[HN Gopher] PinePhone Manjaro Community Edition
___________________________________________________________________
PinePhone Manjaro Community Edition
Author : jandeboevrie
Score : 311 points
Date : 2020-08-31 10:05 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pine64.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pine64.org)
| Waterfall wrote:
| Can the pinephone hardware realistically be used to run Linux
| comfortably on mobile? The pinebook sucked and this is the same
| hardware,the pinebook pro has 4gb and still struggles
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| Can someone help me understand the relationship between phone
| hardware and carriers in the US?
|
| I recently bought a new, unlocked Samsung phone on Amazon. When I
| put a Verizon SIM card into it, a Verizon-specific firmware
| module got added. I don't understand why that would be necessary.
|
| Asking because I'm attracted to the idea of a phone I truly
| control, but not sure what that means for carrier compatibility.
| jbj wrote:
| I used 3 different unlocked phones in US, as for US sim cards,
| I used MetroPCS, T-mobile, and Cricket, non of those added
| anything, althought their respective websites told me about an
| app they strongly reccomended. Only trace was the Sim card
| toolkit menu which was diaplayed for whatever inserted sim
| card, but I never used any of those.
| sloshnmosh wrote:
| Depending on the device you are using you might not have
| noticed.
|
| I used WireShark on a hotspot that my unlocked IPhone was
| using and captured the visual voicemail blob used by
| Cricket/AT&T just last week.
|
| Also, the SIM card toolkit can be used remotely by your
| provider. Lookup SimBad exploit
| biztos wrote:
| Not sure how helpful this is, but I know that Verizon requires
| some kind of special sauce that the other GSM carriers do not.
|
| I got a Verizon SIM recently and it would not work in my iPhone
| 8, which I bought in Germany. Fortunately the salesperson
| thought to ask if it was a foreign phone! Turns out Apple only
| sells the Verizon-compatible phones in the US, but doesn't
| exactly broadcast that fact elsewhere.
|
| The Android (or Linux) situation is probably different in the
| details, but not in principle.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| T-Mobile and Verizon should allow any modern device. Verizon
| used to need a activation conponent for the CDMA radio but
| modern devices just use LTE and voLTE. They did have a visual
| voicemail blob that used to be pulled in, but now they follow
| spec and don't require anything special.
|
| Sprint (which is now T-Mobile) has required an activation app
| for their CDMA devices called SprintDM. Without it, phone will
| not activate and work. Most alternative OS like LineageOS don't
| include it, but if you activate on stock OS and don't wipe
| modem partitions, it continues to work. Thankfully they are
| transitioning to T-Mobile network.
|
| AT&T has no activation crap but may not let imported devices
| based on IMEI numbers they don't have.
| deepstack wrote:
| In Europe, GSM is still being used. I heard in they are being
| phased out. Anyone knows how that will affect old nokia type
| of phones?
| fabioborellini wrote:
| The cheapest candy bar phones available started having 3rd
| gen (WCDMA) network support around 2010, so GSM-only
| handsets should be out of active use. Of course the classic
| monochrome Nokia phones will cease working once GSM is shut
| down.
|
| On the other hand there must be quite a lot of embedded
| devices using only GSM. For example, this year the elevator
| maintenance company offered our housing company GSM
| emergency phone units to replace landline-based ones.
| WCDMA-supported units would have cost a few thousand euros
| more.
| sloshnmosh wrote:
| This is the correct answer as I can attest to one of my
| phones pulling down a visual voicemail blob and also a
| problem I had with a Sprint based CDMA device that was
| running Lineage OS that lost cell connection and I could not
| get it back without flashing back to the original ROM.
| (Thanks for posting this @joecool1029 and confirming what I
| was witnessing)
| Const-me wrote:
| I wonder are there similar devices with 3-4" displays instead of
| 6"?
|
| I don't even need purposely-built Linux phone, I am OK getting
| one with Android and installing Linux myself. I want modern
| hardware (LTE, GLES 3.1, ideally optical camera stabilization),
| reasonably new Linux kernel, and good software support for basic
| functions (touch screen, phone, SMS, camera, web browser).
| ncmncm wrote:
| It is effectively impossible to install an upstream kernel on
| random phone hardware. It is very hard to field a phone that
| can take a kernel without proprietary blobs tied to a
| particular ancient kernel. So, there are two live efforts in
| that direction, PinePhone and Librem 5.
| Foxboron wrote:
| Every time the Pine64/Pinephone stuff gets mentioned I go looking
| for the Arch Linux ARM project mentions, and donation links.
| Previously they just avoid mentioning this, but most of the
| Manjaro ARM stuff couldn't happen without the tireless work of
| the Arch ARM developers.
|
| I've had to repeatedly mention they shouldn't remove attribution
| from PKGBUILDs they take from Arch ARM.
|
| https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/core/linux-r...
|
| Also begging for donations to Manjaro ARM, but with no mentions
| of Arch ARM. This was fixed with the old announcements, but it
| seems like any donations has been removed from current
| announcements.
|
| > We will donate $10 per unit sold to the Manjaro development
| team. To learn more about this scheme please click here.
|
| But where? Currently there is Manjaro the Company and Manjaro the
| Community. Both has separate funds, which is partially where the
| treasurer drama stems from. And is there any donations to the
| dependant projects?
|
| This annoys me as most of the packaging efforts are on the Arch
| ARM side of things, not Manjaro. You can open any of their
| distributed ISOs and take a look at the packager information.
