I like the idea of a more open phone a lot but dispute the "Smartphones are shit" premise. I think modern smart phones are an unbelievably awesome value. Battery, display, wireless and processing power have advanced at such an unbelievable rate that we have something in our pockets that far exceeds predictions of 20, 30, 100 years ago. The problem is that we don't want to pay what it really costs to have such a great system so we sell our souls and then endlessly gripe about it.
Pinephone et al appeal to nerds and are a good reference case about those tradeoffs but I'm doubtful they'll tip the scale.
As someone who had a few pre-smartphone PDAs: Smartphones absolutely are high powered shit. On paper they're amazing but the ecosystem limits you to scrolling instagram and only a handfull of accepted IMs (iOS struggles with XMPP and IRC for example, something even my hacked DS could do fine with 4MB of ram and a 60Mhz ARM9.)
Just editing fucking textfiles and copying it back to a normal PC (that isn't a mac) is a real bitch. Especially if you don't have an internet connection. It's almost as bad as a ti84+ honestly, just a nicer screen, a couple cameras, and the ability to send IM and email. In fact the TI84 could do things iOS can't, I had compilers on mine.
EDIT: Somehow I missed that you mentioned the battery. Smartphones have some of the worst battery life among any PDA I've had. iPhones can stretch out a few days (maybe a week if it's just sitting in a drawer near a tower) if you use them sparingly but it's nothing like the Palm Pilot or the grayscale calculators that could easily last a month.
> Just editing fucking textfiles and copying it back to a normal PC (that isn't a mac) is a real bitch. Especially if you don't have an internet connection. It's almost as bad as a ti84+ honestly.
If you're on Android, I suggest looking at F-Droid; there exist decent text editors and file managers, and failing all else Termux manages to drag a decent amount of sanity in.
I had an Android. Every update made Termux less and less capable (IIRC exec is very complex or impossible in a recent one.) Now I have a Pinephone running a normal X11 DE and I don't have to tolerate an ounce of stupidity. Sure there are legitimate good faith defects in the software but nothing is intentionally broken just for the sake of it.
ssh just works (the phone shipped with it preinstalled)
vim just works
scp just works
All my X11 apps just work
All the scripts and little tools I've built up over the years just work (no fighting with namespaces when you switch to root or other weird Android nonsense.)
All my dev tools just work (and you might say "well why would I ever want that on a phone? Because when you find a bug in the OS or an app and you're sitting on transit you can fix it right then and there. No making mental notes, no filling out issues, just slow continuous improvement. Something these mobile OSes will never have.)
Desktop Firefox just works (even without touchscreen mode it's usable. With xinput2 enabled it has nice gesture support.)
Want something to run in the background? Just open an Xterm window, run it, and minimize it. Want it to start on boot? Add it to the default runlevel or your X session just like you would on any other computer.
There's absolutely no reason for any of the mobile nonsense (there arguably never was) other than money for the mobile OS vendors.
On the other hand, my android phone works reliably for ... I don't know weeks? Months? I only restart for major update. My Ubuntu laptop after a straight install didn't turn off properly, my Ubuntu desktop regularly has chrome crash and fails to wake up the screen. I've had so many issues with basic Linux setups that I absolutely do not want that on my phone. I don't want a browser that's described as just "usable". I don't want zoom that goes absolutely nuts or a webcam that loves to decide some ports aren't OK.
My phone works. I open it and it works. I've never been in a position where trying to fix the underlying OS was required nor could I picture it being something worth time I'd have to trade away from my family.
I actually don't share your experience. My Linux machines are all more reliable than the best smartphones I've had. Flagship Android phones have been the worst in my experience, most can't make it a week without crashing, not to mention the awful battery life. Maybe it's because I know to be picky about PC hardware and don't run things like Chrome.
>I don't want a browser that's described as just "usable".
I have to wonder what exactly you do want then, maybe a parade?
I get it though. You don't want the responsibility of configuring your device. That's fine, most people don't. This next thing you said really gets me though:
> I've never been in a position where trying to fix the underlying OS was required nor could I picture it being something worth time I'd have to trade away from my family.
You've been conditioned to feel helpless here. You've been told you can't fix things so you accept that they're broken and don't think about it. That's one reaction and in this situation it's probably healthier. For me it's like living in a house with crooked picture frames and the police showing up if you try to straiten them. It's a little upsetting for people to act like that's reasonable or ok.
I've been daily-drivering on Linux for Desktop and Laptop for months and Linux across 4 different distros has made me feel more helpless than Windows ever did. Sure, the Windows "police" would come in and straighten my update settings (which is ultimately why I abandoned Windows), but Linux you get the helplessness of sometimes having something break and the only answer you can find after spending half of your weekend searching for solutions is just "idk, give up and reset your entire OS" or "Yea, that bit of hardware just doesn't work with the Linux kernel and never will because some BDFL hates someone who worked at that company".
I'm currently living with SO MANY "crooked picture frames" on all my devices that I've just given up on fixing after spending tens of hours on them and burning my free time on it. I still prefer Linux in general for a lot of the reasons you like it, but just doing basic "I want to install a program to take screenshots" has send me down hours of reading about how window compositing systems work, and why Snap is the devil even though everyone seems to be using it now. If I wasn't single and had better hobbies other than tinkering with config files, I'd have given up months ago.
The trick to not having crooked picture frames on Linux is to throw out components that refuse to be straightened (and you'll run into many of these, especially if you're on a distro pushing snap on you.)
If you pull out everything complex and thoroughly understand what's left you won't run into the "idk just reset the whole OS" situation.
Something Windows/OSX users coming to Linux might not realize is that almost nothing in the userspace is actually necessary because the kernel does almost everything. Especially if you don't want graphics but even if you consider those components necisary then all you need are: The kernel (one file plus some modules), a device manager (the thing that creates nodes in /dev when you plug stuff in, if you use kdrive you don't even need this), a display manager (Xorg, kdrive or Wayland) and some kind of shell and VTE (bash and Xterm for example.)
Literally everything else can be thrown out if you don't want to deal with it. Don't like configuring systemd? I've used just script in the past at /linuxrc. Don't like what Gnome is doing or maybe it's crashing on you? Get rid of it, for the most part it's just aesthetic and the functionality can be replaced by eg fluxbox and PCFMan (and maybe wpa_gui if you like using a GUI to configure your wireless card.) Did the package manager get confused? You can actually get away with removing the database and starting over (although this will replace all the binaries it previously installed and potentially overwrite configs.) Don't be afraid to nuke things.
Oh trust me, I'm aware of that, but if I kicked out every component giving me trouble, I'd have no graphics drivers, or a windowing system, or a bootloader, or a package manager, and at that point I don't have a computer any more.
And you've both now used a lot of words that I'm not familiar with or particularly interested in learning deeply. I just want my computer to boot up, and maybe dual boot, and every time I try to do anything with GRUB or EFI I almost always nearly brick my computer again.
A quarter of a century ago, the Xorg config was indeed the major problem of any Linux installation.
Nevertheless, now that is extremely ancient history.
During the last 20 years, I have been using Linux on all my desktops and laptops, without needing any Xorg config.
The only exception is that now I have a couple of lines of Xorg config, which describe how my 3 monitors must be positioned.
Without an Xorg config all would be OK, except that I would have to rearrange the monitors after each power-on.
Of course, there was no need to write those lines of Xorg config, I have just given the command to save the current monitor configuration.
So I cannot imagine what problems still exist nowadays that may require "to redo their Xorg config".
All the problems that I have seen in recent years with Xorg had been caused by either a kernel compiled without some modules needed by the hardware, or by an Xorg server that was installed without some X device drivers needed by the hardware.
With a complete kernel and X server, things should just work.
I want to add that even if I have not seen for many years any problems with Xorg, on a wide variety of hardware, that does not mean that there are no problems with Linux.
In my opinion, the worst hardware problems in Linux are usually with Bluetooth or with audio.
I have not encountered yet hardware problems that could not be solved in Linux (unlike for Windows Enterprise, where I have met unsolvable problems).
Nevertheless, in the case of Bluetooth and of audio, I have encountered frequent cases when the default configurations would not work and when finding how to make the right configuration was highly convoluted and unintuitive, so many hours could be lost with that.
Even so, the difficulties of installing Linux versus Windows, Android or Mac OS are just a myth.
Most users see that Windows and the other commercial operating systems just work, because they have been preinstalled by professionals on their computers.
When you are the professional who must install Windows on a new computer and when that computer happens to be slightly non-standard, which is the case for most embedded computers, installing Windows is usually much more difficult than installing Linux.
I have encountered cases when I had to work a week to succeed in making Windows have an acceptable performance on a computer on which Linux just worked from a live USB stick, without any problems.
