Support my content! Get Merch! - shop.thelinuxcast.org 0:00 Intro 0:43 First Look and Lowering Expectations 1:47 The Hardware 3:58 Battery Life 6:20 The Software 8:58 Customizing the Home Screen...Yikes! Bugs! 10:46 Crashes 11:17 Overall Usage of the Software 12:06 Problems with the Camera 12:50 Is it Good as a Phone? 13:09 More Crashes...This time LIVE! 14:03 Back to the Phone as a Phone 15:30 Time for some Optomism 16:19 Manjaro as a Phone OS? 19:22 A Matter of Expectations 21:40 The Next Steps 22:23 Goodbyes
@@softwarelivre2389 I had an Ubuntu phone a few years ago, it was a nice device and very usable (after I learnt that `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade ` is a bad idea). Convergence didn't work though, but "probably next year" or so. The fact that it still doesn't work and that this phone seems a step back makes me think that Linux on phones is not feasible.
12:18 Even if that's the case, the expected behavior should be: the app loads completely, detects the camera is disabled, warns the user that the camera switch is off. At least that's what I'd expect as good app behavior, instead of just endless loading.
Linux on mobile has a promising future. But again it needs years and years of development at this point. Just like Android had a million bugs in the gingerbread era, Linux mobile will have the same. I just hope that developers don't abandon this project all together.
@@biomorphicthey share a kernel but that's about it, Android is pretty much a whole set apart as far as user-space it goes so it is only fair to not consider it just another linux distribution
it's a neat idea, but it lacks incentive to build an actual ecosystem imho.. for enthusiasts it is definitely a viable platform, I just don't see how this will ever reach regular users
@@biomorphicAndroid shares very little with standard desktop distros. Sure, it shares a kernel, albeit modified. Locks you out of superuser permissions, has an entirely different userspace, including the graphics stack and libc. Android is so different that developing for desktop Linux is closer to BSD than it is Android development. Hell, if you have a statically linked X11 app, FreeBSD will be able to run the same binary as desktop Linux but Android wouldn't, even if the CPU were the same architecture.
I have a Pine Phone, running it with Ubuntu Touch. I use it for basics, phone calls, texting, Email, and load up a map, when needed. I find It works better and uses less Battery with Ubuntu Touch.
can you tell us if the camera is any good? im thinking about getting one but i need a really good camera, like at least like iphone or pixel camera quality.
@@ISCARI0Tno its not very good, not even close to iphone and Pixel. I use a quality Canon Camera for taking photo's, no phone camera can even come close to this quality. You are paying for crap anyways.
Bad power management during suspend is basically always the fault of the drivers. When they don't properly put all the hardware to sleep, that internal hardware will draw current unnecessarily and deplete your battery. There's one other mechanism that might be a problem, and that is wake-up interrupts (e.g. from the modem). If the OS doesn't quickly put the device back to sleep (after handling whatever has happened), it will needlessly stay up wasting battery for prolonged periods of time. Windows laptops have a similar problem. You can sometimes find out that the device has woken up by itself to do an update (or worse yet: start indexing files, do Windows Defender stuff, etc.) and used up all of its battery. And Windows _does set_ timer interrupts to regularly wake up in contrast to most Linux OSes AFAIK.
As a mild Linux Phone tinkerer myself, I'd advise Phosh as a DE for stability and functionality. Gnome-Mobile for a peak into the future of what Linux mobile may be like soon, but expect the odd few more bugs (Though certainly not as many bugs as Plasma mobile). Good luck, I'd be interested to see a few reviews on the progress of different projects on Linux mobile (i.e. more recent GTK/QT adaptations, DE adaptations, etc).
What distro would you recommend? I had postmarkedOS, but alpine has so few arm packages that I think I’d be better of with another distro Maybe I go for arch next
@@foxonboard1 Much of the Linux mobile space is in its infancy, so regarding distro's with optimisations, you're kind of limited. I would say it depends on your favourite choice of package manager amongst other things. But most rely on the progress of PMOS to get their distro's to work on mobile.
@@sanderhaskins2740 yeah I'm not. I'm just developing random stuff. Megapixels 2.0 not only runs on the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro but also the Librem 5 and a handful of random phones I have around here.
I hope you get it, i really like the pinephone concept and want it to be a good alternative to apple and android. But why not just make your own fork of android tho? The best part imo is the physical hardware switches, your own version of android could have all the privacy respecting features you could possibly want tho. Why does it have to be linux?
