I was going through Pine64’s page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?

I’m considering purchasing the Pine but I’d like a better screen, more RAM and a better CPU. Don’t know if I should wait for a new model to be released (are they even planning to do that? Is the company active?). I will only really use it to browse the Web, and might even look to desolder a couple of parts that I know I won’t use.

Thanks.

Edit: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it’ll be fit for me?

Edit 2: overall, I am much saddened about the state of affairs regarding private computing on the go. I desperately hope that Linux on mobile takes off, even though its incubation looks disheartening at the moment. Thank you everyone for your comments.

  • Psyklax@lemmy.ml
    301·
    1 year ago

    My problem with linux phones was the hardware. Either far too expensive or too cheap and slow. And the cellular radio is ABSOLUTELY PROPRIETARY.

    I would get one at a $300 price point with 12 hour battery life that can play HD video without hiccups. Also would be nice to have open source baseband drivers in it.

    I’ve got really low standards that haven’t been met.

  • xarexyouxmadx@lemmy.world
    23·
    1 year ago

    I looked into this for myself but I was told a lot of what has already been said here and decided to go with a pixel + graphene OS .

    I’m probably sticking with this type of setup until there’s a proper Linux phone that can be easily used as a daily driver.

    I think the key is patience. One day I think we’ll have something that will be able to daily drive Linux that won’t feel like you’re using the alpha release of android.

  • trivial_wannabe@lemmy.world
    13·
    1 year ago

    I used a pinephone as my daily driver for about a month. Importantly, this was 3~4 years ago, things could be better now.

    My take at the time: The battery life was bad, the phone was slow, MMS did not work, making a receiving calls was iffy at best.

    I really really hope this improves/has improved over time. Android gets more and more difficult to de-google. A linux phone would solve a lot of privacy issues (not all, but some)

    • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I hope so too. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The PinePhone Pro is still treated as a development device by PostmarketOS, for example

  • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
    6·
    1 year ago

    Why not try lineageo OS? I’ve been daily driving it for one year now and it’s reliably if you don’t throw magisk modules at it for fun.

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
          27·
          1 year ago

          So fucking dumb how we have to look for specific models just to get support for smartphones.

          Can you image if Linux only ran on HP and dell laptops?

          • Hiro8811@lemmy.world
            2·
            1 year ago

            Unfortunately that’s moistly on maufacters. If they don’t release the kernel LOS can’t do anything. Also depending on the phone it might take a while till someone picks the phone and decides to support it. Laptops do have compatibility options. But I get what your saying, it is annoying but what did you expect from such organization?

    • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I second the recommendation for lineage OS. I’ve been using it since 2011 with my Nexus S (when it was Cyanogen). Works, defaults to de-googled, but easy to install gapps at the same time (follow instructions because it needs to be done before first boot).

      I’ll never run a stock ROM again if I can help it, and so far…

  • pathief@lemmy.world
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’d love to run a system without Google but it’s hard. I tried to run LineageOS with microg for a week or two but eventually had to install Google Play Services. Lots of hurdles with push notifications and unfortunately some apps really refused to work when they detected no play services installed. It really sadden me, to be honest. Really wanted to make it work.

    Never gave Linux phones a chance, I rely too much on apps that wouldn’t be available.

    • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’m interested in the problems you faced. I have realised that I will need GMS/MicroG for maps, and am unclear if I can get a FOSS app to host my local mail inbox without GMS. Other than that, everything else can be done in the browser (technically even maps can be used in the browser but I digress).

      Would like to know which services prevent you from leaving Google

      • pathief@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        My first attempt was to flash the stock LineageOS and then install the microg packages from the fdroid store. I didn’t manage to get that fully working, the microg self-check would have a lot of fails due to version mismatches. I never figured out why. A lot of applications complained about the lack of play services and warned me they wouldn’t work, microg was clearly not installed properly.

        Then, I flashed the “LineageOS for MicroG” ROM, which is a LineageOS fork with microg already installed. I had to enable all microg services but the self-check was 100% successful out of the box. No warnings about the lack of play services, everything was mostly working. I installed all software from Fdroid when possible and Aurora Store when not possible.

        Push notifications were a bit of a struggle at first but they did work. I still didn’t get notifications to work on Telegram, but “Telegram FOSS” fork seemed to work okay. For GPS/Maps I used Waze (which is technically owned by Google) and it worked flawlessly. I assume you can use other GPS application, I just didn’t do my research on this one. For email I am using Proton Mail, which worked as expected.

        The problematic apps were banking/financial apps, which I guess most people can live without. I’m confident the apps would work with microg but simply refused to even start. In Portugal our interbank network developed an application called “MBWAY”, which is really ingrained in the portuguese population. Most people use it. It has a ton of cool functiontionality such as sending money to other people just by using the phone number (instantly and without fees), replacing your ATM/food cards for payments and generating virtual credit cards for online shopping.

        I use MBWAY way too much (pun intended), and just decided I didn’t want to live without it. I ended up flashing stock LineageOS and their GAPPS package, which contains the play services and play store app. I still install most stuff from the Aurora and Fdroid store. The banking/financial apps are now working.

  • banazir@lemmy.ml
    5·
    1 year ago

    I have a Mobian community edition PinePhone with postmarketOS and it is my daily driver. It suits my humble needs, but these few years have been a mixed bag. Especially with Mobian I’ve had periods of it working great, punctuated by periods with annoying issues. I stopped using the phone for a while when it suddenly stopped taking calls but I didn’t notice since there was no indication of trouble. My family reported me missing when they couldn’t reach me after a few days. Luckily that was then sorted out, but it wasn’t great. This hasn’t happened since.

    postmarketOS has been pretty solid and seems to perform better than Mobian.

    After a few years I’m starting to think I need a new battery, but the official store has been out of stock for a while. I’m not sure if they will ever get more parts. Communication from Pine64 has also slowed down to a crawl, which is not great. At least their official monthly blog was last updated in august. At the moment I’m somewhat skeptical of their future. We’ll see.

    Be warned though: the PinePhone can browse the web and banking probably works, but watching, say, youtube is not going to be a great experience. You’re probably better off using alternative solutions like Pipeline. The PinePhone is not a powerful machine and you will have tinker every now and then.

    Having said all that, if you set your expectations correctly you can probably get along with a PinePhone as your daily driver. I’m not sure if I can recommend it because there are many caveats, but in the end you know your needs and what you’re comfortable with better than I do. I like my PinePhone and I surely wish more people get Linux phones and that the ecosystem evolves.

    • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      I could not find an official support branch of postmarketOS for the PPP.

      Other than that, as you say, Pine64’s interaction has waned greatly and I wonder what is going on behind the scenes. This is no FP5, certainly, but availability of parts is a requirement for me

    • Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world
      21·
      1 year ago

      Yeah Linux phone is a pipedream as long as Android works well at all.

      The fact that you can use Termux kind of makes Linux phones moot, especially since you need a very specific set of hardware

    • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      What inconveniences have you faced from the software?

      Copying my edit here: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it’ll be fit for me?

  • GustavoM@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    Does a single board computer counts as a phone? Then a Orange pi zero 3. (Not like theres anything else to do other than read/lurk online communities, code and the occasional cloud gaming nowadays, so eh.)