linmob

Well, it is a community project and product. Remember: Nokia was a market leader back when the N900 came out, and they had developed Maemo for years with the 770 (2005), N800 and N810. The appropriate point of comparison IMO would be the OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner, and while that was fun the PinePhone is already doing a lot better.

BTW, if you miss Maemo, try Maemo Leste (https://leste.maemo.org, if you want to get a glimpse before trying see https://linmob.net/videos/#maemo-leste).

Hi, linmob here, I created this video and many others about Linux Smartphones, you can find them at https://linmob.net/videos

I have also been writing weekly updates (well, link lists) that try to capture what’s happening in this space, you can find the latest one here: https://linmob.net/2021/02/07/linbits31-weekly-linux-phone-n...

The most important thing I do in this space IMO is the app list at https://LINMOBapps.frama.io

I look forward to your questions, ideas, feedback and contributions – the best way to reach me is via email currently (which you can find on my blog)!

GTK4 may eventually improve things - while I am happily adding more and more GTK4 apps to https://linmobapps.frama.io, they don't profit from GPU acceleration due to the Mali 400 graphics in the PinePhone only supporting OpenGL(ES) 2.

Creator of the video here - I don't do cuts like that. Fedora felt quite good in terms of performance which in part may be due to the very new kernel and their use of F2FS.

Now if they can get that app scaling dialed in a bit more, then I can see myself using Fedora (I currently use mobile.danctnix.org, BTW).

Your just focusing on the hardware here and miss the software ecosystem this devices has already enabled, there are ~20 distributions working on this device, which I am using daily. I still carry a proprietary smartphone with me, but I won't be much longer – the PinePhone has improved a lot since I received my first PinePhone in June 2020.

All the specs of the device are limited by the CPU, which PINE64 chose because they had used it in many previous products. You can't put in more than 3GB RAM in this (a 3GB RAM/32GB eMMC PinePhone variant exists), and better cameras would also be not supported by the SoC. Same for a higher Res screen: It is fine, generally (~260ppi is nothing to sneeze at), and you would not want to force that poor Mali 400 MP2 graphics to push even more Pixels. Now PINE64 could have chosen a different chip for WiFi/BT, likely that Realtek chip was cheap and available and that's why it is used.

Anyway, the hardware is not the story here, the software is, and that is going to be reusable in large part on subsequent, more powerful hardware that is slowly landing with the Librem 5 (who deserve massive credit for developing Phosh/Phoc/libhandy, without which I could not use my PinePhone daily), and you'll soon be able to run this software on older Snapdragon phones thanks to SoMainline (e.g. OnePlus 6). And PINE64 will eventually provide faster hardware, too.

---

These lines were written on that "old fashioned toy" running desktop Firefox. You're welcome!

That law sounds like a really bad idea, but: In theory Purism should be able to comply. As long as these apps support Android 7, they could ship the Librem 5 with Anbox and these apps preinstalled. BTW, do these apps exist for Sailfish OS (or its russian variant)? If so, they can likely be ported to Kirigami and then run natively on Linux phones.

This sounds you did have a Braveheart edition and have given it away since.

I got started with the UBports Edition PinePhone in June and I think it's amazing how much the software has improved since. I have quite a backlog of new apps I need to add to https://linmobapps,frama.io, and overall it has gotten more stable and smoother as more and more is being upstreamed and hardware enablement happens.

BTW: I am writing this on my PinePhone.

If you are really selling it, please get in touch - hello@linmob.net is my email, I am in Germany.

Sorry for replying so late, I don’t scan Hacker News all the time.

I have been following this phantasy for a long time (starting with the Atrix lapdock, continuing with the Nexus 4 running Ubuntu Touch and a SlimPort dongle, Nexus 5 and MaruOS and ...

Now I have a PinePhone and even made a few videos for YouTube (PeerTube, LBRY) demoing Phosh (the Phone Shell developed by Purism), Plasma Mobile and also Plasma Desktop and Gnome (the Mobile Shells have improved since, as they are still in early development). Honestly, Gnome and Plasma Desktop felt way better than their mobile counterparts. I think that this is not just familiarity, but also that they are made for the use case primarily.

It's really great, thank you for your hard work Martijn!

