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thdrdt | 5 years ago
Is Linux a viable option as mobile OS? I've got a feeling that it is almost as a 'dumb' phone. You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it.
Or would going to something like LineageOS be a better option?
thdrdt | 5 years ago
Is Linux a viable option as mobile OS? I've got a feeling that it is almost as a 'dumb' phone. You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it.
Or would going to something like LineageOS be a better option?
fsflover|5 years ago
GNU/Linux phones are full personal computers in your pocket. They can do everything a computer can do: terminal, desktop Firefox, games, convergence (external screen, keyboard, mouse) etc. See my other links about Librem 5 in this thread.
chriswarbo|5 years ago
pjmlp|5 years ago
ryukafalz|5 years ago
As someone in the US, I would have to say no, for one reason:
None of the mobile Linux distros yet support group texts (reliably, anyway). If someone sends you a group text, you won't see it. (The only distro that seems to have partial support for it is Ubuntu Touch, and there it seems incomplete; sometimes I would receive group messages and sometimes not. I missed a few important ones this way.)
This is probably only relevant to those in the US as I understand MMS is not as prevalent elsewhere.
ptx|5 years ago
I've heard this a few times in connection with the Pinephone, but we certainly do use MMS in Europe.
I seem to recall, assuming my memory is at all reliable, that when the iPhone first launched, Europeans were complaining about the lack of MMS and Americans were saying it wasn't a problem because everyone should just use e-mail.
squarefoot|5 years ago
Well, thankfully it's not the case. The heart is a ARM processor with plenty of code already ported to run on it, and the surrounding hardware isn't that different from many single board computers that already run complete Linux distributions. As an example, Firefox, GIMP and Libreoffice -the real ones, not dumbed down versions- already do run on the Pinephone.
https://liliputing.com/2019/11/pinephone-smartphone-can-run-...
Keep in mind that the video is one year old, meaning old phone model with less RAM, very young OS and likely no code optimization for apps to run on a phone rather on a desktop PC.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all if one year from now we would have more software available for the Pinephone compared to Android. Sometimes it's just a matter of recompiling (huge argument in favor of Open Source). As another example, if Lazarus (lazarus-ide.org) would run on it (it already does on the Raspberry PI and many other ARM boards), one could develop native GUI apps directly on the phone. Probably not comfortable, still possible.
The only problem in my opinion would arise from the unavailability of phone specific apps, particularly closed ones or those depending on proprietary servers whose owners wouldn't give a damn about recompiling their client and are particularly anal retentive wrt allowing 3rd party apps accessing the services, for example Whatsapp. In that case one would have to attempt to emulate a different platform in which run the original proprietary app, which very likely would make things too slow to be useable.
Mediterraneo10|5 years ago
linmob|5 years ago