> but Linux you get the helplessness of sometimes having something break and the only answer you can find after spending half of your weekend searching for solutions is just "idk, give up and reset your entire OS"
... On Linux? That's the traditional Windows solution.
I mean, it can be both. The issue is sometime you do an "apt get" and it just doesn't work and the only solution you can find is "idk your apt cache is broken. Clean-slate your entire OS because at some point Apt crashed in a way that was unrecoverable."
I don't get it. Since 2006 I have never had to clean-slate my GNU/Linux installation, on both PCs or phones. I only ever did it out of choice, usually with new hardware being a pretext to try a different distro or installation method - which happened total a handful of times during those 15 years. Debian (and apt) in particular has never made me even worry that I'll have to reinstall my OS, and I'm sort of a power user who isn't afraid to break things, so I should be more likely to actually break it. How can my experience of using GNU/Linux as my only OS for so many years be so drastically different than what you describe?
Honestly, you're probably just better at using it than I am. I'm sure most of my "I guess I'll just clean-slate" moments could be fixed if I put in the time and knew the system better, but I don't, and in the moment where my computer is half-broken and the windowing system has stopped displaying any text on anything, or just not rending half of the icons, I have the choice of either making it a learning opportunity, or deciding I want to use my computer today for sure.
Most folks who use Linux daily are just flat out better at Linux than me at this point. It makes sense - it's a self-selecting group. But that also means half of the instructions you'll find on a blog or forum or SO assume a lot more familiarity with the system than I have. I've been wanting to try a different visual theme on my computer - it seems easy to install a new one, and the repo I found just has a helper script that should install it, but all the docs also just say "and you can just uninstall it if you want", but there's no uninstall script, and I don't understand the install script well enough to know how I'd undo it if something broke. So I just haven't done it.
That makes sense. I do however have an impression that GNU/Linux gives its user much larger surface to actually grasp what's going on, provided that they're actually willing to spend time on it. I have used Windows for quite some time before switching, and I'm also not unfamiliar with macOS, but when I had to troubleshoot some issues on these platforms I often felt like I have reached a dead end despite of me willing to spend time on it. I guess someone who's an expert with those systems wouldn't have such a hard time, but in my experience finding relevant resources to learn what's going on has always been infinitely easier on GNU/Linux, which in turn makes me much happier as a user. Problems always happen regardless of which OS you use, and my computer is a tool that I need to take care of in order to be able to do my work, so an OS that allows troubleshooting to be "a learning opportunity" rather than "a trigger for reinstallation" gains a lot of bonus points in my book.
To be honest, I kinda felt similar with Android (I think it was LineageOS) at one point, which I have used for a few years on a secondary phone. The system shell went into some broken state where it didn't want to display any quick settings at all, and my search for how to debug such issues (or even just some information on where does it store its state) has been completely fruitless. Turns out nobody does that; I'd have to build my own image from scratch and dig into the source code to debug it, and I have decided that it's a bit too much and that I have better things to do. Rebuilding a single .deb package is fine, rebuilding a whole OS - not so much. Now I'm using GNU/Linux on my phone as well, and debugging things like that is much easier and more approachable, with tons of resources around the Web and people who are willing to help.
> I've been daily-drivering on Linux for Desktop and Laptop for months and Linux across 4 different distros has made me feel more helpless than Windows ever did. Sure, the Windows "police" would come in and straighten my update settings (which is ultimately why I abandoned Windows), but Linux you get the helplessness of sometimes having something break and the only answer you can find after spending half of your weekend searching for solutions is just "idk, give up and reset your entire OS"
So a long time ago, I installed Gentoo running GNOME 2.
There was a menu in the topbar labeled with some kind of icon in addition to the text. Probably the GNOME foot.
Anyway, since Gentoo was all about letting you make the customizations you wanted, I thought it would be nice to replace that icon. I had found an icon of the Gentoo fish wearing a wizard hat and I thought that would be appropriate.
So I looked through the documentation for the menu. I found the file where the icon associated with the menu was defined. And I replaced that with a definition pointing to my preferred icon. This did not work. The icon displayed in the name of the menu didn't change.
It's not that there was no effect. If I viewed the menu properties (you know - right click, "properties"...), my fish-wizard icon showed up (in the properties view) as the icon for the menu where I'd tried to put it. It just wasn't displaying in the topbar the way I'd hoped.
I was unable to figure out how to change the icon the menu actually displayed, and had to give up. The documentation was no help. :(
I don’t understand where these problems are coming from. I also needed a program to take screenshots, so I did `apt install flameshot` and it worked great.
Until you try to do that on Fedora. Where Flameshot just doesn't work for reasons. You can install it, but can't actually open it. For reasons I don't know enough about the windowing systems in whatever my flavor of Fedora is using to understand.
I wouldn’t try to use apt on Fedora. But a more serious reply would be to ask what you mean by “windowing systems” (I don’t know much about Fedora). I’ve found that Linux works best if you keep things simple. I use Debian with no “desktop”; just X11 and dwm as a window manager. This gets me a fast and responsive system on modest hardware, with almost all my RAM available to actually use. But aren’t there at least a half-dozen screenshot programs to choose from?
I don't know much about Fedora either, but it's the only distro that seemed to have out of the box support for the laptop components in the laptop I needed to install linux on. My basic understanding of the Flameshot issue is that it assumes you're in Gnome and tries to put the Flameshot button in the top bar, but whatever Fedora uses doesn't have that bar, so it just silently crashes.
The issue is "keeping things simple" requires you to have some pretty serious knowledge of Linux, to the point where it's far from simple to know what the "simple" set of things you need to install in order for your system to work, or to know what components you can't buy if you want to use Linux. As-is, my trackpad on my laptop just sometimes doesn't register clicks, even on the best supported drivers (which I had to install by hand because no distro upstreams them). Also the audio system just doesn't work half of the time either, but I'm used to that on Linux, and literally the official explanation I've seen is "idk it's like that. Just reboot if it can't find any audio devices." No other OS makes me have to check the manufacturer of specific sub-components of my motherboard to know whether they'll work at all.
Drivers are going to be part of the kernel. The only thing I would expect to vary by distro is probably the way firmware blobs are packaged (which is just a matter of installing the appropriate firmware blob package or worst case grabbing the blobs from kernel.org.) In general your hardware shouldn't constrain your distro choice outside of very weird hardware or very weird distros (or maybe Nvidia graphics cards but you just shouldn't use those.)
If you're talking about your WiFi, Bluetooth, or possibly your GPU not working OOTB this is almost certainly what you ran into. Not that Fedora is a bad distro although personally I don't like it.
Also switching out the UI is just a package away if you don't like the default. If you want to run, say, FVWM instead literally just `yum install fvwm` and then log out. It should show up in you display manager (and then since it's an X11 WM instead of a Wayland compositor you can just use scrot etc for screenshots.)
>Just reboot to fix audio
Sometimes Pulesaudio can get funky. Do you atleast run `pulseaudio -k` first?
>Trackpad
Yeah the trackpad situation is not great. I don't buy laptops without trackpoint mice partly for that reason and also because the only machine I've ever used where I didn't hate the trackpad was a mac.
>Shopping for motherboards etc.
An easy shortcut for this is to just check the Arch/Gentoo/Debian wiki for the composite hardware you're looking at and see if people have issues with it. Windows and OSX have similar issues if you want to buy hardware separate from the OS.
This was trying to get a Framework laptop running, and there were literally 3 Fedora team devs working on compatibility for it as a priority and stuff still didn't work. I only went to Fedora after I couldn't even get through the setup tools for Manjaro, Ubuntu, Debian, or Pop.
I'd look into swapping out my UI if I had any confidence I knew what was going on and how to revert it. I mostly bricked an Ubuntu install earlier last year trying to get Wayland working on it.
I'm pretty sure it's not pulseaudio, it's Pipewire by default, but I think neither of them works. It's something about the device just not registering correctly on boot for some reason.
I knew what I was in for on trackpads, but it's still not a good system/sign either way.
I'm really unsure I agree with you on Windows having "similar issues" with hardware. As someone who's been building and upgrading the same desktop computer for 20 years with a combination of Windows and various Linux distros running on it, I have literally never had a compatibility issue on Windows that took more than going to the company's website and running an EXE for drivers, and I never once went to check if Windows was compatible with any part I purchased. Meanwhile, I found out that the specific sub-SKU of my Intel CPU just doesn't work with the Linux kernel for some features, so I guess I'm either out hundreds of dollars on a new CPU or I just don't use Linux again on that computer.
