www.xda-developers.com/android-project-mainline-modu...

> It's the right choice if you value software freedom, enjoy hacking, don't mind getting your hands dirty, and don't need Android apps or multi-day battery life.

All this can be done in android. It runs real Linux, Android like OPO 6T is older released hardware with much much better specs.

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