Lumia WOA Project – Windows 10 or Windows 11 Desktop OS for Lumia 950/XL | Hacker News Reader

Lumia WOA Project – Windows 10 or Windows 11 Desktop OS for Lumia 950/XL

woa-project.github.io

174 pointsLammy24 comments

Much more interesting in my opinion is another part of this same project - Windows 11 for the Surface Duo[0], which, given the much newer SoC, actually provides a somewhat usable Windows experience that can actually run x86/64 software at a serviceable speed. I bought a Duo on the cheap specifically to do this with it, and I've actually found it convenient to have a true pocket Windows PC on hand every now and then. A lot of stuff doesn't work (camera, built-in speakers, charging in Windows), but they're working on it, and a bunch more does work (Bluetooth, WiFi, autorotation, 4g). Here's[1] a full list of what works and what doesn't. They're also working on the Duo 2, but compatibility with that one is way rougher right now.

[0]https://github.com/WOA-Project/SurfaceDuo-Guides

[1]https://github.com/WOA-Project/SurfaceDuo-Guides/blob/main/S...

I love my Duo 2 (after doing a ton of ADB `pm disable-user com.[microsoft|google].shitware` lol) and will definitely try this out once it's better supported.

Any resources or communities weighing in on whether this is sufficient?

Do you mean sufficient to truly disable unwanted applications? As far as I know `pm disable-user` is as good as using the "Disable" butan in the app manager GUI, except `pm` works for some packages where the GUI option is greyed-out: https://www.xda-developers.com/disable-system-app-bloatware-...

For reference here's the complete list of packages that came with Duo 2 Android 12: https://0.0g.gg/?451bfe451bb52c82#EVYRvWSafM4ZYWjPCwbRSZrKrj...

And here are the ones I prefer to disable (and why): https://0.0g.gg/?4ebb0a61fba4c21c#7MJMeqjwoDCbsw2SsXKiumJjN6...

I get most of my apps from F-Droid, and I use Aurora Store or just temporarily re-enable the two Google Play packages to install/update apps from there. Here's what I was left with after disabling all the trash, after installing one (1) Play Store app, but before installing everything else from F-Droid: https://i.imgur.com/yHIrm3u.png

Saw this[1] interesting post yesterday. And now I'm thinking about to buy my friend's old Lumia phone.

[1]https://virtuallyfun.com/2023/07/01/64bit-computing-on-a-bud...

I wonder if they've also stripped out the bloat/spyware. Windows 10 already feels surprisingly sluggish on powerful desktop hardware, so I can't imagine a smartphone with 3GB of RAM and a 2GHz CPU would be any better.

It depends on Win 10 still has some of the WP10 guts in it. WP10 was meant to be fairly close code wise to Windows 10 on PC as this was when MS was trying to converging all their software and devices.

In general I have found Windows can function on fairly tight memory and processor speed if performance is not an issue. There is a lot of memory paging however.

Mandatory "always install a clean version, don't use a distro from your vendor".

If you take an OEM/RTL/GVLK .iso and just install it on anything with a decent SSD/NVMe drive than it would work fine. Bay Trail Atoms with 2GB RAM definitely took a hit after being updated to Win10 (well old one, like 15xx, not a modern one) but were still usable, the biggest trouble were atrocious eMMC drives, not the CPU or RAM.

To be fair, this is no longer true. Windows will recognise your hardware (with some help from UFEI from OEM) and install OEM drivers automatically.

Companies such as HP have abused this by installing all kind of crap including "analytics" as drivers.

> install OEM drivers automatically

Just like it did all the time. It was called Windows Update.

Now the real problem is what there are:

a) drivers with a their own Electron control panel for controlling... what a .cpl with a single tab would suffice

b) things what are pushed down what aren't even drivers per se. Got a bunch of shit from ASUS this way.

Though there are ways to selectively ban such 'updates', sadly not in the GUI.

I’ve done this to my Lumia 950 XL. Battery performance is not great, but it is usable. If one can locate a Mugen Power external battery pack for lumia 950xl, in good condition still, it would be a usable device for having a portable computer on hand… its a nifty device when it is setup properly. It has a steep learning curve for the average person, but most people interested in doing this won’t have too much trouble.

I am also participating in the DuoWoA project from the same team also led by Gustave Monce. It hopes to implement a similar approach for the Microsoft Surface Duo and Duo 2.

Though it is currently working with some major drawbacks which would prevent its use as a daily driver, its overall usability is progressing very well with each release.

I have both a 950 and a 950 XL in a box here gathering dust. They're not worth enough to try and sell second hand anymore, so I'll definitely be trying this!

The slogan "The phone that works like your PC" has definitely lived on!

Curious what's the experience like when running ARM applications, especially the GUI apps. Do they out perform the X64 counterpart? How about vs. Apple silicon?

Lets start naming PC as Phone Computer.

Who even uses a phone majorly as a phone? Might as well be a PC that sometimes makes phone calls.

Support staff of any kind, operations businesspeople.

PC in this context should mean Pocket Computer.

I like to think of them like the modern update to the pocket watch.

How about reviving that Pocket PC term from Windows Mobile era?

I suspect that the biggest pain point will be the wonky behaviour of the 950 when the battery starts getting low; it reboots under load with low battery.

They assume that their readers know what WOA abbreviates and what Lumia is and apparently at their Web site won't say. Hmm.

Well, sometimes you are not the targeted market.

WOA - Windows on ARM

Lumia - a series of smartphones from Microsoft/Nokia

Thanks! Actually I'm shopping for a smartphone! So, it turns out, actually, I AM in the "targeted market"!

I will pass

Reply on news.ycombinator.com