I'm to the point where I mostly like Linux for day to day stuff, and I really do understand a lot of the reasons why all of this isn't trivial, but it really gets my ire when people try to contend that Windows has worse usability for most normal use cases. I don't know nearly as much about Linux as you or many others, but I appreciate that I can fix things in ways I couldn't before. That said, the complete "there are no guard rails, the only instructions are a forum post you just have to copy-paste from, and sometimes the answer is just NO" of Linux is really its own universe of pain for anyone who doesn't want to have their computer eating up 1-10 hours a week just to keep it running acceptably.
Don't run frankenDebian and your life will be much easier.
My friend that bought a Framework as well had no trouble putting Debian 11 on it, you just need to add the non-free repo to /etc/apt/sources.list, install the non-free firmware with apt and reboot: https://community.frame.work/t/debian-11-on-the-framework-la...
Wayland also works out of the box on Debian, I have been using it for a few years on a Ryzen laptop without issue.
Fiddling with the OS is a rarity for me. Back when I was a teen I do recall the trouble that was upgrading Ubuntu or getting openSuse running after accidentally filling the disk fully.
Switching to Debian simplified life, I don't invest effort into my OS (eg: opening up a terminal) with any kind of regularity and it simply works, letting me focus on actual work (and video games :D).
I’m not in Gnome, as I mentioned, and Flameshot works perfectly here. I don’t have a top bar.
“No other OS makes me have to check the manufacturer”
Other OSes are sold on hardware that’s designed to work with them. If you want to buy a laptop to run Linux on, first research whether Linux works well on it. There are plenty of machines of all types that Linux works great on.
I bought a Framework, which was specifically intended to work with Linux, and has devs from multiple distros working to stabilize, and I'm still having plenty of issues.
As I said elsewhere, I've been building desktops for most of 20 years with just entirely random parts and had Windows always work completely fine on it, and only get better at it over the years. Linux has gotten better as well, but I still have to be paranoid about every single part and sub-component in the system. My current motherboard's USB-C controller just doesn't work with Linux, it seems, but I'm not about to replace the entire motherboard just for that, and I'm not even sure where I'd go to research such a thing.
There's technical knowledge, and there's ecosystem knowledge.
To know which applications/libraries are available and suitable for a certain task, and what their individual strengths and weaknesses are, is a very different set of knowledge, and often a vastly underestimated part of experience.
I've been using Linux and other Unix/BSD operating systems since the nineties, and I'm completely lost when it comes to helping out others about App store or Windows store options. I can imagine that it's especially hard in Linux to be missing that sort of ecosystem information, as the installation process often assumes some level of technical proficiency and up-front knowledge already.
For experienced Linux users, the experience of freedom is a lot greater than using Windows, Android or Apple operating systems; but if you're just starting out and all unknowns turn up more unknowns, it might be a pretty frustrating experience. I think you have to choose if you want to learn, or if you're willing to settle with whatever you're given in the Windows, Android and Apple world.
I've been using Linux Mint Cinnamon for years, doing mostly programming, and honestly I've encountered way less issues than with Windows. Maybe it's because I'm using old hardware. I'm very satisfied with the experience as it is by default, not much need for customization or tinkering in my case.
> Maybe it's because I know to be picky about PC hardware
I have had home built pcs, custom built ones and have just bought that laptop from a common Linux only supplier. My Dell was much worse.
If it takes more effort than I have spent finding either support, components or experts then it's a bad sign.
Maybe you should just be ever so slightly picker about your Android phones?
> I have to wonder what exactly you do want then, maybe a parade?
Well this just unnecessarily rude, and frankly silly. What I want is a browser that works "well" not that just meets the bare minimum of "yeah it's possible to use".
> You've been conditioned to feel helpless here. You've been told you can't fix things so you accept that they're broken and don't think about it
No. I have told you exactly why.
1. I haven't come across this on my phone
2. I have on other devices and I would much rather spend time with my family now
I have gone through years of tinkering and adjusting xorg config files, wrangling with mythtv, all that kind of thing. It's no longer a trade-off I want to make.
> It's a little upsetting for people to act like that's reasonable or ok.
I think you have invented a false image of me in your head then are feeling upset about that character.
I've found that any problem I have can be solved with something on f-droid / google play and by googling it. This isn't dissimilar to the experience in linux for my headless NAS or VPS to figure out how to run a new service or learning to use borg backup.
Backup photos via SMB share every night if on local wifi/VPN'd home? Sync calendar, contacts with nextcloud via dav? Schedule a copy of my sandboxed work outlook calendar from Nine into a dav calendar so I can share it (read only) with family? Spit tunnel wireguard traffic? All these work without having to root and I'm not spending my evening trying to fix driver issues. I didn't spend an entire evening on these away from family.
I'm not happy giving away the sum total of my experience on this planet to Google but this device just works and it works well. Some conveniences like Android Auto keep me from going to CalyxOS.
I must be one of the lucky few. I've used Linux Mint as my main desktop for about 10 years now with zero problems. I've used LineageOS as my main phone OS for about 5 years now with zero problems.
I run Windows for work and gaming, and run into issues regularly. Default Android/iPhone makes me a bit queasy.
Maybe people do not want to use vim on their phones? This is like complaining that your laptop can't run mainframe applications. I guess if you are extremely attached to "your good old way" of doing things, sure, but that's such a limited way to judge platforms. It just amount to not wanting anything to change in your workflow... ever which is okay but not a very good reason to say that "there's no reason for any of the mobile stuff and there arguably never was" when the immense majority of people do not share the same habits.
Sure but then you need a replacement that can do equivalent things (so for vim, notepad would be enough, but iOS doesn't even come with a text editor. You have notes but that only edits files in your mailbox. You can install an app but the app is stuck in its own sandbox etc.) I get the "you should be flexible" but being completely unable to do entire classes of tasks requires more than being flexible about your workflow.
Most importantly: all these problems are entirely artificial. There's no actual limitation that creates them, just smartphone vendors declaring "things must be painful."
> All the scripts and little tools I've built up over the years just work (no fighting with namespaces when you switch to root or other weird Android nonsense.)
rm -rf / in one of those scripts also just works I assume; my point being that at least part of what you consider nonsense are real security improvements in Android with its permission model. I wish I could easily run Termux and access all everything by default without any restriction, but I also like that I've heard way less stories of viruses on Android than on Windows among my friends.
>rm -rf / in one of those scripts also just works I assume
In fact it doesn't, I have GNU rm installed.
>I've heard way less stories of viruses on Android than on Windows among my friends.
And how often do you here stories of viruses from Linux users? (outside the ones running Wordpress or NPM who carelessly fling executable code from strangers around.) Naive Linux users are protected from this problem but it's done in a very different way: Installing software that the distro maintainers haven't looked at requires a small amount of understanding and thought. They're discouraged from just grabbing executable from the web the way Android and Windows users do and so it's extremely rare that desktop Linux users experience malware (even if you use extremely broad definitions like RMS might. Often maintainers patch out things like telemetry or drop packages containing it altogether) Because of this the kinds of security measures Android has would mostly just get in the way.
These tools are all there if you want them. SELinux can sandbox your app and prompt you for permissions. No one does this because it's just not necessary the way most people use typical GNU/Linux distros.
> And how often do you here stories of viruses from Linux users?
How often do you hear stories of people switching from Windows to Linux? You and I are not relevant, the median user is, and the median user doesn't even understand your comment.
The Android (and others) permission model is more than just an arbitrary constraint, it does bring real security benefits, and plain Linux is just not there yet.
> SELinux can sandbox your app and prompt you for permissions. No one does this because it's just not necessary the way most people use typical GNU/Linux distros.
No one (well, almost) does this because it's a pain and you're not even sure what you get out of it. Compare with the Android installation prompt where the permissions are explicitly spelled out before you click "install", and where the OS can meaningfully take them back eventually.
You can have compilers on iOS with iSH which emulates an x86 processor and has a Linux syscall translation layer. https://iSH.app
On Android the situation is much better, you can use Termux and it runs things natively.
For Android file transfer is easy, except on a Mac where IIRC you need to install a separate transfer tool. On Windows and Linux the file explorers come with support for the protocol used. (It's MTP I think?)
For iOS with a non-Mac it's more complicated, IIRC for Windows you need iTunes and I never used my iOS device with Linux. You could mount the folder you want in iSH, start an SSH server, and tunnel it over USB to your computer with one of the usbmuxd tools (I don't remember what the specific command is) then copy the files with SFTP/SCP, but that's kinda overkill and would probably be slow.
iSH is mindnumbingly slow and will chew through your battery in hours. My slow Pinephone with an Ancient Allwinner SoC that wasn't great when it was released runs circles around anything on iSH.
Also if the screen turns off it kills your sockets so you get to start things like git clone over (which can take tens of minutes on a normal sized repo and will make the phone hot enough its uncomfortable to hold.)
Also you can't multitask at all.