Hi! I had the unfortunate scenario of needing to daily drive the OG pinephone for a few months a few years ago! I still, so *very* badly, want to believe. I'm actually returning to school for a CS degree, hoping strongly I can contribute to projects like this at some point. I strongly believe that the linux mobile future IS out there. I did a lot of distro-hopping while I had it. Of all the distros I used, manjaro had the most issues. I have *no idea* why pine64 decided to go with Manjaro as their default OS, but here we are. My advice here is a few years out of date by now, but I had the best experience with Mobian - Debian's answer to linux mobile. I would recommend checking that out! Really happy somebody is taking a deep dive into the linux mobile-verse. Do you plan on making more mobile linux videos? Dropping a subscribe regardless. Thank you for the video!
The problem with the battery most likely stems from the fact that there's no proper support for it in the kernel for this SOC. This SOC is a modified version of one on Pinebook Pro (laptop) from the same company and there was downstream and old modified kernel that supports deep sleep, but the patch was not merged in all those years to upstream. In case of the mobile device the problem is worse, because you have 2 SOC inside basically - one for the whole device and one for the modem (which contains a separate Android installation by default, which is funny) and power management becomes even harder to do. There is a project to de-blob and open source the modem software, but it's a legal and technical minefield
Also it may be the case that you have outdated system on the device and I advise to read before trying to update it, otherwise you will risk bricking it. You can recover from that in the end, but it may be more painful than having the knowledge of how to proceed ahead of time. Updating the bootloader firmware may be required, also there's a modem firmware that's apparently good. The megapixels app may not work at all because the author dropped his focus and support of pine products. There was a string of controversies about their decision making Manjaro the default.
Agree, as someone who used to advocate for Android cuz of how bogged down iOS is, I'm really not seeing much of a difference anymore. Even considered giving Harmony OS a shot just to not have Android anymore, like I'm getting annoyed now with ads in my music player of all places 🤷♂️ so far Rhino OS has been giving me a "close to Linux" experience on pinephone, but it's still new and not "there yet" either, and I feel like pinephone's processing power is still sub-par, but they also made sure you know that it's a development effort, not a polished product. Unfortunately the operating systems for it isn't where it could be, but it's at least a step into the right direction, and I really do hope that we'll see some major developments over the next couple of years to make it as viable as we'd like for it to be
Don't see as much coverage anymore of the PinePhone lately, this was a helpful update for it, thanks! Did a good job with the phone shot, but if you want to make it easier on yourself, could mount your camera/phone your filming with on a tripod. For phones, you can usually take the top off a cheap selfie stick, most I've found use a normal tripod thread, then just toss on a tripod.
Funny and curious... I was recommended by TH-cam to watch a video of the "brand new" postmarketOS running in a Pinephone... And you are releasing this video. Linux on mobile phones needs a lot of work and massive improvements. But I have faith about it. Someday it will be real. I hope to be alive to see that.
I’ve seen several reviews of these devices, and you are the first one that actually talks about using it as an actual phone - and in the U.S. definitely good to know about the SIM card situation. Who did you use, btw? Thanks, looking forward to more of this.
@@Blak22390 Are you telling me that you haven't observed the same thing among Linux users? I'm a vegan hippie and I use harem pants and eat shrooms. Some things just go hand in hand. There's nothing rude about it.
I'm not so sure about a rolling release distro on a phone, especially Manjaro with KDE. The combo can be a handful, even on desktop. Maybe something based on Ubuntu LTS with a stripped down version of GNOME would be a better option. After all, GNOME's 40 series design already looks like it's being primarily developed for mobile and touch screen devices.
I tried mobian, but found I preferred Ubuntu touch on my device. Ubuntu touch has worse app availability (although you can still install general desktop apps with libertine) but otherwise feels much smoother on underpowered hardware and overall felt much more polished to me. The images are being actively developed by the maintainer for the Pine64 devices, better support for the hardware should be available very soon.
Have you worked with Linux on ARM much? Not every Linux app can just run on ARM. Some apps have a something extra in the name for their ARM versions so installing through the terminal you would have to use the ARM name. Neofetch I believe works on ARM with the normal name so I’m not sure what issue you had.
Esims sound awful. Why would I want to use a system that doesn't allow me to easily transfer it to a new phone or doesn't stay around if I do a factory reset...
