Breaking the phone you plan to demo with is always fun.
Fixing it, even more so!
Just need a keyboard and run 1 command.
2 hours to go https://debconf23.debconf.org/talks/61-the-year-of-linux-on-desktopwmobile/
I'm a bit concerned about the frequent power losses at the hotel though :D
I'll add image descriptions later, need to work on my slides :P
and need to go for a swim!
@devrtz
Is that a Pinephone?
@devrtz
Interesting... Is it in an usable state now? I went for the Pinephone Pro (originally ordered a Librem 5 but asked for a refund after 2 years from the order), but it doesn't have much love unfortunately. I also have the Mobian normal version, but its hardware is too weak! 
I surely watch your presentation once available!
@purism
The PPP is too weak for you?
What exactly do you plan to do with it?
For me, the primary issue is that the kernel is just not mature enough. To change that I would assume that it would take some serious dev work and mainlining to really become interesting to *me*. Of course YMMV , but if you don't care about any of that (and I'm not saying you do) I don't see why you wouldn't "simply" run sth on top of Android using libhybris, e.g. #droidian
1/N
@devrtz
No, the normal Pinephone is too weak... The PPP would be more than enough if only it was a bit more reliable and less power hungry. For me, the whole point of using a Linux phone is to avoid libhybris altogether. I don't really like all those converted Android phones out there, not now that we could potentially have a couple of alternatives like the Librem 5 (which is definitely too expensive) and the PPP.
@purism
@devrtz
Yeah, I'm of the same idea: it'll take time, if it ever happens, for the PPP to become a viable solution, unfortunately. But considering that the Librem 5 took 6 years from the announcement to the stage that it is now, I guess is an issue of this kind of alternative phone.
In regards to the developers that like to eat, and the quantities that drive the price, it doesn't exclude the fact that 1000USD for the Librem 5 is disproportionated
@purism
>In regards to the developers that like to eat, and the quantities that drive the price, it doesn't exclude the fact that 1000USD for the Librem 5 is disproportionated
So what you're saying is I shouldn't eat? Or should eat less?
(The last one is probably **actually** true)
Knowing full well that @purism
pretty much kickstarted this whole thing, lots of other distros/phones benefiting and arguably succeeded where e.g. Canonical has not?
1/2
E.g. the panel driver used on the PP (and perhaps PPP too - dunno) was written by @agx for the L5 devkit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c
'nuff said
2/2
@devrtz
Also, I don't take away anything from the fact that Purism did a lot of good for the Linux mobile community, and I thank them for that. I'm a fan of them, but I simply don't want/can't afford to spend all that money on a phone that is full of limitations and at the moment just a hobby for me. I wish one day we will have an affordable, fully functional Linux phone, ready for being use as such, just for what I see is not the time yet
@deedend @devrtz @purism I encourage everyone to try PureOS on the Librem 5 to judge daily usability of the Librem 5 and if it's "the time yet".
One shouldn't draw that conclusion by looking at other devices (running other distros).
A single missing one line line patch or broken driver can considerably mess up daily usability.
I was thinking conferences?
Any idea if https://linux.org.au/linux-conf-au/ will take place this year?
Or maybe Linux User Groups?
Adding some relevant hashtags (boosts appreciated), maybe someone will see and will let your play with the device a little!
@deedend Not going to be near Melbourne any time soon, but L5s are definitely usable in this part of the world.
@deedend @devrtz @purism I'd try https://forums.puri.sm/ . I've also posted a message to the community/librem5 matrix channel linking to this post
@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism
I have been daily driving mine since February of this year. Before that, I daily drove the PPP for a year and before that I daily drove the PP for a year.
The #Librem5 was a major step up in quality and usability from day one. I loved my pinephones, but I don't think that I could go back to them.
@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism even if the phone's software works well, mobile Linux is not the same platform as desktop Linux, for apps.
For example, I use Signal to communicate with people, and Matrix to communicate with communities.
Both Signal and Element are Electron apps, which aren't optimised for phones.
There's Flare and Fractal of course, but neither are ready to replace Signal and Element at this point.
Therefore, mobile Linux just isn't an option for me at the moment.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
Sure, I understand how everyone has different needs and how they may not **yet** be met.