And most importantly: The interesting thing about compilers is that you can generate native executable for the platform. gcc on iSH is generating executables for an interpreter which is no better than just messing around with javascript.
>complicated File transfer stuff
I can literally just scp things back and forth between my phone and computer, the UI is exaclty the same, no extra wires, no extra software and it doesn't matter what device I'm sitting in front of. On my Girlfriend's machine running Gnome I can even type the IP into the graphical shell and everything shows up like a local disk. If I had an MDNS responder set up it would be 100% point and click. If I had a Windows or OSX machine in the house it would just work with those too, no extra software needed (now that Windows ships with OpenSSH.) The UX for this is unbeatable by Apple and Google.
Very good points, we have access to very powerful hardware in modern-day smartphones but the software is seriously limiting what can be done with it. My Nokia E71 from 10 years ago had a lot of nice features that I don't have in my iPhone á 2022
"iOS struggles with XMPP"
Is that so? Monal just received the 5.1.0 update and Siskin is also under active development. Then there is Snikket based on Siskin. Compared to 2017 this is quite the vivid XMPP landscape and development on all three apps is ongoing and the people behind the apps seem capable. You can use a bridge to even use IRC in your XMPP client.
Editing txt files in NextCloud and having this by in sync on your other computers is great.
Sure, iOS lags in both regards but it is not Apples priority to offer such solutions. They want to shove iCloud down the users throat. Just wanted to mention the existing and viable solutions.
I still don't know what to recommend my friends on iOS for reliable OMEMO encryption and push notifications in group chats. Monal 5.1.0 was released yesterday so maybe it works now, but the state of XMPP on iOS is really not great.
I tried finding a decent text editor for android a little while ago and was not successful. FOSS git on iPad doesn't exist. SSH on either is very limited to say the least. An effective terminal is a pipe dream. Crapple and Scroogle have successfully turned the smartphone into a revenue generating device for themselves, and it's also a device our lives basically revolve around. I'd love to run a GNU/Linux (as opposed to Android/Linux) on my mobile device. The only thing I'd have to gripe about is a hardware keyboard.
That's all iOS, though? You can do a lot with a rooted custom Android installation, modders never disappeared. Pretty much any file explorer can connect to network locations.
The display is the biggest battery eater, but you can significantly extend lifetime by disabling mobile data and Wifi (use Bluetooth PAN kind of like on a PDA lol) and either undervolting, locking clocks low or disabling the performance cores, there are options. 10-12 hours screen on time even with Wifi on can be achieved.
>Just editing fucking textfiles and copying it back to a normal PC (that isn't a mac) is a real bitch.
Did Dropbox and Google Drive shut down service when I wasn't looking? Did the handful of code editors I use suddenly lose the ability to save text files? Did the Files app suddenly lose access to my iSH file system, rendering using Vi under Linux on my iPad impractical?
I can do everything you said isn't possible without even modifying anything on my smartphone. Also, comparing PDAs to modern smartphone is just... inaccurate at best. PDAs were essentially devices that were looking for a purpose, with limited uses. And even for those uses they were very mediocre.
> Also, comparing PDAs to modern smartphone is just... inaccurate at best.
No, it's not. Pinephone and Librem 5 can run practically any desktop software just fine and still serve as smartphones well. They're both smartphones and PDAs.
> I think modern smart phones are an unbelievably awesome value. Battery, display, wireless and processing power have advanced at such an unbelievable rate that we have something in our pockets that far exceeds predictions of 20, 30, 100 years ago.
From my quotes file: "It's amazing what we can build, it's baffling what we have built." (jrumbut, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25168187) Yes, the hardware is amazing, and the software is sometimes amazing in what it can do, but... If you have gobs of bandwidth (courtesy of modern WiFi and LTE) and loads of RAM and storage and CPUs that scream (seriously, for a while my phone had more cores than most of my laptops at a close clock speed) and a high-quality touch-sensitive screen and a solid OS that makes it easy to use the system even on that tiny screen, but you use it to let apps bloat like there's no tomorrow (Facebook comes to mind), show ads even more efficiently, spy on the user at will, and deliberately make things worse so people will pay more (ex. YouTube), what have you really gained?
Still, while this might be true, you are decribing only 28% of the world, and the opposite situation might be on control elsewhere. Not to mention gaming devices such as PS, Nintendo or Xbox, while it is a bit different thing.
It is unclear whether the "Smartphones are shit" premise applies to the hardware or the software, or both. I think "smartphone" hardware is generally impressive. However regarding the situation with software I think there is ample reason to be unsatisified. Of course the owner not having full control over the software can (and does) negate benefits of the hardware to the owner, so I can see why someone might proclaim "Smartphones are shit." It is generally great to own a small, powerful computer, but if the owner only has partial control over it, and unwillingly/unknowingly cedes substantial control to others, it may be less great, maybe even troublesome considering we see the so-called "smartphone" is being heavily utilised by parties other than the owner as a means of surveillance.
The fundamental problem seems to be that there is one group of people who believe that smartphones should be 'real computers', and another group that wants it to be something different, more limited.
For my personal usage I'm in the second group. I have several 'real computers', and I just want my phone to do phone stuff, and do it without getting in my way. I have no interest in switching from my iPhone to a PinePhone or whatever.
The big caveat here, which has me a bit worried in the long run, is that there is an entire new generation of people growing up using only devices that are not 'real computers'. That seems really bad, but at the same time I might just be old. Who knows.
Disclaimer: I know the phrase 'real computer' is a bit of a trope, but I hope it's clear what I mean.
I'm with you. And the device vs. computer thing is not just about hardware, it is much more about software. Not everything encountered in real life will be as easy to use as an app, nor should it be. I see this at work right now, people are getting third party, external UI interfaces just to avoid working in the ERP system that contains all necessary information. And it sucks.
That being said, I just had a deep look at the pinephone. And to be honest, I like it, hardware is decent enough, price is good and I like the idea of manual kill switches for various stuff. Thinking about what I use my de-googled, and shot, Pixel 2 for, so, I think the pinephone won't cut it. And the killer is actually banking apps. My banking app was hard enough to get running under CalyxOS and microG, I don't have the stomach to try to get it running under Linux... Something like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS on the pinephone would be great so!
Well, I guess it will be a refurbished Pixel 3 or something when the time comes that my trusted Pixel 2 completely falls apart...
> "Not everything encountered in real life will be as easy to use as an app, nor should it be"
Yes should it be. There's no value in "I suffered to learn this, so everyone should have to". There is a ton of value in "you can now pull data from five easy to use systems in the same time you used to spend on one hard to use system". That's not dumbing down, that's progress. It's raising the abstraction layer and hiding the minutiae. (This is not the same as apps forbidding you from getting to the lower levels. An easy to use UX and access to the lower levels are both desirable, and not in conflict. That apps have one and block the other is not a reason to reject easy UX.)
Sadly I think you're in the majority. The problem with that is that this focus limits what others can do with their devices more than the reverse forces you to use your phone as a 'real computer'.
> I think modern smart phones are an unbelievably awesome value.
Smartphones are mostly toys, dark pattern traps for procrastination. They are not productive tools, because you're always going to be a fraction as productive as you are on a full-size screen and keyboard. The only exception is maybe photography, since the sensors are finally catching up to entry-level DSLRs (optics still aren't, and probably never will)
Even most laptop users I know make use of several external monitors and a keyboard and a dock for other accessories.
> The problem is that we don't want to pay
Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that end-consumers should be willing to pay developers to not work at corporations and instead focus on creating some kind of open-source dark-pattern free paradise ecosystem for smartphones and other portables?
No, not suggesting that. I don't actually think there's that much wrong with corporate-driven development. I think what most users, myself included, don't like is that our personal data is monetized in increasingly complex ways. There is no simple solution to this problem, though. "Accept all cookies yes/no" has only made things a bit more annoying without really fixing anything.
I ahve been using a long forgotten Lumia 830 and a BB on GSM for a year now. Short of maps and uber, modern smart phones are media consumption and attention draining devices for spying that have ahige impact on the environment. I use aseparate camera for photos.
Yet my battery life mysteriously cut to 1/4th its old value (half a day, down from 2 days) after a recent Apple update. That is pretty “shit” if you ask me. It’s like a malware attack that is trying to extort $1200 out of me
I totally get that feeling.
Note however that immediately after an update, iOS needs to repopulate caches such as the metadata store. That can take several hours and you don’t get any kind of feedback whether it’s done.
So a direct before/after comparison may be skewed.
> Don't smartphones... kind of suck? How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years? Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones?
I simply cannot relate with this hook.
> Don't smartphones... kind of suck?
