Which OS to choose?
#1
After several days of juggling SD cards, I feel it is time to make a decision (at least for now, I can always change my mind).
It is just not sustainable that I have to open and close my phone all the time. With hindsight, we might have been better off with an external card slot.

Here are my impressions of the different OS options:

Ubuntu Touch
Admittedly the most advances OS. I like the fact that they even have a little app store running already. But it is also the slowest software. I find it unacceptable that it takes 3 minutes to start my Pinephone up and 1 whole minute to start a simple application such as Calculator or Settings. Unless they can do something to speed things up, I may conclude that my Pinephone is just not powerful enough for this.

Manjaro Plasma
I may be wrong, but this feels more like a tinkerer's OS than a user's one. I'll be watching it.


Sailfish
Much talked about, but I find the installation procedure too awkward. Most other distributions can easily be installed on an SD card using Linux Mint's "USB Image Writer". If I want to enlarge the partition, I can do so with GParted (it will end with an error message, butthis doesn't cause any problems).

LuneOS
This comes as a WIC file and I have not found out yet how to install it.

Neon Plasma / Postmarket Plasma
Somebody commented that these look quite "polished". But look a bit closer and you'll find they are mostly just just mock-ups. I am not interested in fancy screen elements, backgrounds etc. I want functionality.


AND THE WINNER IS...

Postmarket Phosh
First of all, I am quite impressed with the speed of it. The system will start up in 30 seconds and simple apps such as Calculater and Settings take an incredible 3 seconds to load (Compare that with Ubuntu!). PM Phosh also can already do things that the others can't, such as switch from portrait to landscape, handle SMS and even run Firefox. I don't mind the simple screen layout, this is all I need.
Where it falls short at the moment is that the moblie data modem is always on, draining the battery, and some screens have not yet been adjusted to the Pinephone screen size, leading to situations when essential buttons such as "Done" are off the screen. But I am sure over time these issues will be addressed.


I will of course keep an eye on the other options, but for now, PM Phosh stays in my phone until the next version comes out.
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#2
(02-14-2020, 09:31 AM)Zweitaktmotor Wrote: After several days of juggling SD cards, I feel it is time to make a decision (at least for now, I can always change my mind).
It is just not sustainable that I have to open and close my phone all the time. With hindsight, we might have been better off with an external card slot.

Here are my impressions of the different OS options:

Ubuntu Touch
Admittedly the most advances OS. I like the fact that they even have a little app store running already. But it is also the slowest software. I find it unacceptable that it takes 3 minutes to start my Pinephone up and 1 whole minute to start a simple application such as Calculator or Settings. Unless they can do something to speed things up, I may conclude that my Pinephone is just not powerful enough for this.

Manjaro Plasma
I may be wrong, but this feels more like a tinkerer's OS than a user's one. I'll be watching it.


Sailfish
Much talked about, but I find the installation procedure too awkward. Most other distributions can easily be installed on an SD card using Linux Mint's "USB Image Writer". If I want to enlarge the partition, I can do so with GParted (it will end with an error message, butthis doesn't cause any problems).

LuneOS
This comes as a WIC file and I have not found out yet how to install it.

Neon Plasma / Postmarket Plasma
Somebody commented that these look quite "polished". But look a bit closer and you'll find they are mostly just just mock-ups. I am not interested in fancy screen elements, backgrounds etc. I want functionality.


AND THE WINNER IS...

Postmarket Phosh
First of all, I am quite impressed with the speed of it. The system will start up in 30 seconds and simple apps such as Calculater and Settings take an incredible 3 seconds to load (Compare that with Ubuntu!). PM Phosh also can already do things that the others can't, such as switch from portrait to landscape, handle SMS and even run Firefox. I don't mind the simple screen layout, this is all I need.
Where it falls short at the moment is that the moblie data modem is always on, draining the battery, and some screens have not yet been adjusted to the Pinephone screen size, leading to situations when essential buttons such as "Done" are off the screen. But I am sure over time these issues will be addressed.


I will of course keep an eye on the other options, but for now, PM Phosh stays in my phone until the next version comes out.

On Lune OS, just rename the wic extension to img, then dd. Try out the latest version, you may likes it.
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#3
See my reply under LuneOS.
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#4
(02-14-2020, 09:31 AM)Zweitaktmotor Wrote: ...

AND THE WINNER IS...
Came to pretty much the same place as you but via a shorter route. I have only really spent meaningful time with pmOS/Plasma, pmOS/Phosh, and Ubuntu Touch. Really struggled with Ubuntu Touch (especially can't sort the user name and root password, need to put a thread in the relevant sub-forum) and got a bit frustrated with the bits that crash/wont load, especially in setup screens. Yes I know we are testers ...
pmOS/Plasma just loved that keyboard, having an up arrow and a tab key makes things about twice as fast for me in a terminal. Sadly missing in pmOS/Phosh, but once I read the thread that said the demo image was ahead of the pmbootstrap version fell in love with it. SMS works out of the box, as does mobile data. Even phone calls. OK so there is no sound but that suits me, even if my partner is aggrieved Big Grin
And then I started playing with 16 Feb version of KDE Neon and I am again undecided. Huh  
1 little stat I am watching is memory used in htop straight after boot. pmOS/phosh 297M, Ubuntu Touch 835M, KDE Neon 488M.
  • ROCKPro64 v2.1 2GB, 16Gb eMMC for rootfs, SX8200Pro 512GB NVMe for /home, HDMI video & sound, Bluetooth keyboard & mouse. Arch (6.2 kernel, Openbox desktop) for general purpose daily PC.
  • PinePhone Pro Explorer Edition, daily driver, rk2aw & U-boot on SPI, Arch/SXMO & Arch/phosh on eMMC
  • PinePhone BraveHeart now v1.2b 3/32Gb, Tow-boot with Arch/SXMO on eMMC
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#5
(02-14-2020, 09:31 AM)Zweitaktmotor Wrote: AND THE WINNER IS...

