Misunderstanding the user base

[orbital]

Pine and the distro makers have unfortunately "jumped the shark"
by trying to offer phones that might someday be competitive with Android/iOS i.e.
fast, responsive, good for gaming, amazing camera etc.

But this is not really what a Linux user wants. A Linux user wants different things from
the majority of users.
He wants:
1. to tinker first and foremost, configuring the phone in novel ways, starting with a functional phone not one with broken software;
2. to achieve privacy, and feel assured his data won't be exfiltrated to "the cloud", and use apps like Signal for Internet calling;
3. to write code for the phone, maybe write code on the phone itself.

But to gain adoption by Linux users the phone has to be able to
1. make calls reliably,
2. do SMS reliabily
3. and charge normally.

These 3 things should have been the top priority of Pine and the distro makers, but seem to have not been.

The distro makers apparently want to provide a nearly identical
experience and feature set to mainstream phone OSes (why?), and they have
loaded their GUIs down with bloated/slow software, rather than writing lean and fast
code using the bare bones approach e.g. with Xlib alone.

It is no big surprise that phones feel slow when they are using
KDE plasma or Python apps.

Pine for its part has failed to provide the basic hardware setup of a phone that:
A. charges normally without having to ever take out the battery;
B. has an EEPROM to store calibration data. They don't perform camera calibration at the factory
like ever other phone maker does, which means the camera
will never be calibrated because that can't be done at home.

In short, the Pine phones are a misfire, not conceived with the customers' needs in mind,
with bad distros brought by organizations not committed to the task and instead
committed to the wrong goals.

[alaraajavamma]

Keep in mind that most of the work for Pinephone is voluntary - and nothing stops you to do what ever you want for your Pinephone (and maybe share it to others and see if they feel the same way)

I suggest that you could try these distros:
https://github.com/dreemurrs-embedded/Pi...g/20220729
https://images.postmarketos.org/bpo/v22....pinephone/

There is even barebone version of arch

[TRS-80]

I agree with you about the bloated UIs. Plus Gnome's typical user-hostile obnoxious attitude and dumbing down of everything. SXMO has been a breath of fresh air by comparison, especially now that I have the keyboard case.

I know PINE64 is far from perfect, and many of your criticisms are very valid, however I just don't see anyone else making the kinds of interesting hardware that they do.

[orbital]

SXMO has been a breath of fresh air by comparison, especially now that I have the keyboard case.

That looks like a compelling hack.
I've long thought that the idea of scrolling through a grid of icons was a bad solution and I like the pop-up textual menu.
It reminds me of CHDK, which is custom firmware that offers a similar menu for Canon cameras.
However I probably wouldn't buy a keyboard case.
Also, I just ran suckless's "sent" command on a Raspberry Pi and it was quite a bit slower than expected.

[alaraajavamma]

Have to say because this is the thing what makes me kind of sad
(I mean I totally agree with you what you said in first message)

Ubuntu Touch by Ubports is the OS that fits your description.
But to achieve reliable things you have to take away some freedom from users - and when we are talking about phones it means actually quite a lot freedom.
That was the reason why Ubuntu Touch did not get volunteers for development and it is now stalled before update to Ubuntu 20.04.
And that is okay

This speech from Dalton Durst is fantastic and it is absolutely relevant to this topic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt1U677h5kY

What I am saying here is that because Pinephone is mainly developed by volunteers the only ones who can decide where this developement is going is those same volunteers. So if they want or don't want something then it just going the be like that.

[orbital]

So if they want or don't want something then it just going the be like that.

But is that really true? Everybody wants reliable calling, SMS that works,
a camera that is calibrated at the factory, and no problem with charging
when the battery goes to 0% or the phone is powered down.
Some responsibilities must be taken on by the manufacturer.

[alaraajavamma]

But is that really true? Everybody wants reliable calling, SMS that works,
a camera that is calibrated at the factory, and no problem with charging
when the battery goes to 0% or the phone is powered down.
Some responsibilities must be taken on by the manufacturer.

Well it is kind of true - I mean of course you are right, everyone want's reliable calling etc. but currently the community has also wanted the freedom to do whatever they want with their phone and this unfortunately conflicts with certain stability functions.

That's why Dalton speech above is so good  - everyone want's all notifications immediately and everyone want's that apps open like in second or so and in the same time they want 2 weeks battery life. In reality, it is extremely difficult to reconcile certain things.

[orbital]

But is that really true? Everybody wants reliable calling, SMS that works,
a camera that is calibrated at the factory, and no problem with charging
when the battery goes to 0% or the phone is powered down.
Some responsibilities must be taken on by the manufacturer.

everyone want's all notifications immediately and everyone want's that apps open like in second or so and in the same time they want 2 weeks battery life. In reality, it is extremely difficult to reconcile certain things.

But is it really? Take the Linux distros for example: Everyone needed a stable C compiler,
a stable kernel, basic I/O, or otherwise Linux would not have gotten off the ground
and would have lost to OpenBSD etc. People want freedom, but that freedom
requires a supportive platform to enable it. Being able to make calls, send SMSes
and charge properly are analogous to Linux having keyboard and video drivers.
They have to be there or no one can embrace their freedoms.

[bosi564]

Pine for its part has failed to provide the basic hardware setup of a phone that:

A. charges normally without having to ever take out the battery;

My current use case is to charge the keyboard with a small 500mA charger while the phone sleeps (with deactivated mobile data to avoid frequent awakenings). After that  I use the keyboard to charge the phone with 3A really fast. Works like a charm and without removing batteries.

And it's only a little bit awkward when talking with the keyboard still attached.

[alaraajavamma]

everyone want's all notifications immediately and everyone want's that apps open like in second or so and in the same time they want 2 weeks battery life. In reality, it is extremely difficult to reconcile certain things.

But is it really? Take the Linux distros for example: Everyone needed a stable C compiler,
a stable kernel, basic I/O, or otherwise Linux would not have gotten off the ground
and would have lost to OpenBSD etc. People want freedom, but that freedom
requires a supportive platform to enable it. Being able to make calls, send SMSes
and charge properly are analogous to Linux having keyboard and video drivers.
They have to be there or no one can embrace their freedoms.

Well that part was more just an example that sometimes it is really hard to connect certain things.

Example:
Callaudio is unexpectedly often broken for quite strange reasons. As far as I know this has happened to all distros (and it is kind of happening right now).
You can get stable callaudio but you have to stick in older and more stable packages also for many other programs which are not even directly related to the callaudio.
But because people want newer and shinier features like Phosh 0.20 as fast as possible they want to take a change

So many things are working as they should but you have to choose OS which takes these things into account.

What I am seeing here that things are developing fast but it takes quite lot of time that everything works like orchestra - it is radically different from laptop or PC because of the phone functions.
I would also like to see more contribution from Pine64 but I think I get what I paid and what was advertised.

Ps. What is that charging problem? Pinephone charges as it should there are no problems that I have heard? (I have many and never had a problem )
I know the one with keyboard case but I think that is being worked and it is different story.

Edit. I have to say also that I have working calls, sms, mms, camera, charging, internet etc. All basic functions work just like they should.
I am using PMOS Phosh stable. Almost everything works out of the box (I think mms was only one that need some tweaking).
What needed some tinkering was the user experience but the base - what you mentioned - is rock solid for me.