Librem 5 Smartphone Now Plans To Ship With KDE Plasma

[shmerl]

Interesting. I've never heard about this project. I wouldn't back it though - Jolla's failed tablet project demonstrated how shaky mobile hardware crowdfunding is. But when it will come out, I'll seriously consider buying one. I like CPU and baseband separation idea especially.

And I don't worry about UI at the moment, but more about hardware actually coming out. That's a much much harder part logistically, and something that Jolla actually failed to realize in time. If with tablets it's hard (remember also KDE Vivaldi?), with mobile handsets it's even harder.

[sverris]

I sure am glad I didn't invest in this phone. Though I prefer KDE over Gnome, I wouldn't want to be a backer to something, only to find they changed a major part of the UI as a last-minute decision. Seems like it could be a turn-off to those who wanted it because of gnome, while also showing commitment issues.

To me, Gnu/Linux under the hood is the important thing - and which UI they are running, is rather 2ndary. Other UIs would follow pretty soon, if this phone becomes available.

[schmidtbag]

To me, Gnu/Linux under the hood is the important thing - and which UI they are running, is rather 2ndary. Other UIs would follow pretty soon, if this phone becomes available.

Normally I'd agree, but you have to keep in mind this is an ARM platform, and a phone. Installing ARM is relatively difficult compared to x86. Installing any OS on a platform without a mouse/keyboard can be difficult or tedious, and may require you to buy extra accessories. Pure Linux isn't commonly found on phones, so people might not know what to do/get to make phone calls or text messages. In order for this product to be a success, it needs to be polished and user-friendly. Supporting a different UI at last minute is going to act as a distraction, and having people customize which UI they want detracts from user friendliness.

Personally, I wouldn't mind this - I have experience working with ARM devices, I have the accessories needed, and I'm willing to put in the time and research to make it work for my needs. But I am a small demographic.

[bemerk]

Do we know Details about the baseband? Can an app see which encryption algorithm is currently in use with the tower?

[R41N3R]

I think this is a good decision, Plasma mobile worked already on my Nexus 5. Though I would consider the quality as pre-alpha, just a prototype, but it did run and that is an important base. Like others I agree, the much more important step will be the Linux stack and not Android. If this works, other apps can easily follow and even other non Standard mobile interfaces like Gnome 😉
Installation on ARM devices was so far pretty simple, take an SD card, copy the image, reboot... I think desktop is not that easy.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

I think people still don't get what they try to do.

They try to build a general purpose computing device with a smartphone form factor. This is more like a laptop or pc where you can install whatever you want and not like all those other smartphones that are like a game console where you are completely locked out.

Naturally there will be different takes on the UI and different distributions etc. KDE is already working on a mobile experience so logically this will be one option for the librem 5. Another may be Ubuntu touch or Gnome or whatever.

What purism does, they create the phone hardware and they know how to do this. They also want to create a default experience so they can ship a phone with a working pre-installed os which can do all the usual smartphone things you expect from such a device. But as already mentioned this is only the default software and people will create multiple alternative things, the same way that happens for the linux desktop.

I'm completely excited about this. Already pledged for the phone and the dev kit and really hope this gets off the ground.

[boffo]

It's amazing how in the pc every distro will at least boot, while on the mobile almost none.

[andre30correia]

the ubuntu touch community should support this too, maybe this become a good thing to support even for me if they joint forces and make some good thing

[dh04000]

the ubuntu touch community should support this too, maybe this become a good thing to support even for me if they joint forces and make some good thing

I tend to agree. The most important thing the Ubuntu touch community has is the convergent application framework. Getting that on this phone and available to write apps would be great for everyone. KDE Touch has already talked about getting Ubuntu Touch apps working on their system, so it would be a good fit.

Overall though, I have little faith of this kickstarter succeeding. The task is too big for the money. If this was a Patron funding drive to finish the OS to work on your own devices, I would have more faith, but they have to do development and land a working phone.........

[starshipeleven]

Overall though, I have little faith of this kickstarter succeeding. The task is too big for the money. If this was a Patron funding drive to finish the OS to work on your own devices, I would have more faith, but they have to do development and land a working phone.........

This ain't a kickstarter, it's handled like a preorder from their main site, and the page looks very fucking much like a kickstarter page, but it's not. https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

Even if they don't reach the goal they still get the money of the bids.