I'm pessimistic as h*ck about this; I don't think Arch, let alone Manjaro, is ever going to be stable enough to deliver the stability required for a smartphone.
@@sergeykish Yeah but the Deck is an x86 device and doesn't sink or swim based on its touch controls and its ability to be on 24/7. Not to mention SteamOS having years of development and a lot of money behind it.
@@Seeker_of_F1r3 Its still Arch and nobody says that x86 mobile devices are forbidden. And honestly: Linux developer should start developing also for mobile devices and not just create the hundredth copy of a text editor, keyboard based tiling window manager or even complete distro with just preinstalled other things.
I’ve always been a KDE Plasma fan, and I can’t wait to see Plasma (and the underlying mobile Linux flavors) fully mature. Truly, Linux is the ultimate open source success story. Mobile is pretty much the final arena in terms of devices Linux distros support.
Why KDE can't just name camera application "Camera", why megapixel!? The naming issue might be toralable on Desktop to differentiate applications, but on a phone I doubt you would replace your camera app
There is no need to boycott something you have zero intention ever using. I am sure there will always be at the very least some niche carriers that offer regular physical SIM card because of demand and supply.
Would it be possible to install a regular linux distro on, say, a steam deck and then using programs to simulate calling, texting etc? I mean, all I really need is email to send my work time report and discord, cus my friends use that instead of sms..... idky. And I hate voice calling, so that'd be nice to get rid of.
2003?!? If I'm not mistaken, my very first Linux laptop was manufactured in 2003 (I got it in 2011 I think). That thing would only run Linux and Windows XP! Good times!! Lol
would you be interested in reviewing this device again with something like BlendOS or postmarketOS which run Gnome? I wonder about the UI compatibility of gtk apps. they're meant to be adjustable to mobile by default.
I think one of the main features of Pine phone is the physical switch to turn off the mic and the camera. As a privacy matter, those features are a highlight and probably the main reason a lot of people would even consider making the switch to this kind of hardware/os combo. After watching this, it occurs to me a Raspberry Pi with a text app, voip, small screen and wifi as data connection could perform a similar function. But once a battery is added this proposed device would be quite thick and bulky and not slim like a phone. It could certainly perform as a desktop replacement, however, if that is important.
I am using Sailfish, Ubunto Touch, PureOS(expensive), I really like the privacy concept, but sacrifice too much on the convenience side. Too much configurations, not really suitable for majority none tech savvy people. Just my opinion
To build a Linux Phone, you need at least one simple joe member in it who does not use his phone for development and certainly not a linux user, who would be the representative of general masses. I have seen every single Linux phone fail, because they are trying to emulate Linux on their phone, AND NOT a linux phone. there is a huge difference between the two terms. Linux on phone is to expect your phone to run full fledged Linux on your phone and having it terminal centric. A linux phone on the other hand is a phone that has its heart as Linux. But it works like any other normal phone but without all the garbage in it.
Why would it take years and uears to make a Linux phone? With chat gpt and dalli ? Cant you just tell the thing to make you a completely open sourced phone with no google and check for bugs and all that good stuff??? Id think it wouldn't take long at all if you had a computer and the right tools. Theres my feedback. Ive called em all out vut they dont let me olay cause of stupid heeatches. Lol. Ho
The funniest part of this video was when you claimed yankville is living in the future. 😂😂 Comedy gold. Obviously you weren't being serious because it's the most backward country in the OECD
5:08 yeah, familiar, happened to me on my Linux laptop, I thought I've hibernated it and it should be ok, but apparently not... the battery was dead the next time I've tried to use it :)))
You may give Movian a try, but I don't know, if it's very complete. If not - maybe something else will be better. I was hoping to see you explore some of the available apps - Calendar, ring alarm, battery and other system menus, maybe some messenger(s)...
While i am very interested in the future of this project. In the world of termuxs on Android and phones that can dual boot windows 11 with Android, every day i feel there is less and less of a point for these kind of devices...
Interesting that you couldn't get Megapixels to run. It does on mine but the image is so bad you can barely recognize it. I'll be looking out for your future videos on this. Thanks and all the best for the rest of 2024!
i don't think there ready and its got along ways to go, but i love this idea of a phone and i hope that it ends up being worth it even if i gotta wait a few years,
I think Gnome on mobile could be somewhat successful, especially if a way to run Android apps in a sandbox can be made to work. A main case for this is for banking apps, etc. The reason for Gnome is that the interface of Gnome desktop/mobile from what I can see is similar enough to stock Android.