You probably know firefox-mobile-config, it's what makes Firefox somewhat usable on Mobian, Arch Linux ARM, Manjaro and postmarketOS. It scales the UI, but it does not really change it to that degree.

Thanks! I have been busy with my day job lately, so I have just been trying to use my PinePhone with Phosh mostly. Lomiri is nice, but Manjaro Lomiri is not yet at the point where it does not break on upgrades, which makes it nice to play with but impossible to use.

Firefox is bearable with firefox-mobile-config, and Chromium can be usable now (not on all distributions yet): https://fosstodon.org/@linmob/105334115920899338 (Also, Plasma Mobile‘s Angelfish Browser is quite good, it works on Phosh too).

BTW: May I add your Browser to https://linmobapps.frama.io?

With the PinePhone 5MP is the limit of the AllWinner A64 SoC, and IIRC it‘s similar with the Librem 5. Also, it‘s important to remember that what makes smartphone cameras great is an advanced software stack, which does not exist for GNU/Linux yet (developments like the Megapixels app are showing some promise though).

Just a reminder: You can just write an OS to SD card and quickly try it out, and when you've found one that's quite good (I really like Mobian and ArchLinuxARM) you can settle on that. No need to stick with what your PinePhone shipped with :)

Yes. See https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone#Modem_and_carrier_sup... for more info.

It can work, but it's definitely no fun to use it without ZRAM and/or swap (and better not wear your eMMC out by swapping to it).

Don’t forget about Axolotl: https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=axolotl

Which distribution are you using? (Asking because there are differences in feature support and reliability .)

July isn’t exactly recent with a project that’s so much in development. I have been following the PinePhone intensely since July for my blog linmob.net and often found that what I experienced two weeks ago is not worth talking about today, because development progressed a lot since. (Occasionally, regressions happen, too.)

I made a couple videos on convergence already (https://linmob.net, my video channels are linked). In a recent live stream (I’ll definitely publish that segment) I used Gnome 3 on the docked PinePhone and it was surprisingly good.

Reading PDF works with Okular.. but I doubt the (5 MP) camera is going to fit your needs. Maybe my latest video can help you to make a decision: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ8V0lRxKgM

Nice! May I add it to https://linmobapps.frama.io?

WRT to podcasts in general: Gnome Podcasts (not packaged in Mobian) is ok, and Rhythmbox (which is kinda adapted for phones), has podcast support too (with Apple Podcasts directory search).

IIRC (not a MMS user, it never took off in Germany) MMS requires provider/carrier specific settings (e.g. a special MMS APN) to be set, meaning that it may not work for you even though it’s properly implemented.

All Phosh distributions I’ve come across have Xwayland.

While I don't recommend to use anything from this image as a daily, it's great to get an idea of what's available. Of the notable projects, only Nemo Mobile and Manjaro Lomiri are missing. Also, with JumpDrive (the tool you need to install to eMMC), it's really worth keeping it around on an SD card.

(Really don't run this in 'production' and don't judge the state of a project from this — a different kernel leads to different issues the original project can't help you with.)

Um.. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-9Wmki7DsU And this video is outdated, the UI overlap issues is supposedly fixed by now so that I am going to have to do another video on that same boring topic.

Here is a post comparing the specs of Librem 5 and PinePhone: https://forums.puri.sm/t/comparing-specs-of-upcoming-linux-p... (with a link to a comparison of 12 phones).

Most notably, Librem 5 does not have a GPU designed in 2008, DDR4 Ram and likely has a faster eMMC, which is not too fast on the PinePhone either. However, the main issue with the PinePhone imho is that it does not have a larger battery that would help avoiding all the daily problems with deep sleep.

I am going to compare the two phones once I receive my October 2017 Librem 5 preorder on my blog (https://linmob.net) and my video channels.

Neither via Anbox currently unless it is massively better on Librem 5 than on PinePhone.

Like a previous commenter wrote, Giara is pretty nice for Reddit. Instagram ... I am only aware of Instagraph for Ubuntu Touch (https://gitlab.com/rubencarneiro/Instagraph) which could be brought over. For more apps check out: https://linmobapps.frama.io

We should definitely do that, but given that e.g. EU politicians still don’t understand why crypto-backdoors are a terrible idea, I have very little hope for succeeding on that level.