
Librem 5 April Update - ianopolous
https://puri.sm/posts/april-progress-update-librem-5-hardware/
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mikece
I'm most interested in the Librem 5 from the point of view of Privacy: I don't
consent to Google or Apple tracking me just because they made the phone/OS on
the phone I bought. I just hope essential apps like Wire, Signal, KeePassXC,
FastMail, ProtonMail and MySudo are quickly available for the Librem

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slothtrop
Just curious, what's the real advantage here of a manufactured Linux phone
over just booting Ubuntu Touch on a compatible model, provided it were in a
more mature state?

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jstanley
In addition to the things the other replies stated: Ubuntu Touch is
discontinued, and was never really good enough to suggest for daily use with a
straight face (source: I used it daily for about 6 months).

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jammygit
I liked Ubuntu touch while I used it. The only reason I switched was the
missing apps: anki, authy, a couple of others.

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pw6hv
I love to see that Purism is progressing a lot with their open smartphone. I
look forward to have a 100% Linux phone. Hopefully people who care about
privacy, customization and owning their phone will get what they deserve.

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the_pwner224
> I look forward to have a 100% Linux phone.

Is this really what's special about it? IMO what matters is that it runs free
software to the greatest extent possible.

I suspect that most people who will be buying it don't care whether it runs
Linux or a BSD or even something like Minix, as long is it presents the
familiar POSIX-like interface, has good software available (GNOME, Plasma
Mobile), and is loyal to the user instead of to a coroporation [== the user
has control over it and can hack on it].

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vbezhenar
Probably Linux is the most pragmatic choice, because Android is based on Linux
and vendors produce drivers specifically for Linux.

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madez
Drivers for Android are not drivers for Linux. You cannot get them and compile
them together with the kernel from kernel.org and install it. That is why the
devices are stuck on unmaintainable ancient kernel versions.

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vbezhenar
What do you mean they are not drivers for Linux? AFAIK they are blobs for
Linux. Of course you can't compile them, as they are proprietary, but they are
drivers for Linux.

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madez
If you have a binary blob that works only in conjunction with the specific
kernel version 3.14.69 with a specific patch set, is that then a driver for
Linux? It comes down to what information you are trying to convey and what the
receiver understands. If you say something is a "driver for Linux", then that
unqualified statements implies that you can grab Linux and combine them with
the driver and make it work, which is not true.

There are drivers for Linux which work on virtually any kernel version. In
contrast, the blobs that are in Android are binary blobs that happen to work
with one specific kernel binary, they are not drivers for Linux.

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nedp
Want to get this phone so badly. Won't care about the moving of shipping date
at all as long as they delivered the phone with little to no problems, I'm
good. (If I we're to order one)

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jancsika
Gotta get that touchmove latency down at some point. I'm hoping it's just that
GPU-accelerated scrolling was not yet working for that demo they posted a
month or so ago.

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mentos
First time I've heard of Librem 5 looks really exciting.

I can see my dream of being able to use my phone as a dockable computer coming
true where I just use the phone to remote desktop to my more powerful
development PC.

Anyone recommend a linux remote desktop client that you can connect to windows
with?

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kgwxd
I use remmina everyday, works good.

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smitty1e
Genuinely intriguing stuff:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem)

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bo1024
If you weren't familiar with them, I'll say I switched to one from a 2013ish
Macbook Pro ("the best laptop ever made") and have been very happy with the
Librem 13 hardware quality and battery life. Add in hardware kill switches for
mic/video and networking, and as FOSS as possible from the firmware on up.

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Tepix
Originally the phone was expected in January, i&#x27;m surprised the
aren&#x27;t mentioning the latest shipping date estimate.

Order page states Q3 now.

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ForHackernews
> i&#x27;m ... aren&#x27;t

Encoding glitch?

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eropple
That's a single-quote, so yes.