Google will try NOT to make this happen. They already trying to kill custom roms 'which are android' by encouraging to implement safety net,play integrity' into apps. Imagine what they would do for a different OS than Android...
I honestly like SXMO much more than manjaro. Daily drive the old OG pinephone for years (and have the keyboard addon). Having no other phone so its primary use daily without backup. Very productive tool for a programmer like me, but the keyboard addon is big selling point!
I like the idea of physical kill switches for the connectivity and location services, but those should be accessible without having to take the back case off. It's good to see progress being made on a Linux phone, but this shows that there is some distance yet to go. For now, I'll stick to a deGoogled Android.
Lets talk about reasonable expectations; It is a phone and actually functions as a phone. Which this clearly does not. Do we really need to say more than that?
@@TheLinuxCast And yet, if I can't get at least a day of use out of my phone, Sun up to Sun down when I plug the phone back in to charge, on the off chance that I need to make one, or more than one phone calls that day, it ain't a phone. It's a brick. Is a brick whose battery drains spontaneously and rapidly going to help me as a carer when I need to call an ambulance, as I am forced to do?
i think android is seriously just good enough and theres no need for linux for phones, especially because they are not a device that (at least i) would really even want to do any linuxy activities on. that being said any android phone without an unlockable bootloader is an instant blacklist from me
please talk about difference between linux phone and andorid since android is based on linux not sure why do do something like manjaro what are benefits of pure linux on phone
Try to run an ssh server on your Android or try to add additional users or try to change the GUI (bar to the bottom maybe if anybody wants it) or try to uninstall preinstalled applications or just get a simple wallpaper changer based on a script. Android is garbage if it comes to more than just tapping on an icon and using a complete cut of program. And thats just the beginning. A lot of Linux users like to tinker here and there with their system to adapt it to their opersonal needs. Not possible with the usual Android and Android devices you get on the market.
@gintokisakata7490 if you tinker then you can root device to remove pre installed apps or you can install custom rom i once back then when i had galaxy S3 i setup like terminal no icons you need to type to start app and used only like 200mb of ram which was crazy when s3 was high end model dint have notifications bare minimum phone setup and was run on android 4.4 kitkat while official rom stuck at 4.1 i think so basically what you saying if need to run desktop programs then linux is good
Really good and popular Linux Mobile already exists, It's called Rooted Android Android runs on a Linux kernel, however with Normal Android phones, due to security reasons, they are locked, You don't have sudo access etc. , However with Rooted Android, you basically have a full on great Android Mobile Device with full access, so if you know what you are doing it is basically Linux
But TizenOS (from the Linux Foundation), like SailfishOS, are systems based in part on Fedora (and therefore use RPM), being quasi-natively compatible with Android applications. Why use ARM versions of distributions that are further behind in compatibility with smartphones? (I would understand if they at least worked with RISC-V.)
Or early adapters device, Plasma Mobile is lovely it looks almost like Android, I like it more than Phosh. Mobian is one of the most stable releases then you could install plasma GUI via terminal. I have a spare keyboard it needs a small repair resoldering I think the seller said they replaced the USB c connector. Another crazy one is SXMO.
I have two PPP Camera apps. Megapixels never launches. The other camera app reliably loads, but only works for the selfie-camera. I've been using the phone for over a year and never seen the main camera run.
Mobian was working pretty well for me with sometimes a few app scaling bugs but overall things worked(like the camera/calling/etc) but unfortunately the Mobian team stopped supporting the original Pinephone so now I'm trying to figure out where to start to switch to Ubuntu Touch or something.
I hear you wanting to like it but everything you point out is either a dealbreaker or underwhelming. It doesn’t even sound like you had fun tinkering with it. It’s interesting and I hope it succeeds but it’s hard to see this as a good choice even as a tinkerer for now.
IPhone and Android batch schedule access to the radios during sleep to increase battery life. This extends life by reducing the amount of time the radios are powered on during sleep.
I wonder if performance and battery life would be better with a more minimal distro, window manager, and desktop on it. There's a strong tendency nowadays to spend resources making it pretty in many expensive ways. Maybe an OS without systemd, a bare-bones window manager, and a desktop that doesn't demand the utmost in graphics hardware? I use devuan on a five-year-old laptop with so-called intel integrated graphics at home. I keep looking for less heavy software to use on it, not because of performance but because of a desire for simplicity. I'd be very interested in knowing whether such software is available and viable on this phone, or whether all development efforts are in a different and incompatible direction. -- hendrik boom 3
Good to see a video with a phone that uses something other than Android. However, I have to use a phone on Android with CDMA and 4gLTE or 5g speed data.