| MayeulC wrote:
| > Every time the Pine64/Pinephone stuff gets mentioned
|
| You probably mean Manjaro/Pinephone or something like this, I
| initially thought you equated Pinephone with Manjaro. (hint for
| others: it is not, there are a various other compatible
| distros). I agree that Arch Arm upstream does a pretty good
| job, though that packaging job is 70% orthogonal to, say,
| alpine+postmarketos packaging :)
| brtln wrote:
| I believe postmarketOS team closely collaborates with Alpine.
| It cannot be said about Manjaro, neither in relation to Arch
| or Arch ARM.
| unixhero wrote:
| Manjaro is downstream from Arch.
| [deleted]
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| My immediate reaction when seeing the phone: thank $randomdeity
| that the screen is a proper rectangle and not some moronic
| almost-oval (eff you Apple).
| slantyyz wrote:
| Does anyone know if you can heavily customize the user interface
| of the PinePhone?
|
| The reason why I'm asking is that I have yet to find a feature
| phone or smartphone that my father (in his 80s) can use. He
| basically doesn't want to learn new things, and he's more
| interested in learning/memorizing repeatable steps than intuiting
| how to do things by reading text on the screen.
|
| All he needs is the ability to make/receive calls, and easily get
| the bluetooth built into his car to connect to the phone. The
| bluetooth is a nice-to-have though.
|
| I haven't had much luck with feature phones because he doesn't
| (want to) understand rocker switches or navigation using arrow
| keys. I also tried the "dummy" launchers on Android, but didn't
| get very far with him. He's also tried iPhones, but didn't get
| very far.
|
| The funny thing is that he's pretty good with the Nortel phone he
| uses with his land line in terms of dialing favorites, etc.
| monoideism wrote:
| Sounds like a feature phone would be a much better fit for him
| than a smartphone. Maybe pick out 2-3 to look at and have him
| choose one. Bonus is they're much cheaper.
| slantyyz wrote:
| Most feature phones available right now are pretty much the
| same, and they rely on rocker buttons and arrow keys for
| navigation, which he can't or won't pick up.
|
| Right now he has a Nokia feature phone (which has virtually
| the same user experience as his older off-brand feature
| phone), and even that is too complicated for him to properly
| learn how to use.
| monoideism wrote:
| Sorry, I somehow missed the sentence about feature phones
| in your original comment.
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| Why a smartphone? A Nokia 101 (or whichever model above it
| which has Bluetooth) seems like a much better fit.
| slantyyz wrote:
| He already has a Nokia feature phone.
|
| The problem is that a feature phone has more features than he
| needs, and sometimes requires navigation to perform a task.
|
| Also, some of the physical controls are rockers, which he
| doesn't seem to grasp.
|
| If I could at least limit him to a phone app (with no easy
| way to get to the home screen) with discrete buttons for
| almost everything and almost no navigation, I think he'd be
| able to get by better than he does now.
| hcal wrote:
| I guess it depends on what you're looking for. I've seen people
| working on customizing SWAY to be a super simple launcher. With
| a little effort you could probably create a simple menu
| launcher for that. You can run anything* that runs linux & arm
| so I'm sure something could be done without much code.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Does anyone know if you can heavily customize the user
| interface of the PinePhone
|
| Absolutely. Some guy even made his own cool and geeky
| interface: https://sr.ht/~mil/Sxmo/
| dleslie wrote:
| You're not tied to a particular OS, even, so yes.
| amenod wrote:
| I only know Doro _feature_ phones (and am impressed by how easy
| to use they are, especially for those who don 't see well and
| have trouble hitting small buttons), but it seems that they
| make smartphones too:
|
| > Age should never be a reason for not being able to enjoy all
| that a modern smartphone has to offer. Our stylish smartphones
| bring you not only the full Android(r) experience and an
| elegant design, but also unique features that make them easier
| to use the older we become.
|
| https://www.doro.com/en-gb/products/smartphones/
|
| Maybe check out some video review before buying? Good luck.
| slantyyz wrote:
| I have checked out Doro in the past and gotten him a similar
| "seniors" phone (that worked with local carriers here), and
| it didn't really take.
|
| I've tried having him use a "simplified" home screen on one
| of my old Android phones, and that didn't work very well
| either.
|
| Personally, as far as "smartphones" go, I think he needs
| something without a home screen, and a phone app (that can't
| easily exit to a home screen) with a recognizable
| skeuomorphic UI with minimal navigation and lots of discrete
| buttons for performing the few actions he needs.
| lvs wrote:
| This is precisely what I need to find for a parent as well.
| There are feature phones available for the European market
| (like the HMD Nokia phones) that probably fit the bill, but
| nothing that works on American frequencies.
|
| Wireless charging is also incredibly useful as an accessibility
| feature for older people, but manufacturers only seem to have
| young people working in their product teams.
| Abishek_Muthian wrote:
| I see several comments questioning the choice of Manjaro on
| PinePhone, but as the name suggests it's _Community Edition_
| after all; _Those who want Manjaro on smartphone, now have a
| device to develop for_.
|
| I think, the way Pine64 is pushing these CE devices is smart and
| definitely a positive step for overall pure Linux smartphone
| ecosystem. But, I'm also hearing great things about Mobian[1] on
| PinePhone and AFAIK it's being largely developed by an
| individual. I would like Pine64 to come up with a way to support
| these talented individual developers as well, besides supporting
| large well-established communities.
