Re:OURphone Is a Fully Open-Source Smartphone Based on Linux
by poleguy on Sunday May 07, 2023 @10:36AM
(#35851982)
This was my experience too, spot on. They called this beta. I design hardware as a EE for a living: this is called failure. My pinephone is in a box.
Re:OURphone Is a Fully Open-Source Smartphone Based on Linux
by seba_dos1 on Sunday May 07, 2023 @10:53AM
(#35852139)
Frankly, what does "designing hardware as a EE" have to do with software issues your parent has described? Pine64 sells PinePhones, but doesn't do any software development, not even kernel drivers. That's not "failure", that's the expected outcome. You got what you paid for. The community does an amazing job supporting the hardware, but there's only so much you can do with self-motivated volunteers on such a complex project.
There are other projects out there where you pay for both hardware and FLOSS software development, such as Librem 5 with PureOS.
Re:OURphone Is a Fully Open-Source Smartphone Based on Linux
by tourmalinetaco on Monday May 08, 2023 @07:15AM
(#35860316)
The irony is my newer iPhone has at least half of the same issues:
Keyboard doesn’t open randomly, sometimes browsers lock/hangs (both Safari & Brave), apps will crash for seemingly no reason, random OS crashes (rare but at least monthly), phone will think its being held to ear even on a level surface mid-call.
Linux phones are definitely still a ways away, but its funny how similar the problems are, they’re just less severe.
Additionally, while I have experimented with apps for different platforms like Matrix and Mastodon, many of these are still works in progress, and compiling them can be a time-consuming process.It's worth mentioning that even the most optimized apps for Linux phones can still crash from time to time. Additionally, many apps that might work perfectly fine on a Linux desktop are simply not designed to be used on a phone, making them unusable in practice.
While there is a solution for running Android apps on the phone (Waydroid), it too can be unreliable at times and has been known to cause the phone to hang. Furthermore, there are numerous software-related issues, such as crashes after updates, voice-related problems (e.g. microphone or speaker not working), modem connectivity issues requiring a reboot, and the device failing to turn on the screen until a hard reboot is performed (it thinks it's being held up to the ear like during a call). Lastly, battery life is a real issue. It's worth noting that I'm running the Phosh interface on Arch Linux.