Support my content! Get Merch! - shop.thelinuxcast.org
0:00 Intro
0:43 First Look and Lowering Expectations
1:47 The Hardware
3:58 Battery Life
6:20 The Software
8:58 Customizing the Home Screen...Yikes! Bugs!
10:46 Crashes
11:17 Overall Usage of the Software
12:06 Problems with the Camera
12:50 Is it Good as a Phone?
13:09 More Crashes...This time LIVE!
14:03 Back to the Phone as a Phone
15:30 Time for some Optomism
16:19 Manjaro as a Phone OS?
19:22 A Matter of Expectations
21:40 The Next Steps
22:23 Goodbyes
so.... it's a phone shaped object.
Phone shaped GNU/Linux personal computer. Yes. The intended way is actually to plug an external screen and keyboard/mouse for the perfect experience.
@@softwarelivre2389 I had an Ubuntu phone a few years ago, it was a nice device and very usable (after I learnt that `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade ` is a bad idea). Convergence didn't work though, but "probably next year" or so.
The fact that it still doesn't work and that this phone seems a step back makes me think that Linux on phones is not feasible.
It's a portable terminal
@@spicynoodle7419 people in the 70s would be going nuts rn
@@softwarelivre2389 "GNU/Linux" 🤡 unless you also call it Every/Software/Running/On/It/Linux you only look like a clown
12:18 Even if that's the case, the expected behavior should be: the app loads completely, detects the camera is disabled, warns the user that the camera switch is off. At least that's what I'd expect as good app behavior, instead of just endless loading.
Camera not off. Camera covered with jb weld! Lol good luck
Linux on mobile has a promising future. But again it needs years and years of development at this point. Just like Android had a million bugs in the gingerbread era, Linux mobile will have the same. I just hope that developers don't abandon this project all together.
million bugs in gingerbread are u sure?? i think u wanted to say there were not so many features in gingerbread
Let's not forget Android is Linux.
@@biomorphicthey share a kernel but that's about it, Android is pretty much a whole set apart as far as user-space it goes so it is only fair to not consider it just another linux distribution
it's a neat idea, but it lacks incentive to build an actual ecosystem imho.. for enthusiasts it is definitely a viable platform, I just don't see how this will ever reach regular users
@@biomorphicAndroid shares very little with standard desktop distros.
Sure, it shares a kernel, albeit modified. Locks you out of superuser permissions, has an entirely different userspace, including the graphics stack and libc. Android is so different that developing for desktop Linux is closer to BSD than it is Android development. Hell, if you have a statically linked X11 app, FreeBSD will be able to run the same binary as desktop Linux but Android wouldn't, even if the CPU were the same architecture.
I have a Pine Phone, running it with Ubuntu Touch. I use it for basics, phone calls, texting, Email, and load up a map, when needed. I find It works better and uses less Battery with Ubuntu Touch.
can you tell us if the camera is any good? im thinking about getting one but i need a really good camera, like at least like iphone or pixel camera quality.
@@ISCARI0T it won't be as good as those phones
@@ISCARI0Tno its not very good, not even close to iphone and Pixel. I use a quality Canon Camera for taking photo's, no phone camera can even come close to this quality. You are paying for crap anyways.
what about battery drain?
manjaro and plasma are terrible, ubuntu touch is the only fairly compatible os for this
I hope linux mobile takes over so I can install it on my foldable phone and have a mini pocket pc ala PDA days
Bad power management during suspend is basically always the fault of the drivers. When they don't properly put all the hardware to sleep, that internal hardware will draw current unnecessarily and deplete your battery. There's one other mechanism that might be a problem, and that is wake-up interrupts (e.g. from the modem). If the OS doesn't quickly put the device back to sleep (after handling whatever has happened), it will needlessly stay up wasting battery for prolonged periods of time.
Windows laptops have a similar problem. You can sometimes find out that the device has woken up by itself to do an update (or worse yet: start indexing files, do Windows Defender stuff, etc.) and used up all of its battery. And Windows _does set_ timer interrupts to regularly wake up in contrast to most Linux OSes AFAIK.