|
| [1]https://mobian-project.org/
| megous wrote:
| Lot of the projects pinephone depends on are developed just by
| a bunch of talented individuals. Majority of the PinePhone
| specific bootloader/firwmare/kernel driver work and upstreaming
| is done by maybe 3 individuals, neither of whom are associated
| with any of the distros supported so far, AFAIK. And you can't
| have a working distro without a working kernel. A lot of value
| is based on the results of linux-sunxi.org project, and related
| communities, like lima project, etc. It's FOSS, hey. Everything
| depends on everything, and it's kind of a hard to support
| everyone.
|
| I personally wish for a "Linux kernel CE" edition, in the
| future, being one of those kernel devs. ;)
| tpxl wrote:
| How/where does one contribute? Is there a guide specifically
| for this (phone/pinephone development). I couldn't quite
| figure it out from the mobian repo ):
| megous wrote:
| Icenowy did the initial board bringup, I think:
| https://github.com/Icenowy
|
| I don't know if Samuel accepts donations, but his contact
| info is here: https://sholland.org/about/ (he's responsible
| for the huge power saving optimizations that PinePhone got
| this year, and for the sound codec improvements, that were
| necessary for making calls work)
|
| And I have a page here: https://xnux.eu/contribute.html
|
| As for the mobian I don't know. I don't follow
| distributions that much.
| tpxl wrote:
| I meant code contributions, but thanks for the links ;)
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| I can confirm that Mobian is pretty good. And I'd love a
| community edition of it.
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| Meanwhile you can install Mobian in any Pinephone, and support
| the Mobian Project here https://liberapay.com/mobian/donate
| josteink wrote:
| I pre-ordered the PmOS community edition, and it's getting
| delivered tomorrow.
|
| From what I can tell, this is the same HW, but without a
| different distro pre-loaded.
|
| I'm super-stoked to try out the different distros, and will
| definitely give Manjaro a shot too :)
| cookiengineer wrote:
| > I pre-ordered the PmOS community edition, and it's getting
| delivered tomorrow.
|
| How did you get notified? I didn't receive any email since my
| purchase (I only have the receipt). Contacted sales@pine64 and
| opened up a support ticket, but haven't got any replies from
| them.
| ncmncm wrote:
| You get an SMS from DHL identifying Syabas Tech as the
| shipper. (This is a different Syabas from the one that
| manages tap water in Malaysia.)
|
| Anyway I did.
| josteink wrote:
| Yeah same here. SMS (and email) from DHL about shipment on
| the way from "Syabas Technology Hong Kong Limited".
|
| I also never got an order-confirmation upon ordering, but
| received one later quite swiftly when I emailed support and
| asked.
| [deleted]
| megous wrote:
| Anyway, with all those distros piling up for PinePhone, I finally
| decided to release p-boot with display support and GUI multi-boot
| menu.
|
| https://xnux.eu/p-boot/
|
| I'll make some multi-boot SD card demo image next, perhaps with
| postmarket, arch linux, mobian and ubuntu touch. :)
| hideevidence wrote:
| Your work is impressive! What's amazing is the mere seconds you
| see a productive screen in. Android takes full 30 seconds for
| me.
| megous wrote:
| That requires a customized PID 1 init program and a
| lightweight GUI (that map app is just ~10MiB of code + some
| code for postgresql that runs in the background) - most of
| the delay there is waiting for the postgresql to start up,
| actually.
|
| Arch Linux to some lightweight GUI based on Xorg/i3wm takes
| about 8s. Similar for my Electron/X11 fullscreen based GUI
| for the phone (also in the video). Both are much larger.
|
| Sadly, the Linux userspace is quite bloated, and the limiting
| factor is loading times from storage to RAM. You basically
| need to load >200 MiB of binaries/.so files to have anything
| useable running.
|
| With eMMC speed of ~85MiB/s and SD card speed of 25MiB/s max
| for sequential reads only, you get the picture of where the
| most of the delay is.
| boogies wrote:
| (nitpicks)
|
| blue text [?] links - grumpy reader
|
| "opesource" typo under "Support the project"
|
| (loader itself)
|
| too simple and speedy, fast and flawless to criticize,
| complain, or comment
| megous wrote:
| Thanks, fixed. :)
| boogies wrote:
| You're welcome :)
| josteink wrote:
| Awesome project. Honestly worth a post if its own.
| lvs wrote:
| This is great work. How close are we to a "just works" open
| source phone targeted for end-users?
| crazypython wrote:
| Do these support Android apps? How would I develop a native app
| for one of these?
| blendergeek wrote:
| > How would I develop a native app for one of these?
|
| I would recommend using GTK and LibHandy. Purism has written
| some tutorials on their blog about writing apps for mobile
| GNU/Linux systems [1].
|
| [1] https://puri.sm/posts/tag/advanced-readers/
| linmob wrote:
| There is initial support for Android apps via Anbox:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGpfleG8TMg
|
| Also an Android ROM called GloDroid exists:
| https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/a368a023-ce44-44f0-a42d-...
|
| Native app development depends on the OS, it differs whether
| you would develop for Ubuntu Touch, the GNOME on Mobile effort
| by Purism or for Plasma Mobile.
