Purism Shows Off The Librem 5 Linux Smartphone In Action

[Wijis]

In 10 years Android never managed to entice me to switch from iOS even as a backup smartphone but I could see myself getting one of these. Then I also have an excuse to tinker with something.


Lol, they didn't give up because of the technical qualities of Qt (which a far better than Gtk's) but because entering the mobile OS market is nearly impossible since Apple and Google divided it up among themselves.

This is correct. Purism was smart in not trying to go for a mass market product (unlike Ubuntu). They were foolish to use GTK, a toolkit filled with kludges, maintained by a handful of people, that lacks numerous features, and whose mobile optimisations were almost none at the time they started.

Anyone can download and flash UBPorts, Sailfish, or Plasma Mobile and see that they are much more advanced than the rudimentary stuff you see in the Librem stack.

Had they made their own interface based on PM or Sailfish, they'd have wasted far less money and the Librem would have cost far less. The hardware is really not much better than the PinePhone, certainly not several hundred dollars better. That extra money was wasted on an unneeded and buggy API. Hell, they could even have used KaiOS which currently is on millions of devices.

[Wijis]

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.

You can use Sailfish. I run it on my Planet Computers Gemini. It's remarkably stable. My only gripe is lack of apps and that they are not as supportive of developers as LineageOS.

[Vistaus]

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.

UBPorts isn't 100% mature yet, but I will agree that it's proven at least. However, Plasma Mobile is NOT proven at all. It's not even stable yet and basic apps are still receiving basic features as we speak, aside from the fact that development on Plasma Mobile is very slow to begin with (sure, Purism could've sped up development, but that wouldn't have changed their timeline much).

[Danielsan]

I am actually pretty excited even if I didn't buy the phone. If Purism will able to catch the general media support this will surely help with the selling and for a further development, with at least a second cheaper and viable alternative along the Librem5.

[profoundWHALE]

BlackBerry's BB10 had apps on Qt IIRC and they performed really well when compared to a similarly spec'd Android phone at the time.

[QwertyChouskie]

I personally love the way they've implemented their stack using Libhandy, for this reason:




The same apps seamlessly changing between desktop and phone mode, no re-launching apps or separate apps between desktop mode and phone mode, finally one device to rule (and replace) them all! Imagine the possibilities here once the hardware gets more powerful in a few years...

[blackiwid]

Anyone can download and flash UBPorts, Sailfish, or Plasma Mobile and see that they are much more advanced than the rudimentary stuff you see in the Librem stack.

Yes of course you could create a phone that is hardware vs hardware much more expensive than any android phone, and then use a proprietary OS like Sailfish, because that people would pay they pay extra to get a proprietary Phone with a "libre" name.

Also like the kernel, Gnome is a nice upstream (both have problems with SJWs but that aside), so when you get this things included and integrated in upstream gnome, then at some point they will maintain it for you. If you do your "own thing" by forking ubports or sailfish then you have to do all maintaining on it the next at least 10-20 years... it's a good EXISTING ecosystem, Ubuntu tried to create a new ecosystem. Which had some partial success but not good enough.

Gnome is more or less backed by IBM who backs UBports? Who sailfish os? A fraudulent nearly bankrupt company? Who backs Plasma Mobile? I can't even find a public source is it proprietary or something? You seem to need some sort of account to even see the source... absurd. 15 "members seem to make it" probable everybody that send a 1 line patch or a icon picture is one of this members. I can't even shit on it properly because it's so intransparent.

The first release was expected at 2011 except till this day we have no stable release, so they are 8 years late but somehow librem should do in 1 or 2 years what they fucked up for 8 years? They have not delivered on a coherent and stable release of their desktop the last 10 years so what does make you think they would do any better with mobile when it's much more difficult?

If their desktop is so great they will be releasing soon a image for the free hardware nobody hinders them to do so and it will be then magically 1000 times better and everybody will switch away from the pre-installed gnome. So if you are right and they are so much better you have nothing to worry...

Or did you expect librem to get things working for the kde team they fucked up for 10 years?

[curaga]

Well they are funding RISC-V, I think the strategy of doing a reasonable product now and improving for later ones is ok.

[RussianNeuroMancer]

Imagine the possibilities here once the hardware gets more powerful in a few years...

I do this with Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 for a couple of years.

[QwertyChouskie]

I do this with Dell Venue 8 Pro 5855 for a couple of years.

Oh cool, didn't realize this was a thing! What OS runs on it?