As a mild Linux Phone tinkerer myself, I'd advise Phosh as a DE for stability and functionality. Gnome-Mobile for a peak into the future of what Linux mobile may be like soon, but expect the odd few more bugs (Though certainly not as many bugs as Plasma mobile). Good luck, I'd be interested to see a few reviews on the progress of different projects on Linux mobile (i.e. more recent GTK/QT adaptations, DE adaptations, etc).
What distro would you recommend? I had postmarkedOS, but alpine has so few arm packages that I think I’d be better of with another distro
Maybe I go for arch next
@@foxonboard1 Much of the Linux mobile space is in its infancy, so regarding distro's with optimisations, you're kind of limited. I would say it depends on your favourite choice of package manager amongst other things. But most rely on the progress of PMOS to get their distro's to work on mobile.
Sorry, the Megapixels camera app doesn't work yet on the PinePhone Pro. I'm working on it :P
Ah no worries.
I thought you quit working with Pine64?
@@sanderhaskins2740 yeah I'm not. I'm just developing random stuff. Megapixels 2.0 not only runs on the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro but also the Librem 5 and a handful of random phones I have around here.
I hope you get it, i really like the pinephone concept and want it to be a good alternative to apple and android. But why not just make your own fork of android tho? The best part imo is the physical hardware switches, your own version of android could have all the privacy respecting features you could possibly want tho. Why does it have to be linux?
@@young-salt there is an adroid for pinephone project called glodroid
Hi!
I had the unfortunate scenario of needing to daily drive the OG pinephone for a few months a few years ago!
I still, so *very* badly, want to believe. I'm actually returning to school for a CS degree, hoping strongly I can contribute to projects like this at some point. I strongly believe that the linux mobile future IS out there.
I did a lot of distro-hopping while I had it. Of all the distros I used, manjaro had the most issues. I have *no idea* why pine64 decided to go with Manjaro as their default OS, but here we are.
My advice here is a few years out of date by now, but I had the best experience with Mobian - Debian's answer to linux mobile. I would recommend checking that out!
Really happy somebody is taking a deep dive into the linux mobile-verse.
Do you plan on making more mobile linux videos?
Dropping a subscribe regardless. Thank you for the video!
Yup. More is on the way. Probably in April.
Once Calls and SMS work 100% of the time I will legitimately use it as my daily driver.
The "smart" part can come later.
SMS are dead and more and more people are doing calls through the internet.
@@gintokisakata7490 Yeah sure. Funny, 2 factor verification with my bank accounts requires SMS.
The problem with the battery most likely stems from the fact that there's no proper support for it in the kernel for this SOC. This SOC is a modified version of one on Pinebook Pro (laptop) from the same company and there was downstream and old modified kernel that supports deep sleep, but the patch was not merged in all those years to upstream. In case of the mobile device the problem is worse, because you have 2 SOC inside basically - one for the whole device and one for the modem (which contains a separate Android installation by default, which is funny) and power management becomes even harder to do.
There is a project to de-blob and open source the modem software, but it's a legal and technical minefield
Also it may be the case that you have outdated system on the device and I advise to read before trying to update it, otherwise you will risk bricking it. You can recover from that in the end, but it may be more painful than having the knowledge of how to proceed ahead of time. Updating the bootloader firmware may be required, also there's a modem firmware that's apparently good.
The megapixels app may not work at all because the author dropped his focus and support of pine products. There was a string of controversies about their decision making Manjaro the default.
It's not ready yet, but I really hope it is someday, Android has been getting more and more locked down and is becoming watered down ios at this point
Agree, as someone who used to advocate for Android cuz of how bogged down iOS is, I'm really not seeing much of a difference anymore. Even considered giving Harmony OS a shot just to not have Android anymore, like I'm getting annoyed now with ads in my music player of all places 🤷♂️ so far Rhino OS has been giving me a "close to Linux" experience on pinephone, but it's still new and not "there yet" either, and I feel like pinephone's processing power is still sub-par, but they also made sure you know that it's a development effort, not a polished product. Unfortunately the operating systems for it isn't where it could be, but it's at least a step into the right direction, and I really do hope that we'll see some major developments over the next couple of years to make it as viable as we'd like for it to be
GrapheneOS is the way
Should've fork Android instead of trying to modify desktop distribution.
Don't see as much coverage anymore of the PinePhone lately, this was a helpful update for it, thanks!
Did a good job with the phone shot, but if you want to make it easier on yourself, could mount your camera/phone your filming with on a tripod.