Postmarket Phosh
First of all, I am quite impressed with the speed of it. The system will start up in 30 seconds and simple apps such as Calculater and Settings take an incredible 3 seconds to load (Compare that with Ubuntu!). PM Phosh also can already do things that the others can't, such as switch from portrait to landscape, handle SMS and even run Firefox. I don't mind the simple screen layout, this is all I need.
Where it falls short at the moment is that the moblie data modem is always on, draining the battery, and some screens have not yet been adjusted to the Pinephone screen size, leading to situations when essential buttons such as "Done" are off the screen. But I am sure over time these issues will be addressed.


I will of course keep an eye on the other options, but for now, PM Phosh stays in my phone until the next version comes out.

Yeah, I have settled in it as well, for now. For me the criteria was if I am able to use command line apps. It turned out that UB doesn't actually have Ubuntu repos available straight up, but instead needs some app called Libertine to run common cli apps I have come to require from my distros. I am suspicious of adding such an extra layer in between (although, this is not really educated opinion at all) so I ditched UB for this. After that I tested Manjaro for some time, but it got a bit annoying since the phone functionality (like: shut down the display with a button) is not there yet, so it's still more desktop than I could handle in a device I am hoping to carry with me. Then I tried the phosh version of PMos and was surprised by how fast it turns on and how responsive it seems. It also has many of the apps I need from alpine repo, and they seem to work, so I am happy with it for now. The only problem I have it is that the keyboard doesn't give me the extra keys (like tab, ^c, ^d, arrow keys), so it can be a bit exhausting experience on the terminal.

In the long run I assume I will go back to Manjaro. Been using it as my main distro for a couple of years and before I had arch, so I am quite familiar with it.
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#6
This guy has a very good review of most of the OS's: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4GchfTPx0

As I mentioned here, but this is a more relevant thread for it... I think phosh is the best user interface besides gnome. I've distro hopped a lot so I kind of already know what I want. I'd like to test the debian+phosh combination, and I'm really interested in the Manjaro line and NixOS, as well as testing out Gnome 3 on pmOS...

With pmOS it's a good sign that it is very stable already. But, I imagine the package environment being a bit like the OpenPandora which also ran on Alpine Linux Ångström, sorry. The community had to repackage everything for the device. Not for just ARM, but for the specific OpenPandora system. Simple as it was, the thing that killed it for me most was not having that standard Debian or Arch, etc, repository. And there weren't many others who created packages, for as simple as the process was, not everybody is a package maintainer, and getting updates late is a security flaw.

I also criticize the part of the Wiki where pmOS basically only supports "cooperative firmware" and not "ugly hacks" because they won't accept fixes to proprietary firmware that are "ugly", which doesn't bode well for longevity if it becomes the main OS shipped with PinePhone.

I'm also amazed that they don't have a link to their online repository or reference it anywhere in their wiki. Do the packages come directly from Alpine? If so, then there is a big repository.

I like that pmOS supports APKs, but many of the good ones are ports from mainstream distros. And I think it would be easier to add support for APKs under debian with something like shashlik than the other way around. Correction: Alpine apks are entirely different from Android apks...darn.

Looking through the Alpine wiki and repo, another thing that I notice lacking is accessibility packages like the TTS "festival" apps, I need those.

In conclusion pmOS is a good start, but I want to push farther.

So I would definitely use a debian-arm (preferable without systemd) distro (sooo... Maemo Leste? Idea ) for a reliable distro that won't crash on me. I might also, in the future, use guixsd-arm if it proves to be as stable (would love to try it, but remember we would have to rely on a third party for any proprietary blobs or proprietary software). Also, both guixsd and debian offer reproducible builds. Alpine doesn't...yet. For tinkering I would use Manjaro at first and then branch out to Void (based on Arch) or something crazier.


So basically I will ultimately stay with one that at least has:
  • Calls and texts must work above all else
  • SSH access
  • usable terminal on the phone with a good keyboard
  • fully featured touch responsive user interface
  • Firefox so I can get my banking, govt, work, etc, done -- without ever needing to install a proprietary "app" from Google. It can simply run in JavaScript.
  • takes advantage of repositories maintained by the mainstream distros
  • full language options, I want spanish interface and keyboard + in dvorak layout Wink
  • as system matures, perhaps a more long term update cycle (or anything to prevent breakage)
  • everything else being equal, the one with reproducible builds will win me over
  • accessibility apps (like festival TTS) are a must
*.*.* PinePhone BraveHeart edition w/ distro: Debian + Phosh // GuixOS, Debian, Arch // pocket linux enthusiast // washed up sysadmin *.*.*
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#7
(02-18-2020, 03:46 AM)undo Wrote: Then I tried the phosh version of PMos and was surprised by how fast it turns on and how responsive it seems. It also has many of the apps I need from alpine repo, and they seem to work, so I am happy with it for now. The only problem I have it is that the keyboard doesn't give me the extra keys (like tab, ^c, ^d, arrow keys), so it can be a bit exhausting experience on the terminal.
 quite familiar with it.

undo, in the Phosh Terminal if you change the language to "terminal" there is a button ">_" that gives you access to more keys like tab, esc and arrows.  No CTRL combos though.
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