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| To develop native apps for UBports (Ubuntu Touch) you can use
| https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/
|
| About Android apps, there's the Anbox project but it needs a
| lot of work yet.
| Shared404 wrote:
| > Do these support Android apps?
|
| They do not, at least not yet. They may support anbox at some
| point, but that's not a given.
|
| > How would I develop a native app for one of these?
|
| The same as you would for any Linux distro. I would check out
| Plasma Mobile, as they have toolkit's and a workflow already in
| place is my understanding.
| mikece wrote:
| > They do not, at least not yet.
|
| And hopefully never. Almost all Android apps rely on the
| closed-source GMS for essential functionality (eg: push
| notifications). There will need to be an open alternative to
| GMS if the goal is to support Android apps but a better idea
| would be to abandon Android as template basis going forward.
| eblanshey wrote:
| Is that not what mods like MicroG provide?
| vinay427 wrote:
| There are a number of apps I use and depend on that work
| fine without Google services. Signal comes to mind, for
| instance. I agree that a better template would be great,
| but I can't imagine we'll get there anytime soon, and I
| would love to use my PinePhone as a daily driver in the
| near future. I won't do this without a few key apps that
| don't have direct alternatives considering some people with
| whom I would like to communicate only use these options.
|
| I think getting people onto devices that support open and
| flexible alternatives is the first step to actually
| converting users to these alternatives. I won't switch to a
| platform that doesn't let me communicate with people I
| know, and I wouldn't expect others to do so either.
| However, I could get people to switch from a less
| convenient option (e.g. Signal on Anbox) to a more
| convenient option (e.g. Matrix for messaging) in time.
| oropolo wrote:
| > I agree that a better template would be great...
|
| Is there a serious effort on this front? At the very
| least a mobile version of Electron[1] applications would
| be a great interim step: you just need a browser for the
| UI and performance-critical bits can be written in C/C++
| for accuracy and speed. Ultimately a modular UI paradigm
| can replace the dependence on a browser but that is
| likely years down the road.
|
| [1] Cordova used to be the model; Ionic's Capacitor
| project is far more advanced but targeting iOS and
| Android specifically.
| megous wrote:
| You can run electron on PinePhone in fullscreen, it works
| as you'd expect.
| pineyboi wrote:
| There's some work being done to make Signal work more
| natively on Linux (though not from Moxie directly)
|
| This is a daemon that provides an API for signal
|
| https://git.callpipe.com/finn/signald
|
| This is a libpurple plugin for it (Pidgin messenger, or
| even irssi, Weechat etc)
|
| https://github.com/hoehermann/libpurple-signald
|
| Chatty, the SMS messenger that works in Phosh also
| supports libpurple plugins, so presumably Signal could
| work alongside SMS (The SMS feature itself is a libpurple
| plugin IIRC)
|
| https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/chatty
|
| I've used libpurple-signald with irssi and it works
| alright. It's not feature complete yet by a long shot,
| but much nicer to interact with than the Electron bloat.
| blendergeek wrote:
| > Almost all Android apps rely on the closed-source GMS for
| essential functionality (eg: push notifications).
|
| There is a very fine repository of fully-free Android apps
| hosted at https://f-droid.org.
|
| Further, I would argue that "almost all" Android apps that
| are free software can easily be tweaked to not rely on
| Google Play Services. Non-free Android apps will not be
| made any better by becoming nonfree GNU/Linux apps.
| avery42 wrote:
| Anbox already works quite well on Arch Linux ARM.
|
| https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pine64-Arch/
| hasperdi wrote:
| This is an exciting development!
|
| I am though wondering, if the current version is stable & working
| well enough to be a daily driver / main phone.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I personally would avoid anything Manjaro related due to
| recurring controversies around the project leadership:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hxpj87/change_in_man...
|
| I wish PinePhone would partner with Arch or Debian instead.
| MarcellusDrum wrote:
| Came here to say this. I respect both communities like KDE and
| companies like RedHat (before it was acquired). But when call
| yourself a community but act more like a company (and a toxic
| one at that) is where you lose all my respect.
| ohazi wrote:
| Not having used Manjaro personally, what's the advantage here?
| My impression was that it was essentially Arch with a user
| friendly installer and possibly some nicer defaults.
|
| This seems desirable if you're setting up a PC, but is there
| really added value there if you're building a ROM image for a
| phone? It seems like you'd be doing a ton of manual installing
| and configuring anyway, since it's such an unusual target
| compared to a typical desktop, regardless of cpu
| architecture...
| Wheaties466 wrote:
| I have used manjaro on my personal laptop for the past 4+
| years and I share the same sentiment. Great for a computer
| but I'm not sure what value is added on the pine phone.
| megous wrote:
| What all of these distros basically do is some non-trivial
| amount of integration of existing software, and
| configuring/patching it for PinePhone, presumably.
|
| Not sure about manjaro specifically, but it looks like it
| will be another phosh based distro. Their forum will
| probably have more info eventually:
|
| https://forum.manjaro.org/t/pinephone-will-ship-with-
| manjaro...
| fsflover wrote:
| Convergence?
| mikece wrote:
| The drama of Manjaro leadership notwithstanding, does the
| distro _work_ on the phone?
| ekianjo wrote:
| YOu can find more info here: https://boilingsteam.com/the-
| pinephone-can-it-replace-your-s...
| hcal wrote:
| Yes, while YMMV, I've found it to be in or near the top tier
| of images as far as hardware support for the pinephone. All
| the top distros are developed in the open so they tend to
| improve together. Like all distros on the phone, Manjaro
| breaks sometimes but they are doing a pretty good job. I've
| had the best luck with Mobian, but Manjaro and Fedora were a
| close second.
| federico33 wrote:
| > I wish PinePhone would partner with Arch or Debian instead.
|
| The Mobian[1] project (Debian for PinePhone) is doing very
| well.
|
| A Mobian PinePhone edition is possible - but in the meantime
| people can install the OS on existing PinePhones.
|
| [1] https://mobian-project.org/
| yorwba wrote:
| Also various other Linux distros: https://wiki.pine64.org/ind
| ex.php?title=PinePhone_Software_R...