For phones, you can usually take the top off a cheap selfie stick, most I've found use a normal tripod thread, then just toss on a tripod.
Funny and curious... I was recommended by TH-cam to watch a video of the "brand new" postmarketOS running in a Pinephone... And you are releasing this video.
Linux on mobile phones needs a lot of work and massive improvements. But I have faith about it. Someday it will be real. I hope to be alive to see that.
Linux is mobile ready because Android is Linux.
So if you were to make a phone call, what commands do you use in the terminal?
sudo pacman -Sy neofetch && neofetch
If we all drop our "expectations" you come to realization that everything in existence is awesome!
install 0ad on it😇
Or SuperTuxKart 👀
I’ve seen several reviews of these devices, and you are the first one that actually talks about using it as an actual phone - and in the U.S. definitely good to know about the SIM card situation. Who did you use, btw? Thanks, looking forward to more of this.
Is a neck beard a requirement after certain years of using Linux? Just kidding man.
Yes. It's in the rule book
@@Blak22390 Are you telling me that you haven't observed the same thing among Linux users? I'm a vegan hippie and I use harem pants and eat shrooms. Some things just go hand in hand. There's nothing rude about it.
I'm not so sure about a rolling release distro on a phone, especially Manjaro with KDE. The combo can be a handful, even on desktop. Maybe something based on Ubuntu LTS with a stripped down version of GNOME would be a better option. After all, GNOME's 40 series design already looks like it's being primarily developed for mobile and touch screen devices.
I tried mobian, but found I preferred Ubuntu touch on my device. Ubuntu touch has worse app availability (although you can still install general desktop apps with libertine) but otherwise feels much smoother on underpowered hardware and overall felt much more polished to me.
The images are being actively developed by the maintainer for the Pine64 devices, better support for the hardware should be available very soon.
E-SIM aka DRM for phone hardware
Headphone jack? Pine64 lacks courage.
Have you worked with Linux on ARM much? Not every Linux app can just run on ARM. Some apps have a something extra in the name for their ARM versions so installing through the terminal you would have to use the ARM name. Neofetch I believe works on ARM with the normal name so I’m not sure what issue you had.
Esims sound awful. Why would I want to use a system that doesn't allow me to easily transfer it to a new phone or doesn't stay around if I do a factory reset...
Esim does stay around after a factory reset on android at least
What is wrong with america?
TLDR: no it's not.
Mobike
Mobike
Mobike
lol yes, spelling is hard.
tes it is@@TheLinuxCast
Mobike
Mobike
I wonder if it would ever be ready for consumers. I would love a Linux focused phone.
And not an Android device that's heavily Googlized.
Reminds me of Android from 2010
we need linux phones, android is on the way to become a locked up apple clone
I’m looking forward to a really good Linux smartphone in the future
I'm pessimistic as h*ck about this; I don't think Arch, let alone Manjaro, is ever going to be stable enough to deliver the stability required for a smartphone.
Indeed, Manjaro ain't the greatest choice (and ALARM has maintenance problems). But thankfully Mobian and pmOS exist!
Steam Deck runs Arch based SteamOS
@@sergeykish Yeah but the Deck is an x86 device and doesn't sink or swim based on its touch controls and its ability to be on 24/7.
Not to mention SteamOS having years of development and a lot of money behind it.
@@mskiptr And hopefully Ubports as well.
@@Seeker_of_F1r3 Its still Arch and nobody says that x86 mobile devices are forbidden. And honestly: Linux developer should start developing also for mobile devices and not just create the hundredth copy of a text editor, keyboard based tiling window manager or even complete distro with just preinstalled other things.
I’ve always been a KDE Plasma fan, and I can’t wait to see Plasma (and the underlying mobile Linux flavors) fully mature. Truly, Linux is the ultimate open source success story. Mobile is pretty much the final arena in terms of devices Linux distros support.
Authentic Linux experience.
Why KDE can't just name camera application "Camera", why megapixel!? The naming issue might be toralable on Desktop to differentiate applications, but on a phone I doubt you would replace your camera app
We have to boycott the e-sim. No one else in the world is using it.
There is no need to boycott something you have zero intention ever using. I am sure there will always be at the very least some niche carriers that offer regular physical SIM card because of demand and supply.
Would it be possible to install a regular linux distro on, say, a steam deck
and then using programs to simulate calling, texting etc?
I mean, all I really need is email to send my work time report and discord, cus my friends use that instead of sms..... idky.