No, smartphones are kinda magical. They take better snapshots than my first DSLR, they play games at higher fidelity than my first gaming PC, and they’re general purpose computing devices with better battery life, connectivity, and portability than my first laptop.
> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years?
Twice. My first smartphone was the Nexus 4 way back in 2012. I moved on to iPhone with iPhone 6s, and then upgraded to iPhone 12 Mini last year because I was enraptured by the faster performance, better camera, and small size.
> Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones?
I definitely have a random crap drawer, but it contains no phones. My Nexus 4 went on to become a dev testing device until it was resold for parts. My iPhone 6s still sits in my drone bag so I can use it to control the drone while shooting other video on my 12 Mini.
—-
I dunno, I just can’t relate to the problems presented. Maybe it’s because I have only gotten top-of-the-line devices from companies who promised software longevity. Maybe it’s because I didn’t feel financially well off enough to jump on the upgrade cycle (until recently) and made do with older/slower devices for longer than most people. But the world of smartphones, from my perspective, kicks ass.
not so general, you can pretty much only run programs allowed by the mothership, and if some neural net decides you can be locked out of your phone forever
You are purposely taking the well known and understood term "general purpose computing device" out of context and using it as a polemical statement to push an agenda.
Nah. It's not outrageous to say that a criteria for being a "general purpose computing device" is that I should be able to run whatever code I want on it.
I say this as someone who's an iPhone user, and I'm perfectly happy with my iPhone. But I wouldn't call it a general purpose computing device honestly. The Android phone I used many years ago, for all its flaws, would have fit that description much better IMO.
> It's not outrageous to say that a criteria for being a "general purpose computing device" is that I should be able to run whatever code I want on it.
> You can't run arbitrary binaries, but you can run whatever code you want.
...isn't the definition of "running whatever code you want" equivalent to "running arbitrary binaries"? How else could you "run code" if not as an "arbitrary binary"?
Is this drawing a distinction between "you can run any code you build yourself and sign using the elaborate Apple toolchain" vs "you can run arbitrary binaries"?
I beg to differ. They might not be suitable for "power users" or Stallman but for most people they're fine. I've got at least a few non-technical friends that haven't owned a laptop or PC in years and do all their "computing" from their phone and maybe an iPad. The only reason my parents still have a computer is because they like to look at their photos on a large screen, but outside of that one use-case (which could be solved in other ways) they barely ever turn their PC on.
You can bank, search, chat, consume content, and shop from one device - it doesn't get much more "general purpose" than that.
Right but that doesn't make them any less useful as a general purpose computing device - they still serve that function perfectly well with or without them slowly eroding our mental capacity and stealing all our data.
You fundamentally misunderstand and misrepresent what is commonly meant by "general purpose." General purpose is not merely a set of specific purposes that a lot of people are into. General purpose means I can freely change it if I want to.
I cannot find a single source that agrees with you on that. The first 3 pages of Google when I search "general purpose computer definition" all show results that largely equate to;
"A general-purpose computer is one that, given the appropriate application and required time, should be able to perform most common computing tasks."
Interesting, my search absolutely showed definitions closer to mine (or more specifically, definitions for which my definition is a necessary prequisite), e.g.
Gotta love personalised search results! For a laugh I tried searching it in a few different engines and came up with mixed results - some similar to my definition and some similar to yours.
I'm starting to get the feeling it has a "mainstream" definition and more of a "people in the know" definition. A lot of the sources that matched my definition tended to be from more non-technical, mainstream outlets like the BBC; https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zkrr97h/revision/1
FWIW I like your definition better, I think closed off environments in the long run will be worse for everyone (except the people that make them).
I think this is just the classic problem of two engineers talking past each other. I think by "general purpose computing devices" the other poster means "general-*use* computing devices".
Many phones are very much unlocked, even though support for other operating systems is limited. However, even Android can be installed as a standalone OS with no Google crap.
If you want them to be general purpose computers straight from the store, yeah, that's not happening. But you still own the hardware and can change the software, again, on many, sadly not all, devices.
> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years? Twice.
Me too! And I'm a mobile engineer! My partner only recently updated their iPhone 6s, and I upgrade when the need arises, not when there's something new and shinny on the market.
Running Lineage on AT&T has drastically reduced the number of compatible phones due to the hard requirement for VoLTE (voice over LTE) on a small set of authorized phones.
I had just upgraded my OnePlus 3 to a 5 when this was announced, so I purchased a Pixel 3a XL by the deadline (which fortunately has VoLTE in AOSP).
I moved my phone to Verizon for a few reasons, but Lineage struggles with VoLTE and this is a big reason for old phones in a drawer.
> No, smartphones are kinda magical. They take better snapshots than my first DSLR, they play games at higher fidelity than my first gaming PC
I think the problem with smartphones doesn't lie so much in hardware as it does the software ecosystem. Yeah, my phone also takes better snapshots than my first DSLR and plays games better than my first gaming PC (from 2001) -- and yet, it can't run the OfferUp app or Google Maps for more than 5 minutes without freezing up.
>> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years?
>Twice. My first smartphone was the Nexus 4 way back in 2012. I moved on to iPhone with iPhone 6s, and then upgraded to iPhone 12 Mini last year because I was enraptured by the faster performance, better camera, and small size.
I had to replace my Thinkpad 0 times in the past 10 years, and my phone 2 times as well. I also bought devices from companies who promised software longevity. But why can't I replace my phone 0 times in 10 years like my Thinkpad?
Why LineageOS and not GrapheneOS? I have a Pixel 4a with GrapheneOS and really like it. The lack of Firebase Cloud Messaging (Google's push notifications service) isn't an issue for personal usage; for work I still use an iPhone because I don't want to put things like MS Teams on Graphene OS.
As for PinePhone: it's interesting that this article puts LineageOS and PinePhone together since the latter cannot run the former. Speaking for myself, it would be nice if I could buy a phone from someone other than Google to install and use a de-Googled form of Android.
The thing that annoys me about GrapheneOS is that it is not possible to install a sudo binary or to root the phone. I get that this is a Good Thing from a security perspective, but I don't like the fact that I can't install AdAway for resource-less adblocking with an edited hosts file, the ability to SSH into my phone with a certificate, or the ability to make good "nandroid" backups. I also philosophically like the fact that I'm in control, ultimately, of my device and if I want to send an app fake data, I can do so. The GrapheneOS developers have quite sternly said that they won't ever develop a rootable version of the OS, and that makes me sad.
There's also ProtonAOSP, which allows you to choose between no Google services, microG, sandboxed Google Play Services, and bundled Google Play Services:
One problem with GrapheneOS is that it only supports a tiny handful of devices, and only for few years (at best) per device. A lot of people can't afford to keep buying Pixel phones on that schedule, and some who can afford it find the e-waste unappealing.
This isn't exactly the project's fault. It's more a side effect of an industry that prevents customers from securely installing an OS on their own hardware, and/or refuses to provide firmware security updates beyond a rather short time frame.
I hope that changes. I love what GrapheneOS attempts to do, but at the moment, I think using it is unreasonably hard on the budget and the environment.
Five years from when? The purchase date, or the product introduction date? If the latter, the effective support lifetime will be (on average) much shorter.
The choice is between GrapheneOS + Sandboxed Google play vs LineageOS + MicroG.
If you care too much about privacy, GrapheneOS is the way to go. If you want a balance between privacy and usability, LineageOS is the way to go. Also, GrapheneOS only supports Pixel phones.
I have tried CalyxOS but there are too many issues.
> If you care too much about privacy, GrapheneOS is the way to go
Not so sure about that. If you care about SECURITY than GrapheneOS is pretty much the best choice on the market, comparable only to iOS or bare Android on Pixel Phones. Everyone else isn't even reasonable to compare against it.
But wether it's more private with sandboxed Google Play Services vs Lineage OS and MicroG or iOS is not such an obvious choice to me.
If you want privacy, don't install anything Google or microG. Surprisingly many apps from Play store (via Aurora or sideloaded) still work (not all features though) - but if you want privacy, don't even use Play store via Aurora.
Not using Aurora and micro made banking impossible in my case... Well, I almost completely de-googled so I don't complain too much. Maybe keeping my old phone for banking only and using a pinephone for everything else would work, I have to investigate that!
I just use the web version of internet banking. One of my banks doesn't have responsive website, but for sending money and setting card limits it's still more than enough.
By "sandboxed Google Play" do you mean using the Aurora app?
Coming from iPhone, something I keep forgetting is the full support for PWA apps on Graphene OS. I wish there were PWA versions of apps like Signal, Wire, ProtonMail, and more; so much cleaner to update the app through a deliberate refresh than going through a middle-man service like F-Droid.
What issues have you experienced with CalyxOS? Asking as a daily user of CalyxOS. I have not had any real issues, but I also don't install many apps on my phone.