| m463 wrote:
| Isn't arch on arm a different group? I know their website
| doesn't work without talking to google.
| deepstack wrote:
| _I wish PinePhone would partner with Arch or Debian instead._
|
| Word. Debian is great! In the past when I see people using
| Ubuntu, I always wondered why? It is so interesting how people
| in tech just fall into the fashion trap.
| throwaway49872 wrote:
| Canonical contributes very little back to Debian.
|
| But they do a lot of marketing.
| simion314 wrote:
| Why do you say that exactly? When Canonical developer fixed
| GNOME infamous bugs aren't those contribution getting into
| Debian?
|
| My impression is that Ubuntu always respected Debian and
| always encouraged all fixes to happen upsteeam, for example
| for new packages you can see that Ubuntu is asking people
| to submit them to Debian (so everyone benefits) https://wik
| i.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelopment/NewPackages#NEW_pa...
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >I always wondered why?
|
| for me personally easier to use installer, proprietary
| driver/codec support out of the box, faster release cycle,
| debian stable is too old for me and unstable can break at at
| all times/doesn't receive any major updates before new
| releases and so on. Also Ubuntu for the longest time used to
| be the only distro shipping with good font rendering
| settings, staring at code all day this actually was fairly
| important to me
|
| so basically Ubuntu 'just works', if I ran Debian I'd just
| replicate Ubuntu's default settings pretty much anyway so I
| can just save myself the few hours.
| owowow wrote:
| Unstable aka Sid receives updates always, I think your
| thinking of Testing which goes into a freeze period before
| each major release of Debian.
|
| Sid has been quite stable for me, the packages are much
| newer than Ubuntu (generally on par with Arch or close to
| it) and the few noteworthy bugs I have seen over the years
| have been reported and handled within 24 to 48hrs of said
| package being updated with the problematic code.
| ISL wrote:
| My probably-flawed remembrance of the situation, as a Debian
| (2001+)/Gentoo(2004-8) user:
|
| Canonical showed up to the party with a substantial concerted
| and sustained effort of funding/developers to take the
| existing Debian framework and make it more user-friendly.
|
| In particular, Ubuntu was willing to package substantially
| non-free software into the experience. Things like Flash just
| worked most of the time. There was a substantial emphasis on
| usability, so that Linux-on-the-desktop could reach people
| with less background knowledge (everyone was doing this, of
| course, but Ubuntu seemed to put _less_ emphasis on other
| things).
|
| When Ubuntu emerged, Debian users were concerned that Ubuntu
| would take over the DFSG-software world and make it, in the
| long run, less free. What turned out to happen, in this case,
| was that the approachability of Ubuntu, built atop the Debian
| foundation, drew many more users away from RedHat/Fedora and
| ultimately strengthened the Debian/Ubuntu userbase and
| ecosystem. The usability really mattered -- I've repaired the
| occasional Debian system with Ubuntu boot-disks simply
| because the drivers, at the time, worked better.
|
| Thanks to the intrinsic properties of open-source
| development, many of the good things about Ubuntu have found
| their way into Debian (and GNU/Linux at large). The Debian of
| today is a much more-readily usable experience than the
| Debian of 2004 thanks to the work of a great many people.
| Foxboron wrote:
| This is also thanks to Ubuntus commitment to contribute
| back to Debian and ensure there is a synergy. The same
| can't be said for Manjaro.
|
| https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu/ForDebianDevelopers
| josteink wrote:
| > when I see people using Ubuntu, I always wondered why?
|
| As someone (still) using Ubuntu today, I have 1 simple
| answer: OOB experience.
|
| Back in the days, I could insert a Ubuntu live-CD (remember
| CDs?), and have a fully working system, including proprietary
| graphics-driver and wifi-firmware. And installing from that
| Live-CD gave me the same experience once installed.
|
| Basically, it was a machine 100% ready to use, with
| everything autodetected, with absolutely zero manual effort.
|
| Debian otoh required me to hook up a wired network connection
| (because those had free drivers), and then manually track
| down which packages contained the proprietary drivers and
| firmware I needed.
|
| That single thing made a world of difference to me back then,
| and it still does today.
| tjr225 wrote:
| Yep. It's the only distro that works by default on my 2009
| Macbook Pro.
| bwanab wrote:
| In 2006, I had a brand new asus laptop. I first tried To
| install Debian. Then I tried Fedora, or Redhat, I don't
| remember when that split was. My next try was Ubuntu, which
| went without a hitch. Since it's always worked for me, I've
| stuck with it.
|
| This was after several years of running Redhat, Suse and
| Debian on desktops, so I wasn't a newbie.
| freedomben wrote:
| I had a similar experience, although I went back to Fedora
| around 2013 and was amazed at how good it has gotten. If
| you're happy then no reason to change, but if you are mad
| about Snap or any of the other issues of the day, give
| Fedora another try. It's really great at the "just works"
| these days while still staying super fresh.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It really comes down to installers with proprietary firmware
| blobs that you need to install on laptops.
|
| Debian's download page makes it hard to find the images with
| the non-free bits. They're there, though, if you dig just a
| bit.
|
| Then, on laptops that have both Intel and Nvidia graphics
| hardware, for some reason the installers insist on loading
| both the i915 and nouveau kernel modules, which then fight
| over the console. (I asked over at the nouveau IRC, and they
| said a one-liner patch would fix that, still after all these
| years.) So, you add "nouveau.modeset=0" to the boot line on
| those laptops.
