997 karma · joined June 27, 2012
In terms of polish and app/dev ecosystem, I feel SailfishOS still rules, but it's getting harder to justify using/development, with it's increasing divergence from upstream.
What's "actual use"? Furi FLX1 has the best battery life I've seen on a Linux phone. Idling, it last 3+ days. I'm sure it could survive 1 whole day of "actual use". I also think almost any (official) SailfishOS device would last a day of actual use.
This was discussed in the recently posted Everquest article: https://www.filfre.net/2025/07/everquest/
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest#History):
>The design and concept of EverQuest is heavily indebted to text-based MUDs, in particular DikuMUD ... John Smedley, Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover and Bill Trost, who jointly are credited with creating the world of EverQuest, have repeatedly pointed to their shared experiences playing MUDs such as Sojourn and TorilMUD as the inspiration for the game
Development still appears to be ongoing on Discord, which is quite active. I think the dev may have bitten off more than they could chew with their last patch promise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38cKko7sViw
I completed it up until the assembler challenges, and I felt the same way as the author. Granted I knew Kmaps, etc. from my uni days, but given the nand2tetris book you might be able to figure it out.
I also know a huge number of professional developers that started off as teenagers tinkering with Linux. They started with Linux because the hurdle was so low. No accounts, no fees. Download an ISO and burn it.
These platforms are hurting themselves long term by increasing the barrier to entry.
I'm not going to spend a second on the Apple/Android platform if I need to fork out money/account to try it out (even if I can afford it).
There's SailfishOS. It still uses Android kernel+drivers, but above that it's a "real" GNU/Linux system (glibc, systemd, bash, Qt, connman+ofono, zypp/packagekit, Gecko). It's not completely FOSS, but it is usable as a daily driver, and has been for at least 10 years (based on personal experience).
Disagree. openrepos.net has existed for (more than?) 10 years. It's not huge, but it does exist, it is active, and they make cool stuff.
* Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer
* Steve Jobs & the Next Big Thing (covers NeXT, and a little bit of Sun history)
Jack Tramiel (owner of Commodore) was hugely influenced by what Sinclair was doing (really cheap computers). It definitely influenced the VIC20. You can't underestimate how widespread their influence is/was. Source: Commodore: A Company on the Edge.
Sort of like the Velvet Underground quip about only 20 people seeing the band live at one point, but every single one of the viewers starting their own band as a result.
I don't know why, whether it's to be fair or avoid litigation, but in most companies I've worked for or interviewed with, the senior engineers, hiring managers, HR, etc. don't have as much influence over the hiring process as you think. You'll probably still need to go through 5 stages of interviews, including a white-boarding or a take home test. Otherwise you wouldn't have all these "rockstar" programmers on Twitter complaining about the interview process. The best that these "influencers" can do for you, is to tip you off to an opening and maybe help towards the end of the interview process.
The other issue is, how do you know you're betting on the right horse? e.g. is the person that you're getting cozy with really going to help you career? You only have so much time and "connections" to invest.
My advice: instead of going to meet ups, take more interviews and improve your interviewing skills. Instead of spending 2-5 hours/week going to meet ups, take 1 interview instead. Even with no preperation, you'll start to see the pattern in the types of questions people ask. Improve on your answers. Interview again.
SailfishOS is not completely FLOSS, but it's real Linux, and it's polished enough to be a daily driver (I've been using it for 7 years).
It's so cliche, but giving teens a physical outlet, where they can begin to understand that consistency leads to results, can sweat together, socialise and build comradery and true confidence will go a long way.
It's simple, and you might only be helping a few teens a year, but it's a good start. I've seen it transform some troubled kids (and grown ups) over the years (drug addicts, and extreme anti-social cases).
I don't recommend SailfishOS to anyone who is looking for the fastest/most supported device out there. I recommend SailfishOS devices to those who primarily use their phone as a phone (and a desktop/laptop as their primary work station), and want an independent mobile device, or want the Linux ethos on their phone.
The hacker spirit still seems very much alive in the SailfishOS community. The community isn't big, but people come up with smart ideas that leverage existing solutions. SSH in, write Python code, write QML, zypp install build tools, pip install libraries (inside virtualenv), execute it, see changes on screen, hook into the existing system using xdg standards and dbus, manage services with systemd. It's fun to hack on.
If I had to characterise it, Android/iOS vs SailfishOS, is the equivalent to Java vs Python. The former is well-engineered, secure, perhaps overly architected, and widely used for "serious" and Enterprise solutions. It certainly has good reasons for how it does things. The latter is more organic; the same solutions can be achieved (with certain caveats) but with less hassle.
From a developer perspective, Android and iOS have sucked all the fun and creativity out of the devices.
* Sorry about piggybacking off top post, I just found that it strongly resonated what I've thought.
Two questions: 1. Do you plan to monetize it to aid in the sustainability of this product? 2. Any thoughts on implementing this functionality for playlists?
I can launch an emacs email client in 1/10th of a second, and it takes me straight to my inbox which is setup to highlight the emails I'm interested in. Opening an email to read is again 1/10th second (thanks to mbsync). Finally search via mu4e/xapian is blindingly fast (faster than gmail). For me, the competitors aren't even close.
One of the stated points was that solar and wind cannot be relied upon 24/7 -- to account for the lack of reliability, you need to have a backup power generator (e.g. coal power plant) running. The thing about coal plants (does it apply to natural gas plants too?) is that if you "idle" them, then have to ramp them up to feed demand, then later ramp them down -- it's a very inefficient way of running them. Now based on my understanding, it might be more efficient to just run the coal plant (or natural gas planet?) 24x7, in which case you've just added waste with the use of solar/wind. How much truth is there to this?