Sandboxed play services is quite literally play services you're allowed to deny permissions to, it offers way more compatibility than microg which replaces play services with it's own thing
Say what you will about the value of these but I find my £99 (new) Redmi note 6 pro is doing wonderfully with LineageOS 18.1 running on Android 11 (while Xiaomi is only supplying 9 on their default "MiUI").
These phones can be priced so agressively because they know they can extract money from you in other ways like selling usage activity or preinstalling certain apps. In fact when I tried the default OS out before installing Lineage there were ads built into the system apps.
So by getting a phone compatible with a ROM like LineageOS you can both have the great monetary price without paying with your privacy and freedom.
The funny thing is that PinePhone's problems almost entirely fall on the software side. I think we can all agree that for basic smartphone usage the base PinePhone is plenty overkill. How much processing power do you need to send messages? Take and look at moderate resolution photos? Render an OpenStreetMap tile?
If somehow web browsers didn't exist the only downsides left for the Pinephone would maybe be regarding high performance video recording, some ML features and 3D games.
As someone who uses a PinePhone, this is hard to say. Web browsing on the device is incredibly slow, just opening the browser can take fifteen seconds. If this could be improved with software optimizations, then it might be overkill, but as it stands, this phone can’t do basic web browsing to any decent standard and still has me reaching for an iPhone
The state of web browsing on the Pinephone is awful mostly because of the UI. When using the Gnome browser all the websites I visit (which I admit are mostly lightweight like HN) are very pleasantly rendered and fast to scroll and interact with. Personally I believe that web browsing with a smartphone shouldn't really be a thing outside of basic textual content, but that's because I really can't figure how we have collectively concluded that being glued to a minuscule screen is desirable
I’m not so sure. Like, a web browser requires an excessive amount of CPU-power so that alone would necessitate a better CPU. I can only speak about the Pinephone, hopefully the pro is sufficient enough.
Like, sure one can make 60fps vector graphics for a smartwatch purely from software rendering running on embedded hardware e.g. https://repository.microej.com/packages/documentation/rt595/...
but just look at your typical web app. No embedded will run that and it is pretty much needed for a smartphone.
On a very related topic I received my Purism phone recently. Worked great... once. Now it's bricked after recharging. I haven't had time to reach out for support and certainly need to do that, but after waiting a very long time for the phone I'm too demoralized to make this a priority. Perhaps I should've bought the Pinephone, or installed Lineage on my old pixel... but time is a scarce commodity.
I'd totally use a more open-source phone OS, if only there weren't communications and banking apps that check to make sure you're running an unmodified major manufacturer's OS, and refuse to run if they find any evidence that you aren't.
Snapchat refuses to let you access their services at all via browser. And most banks offer you a restricted set of functionality via browser, e.g., no taking pictures of checks to deposit (in fact, I can't think of any banks that do let you do that via browser).
You have to do the open source phone first, and help convince others, before the banks and snapchats will support you, not the other way around. It's normally a small sacrifice, but the payoff is fundamental to a free future.
You make it sound like the banks and Snapchat would have to do work for them to support me, when the opposite is true. The community already has compatibility layers that work for most apps, but those companies go out of their way to do extra work to make sure their apps don't work in them.
Yeah they're shitty. That's why maybe you shouldn't financially support ecosystems that you don't like just to use apps that are actively hostile to you. You don't need those things.
The problem with not using Snapchat is the network effect: you miss out on socialization when you're the only one in your friend group that isn't on it.
The problem with not using those banks is that I don't think there's any banks that aren't hostile like that, and keeping all of your money under a mattress is a worse choice than compromising on this principle.
Snapchat makes you pass SafetyNet to be able to log in, and passing SafetyNet requires a signed response from Google's servers. Are you sure it isn't only working with a workaround like signing in on a stock Android device, and then copying the authentication information over?
How is having no web-app or web-client (and banning you if you use any third-party client) meaningfully different from refusing to let you access anything in the browser?
There is rather a lack of regulations that would require banks to provide two-factor authentication in a platform-neutral or technology-neutral manner.
Instead of two-factor-only apps, we get "electronic ID" that are legally like a photo ID, and which are also used for making payments from the phone itself.
In fact, some of these rely on security of the OS it is running on, and not on the use of any trusted platform modules ("secure enclave", TrustZone, etc.) or on any mathematical proof.
Therefore, un-rooted recent versions of Android and iOS is compulsory in practice, because those are the only environments that are secure enough.
And BTW, the electronic ID are very convenient for the banks. If they get social-engineered and the banks' API abused, the banks can conveniently blame the victims — because it's a legal ID and not merely a login helper or debit card, and you're not supposed to be "careless" with an ID.
Some banks support dedicated devices for signing transactions if you don’t like to use a smartphone app for 2FA.
I have two of those devices, a portable one and a USB-tethered one for the desktop.
Either way, you insert your debit card to sign your transaction.
The underlying protocol is a national standard (published by DK, the association of German banks) and meets all European requirements.
I don’t do business with banks that require iOS or Android apps for 2FA unless they support an alternative.
Postbank in Germany, and most other banks, require an app to sign in into their we services and approve money transfers and stuff like that. And Postbank requires, at the very least, microG (well, they did some time ago when I switched from Android to CalyxOS and tried to live without microG...). And yes, this sucks.
> But while you can install many apps on /e/OS, we know that some apps are not working properly today: banking apps or games for example, and this has been painful for many of you.
> Our team has been hard at work to improve app compatibility in the last few months, and we will be rolling out improved app compatibility with the 0.23 release end of March. This means that apps like Pokemon Go, Ma banque (Crédit Agricole) and many others will work now fine on /e/OS.
I still use lineageOS on my note 3. I always buy generational leaps, not incremental, Note 3 back in the days was a rare 3gb phone, 4k video and quad core, making it a little more future proof. it was a good call, subsequent updates were mostly about speed. Took several generations to gain significantly on image quality. I added a wireless recharge module, battery is easily swappable, I still plays clash royale on it, etc.
Now, I would like better night photos, and some zoom/wide angles, so going to go with the same approach, getting 12gb instead of 8. Only good candidate I see right now is a note 20 because I can expand it. Expansion is a must, I really hate where the phone market is heading right now with severely limiting repairs, gb premium with no expansion, Limited updates for an exhorbitant price and not controlling what I run and how I run it on top of it all.
Software like LineageOS are essential not only to reduce waste, but also to get a minimum control on our hackware back.
Ahhh I adored Lineage on my Note 3. Revived that device for years for me. That device and that software really was a winning combination. Too bad the charging port broke.
Just like the Linux desktop, alternative smartphones will forever remain a tiny niche market for highly technical people. Mainstream adoption can and will never happen given the current state of hardware design and manufacturing.
> You need a greedy corporation that is incentivized to make a friction-free experience for the end user. Too many well-meaning, but way too smart for their own good developers think everyone else thinks like them.
That goes for software as well as hardware. Plus, hardware needs a certain quality and price point, both of which are in short supply. Everyone who’s tried designing and shipping a quality hardware product at a reasonable price in a reasonable time frame has experienced that. Even if you magically could solve one of the issues, you’d never be able to ship the sheer volume to satisfy demand. And that’s all before even attempting to create a smooth and complete software experience, not to speak of software quality and security issues.
Also, don’t underestimate the novelty factor in mainstream products, which is directly at odds with the goals of open source hardware and software developers.
OP might be confusing hardware design and manufacturing with software availability.
I have wanted to switch from Windows to Linux so many times, and I would love to ditch my Google phone for PinePhone. But for me, this always gets back to the problem of well-maintained software on Linux vs corporate systems. The last time I tried switching to Linux a few months ago, all of the programs I use on a regular basis had some impossibly complicated setup or program-crashing bugs (that I reported) that made me give up after a few days trying to migrate.
Don't get me wrong, the OS (Ubuntu) installed just fine and I was able to browse the internet (which should be sufficient for most people). But anything beyond turning the phone on and having everything self-setup is asking way too much from a mainstream user. Therefore, this argument is always an economic one - not a conceptual one. You need a greedy corporation that is incentivized to make a friction-free experience for the end user. Too many well-meaning, but way too smart for their own good developers think everyone else thinks like them.
The only solution to the e-waste problem is legislation.
First we need to pass laws that force repair ability on these devices. Like being able to replace a battery easily, think slipping the back cover off easy. Force the unification of a charging standard. Finally we need to nickle and dime these companies for not making the devices more reusable.
Are you also going to force phone manufacturers to provide OS updates for 7 years like Apple is doing and security updates for nine years?
I can get my battery replaced for $50-$70.
If the EU had forced a common standard before USB C became prevalent we would be stuck with USB A. Government moves way too slowly and doesn’t have a clue about technology.