|
| Finally, there is the confusion over the name "unstable",
| which is what people using Debian run, at least for the parts
| that need to be up to date, like browsers, media players
| (mpv), and firmware.
|
| But the experience once you have got set up is better than on
| Ubuntu.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > I see people using Ubuntu, I always wondered why? It is so
| interesting how people in tech just fall into the fashion
| trap.
|
| I would rather attribute it to advertising, and probably some
| contracts with the right people. Canonical did a lot of
| advertising in the past years, and contracts can mean a
| school mandates the installation of Ubuntu, which translates
| in hundreds of students becoming accustomed to it, together
| with some of their parents and friends, and so on. This is
| something completely out of the reach for a community
| supported distribution like Debian; attempting to change it
| would mean putting a corporation behind it, which would be a
| recipe for destruction of its principles.
| dx87 wrote:
| > In the past when I see people using Ubuntu, I always
| wondered why?
|
| Because I don't have a wired internet connection, and my wifi
| adapter requires proprietary drivers. If I could just
| download and install from an ISO like I can with Ubuntu, I'd
| switch to Debian in a heartbeat, but I don't feel like having
| to do manual workarounds just to get a running Linux distro.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Installing Debian 11 on a seven year old laptop to test
| something involved Debian helpfully mentioning it was
| missing network drivers and couldn't continue (okay), which
| effectively meant searching the internet for the files
| mentioned on another computer (dubious). Because this
| laptop was being used exclusively to test something on
| Debian 11 (openssh-server with U2F support) I just settled
| for some random GitHub repo with the driver binary (the
| only place I could find it). Not a great user experience.
|
| The Ubuntu way is to suggest installing non-free drivers
| from the same reputable source as the rest of the distro:
| by clicking your assent right there in the installer.
| squarefoot wrote:
| The Debian site makes hard to find the operating system
| images containing binary firmware for various devices, but
| they're all there. Another poster published the right link,
| however should you some day not have it handy, a search for
| "debian firmware image" will lead you to it both on
| DuckDuckGo and Google.
| mkesper wrote:
| use one of the (unofficial) images containing non-free
| firmware: https://cdimage.debian.org/images/unofficial/non-
| free/images...
| monoideism wrote:
| > In the past when I see people using Ubuntu, I always
| wondered why?
|
| Debian _is_ great. I particularly respect Debian as an
| organization. On my home laptop, I 've used Debian, Arch,
| Ubuntu, Fedora, etc etc.
|
| But on my work computer, I've always used Ubuntu (or
| sometimes MacOS), because:
|
| - I prefer Ubuntu LTS to Debian's testing/stable approach.
|
| - Lots of other devs use Ubuntu, so instructions are often
| focused on the distro
|
| - It's always had all the drivers I need packaged with the
| distro
|
| - Smaller projects are more likely to set up a PPA than host
| their own package repository.
| genghizkhan wrote:
| > I prefer Ubuntu LTS to Debian's testing/stable approach.
|
| May I ask why?
| markstos wrote:
| It's nice that Ubuntu has been very predictable getting
| releases out on a schedule, while Debian's approach has
| been "when it's ready", which could sometimes be a very
| long time between stable releases.
| msla wrote:
| Because coming from Slackware and OpenBSD, Debian's install
| process was too big of a pain to deal with.
| svvcfb1212 wrote:
| It is so interesting how people in tech jump to baseless
| conclusions about others' behavior that differs from their
| own...
|
| Personally, I shifted to Ubuntu since it removed headaches
| re: getting a system running out of the box. By the time i
| shifted in ~2011 I had already transitioned through SLS ->
| Slackware -> RedHat -> Debian over the 1993-2011 period.
| After 18 years, Ubuntu brought relief in that I didn't have
| to deal with fiddling with things to get a system up and
| running. At that point the fun-factor of fiddling with the
| system had worn off and I was mostly concerned with getting
| work done, which Ubuntu addressed. Last time I tried Debian
| (~4 years ago?), it felt like it had caught up in terms of
| the out-of-the-box experience, which was nice.
| glenstein wrote:
| I share this concern. Their own treasurer raised a concern as
| to whether community donated funds were handled according to
| the process they had put in place. For a period of time while
| this was happening, they responded by hiding forum threads
| about the subject. Eventually the treasurer parted ways with
| the team, and although they claim they didn't kick their
| treasurer out, their treasurer felt more or less like they had
| no choice but to leave, feeling effectively kicked out.
|
| Their apparent respect for their own stated internal practices
| was basically non-existent and their way of addressing concern
| raised does not appear to have been great, and their attempt to
| shut down discussion without explaining anything was bad, and
| when they did make a statement it did not feel entirely
| forthright or comprehensive, and it was different in many ways
| from what the treasurer had said, making it hard to figure out
| what really happened.
|
| It doesn't appear that any money was used in an improper way
| (all valid project-related costs, no tickets to Disneyland),
| only that it was not reviewed + processed consistently with
| their own internal policies. The management wants to emphasize
| the 'no improper use' part, which is fair enough so far as it
| goes. But it does not make them appear trustworthy should there
| be a real question in the future where we need to rely on their
| version of events to get to the bottom of something.
|
| Related discussion on lemmy: https://dev.lemmy.ml/post/38078
| Zancarius wrote:
| ...and it's not even _just_ the controversies. Manjaro feels
| like they play fast and loose with _everything_. Arch doesn
| 't include AUR helpers by default _specifically_ because of
| the potential for user-generated packages to install malware
| or do something damaging (with the intent being that if you
| want to use the AUR you really ought to understand the
| implications). Manjaro not only includes AUR helpers--it
| seems to actively encourage its use for packages not
| officially maintained. Though, in their defense, their wiki
| page does (finally?) include fair warnings borrowed from
| Arch[1]. I 'm just not sure it shares the same visibility.