I'm wondering what is missing for you to be able to daily drive fractal? Iit has been a long time since I last tried it: I'm stubbornly using chatty even though it can be a bit painful - I'm a masochist like that :P
1/2
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
Same question for Flare, which I also don't use because I don't do #signal .
And are there perhaps issues filed that would give me a perspective on what's missing?
Maybe these are things where @schmiddionmobile could use some help?
In my talks I always recommend people relying on #signal to try/use Flare, so I'm also afraid of giving out misguided advice :P
(not too much though)
2/2
@devrtz @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile The main issue with all Linux phone messaging except for Chatty are notifications in my experience, when it comes to Fractal and Flare both are cool apps but nether of them is in a state that should be used for secure communications and nether of them is finished. That's the case with tons of cool apps in general, the entire ecosystem evolved a lot but it's not even close to finished and often a pain to use, not daily driver material
@devrtz @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile The by far biggest issue remains battery life tho, that's just fucking horrible on desktop Linux if you compare it to Android or iOS and in some cases even god damn Windows and MacOS!
@Fosstonaut @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile
Understandable. For me personally it suffices, but of course there's a reason I will carry a power bank when I know that I will be on the road for longer times ;)
I can pretty much only talk about the #Librem5 here as this is the device I'm using daily/the most (I do have PP and PPP at home, but the L5 is just the most enjoyable out of these three).
And there it can carry me through a typical working day w/o powerbank.
@devrtz @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile I never owned a Librem5 but I assume it's a little better than my PP in that regard, if I had to guess probably still worse than my OnePlus 6T with LinageOS and it's half broken battery which is too little for me already so nothing I would do. I tried to daily drive mobile Linux two or three years ago, it was painful then and many of the majore issues barely got addressed but if it's working for you that's great!
@Fosstonaut @julianfairfax @deedend @schmiddionmobile
I mean I work with @purism on the #Librem5 and I strongly believe in dogfooding. Because if the developers cannot use their own products than how are enthusiasts or even the general populace supposed to use this?!
This way bugs usually get found, diagnosed and fixed quicker, because they annoy us too :P
Just as an example (which impresses me to this day):
@agx has been running #phosh on his laptop pretty much from day one.
@devrtz @julianfairfax @deedend @schmiddionmobile @purism @agx That's very true! I am a enthusiast for the concept from day one and even tho I was dissapointed with the kind of progress that makes it more usable as a phone multiple times I still play around with my PP regularly and it's only getting cooler, especially the progress in Phosh is awesome to watch, it's slow but consistant and remains relatively stable!
@Fosstonaut @devrtz @julianfairfax @deedend @schmiddionmobile @agx
Speaking of the PP and phosh:
I'm amazed, how well the shell itself works on the hardware.
Launching any application is a different story however ;)
@devrtz @Fosstonaut @deedend @schmiddionmobile @agx I got a PP, because I wanted to try mobile Linux and I can't justify paying $1000 for a phone (any phone).
It "works", but is very slow. Now, granted, this is the base model, but mobile Linux is a lot less optimised than Android. So, you'll always need more specs.
The PPP is better, but it has issues with hardware support.
So, that leaves me without a real option for now. Hopefully the Fairphone will work well on mobile Linux!
@julianfairfax @Fosstonaut @deedend @schmiddionmobile @agx
The thing about the price I definitely understand. It is not exactly pocket change,
see also
the thread at https://social.librem.one/@purism/111095884523556802
I'm definitely also rooting for @fairphone . Would be really cool to have #postmarketOS as an officially supported option!
Of course I'd love to see people support and buy from @purism but at the end of the day: The more manufacturers, phones, developers and users we have the better it is for everyone!
@Fosstonaut @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile
When you say notifications you mean push notifications that will wake your phone up?
Yeah that area will definitely need some love.
For me this is not a huge problem as I personally operate more in pull mode anyway and I do social stuff usually in bursts and then I want my piece and quiet :D
@devrtz @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile I do all of my communication except with some online friends through Signal for years now and I definitely don't want them for E.g. my Mastodon client but I do need some push notifications, still disappointed how little they looked at Libpurple before making promises for Chatty btw!