GDPR made web browsing worse with cookie pop ups everywhere.
AFAIK they wouldn't be able to use USB C. USB isn't developed by EU but a non profit whose members include different manufacturers. That is where the innovation happens.
Having a standard in doesn't means that innovation slows down/stops or that the standard can't change.
I wish Sailfish OS had a mention. If someone tries to escape the Android/iOS duopoly, it's probably the most mature linux based distribution out there.
It's not fully open source that's true, but it can be daily driven on a number of modern(ish) compatible hardware. The most prominent of them being some of Sony's Xperia's line(official) and a slew of other older devices through the efforts of a community of enthusiasts.
From a US perspective, the lack of group messaging makes it a non-starter for me, unfortunately. My friends and family just expect me to be able to receive group messages. It’s not optional these days for a lot of people.
I used to use it and enjoyed doing so, but I’d hoped Jolla would open source more of it as they said early on that they were considering.
Group MMS. Here in the US MMS messages are usually included with your plan (as opposed to much of the rest of the world where I hear it’s expensive) so it’s caught on much more here than elsewhere.
They claim to be compatible with android apps in their site, how true is that?
For me, the problem with phones is the sense that you're just one step away of having no more OS updates, or updates making it slower, or basically getting locked-in in some way.
They have an Android compatibility layer, which lets you run a lot of Android apps and adds various integrations with sailfish os: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Amrr766crc
The integration with Android apps, when it works, is fairly seamless.
It is kind of like using wine to run windows applications on Linux. Sometimes things may not work, but otherwise it's fine.
They support android apps from a custom repository and from f-droid. I think most of them work in the limit of being compatible with the android version that Alien Dalvik on the device supports (the latest models like Sony Xperia 10 II support version 10). However most of them suffer from not having access to Google services, but then again, that's something a person that wants to de-google would expect I think.
I'm waiting to retire my windows phone. The stopwatch has been running for 2580 days already. But that happens when the Xperia 10 III will get sailfish support
tell ya what i really wanna see from pinephone: AGPS lockdown.
Currently ive learned from HN there are numerous 3GPP protocols that provide direct, clandestine monitoring of the GPS location of the phone. the feature lives unchallenged in the firmware, so if you can give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge, id be ever grateful.
I don't understand what is it you call "AGPS lockdown"
3GPP is usually used in the context of AGPS to help GPS get a lock, by using the ID of the tower your 3GPP UE is connected to. There is one such tower, and there is simply no way to hide it. It is a technical requirement for your carrier to have an approximate location of your equipment. Even if they wished they didn't have it, they would still need it.
A phone doesn't have its GPS turned on permanently, because it eats a lot of battery, and sure some carriers and some OEMs have some backdoors (Sprint last I've seen) to request a GPS position, though AFAIK it can't be enabled in most cases. Is this what you're talking about? As far as I know, taking a "stupid" modem (Say an exynos one), and putting a custom ROM should make you safe from it, because from what I've seen, those backdoors are done in Samsung Android framework
If your question is about E911 (which is lockdown to... well... 911 calls), can't say that I know much about it, but I think what I said on the previous point still applies. On a dumb modem
BTW, PinePhone's modem being a Qualcomm, it is very "smart", and does a lot of things behind Application Processor's back. A Mediatek, or better an Exynos modem is much better to that regard, and would be preferable. (but there is no pinephone on non-qc modem)
- removes most Qualcomm location blobs
- removes carrier OMA-DM blobs
- doesn't send IMEI to SUPL server
- only allows SUPL override when an emergency call is active
- disables A-GPS MSA mode
- and shows a notification when location is requested via SUPL
that feels like a legal hurdle not a technical one. The carrier is obliged by the regulator (eg US FCC) to be able to locate the phone to within a few meters of accuracy without relying on user action in order to meet their commitments around emergency service.
The problem here isnt the collection of data, its the abuse of that data whether its sale to data brokers or over enthusiastic law enforcement using GPS pings on flimsy pretexts to sweep people up.
Does the carrier sell this information? There are many/most apps that I don't allow to get location data and that's because, in my judgement, they don't need it and I don't trust them not to sell it: I can opt out.
But if the carriers are actively gathering my location information and are selling it without giving me a way to opt out then perhaps I need to think about my phone as something I turn off most of the time.
Which reminds me: can you still get pager service?
Cell carriers would generally be tracking you via cell tower triangulation, which can't be rebuffed with software, but that's why the PinePhone has a switch to physically power off the modem (and thus antenna) which does prevent that tracking.
I dream of the day Apple open up their iPhones to alternative OS's. It'll probably never happen, but they've shown with their Apple Silicon macs that it's possible to do without compromising the security of the device. And given the progress on Asahi Linux and how closely related the A series and M series processors, half the drivers would be already written.
Some years ago I was thinking of a way to separate the functions we insist in cramming into phones, making them in the process nearly unusable for anything but consuming media content and advertising.
The idea was to have a small battery powered 3g (now 5G) modem whose task was to route Internet connectivity to a local PAN (low power WiFi, BT, etc) while allowing other PAN devices talk each other. Other PAN devices would be: a very small phone piece with minimal display and navigation keys to receive calls and make ones picking contacts from the list; a pocket keyboard to enter data; a small camera to take pictures and movies; a tablet like device screen with touch, a more capable OS and physical buttons for apps and games; a belt-like holder with housings for all PAN devices. All PAN devices would have their own battery along with contacts exposed for recharging, so that their battery would be recharged by a bigger one contained in the belt as soon as they're snapped into their place in the belt; also all devices would store their data in a central small NAS-like device, also contained in the belt. The communication protocol would allow for example to talk with someone using the phone piece, then grab the camera, take a photo and have it sent automatically to the person on the other side, including geographic coordinates. ...etc.
I spent some good hours wondering about this contraption, then realized that, although very open to expansion, it would also be extremely unpractical for most users, and eventually let the idea die.
Speaking of “bigger picture” how much larger is the phone going to be without the integration?
Even Google had to prematurely abandon support for one of its phones because it couldn’t get driver support for a cell phone chip.
On that same note, cellular standards are a minefield of patents to the point that even when Apple starts producing its own cellular chips, it will still owe Qualcomm patent fees.
my pc is older than all of those numbers and runs fine, and I expect roughly the same from the pinephone
for my pc if I wanna use a sim card after old network shutdown, all it is is swapping a single card on the mobo, perhaps swapping out some antennas too
for the pinephone, just swapping the baseboard without the rest changing, or make/group hire someone to make a case with an updated modem
for battery, because you get a free battery to keep around for emergencies when you buy a new one.
I guess if you want to pay to fix your problems, fine, but not everyone has the luxury to do that!
And the modern cellphone industry is a lot younger.
Sure I can still use a Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop with 8GB RAM, a nice 1920x1200 display, 250Gb hard drive, and gigabit Ethernet from 2011 [1] in 2022. But could I use a computer from 2001 in 2011?
There is a reason that you can use a iPhone 6s from 2015 in 2022. But an iPhone 3G from 2008 would have been unusable in 2015.
This is similar. Mine was much higher specced. It was given to me after a startup I worked for went out of business in 2012. I used it to run Windows CE emulators while writing C# Compact Franework applications.
The pixel 2 was the first smart phone I was completely happy with. In fact, it's still my main phone right now. And I'm someone who had a neo freerunner so I get what the OP is saying, but at the end of day I need something that "Just Works".
The main current problems are 1. support life 2. repairability 3. non-competitive/closed software platform.
I feel like Google had a chance at some point to "open" phone hardware similar to the IBM PC situation... but I suppose, realistically, the telecoms and qualcomm held those cards too close to the vest. oh well.
If the PinePhone had a halfway decent camera I would still use it as a daily driver; but because I had to pocket a separate camera for the few months that I did use it, the device now collects dust in a drawer.
I used lineage for a couple of years. In practice, you need to install a google play middleware to get certain apps you need, Eg, the password manager or authenticator you need for work. After installing these, I wonder if the lack of sandboxing means my phone is basically owned. Facebook famously spied on / hacked jailbroken years ago for example.
Does lineage in that case really provide better privacy? Honestly curious. I use an iPhone these days out of uncertainty
Your thinking is correct. Keep using iPhone. If you wanna try a custom android ROM, try GrapheneOS. It's more secure than Lineage. But they need the Google Pixel devices because only they satisfy their hardware security requirements.
There are repairable and upgradeable phones (Google search for fairphone). If people really cared about this stuff companies like fairphone would be dominating the market now. But people don't buy those phones because they don't agree that "smartphones are shit". They would rather have cheaper less upgradeable less repairable phones. Not sure that's a problem which Pinephone are solving?
This is the sort of thing I would have been all over and wasted weeks on when I was younger.
