Purism Shows Off The Librem 5 Linux Smartphone In Action

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Purism Shows Off The Librem 5 Linux Smartphone In Action

Now that the first (beta-ish) batch of Librem 5 smartphones is shipping, Purism has published the first video showing the phone in its current state in action...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Librem-5-In-Use-Video

[Britoid]

I expect things like scrolling performance will improve once GTK4 is out and implemented.

[Stilgar]

Michael, when you were writing this post did you happen to notice that there were games installed on the phone like animatch? That they aleready had showned working before on a Devkit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPEPtL6kFTo

Or Dosbox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJMRI8kdc64 again also in the devkit

Orsolitaire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFRbOvZvxM

Or Quake2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixRYRQd54Bc

The statement "don't expect any games" is kinda deterministic, and pessimistic don't you think

[kpedersen]

Librem stands for "Libre Marginally" right? There is a lot of proprietary hardware on that thing for something that has "Libre" in the name. At >£600 it certainly isn't referring to the price either.

[jo-erlend]

Librem stands for "Libre Marginally" right? There is a lot of proprietary hardware on that thing for something that has "Libre" in the name. At >£600 it certainly isn't referring to the price either.

Yes, there are still no public domain, patent free computers on the market, to my knowledge.

[futuretim]

Librem stands for "Libre Marginally" right? There is a lot of proprietary hardware on that thing for something that has "Libre" in the name. At >£600 it certainly isn't referring to the price either.

Full disclosure: I have a pre-order for a Librem .

I feel like the above quote is from someone that has NO IDEA what Purism has accomplished. Maybe I'm wrong about that but it's kind of ridiculous. Does it cost more compared to the generic phone with privacy-invading Android on it? Yes. Does it run an immature software stack? Yes.

But focusing on all of that is to miss the forest for the trees. Look at all of the various Android off-shoots or projects trying to essentially accomplish what Purism is doing but in the handicapped ecosystem of Android Linux (LineageOS, postmarket OS, /e/, etc.).

You are certainly entitled to your opinions and by all means vote for with your wallet. But geez, if Purism cannot get the benefit of the doubt from this community what chance does ANYONE have.

There's an amazing video from Bunnie Huang (of Novena Laptop, chumby, etc) about not satisfying open-source hardware activists because they will essentially question every step that they somehow didn't view themselves even if there is separate hardware/steps that can validate the design/functionality.

I can't find the link at the moment but when I do I'll bring it back and post it here.

[Cerberus]

Where is demonstration of application startup time? As in application not being in RAM already. That affects user experience greatly.

[L_A_G]

Librem stands for "Libre Marginally" right? There is a lot of proprietary hardware on that thing for something that has "Libre" in the name. At >£600 it certainly isn't referring to the price either.

With all the parts they've gone with it's about as "libre" as you can get for this use case and capability. For example they could have gone for considerably less "libre" parts like an SoC actually meant for mobile use with all the necessary wireless modems on-silicon from a company like Qualcomm, Broadcom, MediaTek or Huawei and saved loads of time, internal space and money. However those things are an absolute minefield when it comes to how libre they are with binary blobs. Particularly with the network chips that often run a proprietary operating system on a Turing complete controller inside the modem. For reference on the damage those can do look up "Broadpwn" (exploit) and PoisonTap (leveraging the DMA of a network chip).

No, instead they went with separate modems on a separate board that aren't just more open, they can actually be completely powered down for when you really don't want a potentially compromised piece of proprietary software with DMA. This obviously increases cost, complexity and it's not completely straight forward to design either. However it does make this much more "libre" than anything like this that I know of.

Sure, RISC-V chips do exist, but in this use case they're not really ready for mass marker use yet and this was particularly true when the project started. So what they went with was an NXP part that's mainly intended for automotive and other embedded uses and is probably better documented, and hence more "libre" friendly, than any part of it's class. Hence to moan about this not being "libre" enough is just being stupidly pedantic about what constitutes as it.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

I still remember when Michael wrote that they will not reach the crowd funding goal and how unrealistic this project was.

[futuretim]

I still remember when Michael wrote that they will not reach the crowd funding goal and how unrealistic this project was.

I like a lot of the coverage Michael brings and most times there isn't a lot of "editorial leakage" but I definitely think in regards to Purism and the Librem 5 it leaks through a lot. Perhaps he's jaded but it seems inconsistently harsh with respect to Purism and the Librem 5. Look at all the energy they've poured into their laptops and making them pieces of hardware we want and can own (as much as that is possible with today's hardware, re: IME). Not sure if there's more to it than that but I've definitely noticed that as a long reader of Phoronix and before I was a Librem 5 pre-orderer (not crowdfunder).

Disclaimer in case it was not obvious: I have a Librem 5 on pre-order.