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!

#DebConf23 #Debian #MobileLinux #phosh #gnome

@devrtz
Is that a Pinephone?

@deedend

No. It's #Librem5
I work with @purism

@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

@deedend @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

@deedend @purism

I don't see PPP becoming a viable option any time soon.

OP6 is super interesting (no cameras yet, though).

> too expensive

it might suprise you to learn that
a) developers like to eat
b) lower order quantities means higher prices (if manufactures bother speaking to you at all)

@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

@deedend

>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?

#MobileLinux

1/2

@deedend @purism

@deedend @purism

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

#MobileLinux

@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

@purism @agx

@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.

@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.

@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 @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 @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.

@agx @deedend @devrtz @purism well it remains to be seen if Electron will at all care about mobile devices on Linux.

A lot of proprietary apps are made using Electron, and the open source community doesn't like it much, so, I doubt they are necessarily receptive to requests from it.