1peter10

joined 1 year ago
[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 month ago

It's also available on Flathub and packaged in some relevant distros - it's one of the far too few apps that are available on Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS, postmarketOS, Mobian, Droidian - a true #LinuxMobile marvel.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 months ago

Author here.

It's just a report on what we managed to accomplish for LinuxPhoneApps.org, a project that

lists apps for Linux Phones like the PinePhone or Librem 5, that run Linux distributions which do not have a proper (de)centralized app store yet.

That an app was added does not necessary mean it is new or anything, just that it was added to LinuxPhoneApps.org's app list. It may be years old (and may have worked on #LinuxMobile for a long, long time, but we just missed it before. And the again just refers to the previous quarter ;-)

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago

The FLX1 did not have DP alt mode either, unless I am totally mistaken. All external display concepts for the FLX1 were/are to require sth like DisplayLink. So all that's lost are file transfer speeds over USB.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago

From what I could gather, they wanted to make more of the original FLX1, but could not get the a manufacturer to do that. I am actually not too unhappy with this one, the orginal FLX1 was too big and heavy for my liking.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That's the age of the design. If you look at first use (usually a year later), and then widespread use beyond flagship chips for big cores (2+ years later), you'll end up with different dates. Not every core ARM puts out ends up being used in a ton of chips across SoC vendors, as some fare better in the trade-of between transistors and real world performance/energy efficiency than others. A76 is definitely popular, if you look at SoC out there. The RK3588(s) GPU was announced in 2021 and shipped in 2022 first - so it's relatively new, as the SoC is also not that old: RK3588s was introduced in early 2022, and these days it has decent enough Linux support to start building a Linux-first product with it.

The issue for small companies like Liberux is that they

  1. can't even get every chip on the market, as the Qualcomms of this world do not care about low volume operations (in addition to that, they need longer availability as they can't afford to change chips at the pace bigger players do), and
  2. need to pick a chip that fits the power envelope of their design AND has decent enough mainline Linux support.

That narrows things down very much, and leaves a quite narrow chip selection. Another start-up with the same goal, dawndrums, are designing around the same chip for that very same reason.

If you are in doubt about how competent RK3588(s) is, look into the work that Lucie from MNT does - a lot of future product design is done on MNT hardware, these days powered by that very RK3588.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 months ago

The thing is: As far as I could gather, they are planning make this in Spain, which - in addition to small scale production (you pay more per part if you order less) introduces higher wages (and costs due to different regulations etc.).

Would I like it to be cheaper? Yes. But ceteris paribus I would not trust them to make it if this where cheaper.

Regarding alternatives, postmarketOS and Mobian also work on old Android phones.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If this was their second try, after the first one had had an unreliable modem, it would make sense to advertise the modem as reliable... but that's not the situation they are in.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The passcode doesn’t have to be 6-digit only, we could store the number of char somewhere if the user wants this feature!

That is a good point, having this configurable would certainly be a nice change for everyone.

One more thing regarding Phosh:

what is wrong with the emoji keyboard?? it’s bad

Now, there's not just Squeekboard (which is the default on postmarketOS), but we also have other keyboards that you can try:

and some people have managed to get Sxmo's wvkbd to run with Phosh (see https://github.com/WHO53/wvkbd-phosh-osk for an example, I have tried another approach back in the day (but failed).

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think the matter is that:

  • all main UT contributors are aware that VoLTE is that many people need (and those who don't need it yet are going to need it eventually),
  • the project has been working on it for years,
  • but sadly it's difficult, because even if you get it to work, it's usually per device, and even when VoLTE works on a device on one carrier, that does not mean it will work on every carrier.

Also, being asked / or even encouraged again and again about one thing, can lead to burnout and will definitely not bring up happy feelings.

[–] 1peter10@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Just chiming in regarding apps (because https://linuxphoneapps.org/ is my hobby, where I still have to add a bunch of apps I assume are created by you – if that's you, thanks for the apps!):

no good Bitwarden client GoldWarden just crash and seems abandonned

Have you tried https://codeberg.org/Chfkch/bitritter ?

(I am a KeePass user, so my first hand experience is not comparable to real-world use)

GS Connect works, but needs a tweak and UI is not good on small screen

I'd suggest https://valent.andyholmes.ca/

No lemmy apps

Yeah, the state of Lemmy apps is not great. I've tried a bunch, and aside from the Lemmur fork (that seems abandonned), only Nimlem felt like it had potential.

For the rest: I don't really use Discord, YouTube and don't have a Jellyfin instance, so ... can't suggest much here.


Regarding Phosh and GNOME Shell Mobile:

we need a way to bring up the OSK like on Phosh (holding the botto bar for a sec for example, maybe itcould be customizable too?)

IIRC, double tapping the white bottom bar thing should do that. IMHO, like with gestures, I just would love to see more consistency between GNOME Shell Mobile and Phosh where possible.

We NEED to press the unlock button after typing our code (would be neat to have the code automatically unlock the phone when we enter the same amount of characters as our passcode)

I disagree here, IMHO, the iOS-style 6-digit thing on GNOME Mobile is worse (I usually have longer passcodes). Having to press the unlock button can even be seen as a security feature ;-)

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