|
| Otherwise it feels like a parasitic project masquerading as
| "Arch but easier." While there is truth to the latter, the
| oddly curious aspect to me--having been helping newbie Linux
| users for a couple years now--is that it seems new users
| _generally_ have more long-term problems with Manjaro than
| they do with Arch. I don 't have any facts to back this up,
| but speaking from my own anecdotes one would think the
| "easier" distro wouldn't be subject to this sort of trouble.
|
| Also, they recently lost all of their support forum images
| earlier this month[2].
|
| [1] https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository
|
| [2] https://linuxreviews.org/Manjaro_Linux_Lost_All_Of_Their_
| Sup...
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Unfortunately, the only other easy distro is Ubuntu, and
| not having the AUR or the Arch wiki or the quite good
| Manjaro forums and having to use potentially-dead PPAs for
| things because Ubuntu packages are out of date is less
| easy.
| Zancarius wrote:
| I do agree that "easy" isn't a solved space in the Linux
| world (Pop!_OS by System 76 is supposed to be quite good
| albeit also Ubuntu-based).
|
| I don't think that necessarily absolves problems with the
| AUR or including AUR helpers out of the box. I do
| understand that the AUR is incredibly useful for a
| wide(r?) array of software, but I take issue with
| Manjaro's approach of foisting it on potentially
| unsuspecting users who may not know enough to understand
| that these are user-maintained packages that _anyone_
| could upload. I 'd say I don't think it's a particularly
| responsible thing to do, but Manjaro's approach seems to
| eschew caution, throwing it entirely to the wind.
|
| But, I confess it could be because I'm a long time Arch
| user protecting the status quo. I understand that the
| traditional approach (install base-devel, copy the target
| PKGBUILD, run makepkg, run pacman -U) is an obstacle to a
| _lot_ of users. That said, I think it 's a _good_ thing
| because the community repo has a ton of commonly used
| software (maintained by TUs) so there isn 't a huge
| requirement on diving into the AUR now as there was 5
| years ago.
|
| My fear is that encouraging people to blindly install
| PKGBUILDs via yay or pamac will eventually nail someone.
| xorcist wrote:
| Is this the same hardware revision as the previous, postmarketOS-
| based, one?
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| According to the article, yes:
|
| > Both configurations of the Manjaro CE PinePhones feature rev.
| 1.2a PCBA, introduced with postmarketOS CE that is currently
| shipping.
| Teichopsia wrote:
| I have a spare phone which I would like to flash but I have not
| been able to find any device specific information on how to do
| it.
|
| I checked XDA but they don't have any device specific info.
| Google returns sketchy pages wanting to install software. The
| phone is not on the list of supported devices on lineage OS
| website. And I have been unable to find a how-to do it yourself
| guide.
|
| I followed a guide on how to do it over a decade ago and that is
| as far as my knowledge goes. I suspect things have changed
| since???
|
| I would appreciate if someone could point me in the right
| direction. The device, a blu G5 plus (which when I search on XDA
| it returns Moto G5 -\\_(tsu)_/-)
|
| Edit: Nevermind, I believe I've got it.
| klerpi wrote:
| How did you do it? Support got dropped for my mi a1
| fsflover wrote:
| I wonder if it will be powered by Purism's Phosh (by default)
| like many other distros already.
|
| "Phosh is current available on 8 different mobile distros that
| have been ported to the PinePhone, and Phosh is the preferred DE
| on 7 of those 8."
|
| https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph...
|
| The list of those distros is in the link.
| MYEUHD wrote:
| > There are currently three Manjaro PinePhone build variants
| (Lomiri, Phosh and Plasma Mobile) for users to try out
| joshumax wrote:
| Manjaro on the PinePhone currently has 2 branches. The first
| alphas used Plasma Mobile and another branch of alphas use
| Phosh. Work on the Plasma Mobile builds seems to have slowed
| down for Manjaro ARM, partially likely due to some UI
| instability and also because the Phosh experience currently
| feels more polished.
| yearoflinux wrote:
| As someone who has always made fun of "year of linux on desktop",
| I want to say this move will finally pave a way for the next
| decade to end with "year of linux on mobile". Using a popular
| distro will be the push linux needed on phone. While Manjaro
| users themselves (IMHO) aren't really developers, this is gateway
| to get Arch people involved. Arch is a very vibrant community
| with a lot of people who try to contribute back. Good decision.
| Can't wait to use netcat for quick chat with friends :)
|
| (PS: I know supremacists will claim Android is linux but the
| thing about supremacists is they no real ideals so they will
| ignore how close Android is)
| blendergeek wrote:
| > (PS: I know supremacists will claim Android is linux but the
| thing about supremacists is they no real ideals so they will
| ignore how close Android is)
|
| That Android contains the Linux (R) kernel is no mere "claim",
| rather it is the truth. Also, obviously, Android is not what
| anyone was thinking of when they say "Linux". This confusion
| stems from people using the term "Linux" both to refer to a
| kernel (the original and still accepted meaning) and to refer
| to an operating system combining said kernel with the GNU
| userspace.
| trenchgun wrote:
| Exactly! https://youtu.be/QXUSvSUsx80
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Precisely; Android is a _perfect_ example of why it 's
| meaningful to call it GNU+Linux, because Android+Linux and
| busybox+Linux (Alpine and some embedded systems) _are_ real
| things that are really Linux systems, but the userland is
| actually a pretty big deal.
| smoyer wrote:
| I've got an (old) Samsung Galaxy S4 that I've stuck with because
| it suits my needs and it still works well. Knowing that it will
| eventually die, I guess I have two questions I'd love to have
| answered by Pinephone owners:
|
| 1) Is a Pinephone a viable alternative either iOS or Android?
|
| 2) How do you get it connected to carrier X?
