Linux Phones

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Community about running GNU/Linux on phones. Projects like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, PostmarketOS, Mobian etc. Either on former Android phones or hardware like the PinePhone.

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What happened to the PinePhone? (youtu.be)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (18 children)

Cool video and channel. Thanks for posting!

TLDW:

[It was a cool attempt that may have spurred mobile Linux devs in an important way. Removable battery + hardware switches for communication subsystems were genuinely innovative and in tune with community interests. Also it was bad. 8 year old CPU, software that was trying to do everything everywhere all at once, cameras that didn't work then technically did. Pine64 still exists and the Pinephone Pro is a thing (that the presenter hadn't tested).]

Presenter was generous when describing the end product. It seems to me like they want to like it but came to the same conclusion as most did -- it's definitely not a daily driver. That said, it doesn't have to be to remain a cool product.

Do give them a watch though if you have a chance. This is from a <1k subscriber channel and was well put together.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (16 children)

I'm convinced Pine64 has no idea how to make an actual usable product.

I wasted my money on a PineTime watch. And it's basically only useful for telling time, because as soon as you try to use any smartwatch features, the battery life basically disappears. Firmware updates are horrendously slow. The device has like 5kb of storage and 4kb is used by the base firmware, so when I thought I could program my own features for it because it's open source, it was severely mistaken. Not to mention that if I'm not particularly amazing at programming for this device I either destroy the battery life or brick it.

[–] Chais 3 points 1 month ago

Yes updates are slow, but keep in mind that the developers are all volunteers.
Currently the PineTime is a glorified step counter, but with the next update (should be 1.15, I hope) we'll get background heart rate monitoring. The PR is shaping up and will hopefully be merged before the next release.

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