Jolla Ports Sailfish OS To Google Nexus 4

[89c51]

I know, hence why it's a difficult choice... Nexus devices have a wealth of OS options, though. Although admittedly they're not supported by Replicant, which could indicate problems with device support. Yet there is very little information on Jolla's precise hardware specs, either...

I think most specs for the jolla are known at this point.

[GreatEmerald]

The jolla is the official so it will probably work better and you won't have to "hack" it.

I know, hence why it's a difficult choice... Nexus devices have a wealth of OS options, though. Although admittedly they're not supported by Replicant, which could indicate problems with device support. Yet there is very little information on Jolla's precise hardware specs, either...

[89c51]

Argh, why must you make choices harder, Jolla I'm considering a Jolla phone, but the Nexus 4/5 are pretty much the same price, yet with much higher specs. Aurgh...

The jolla is the official so it will probably work better and you won't have to "hack" it.

[blackout23]

Thanks, I didn't even know that there was such a thing aiming to replace Dalvik. But what do you mean by FreeART ?

I mean someone should take the ART from Google Android and modify it in a way so that it can be used in community ports of Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish OS to enable Android App compatability. Similar to what Myriad Group seems to have done to create AlienDavlik but it's not free to use. Instead of making a FreeDalivk something like FreeART would be better, since it leads to faster apps because of the low level machine code that the Apps are compiled into. If we would have that it would be trivial to also use it on your regular Linux desktop.

[GreatEmerald]

Argh, why must you make choices harder, Jolla I'm considering a Jolla phone, but the Nexus 4/5 are pretty much the same price, yet with much higher specs. Aurgh...

[mcirsta]

didn't even hear of ART

No AlienDalvik from Myriad Group is not open source and won't be included into community ports. It's licensed technology. Would be cool if you could just purchas a license and install it on your Sailfish Nexus 4 afterwards.

Kind of surprising no one ever attempted to make a Free version of this. Davlik and ART source code is out there. Would even prefer something like FreeART, because the new ART just compiles every app ahead of time into machine code which leads to dramatic speed improvements. I tested ART with Android 4.4.2 on my Galaxy Nexus the phone is extremely fast now.

Thanks, I didn't even know that there was such a thing aiming to replace Dalvik. But what do you mean by FreeART ?

[Kivada]

Ubuntu Touch I'll try when it's a little more feature complete. From what I've been reading it still needs some work. As for Firefox OS I didn't know it was possible to install it on the Nexus 4

But, what I was talking about was the freedom we have right now with our PCs. We can install any OS we'd like, but in the mobile world, there are very few devices that allow installing more than 1 OS. Sure the Nexus 4 seems to be a standard test device for new mobile OSs, but what about other devices? The picture isn't as rosy there unfortunately.

ARM isn't standardized enough yet, ARM SoC design is supposed to be alot more standardized across SoC manufacturers with the 64 bit A57 and A53 based chips due out later this year.

Then theres the problem of things like GPU drivers which none of the current companies are willing to put down docs on.

Much of this should start to get cleaned up once AMD launches their ARM based SoCs, yes, the Seattle series Cortex-A57 chips are targeting servers first, but if you think AMD doesn't want a cut of the mobile device market your head isn't on straight.

[89c51]

While i understand that they are trying to spread their OS this way i believe it's better to buy the official phone if you can. Its quite a nice device. Number junkies won't be satisfied with it not having all the bigest numbers but after playing with it the last two days it feels nice. Some things are not there yet but its really promising and i believe that with the next two-three updates it will be ok.

[beaverusiv]

All my friends mocked me for getting a year-old phone when I bought my phone, but this is why I got it! Dual booting UT and Android atm (I want Strava, otherwise I could go full UT), will maybe try this out, will be way more feature-complete than Ubuntu Touch.

It is a shame that phones are so locked down, but I think it is a very intentional thing right from the start (iPhone onwards, I doubt Nokia ever envisioned this).

[blackout23]

Jolla OS provides compatibility with android apps right? Is this compatibility layer open source? I wonder if it could be ported to other linux distros...

No AlienDalvik from Myriad Group is not open source and won't be included into community ports. It's licensed technology. Would be cool if you could just purchas a license and install it on your Sailfish Nexus 4 afterwards.

Kind of surprising no one ever attempted to make a Free version of this. Davlik and ART source code is out there. Would even prefer something like FreeART, because the new ART just compiles every app ahead of time into machine code which leads to dramatic speed improvements. I tested ART with Android 4.4.2 on my Galaxy Nexus the phone is extremely fast now.