@Fosstonaut @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile
>still disappointed how little they looked at Libpurple before making promises for Chatty btw!
Sorry, I don't quite follow. Can you elaborate?
E.g. who is they?
and are we still talking about signal?
@devrtz @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile Purism promised to support Signal and Matrix in Chatty very early on through Libpurple which turned out to be a disaster. According to them we should have had support for both shortly after release of the Librem5 but that never happened because the "universal" library is a unusable mess with some addons even beeing hard coded to the main client (Pidgin)!
I think it's fair to say that some of the marketing has been ... overly optimistic ;)
(and more importantly the original plans of collaborating with the matrix foundation to develop matrix support in chatty iirc have not quite worked out)
Anyway,
if you're interested:
this is the current roadmap for #matrix support in chatty:
https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty/-/issues/723
PS: As always, all opinions are my own.
@devrtz @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile currently there's an issue where you can't sync your contacts. https://gitlab.com/schmiddi-on-mobile/flare/-/issues/107
This will of course be fixed, but it shows how unstable a third-party Signal client is.
There's an issue for some users, including me, that can be summarised as unreliable sending of messages, a big problem for a messaging app. https://gitlab.com/schmiddi-on-mobile/flare/-/issues/106
The upstream library developers have tried to fix it, but so far haven't succeeded. https://github.com/whisperfish/presage/issues/158
@devrtz @agx @deedend @purism @schmiddionmobile additionally, primary device support, which will added to Flare one day, is almost essential to daily drive it on mobile Linux.
Otherwise, you would have to link Flare with something like signal-cli, and have that always running.
Plus, to do something such as add a new contact, you would have to then use signal-cli, and, as the name implies, you would have to do that from the terminal.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
I guess a (really) good matrix client should also be able to deal with spaces (and subspaces) properly. Is that one of the issues you're facing?
@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism there are also lesser issues, such as with calendar sync.
If you use Proton Calendar, then you have no app for mobile Linux.
You can use Nextcloud for calendars, but then you'll have to set it up, just to be able to use mobile Linux comfortably.
(And this is just me, but I can't port forward my Nextcloud instance, so I use Tailscale. However, GNOME has a bug where you can't add a Nextcloud instance with a self-signed certificate.)
@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism this is more of an issue with the state of privacy-respecting calendar syncing solutions, than it is a mobile Linux issue though.
But, this is the kind of stuff you'll run into, because your device is such a niche product.
Finding open source apps for Android is hard, finding those for desktop Linux is harder. Now you want an open source app for Linux mobile devices?
So much will be missing, because Android and iOS are "mobile" platforms, Linux isn't.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
I very much appreciate your thoughts on this.
Of course Android and iOS have a teeny tiny little headstart, but I'm sure we will catch up eventually.
Because #foss is a real enabler and equalizer.
Also this shit has A LOT of potential. Just think about how things were 2 years back (and I daily drove PP and L5 back then - have I said how I'm a masochist? :D ) and let your mind wander to where we might be in another 2 years if developers keep hacking at it!
@julianfairfax @deedend @devrtz @purism
Linux wasn't a "desktop" platform to begin with either so that argument doesn't make sense.
Linux is what we make out of it by contributing to the solution. The Linux kernel has the capability to run well on mobile. We have mobile shells and adaptive toolkits and devices that can run them well. We need to continue to grow the app ecosystem and work on infrastructure bits sure but this very thread proves that this is happening at a nice pace.
@agx @julianfairfax @deedend @purism
Right! Things happen because people self-organize and work to make them happen.
apt install anarchism
🦄 🌈
@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism the problem is: who is "we"?
We, the free software community, can definitely make any app we want for mobile Linux.
But, bigger players like Signal, have no interest into making an app for mobile Linux, so it's not a "platform".
When bigger players make apps, they might make them for "Linux" the "platform". To them, it's for desktops, not mobile devices.
That is the problem I wanted to illustrate.
@julianfairfax @deedend @devrtz @purism (what you call) "Bigger players" are just slow. They will adapt eventually as the toolkits bubble up.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
well to be honest electron is a shitshow anyway and I have trouble taking anyone developing for it seriously.
