Pine64: Things Are Taking Shape | Hacker News Reader

Pine64: Things Are Taking Shape

pine64.org

31 pointsdoener11 comments

Using the example of the PinePhone, I'd prefer the hardware design and manufacturing supply chain of Purism's Librem 5 USA.

But, at $2,000, the Librem 5 USA is about 10x what my PinePhone developer device cost. https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/

Which means, even if I decide I can stomach the price of the Librem 5 USA myself, it doesn't seem like something that will get large adoption nor lots of enthusiast-driven open source goodness.

Thinking aloud on farfetched fantasies... Maybe the answer is for vendors like Pine64 to provide the bottom-tier device that runs much the same software platform as Purism, like with pmOS+Phosh, making it accessible to a lot more people. And maybe the increased popularity doesn't cannibalize Purism sales, but rather, generates more demand for their platform. And Purism can introduce devices at lower price points that still have the different supply chain selling point, which will be a requirement for some customers.

(In the meantime, my current daily driver is GrapheneOS on Pixel 5 hardware. But I'd prefer either something closer to my desktop&server Linux platform, or some all-new OS platform that was designed holistically for security&privacy trustworthiness from the start.)

How would that theoretical OS be better than GrapheneOS? Also, desktop Linux is just crazy insecure, even if there would be any sane hardware available for that, that shouldn’t be run on any security conscious device. (And before someone misunderstands me, I do like linux and use it on my machine, but desktop linux is like a house with barely any walls, let alone doors compared to ios or graphene)

interesting you would compare to the USA edition and not the regular one which is USD700 cheaper

Hopefully Purism can reduce their prices back to normal one day.

written from my Librem 5 acquired for $650 back in the day

I was going to also note the Librem 5 non-USA, but they state a 1-year lead time for delivery. (I suppose, it could turn out possibly longer, when talking about durations that big, and considering slippage history.) And a different supply chain would be half the reason to go Purism. I don't know whether that reasoning for not bringing it up is interesting.

FWIW, if nothing goes wrong, the non-USA Librem 5 should be in stock in Q2 already. The official lead time is very defensive at this point because the project already suffered from plenty of unforeseen delays.

It is interesting because I hadn't considered that angle

Question: does anyone have Mobian installed on a PinePhone Pro? What sort of limitations are still in place? I can see from the linked article that the LibCamera app now works, that's good.

According to a recent post on Reddit[1], bluetooth is still broken (not a big issue for me) and on the Mobian Wiki, it says that calls mostly work and SMS works[2]. Anyone knows more?

I used to have the older model of the PinePhone, and Mobian was, by far, my favourite distro. When I saw that the Pro came out, I told myself I will buy it once Mobian is ready.

[1] https://libreddit.tiekoetter.com/r/pinephone/comments/11iihb...

[2] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=pinephonepro

Star64 is posed to be the 2nd SBC based on jh7110, where the first is VisionFive 2.

Support will be very close between the two boards, but having an additional board is going to further increase exposure for the platform.

We've already seen significant growth on RISC-V after VisionFive 2 started shipping. I'm very optimistic for the future.

What is not taking shape is their software support. It's as poor as it was 7 years ago with the PINE64.

Does anyone else always think email client first when they see the headline?

I didnt know there was such a rich ecosystem of devices. Well done!

The PineTime caught my eye, the price is fantastic, unfortunately its not waterproof, which is why only the the Apple Watch Ultra currently and tentatively could be used along side my Casio G Shock collection.

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