Purism Shows Off The Librem 5 Linux Smartphone In Action

[tildearrow]

OK, so I watched the video... and I have one big complaint.

Where is my 60FPS scrolling?
Are widgets being drawn on the CPU, or is the GPU this weak?
It doesn't look smooth as a 2019 smartphone. It looks like an early smartphone from the 2000's.

[sarmad]

OK, so I watched the video... and I have one big complaint.

Where is my 60FPS scrolling?
Are widgets being drawn on the CPU, or is the GPU this weak?
It doesn't look smooth as a 2019 smartphone. It looks like an early smartphone from the 2000's.

If a quad core i7 or a quad core Ryzen 5 can't run Gnome Shell at 60fps why do you expect the i.MX8 to be able to do that? I would say this is most likely not a problem in the Librem 5 stack, but rather a problem in Gnome Shell itself.

[Toggleton]

If a quad core i7 or a quad core Ryzen 5 can't run Gnome Shell at 60fps why do you expect the i.MX8 to be able to do that? I would say this is most likely not a problem in the Librem 5 stack, but rather a problem in Gnome Shell itself.

It does not run Gnome Shell. It does run Phosh/phoc based on wlroots(used in swaywm) with a mobile Gnome Design

[sverris]

Well, why not remove all those words completely then, since true freedom doesn't exist?

This is a very good answer. Taking words literally often just gets absurd.

[Wijis]

It does not run Gnome Shell. It does run Phosh/phoc based on wlroots(used in swaywm) with a mobile Gnome Design

True, it is not running GS, however, much of the stack powering the phone and its apps is based on GNOME. It's a huge reason why the product has been delayed. Instead of using something proven (UBPorts or Plasma Mobile), they decided to reinvent the wheel. As you would expect, it's been a very laborious process.

Ubuntu normally has a bad case of NIH but they did the right thing to go with Qt for their mobile experiment. Purism should have done that at the very least instead of farting around with the hot mess that is Gtk.

[NateHubbard]

Instead of using something proven (UBPorts or Plasma Mobile), they decided to reinvent the wheel.

Purism should have done that at the very least instead of farting around with the hot mess that is Gtk.

Having used UBPorts on a Nexus 5, I'm glad they didn't go the route you recommend.
This phone will at least bring something different to the table than the Pine Phone, which will probably be more to your liking.

[futuretim]

Also, fwiw, I don't know if it's a bug or otherwise but something is screwed up with the "Likes" on posts. I've got dozens of emails about users liking one of two posts on this thread and yet they have a total of like 3 likes? WTF. Anyway, I don't particularly care as long as it's a malfunction and not something.... else.

[cynical]

Why so negative guys? This seems like a major achievement to me. The phone is alive and apparently shipping.

Yes the UI probably isn’t the smoothest, but it’s a start. It’s exciting to see a free software phone since Canonical disappointingly ceased their efforts. I wish Purism the best here, and look forward to hearing some reviews from Phoronix readers who ordered one.

[Toggleton]

True, it is not running GS, however, much of the stack powering the phone and its apps is based on GNOME. It's a huge reason why the product has been delayed. Instead of using something proven (UBPorts or Plasma Mobile), they decided to reinvent the wheel. As you would expect, it's been a very laborious process.

Ubuntu normally has a bad case of NIH but they did the right thing to go with Qt for their mobile experiment. Purism should have done that at the very least instead of farting around with the hot mess that is Gtk.

The delay was caused by a Hardware bug that caused that CPU to get really hot.

And from my Perspective to make existing Gnome/GTK applications mobile ready with libhandy is a clever move. You get a lot Phone Core applications with as little work as Possible. Because they Upstream all the work if possible, everyone can benefit from the Handling on smaller window sizes.

And the nice it should be possible to port UBPorts(AFAIK once they done the port for the Pinephone) or Plasma Mobile(not sure how far the effort is there) and with more People using "Linux Mobile" there should be more People who can pay and work on the Development of that ecosystem.

[coder111]

Damn, I wish Sailfish was still an option. They seem to have stagnated completely. Their UI was actually very good and very responsive, pull-down menus were amazing and so were the gestures. I lived for ~6 years with Jolla as my daily phone. So much potential...

Not sure how I feel about Librem. Honestly, I wish them success, but I'm not holding much hope at the moment. And I'm not in a position where I can blow 600 GBP to use it myself when a Xiaomi Mi 9 SE costs 300 GBP and can run LineageOS.