Comment by the_pwner224 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by the_pwner224 | Hacker News Reader

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The two big projects working on this are the Purism Librem 5 and the PinePhone, both run stock Linux with no binary blobs aside from an isolated cellular modem.

The Librem 5 has been delayed for years and the behaviour of the company is kind of sketchy, however going by Purism's videos the software is pretty good and getting better rapidly (and they upstream their changes back to Gnome).

The PinePhone has shipped to some developers and the company has a history of actually making functional products, but the software is still a WIP, and Pine64's products are cheap (which is great for many people, but I would rather have a $400 phone than a <$150 phone, especially given that these ones won't suffer from software obsolescence).

I can't wait for these things to become at least somewhat functional - I personally will be buying one as soon as they get phone calling, SMS, and a web browser (the Librem has them, and other Gnome applications, but it's still in preorder).

Pinephone: https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21824962

Librem 5: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21369733

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21303770

- https://puri.sm/posts/librem-5-vs-android-which-boots-faster... (stupid comparison vs a 6 year old Android phone - how out of touch is their marketing team and CEO to allow this to happen???)

That "stupid comparison" shows their phone booting in 13s. I just timed my Pixel 3 and it boots in the same time. That's really impressive any way you slice it.

Yes... but the comparison shows the Android phone taking over a minute. That's what makes it a stupid comparison. If they showed it side by side with your Pixel 3 it wouldn't look as impressive (or so thinks their marketing team).

These things look fun but if they don't get the app support they'll just go the same way that Firefox OS, Ubuntu Mobile and Windows Phone did.

Unfortunately other than the hacker niche that's on this forum you won't get the average consumer using these devices/OSes and therefore you won't get the apps that attract people to use the devices in the first place.

I think that as much as the community hates to hear it, these phones need to support sandboxed Android apps at near-native speed, or they're going nowhere fast.

This is why I want Firefox to prioritize Progressive Web App support, and for PWAs to become more popular. Then an open device that can run Firefox can have access to a variety of apps that will work just the same as they would on an Android device. I understand there are drawbacks compared to native, but I really think they're worthwhile tradeoffs to enable new platforms to be immediately compatible with an existing set of cross-platform apps!

Except it is Google and Microsoft that are driving the show in regards to PWAs and their OS integration.

I heard FirefoxOS is doing well under a different brand? Does it have interesting apps, I wonder.

It's KaiOS[1]. I think their biggest hit was the JioPhone in theIndian market[2] but the phone lineup is quite impressive for an alternative system.

They've got some funding from Google[3] as well.

[1]: https://www.kaiostech.com/

[2]: https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/relianc...

[3]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17513036/google-kaios-inv...

I think this is actually a big advantage of these projects compared to previous smartphone attempts. They are not building a full new OS that developers will have to target; they're running a real, full GNU/Linux distro (GNU being relevant here, because busybox/linux has already been done inside Android).

So, while there will be some effort required to make gui programs work, libhandy supposedly makes this pretty easy. It's an order of magnitude less effort than porting an app from a different platform. Not to mention that everything CLI should Just Work -- this is not relevant to most mainstream users, but it's very relevant to the developer story; I think it's likely that FLOSS developers will start targeting these phones as soon as they become usable enough to developers. Personally, I'm planning to get a Librem 5 as soon as they're off backorder and there are reviews from non-affiliated parties (the latter might be now; I check every couple months and it's been about that long since I checked last).

Previous smartphone attempts like FreeMoko, Maemo, Moblin, Tizen, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish.

If anything, it proves the point that GNU/Linux doesn't sell phones to make a sustainable business out of it.

I hope they will target the maker/hacker space like the raspberry pi did. So long as they keep their design and ambitions in check, they should be able to grow slowly over time with additional interest with each new improved version.

The need is not going away anytime soon. I generally like what Apple and Google have done for the mobile phone market, but it’s time for folks to take back some control of their devices which the execs will likely not agree to.

The radios are too locked down and the software too. Despite good intentions, I’m concerned this gatekeeping could become corrupted/corrupting in the future.

If you support the rough and tumble world of open source and systems, you’ll plant a seed that a future generation can grow and compete with gatekeepers. This may reduce the corrupting forces from the gatekeepers. They could point to open systems and say, “Look government, your plan won’t work because 3% use an unrestricted phone, and more will follow if you force us to do X to everyone’s phone.”

13s boot time is still good regardless of the comparison phone.

RE: prices. Anecdotally I m happy with the ~$150 price tag. Those phones are not going to be daily drivers any time soon. I m much happier to buy a secondary phone for ~$150 than ~$400.

I also suspect that a phone with hardware closer to a ~$400 android phone would be much harder to support with open source software/drivers.

I expect there are more blobs than just the modem, for example the USB controller(s).

> the behaviour of the company is kind of sketchy

Can you elaborate?

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