Now, sorry, I just don't care anymore. I don't live my life through my phone so I buy cheap Android phones for a few hundred dollars tops, and when they die they die. If it can make and receive calls, texts, and run Google Maps navigation that is 90% of what I need.
Yes, but so do normal computers, just in different ways.
Android and iOS both greatly restrict user freedom, sure. But they're both far easier to use than Linux, and "just work" way more of the time.
Yeah, neither mobile OS can do packages or shared libraries - but at least they can't get stuck in an inconsistent state, like apt.
The toolchains for Android/iOS are absolutely abysmal - but the OSes themselves come with a capability-based security model that is infinitely better than what's available on Linux.
All software is bad.
(although, to the other point of "phone hardware has bad longevity" - yes, that's completely correct)
I did not see PostmarketOS mentioned (https://postmarketos.org/), which tries to solve the OS problem that Android (and LineageOS) does not really solve.
> Just taking apart a modern iPhone is a warranty-voiding, screen-cracking, glue-ripping operation.
From my experience iPhones are as hard (or a bit easier) to open as other waterproofed phones, but battery and display replacements are actually prioritized in the design and easy to conduct once you open the thing. Cryptographically paired components are the problem with iphones, not the way they are built.
To get a comprehensive list of devices that are compatible with LineageOS and other alternatives, you can have a look here: https://olaki-android.github.io/olaki/
Also, you can run Android on PinePhone through Waydroid (Android in a Linux container).
My dream would be a phone that has Android on the handset but I can plug it into a USBC dock with connected displays, keyboard, mouse and a Linux desktop environment would be displayed on the external displays.
You're not in some minority, that's a new phone every three years and is in line with the market. Also, who are you buying from that is supporting their software for that long? I think I've gotten maybe 2 years of updates if in lucky with anyone but Google. So you've admitted you're upgrading because of software features. This is the entire issue. I still play triple A games at 1440p 144hz on a 10 year old PC with a 2700k and see no reason to upgrade because of software. Infact, my computer doesn't support windows 11 and that's a blessing imo. My laptop is a t440p which is almost 10 years old and I've never needed to upgrade because of software. I run Windows 10 fine and arch even better. I can play some games and stream the rest. The planned obsolescence of cell phones is not about hardware, it's about software and advertising. Nobody should need to have a new phone every two years.
Just be careful depending on LineageOS too much. I bought a 1.5-year-old officially supported device (OnePlus Nord), only to have support for it stop 2 months later.
I’m still thinking about which ROM to switch to (I luckily rarely need my phone, so being somewhat outdated currently is not too much of an issue), but I didn’t know that this build also included a normal version without microg, so that’s good to know, thanks.
edit: Looks like the maintainer also plans to go official with LineageOS 19 again, so that’s even better.
This article lost me when it started waxing poetic about Linux hardware support. The author praised one of the most broken and frustrating parts of using Linux.
While I love this write up, this quote caught my eye:
> This is not something I'd recommend unless you're truly dedicated to open source and want to be early to the first generation of open source telephony.
The OpenMoko was the first generation of open source telephony :)
I’d wager we’re in the second now. I could almost argue the Nokia N9 was the progenitor of that too, but that’s a much longer bow to draw haha
"How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years? Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones,<...>"
Answer: 'many' in both instances.
Where possible, I root my phones and install LineageOS or other similar 'open' O/S. In instances where there's no LineageOS available or where LineageOS doesn't provide a full implementation of the phone's original software (in that some essential feature that I require is either missing or doesn't work properly under LineageOS) then I still root the original OEM's O/S and then deGgoogle it the best I can—that is, nuke all of Google's apps as well as all of the OEM's junkware apps then install GApps as well as various alternatives to Google's software, etc. including a firewall to stop certain apps getting access to ads.
I always install two essential apps, F-Droid (store) and Aurora Store which spoofs access to Google's Playstore.
Note: Be very careful in how you logon to Google's sites (that is if you still use them, Gmail for instance (luckily, I don't). Failure to take great care will mean that you'll be deemed by Google of having violated its terms of service and your account will be revoked or suspended!!
Most of you who will be reading this already know all these details, so the most significant thing I have to say is that I NO longer advocate to my friends that they ought to root their phones. I even include my many technical friends who could easily root their phones if they wanted to do so in this rule—because it's just not worth the risk of aliening them when things stuff up (as they often do) when phones are rooted.
Diehards like me have either no problems or they're problems I can easily live with. The trouble, however, is that the Google ecosystem is so addictive and all embracing that even many savvy techies find that they cannot live without certain features, or alternatively, they're so engrossed in using their apps that they haven't the time to even look for alternatives let alone take sufficient effort to evaluate them properly.
In my opinion, it's this utterly strong grip that Google has on its users that's the key issue—and major problem! Whilst rooting and LineageOS are great for the likes of you and me, they're not suitable for most people (as terrible as that me be). Period!
I'm of the strong opinion the only way around this dilemma is for some big Maverick manufacturer to manufacture a high performance, super-easy-to-use 'Fairphone'-like 'clone' that has even better performance than the current crop of non-Google alternatives—and it should also be even easier to use than current phones. Only then will there be sufficient momentum from sales to see other manufactures take up the challenge—and it's only then when we will end up with effective competition.
At present however, I'd not even give my wish a snowball's chance!
Moreover, frankly, I'm concerned that the current lot of manufactures that make Google alternatives is just too small to make any appreciable difference. That said, I wish them well—and few I'd reckon would be happier than me if my assessment turned out to be totally wrong.
So often I try to update F-Droid apps and the site isn't available or it takes forever to download updates.
It's not the F-Droid app either (i.e.: not an old version etc.) because I experience the same delay using Aurora Droid (which I didn't mention above), as you'd probably know it also accesses F-Droid's site.
I've often wondered if F-Droid's slowness is due to my location/time zone as I've found it fastest when the US and Europe are asleep. I'm in UTC+10 hrs.
Could be that I mostly access the site during hours when backups or maint is been done.
No, not really, they take great photos, I can surf internet, send mesages, check my calendar etc. Though I was doing most of this already before Android/iOS on my Symbian/Java phones, "smartphones" just made the experience more pleasant.
> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years?
Had to replace? 0. But I wanted to replace the phone (running 5th phone in 11 years, technically 6th but I gave the last phone to wife after few months and returned back to previous one because I couldn't stand the size), because I wanted better specs, better camera etc. Since smartphones reached certain level of performance I don't really have this need since my last phone bought in 2018. I wanna upgrade it already for like 2 years but there are no available compact options to upgrade really until recently (great camera, good battery, compact size).
> Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones, or have you tried to absolve some regret and taken a few trips to an e-waste "recycler"?
No, previous phones I donated to mother, now with older kids they will be inheriting my phones, though I still have "in drawer" 2 decent older phones in case current phone would break so I (or wife) can use something temporarily.
> The battery no longer holds a charge;
It holds still pretty well even after 4 years, can get me through the day, which is all I need. That's why you buy phone and take into consideration battery life deteroriation over 2-3 years, so you don't buy phone with crap capacity straight out of box (see Pixel 4A or Mi 9SE which I bought considered to buy).
> it gets way too hot;
No, I don't game.
> replacing a cracked screen costs more than just getting a new phone;
In 11 years I've never break my phone screen, neither did wife which use phone few years less and her poor phones take lot of beating, but we use tempered glass screen protectors.
> new updates are unbearably slow; updates stop altogether; support stops altogether.
I don't really care about any of these, if it works don't fix it. Why would I upgrade to new shiny Android version which peaked anyway around 7-8 and there is hardly anything useful introduced since then. Apps are still supported.
Btw. in 11 years I've never used official ROM, always only custom ROMs, mostly LineageOS, maybe 7+ years my phones don't have even gapps, luckily I don't use ride hailing apps or grocery delivery from phone (why would I use horrible small screen of phone instead mice and 32" display? and if your service doesn't have web version for PC it doesn't deserve my money), otherwise it could be a problem.
Or just trade it in — you can still do that directly with apple back to the 6s (which is 7 years old now). Used market for iPhones is pretty good too; apple products retain resale value better than others.
Ultimately, given the above, I don’t think ewaste is a big problem with iPhones. Apple either refurbishes and sells it in a market that still values older phones, or recycles it.
I also support right to repair and any legislative efforts to force apple and others to stop deliberately making phones hard to repair. But given the trade-in value and used markets, I’m not sure why anyone would toss it in the trash or keep it in a drawer!
If it stops working or being updated, I'm not sure the value of said nonfunctioning device will be great. It could be with an open os if its functionality suits you.
Pinephone et al appeal to nerds and are a good reference case about those tradeoffs but I'm doubtful they'll tip the scale.