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| Are you running Android in your device? Maybe you could give
| https://doc.e.foundation/devices/jfltexx/ a try if you want a
| more private experience.
| MayeulC wrote:
| Or regular upstream
| https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/jfltexx/
|
| Not sure how /e/ is supposed to be more private yet less
| open?
|
| I'm using my i9506 (ks01lte) as a daily driver, though I
| think I'll switch to a i9505 because it has official
| lineageos support, which means probably less weird SD card
| bugs.
| klerpi wrote:
| Support for my phone got dropped :(
|
| I wish I could install it on my mi a1
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| I mean /e/ compared to Android. LOS is a good option too.
| blendergeek wrote:
| Disclaimer: I do not (yet) have my Pinephone.
|
| > 1) Is a Pinephone a viable alternative either iOS or Android?
|
| A Pinephone will never support all the proprietary apps
| (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Fortnite, etc). In
| order to be viable, I would say a phone needs to support phone
| calls, SMS, MMS, camera, GPS/Navigation, and have a fast and
| snappy web browser. Currently the Pinephone supports everything
| except MMS (which is necessary for "texting" pictures and
| groups). Because you will not have access to FB Messenger,
| Whatsapp, Instagram, Snapchat, etc on a Pinephone, you will
| have to you SMS/MMS for communication if you want to
| interoperate with people from the mainstream.
|
| 2) For T-Mobile based carriers in the US, you just stick in the
| simcard.
| syl_sau wrote:
| > you will not have access to FB Messenger, Whatsapp,
| Instagram, etc.
|
| Actually you can access Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
| messages through their respective websites (and you can get
| notifications from the site if the browser supports it), but
| no WhatsApp nor Snapchat -- though Anbox might just fix this
| problem.
| cocoa19 wrote:
| "A Pinephone will never support all the proprietary apps
| (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Fortnite, etc)."
|
| That sounds like a feature I'm excited about :).
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| You're mostly right but there's the Anbox project to somewhat
| fill that gap.
| collyw wrote:
| I like Manjaro and I like the idea of an open source phone, but I
| was disappointed by the Ubuntu phone after actually buying one.
| It's basically that "content is king", with the content being
| apps. Is this going to be the same?
|
| (A lot of the apps on the Ubuntu phone were web based rather than
| native, which is actually a drawback when you don't have an
| internet connection. There was no way to do offline maps for
| example).
| opan wrote:
| I also got the UBPorts Community Edition. I highly recommend
| installing postmarketOS or something else. Ubuntu Touch has
| this strange locked down approach, mounting the FS read-only
| and forcing a [buggy] gui on you. With pmOS I can install
| programs I'm familiar with from my computer, use the package
| manager over ssh and update everything with one command, view
| processes in htop, edit things in vim, etc. It's a lot of fun
| now, and I was rather miserable when I used Ubuntu Touch the
| first couple days I had it. pmOS also supports LUKS full disk
| encryption at install time, which is pretty cool.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > I highly recommend installing postmarketOS or something
| else. Ubuntu Touch has this strange locked down approach,
| mounting the FS read-only and forcing a [buggy] gui on you.
|
| Not to mention that UBports is based on some idiosyncratic
| 2014-era Ubuntu-specific software that even Ubuntu moved away
| from. Under the hood it doesn't at all feel like a "normal
| Linux" (whether you define that as the software stack found
| nowadays on RedHat or Debian, or the more conservative and
| purist approach of some other distros).
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| I actually found the UI to be quite good on Ubuntu Touch.
| However I swapped it for mobian due to its locked down nature
| same as you did.
| sukilot wrote:
| What about Open Street Map?
|
| https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Using_OpenStreetMap_offl...
| ?
| arghwhat wrote:
| The phones are made, and sold at this price, as a community
| service to help develop the open source platforms
| (postmarketOS, ubuntu touch, etc.), not as a consumer phone. A
| prototype of sorts.
| linmob wrote:
| The app situation is not perfect, but there are some (not all
| available on every distribution): https://linmobapps.frama.io.
|
| Specifically Pure Maps is available as a Flatpak and can be
| used in conjunction with OSM Scout Server for Offline Maps.
|
| Also, Anbox support got almost usable in the PinePhone's
| ArchLinuxARM distribution with working networking and a working
| keyboard just yesterday, so some Android apps are going to
| work. I expect Manjaro to ship at least the same level of Anbox
| support with their PinePhone CE.
| squeezingswirls wrote:
| > there was no way to do offline maps for example
|
| That's not true, you can use https://open-store.io/app/pure-
| maps.jonnius
|
| Offline mapping is possible by installing OSM Scout Server
| https://open-store.io/app/osmscout-server.jonnius
|
| About the apps, you can help developing native apps using
| https://clickable-ut.dev/en/latest/
| moreorless wrote:
| Anyone actually using this as a daily driver? I am completely
| Apple free except for the the phone. I would love to be able to
| ditch that.
| bjo590 wrote:
| Most people cannot live w/o MMS or some apps that do not have a
| mobile website equivalent.
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