Sorry, but not sorry.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism
okay, this might come as a shock, but electron is a f*** chrome-browser.
Had a project lately, where the developing party did not allow to use the dev-mode inside the electron based client.
well, QA as we are, we know packetsniffers and found the base-url.
From there it was just open chromium and use dev-tools...
so when people say the develop in, they mean they develop for google-chrome.
@zeroday @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism this is why Flare and Fractal are needed. Signal and Element are the only two Electron apps I use, and they're hard to replace.
But, the community is capable of doing it. I am confident that in a few months, or a few years, Flare and Fractal will become stable, powerful clients for their respective platforms.
And they will surpass their Electron counterparts in one key way: they're native apps. Made for and at home on Linux, and mobile Linux.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism
#challenge excepted.
So for the #linux only challenge no element and no signal-desktop-app.
Well there is chatty and there is flare.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism
please tell me, that matrix uses forward secrecy.... otherwise I could loose in that department...
Next time I should just shut my fingers....
@zeroday @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @purism
@matrix@lemmy.ml
@matrix@mastodon.matrix.org
not a security person, but iirc it uses https://gitlab.matrix.org/matrix-org/olm/
I'm sure #matrix folks can tell you more
@zeroday @julianfairfax @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism For Matrix (only counting E2EE apps that fit a phone screen), there's also Nheko, Fluffychat, Fractal 5 beta and Moment, see https://linuxphoneapps.org/services/matrix/ - just in case Chatty should not work out for you.
Also, Element or Hydrogen (lightweight web client) can of course also be run in a Gecko or webkitgtk based webview.
@linmob @zeroday @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism Signal is more important for me than Matrix. I think I would probably use Hydrogen though since it's pretty good.
As for the others, Chats and Fractal are the only attractive ones for me, since I would use @mobian, or at least Phosh, and as such, GTK apps look a lot more at home on there.
(Also, I like Flatpaks, and the Chats Flatpak doesn't work with Matrix. I maintain that one and never got it to work.)
@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism credit where its due though: @protonmail have made their websites work really well on mobile.
In fact, if you still can't edit events on mobile, then Proton Calendar is even better than GNOME Calendar.
You can also get notifications for new events by email, which sort of solves that problem.
However, Proton has a bridge for mail. Hopefully in the future it will include calendar sync, and contacts sync, and hopefully Proton Mail will sync contacts on Android.
@julianfairfax @deedend @devrtz @purism hydrogen works well for matrix and resource usage is o.k. in chromium. I've heard similar things for signal.
Also "neither are ready" needs references on what's missing - it depends on usage pattern. Native apps like flare or chatty are making good progress. Also if it's not an option for you it might be an option for others.
It also depends on how important a switch is for someone (I myself just can't imagine running around with an Android phone).
@julianfairfax @deedend @devrtz @purism Both webkit (used in epiphany / GNOME Web) and chromium engines target mobile so while I prefer native apps too we shouldn't overlook that years of optimization for mobile went into these browser engines so they can run efficiently on phones. So I'd not dismiss webapps so easily.
@julianfairfax @agx @deedend @devrtz @purism For the record, I’m currently daily driving a modified Signal Desktop app on my Librem 5. You’re absolutely correct: it’s not optimised for phones. However, it’s working decently enough for me as is while the community is working towards a native solution.
See also: https://forums.puri.sm/t/signal-app-now-usable-in-portrait-mode-on-l5/21278
@claudi awesome! Glad it's working for you and thanks for sharing the details so others can follow in your footsteps.
@dan …if you can control the messaging protocols of people you talk to. That often works but not always.
(If we could all have agreed on XMPP 10y ago the world would maybe be a better place 😃 )
@agx
I've ordered a Librem 5 in the kickstarter campaign back in 2017, after more than 2 years of waiting I decided to ask for a refund (got it at the end of 2019). Now it's definitely too expensive for me at the current price (I also have less money to spend in this sort of stuff now). Saying that, I still would love to try a Librem 5 and see how it is in RL, but being in Australia I believe it's impossible
@devrtz @purism