And I hate voice calling, so that'd be nice to get rid of.
This looks terrible the phone and linux lmao ...looks like a watered-down andriod gingerbread
2003?!? If I'm not mistaken, my very first Linux laptop was manufactured in 2003 (I got it in 2011 I think). That thing would only run Linux and Windows XP! Good times!! Lol
would you be interested in reviewing this device again with something like BlendOS or postmarketOS which run Gnome? I wonder about the UI compatibility of gtk apps. they're meant to be adjustable to mobile by default.
I think one of the main features of Pine phone is the physical switch to turn off the mic and the camera. As a privacy matter, those features are a highlight and probably the main reason a lot of people would even consider making the switch to this kind of hardware/os combo. After watching this, it occurs to me a Raspberry Pi with a text app, voip, small screen and wifi as data connection could perform a similar function. But once a battery is added this proposed device would be quite thick and bulky and not slim like a phone. It could certainly perform as a desktop replacement, however, if that is important.
I am using Sailfish, Ubunto Touch, PureOS(expensive), I really like the privacy concept, but sacrifice too much on the convenience side. Too much configurations, not really suitable for majority none tech savvy people. Just my opinion
To build a Linux Phone, you need at least one simple joe member in it who does not use his phone for development and certainly not a linux user, who would be the representative of general masses. I have seen every single Linux phone fail, because they are trying to emulate Linux on their phone, AND NOT a linux phone.
there is a huge difference between the two terms. Linux on phone is to expect your phone to run full fledged Linux on your phone and having it terminal centric.
A linux phone on the other hand is a phone that has its heart as Linux. But it works like any other normal phone but without all the garbage in it.
Why would it take years and uears to make a Linux phone? With chat gpt and dalli ? Cant you just tell the thing to make you a completely open sourced phone with no google and check for bugs and all that good stuff??? Id think it wouldn't take long at all if you had a computer and the right tools. Theres my feedback. Ive called em all out vut they dont let me olay cause of stupid heeatches. Lol. Ho
The funniest part of this video was when you claimed yankville is living in the future. 😂😂 Comedy gold. Obviously you weren't being serious because it's the most backward country in the OECD
5:08 yeah, familiar, happened to me on my Linux laptop, I thought I've hibernated it and it should be ok, but apparently not... the battery was dead the next time I've tried to use it :)))
So it has been in development phase for 4 years now. How long would it be in development phase in the future? Another 4 to 5 years? (if we are lucky?)
You may give Movian a try, but I don't know, if it's very complete. If not - maybe something else will be better.
I was hoping to see you explore some of the available apps - Calendar, ring alarm, battery and other system menus, maybe some messenger(s)...
While i am very interested in the future of this project. In the world of termuxs on Android and phones that can dual boot windows 11 with Android, every day i feel there is less and less of a point for these kind of devices...
If stability is the issue, then Mobile Linux should go Steam Deck route. ie, immutable OS, like Steam OS.
Why would anybody ever use such a trashy phone? Now just a quick info, android is linux, and it works flawlessly.
Let's show solidarity within the Linux community, make this happen and hope that AI helps us crush big companies.
"Is linux mobile ready?"
He asks in a world where >35 % of mobile devices sold run a linux kernel....
How is it still early? Pinephone exists for four years now...
I love your choice in trackballs!!! I love those HUGE models.
Linux lleva desde el año 2008 en dipositivos moviles con android.
I hope rhis gets better, i am so sick of android and i really like kde plasma, i am wondering if waydroid would work with this
Hey, please try mobian and postmarketos. Then compare. Make another video.
Interesting that you couldn't get Megapixels to run. It does on mine but the image is so bad you can barely recognize it.
I'll be looking out for your future videos on this. Thanks and all the best for the rest of 2024!
Is the image still green?
is linux mobile ready? ugh . . . isnt android a linux fork and are there not other forks based on android?
I have seen people running SculptOS on the phinepone; feels like a good direction.
Linux for mobile doesn't have future in my opinion. Aosp is already good.
I would be more bothered by the screen not staying on then if it failed to make phone calls lmao
Hello wonderful person watching this wonderful video.
you gotta use the gnome version i have been daily driving it for years on the non pro
well i know that my android phone runs linux so who's really the winner 💀
It's giving ideos... Maybe in a few years, it'll be great.
Been meaning to pull my pinephone out of storage and see what's new
i don't think there ready and its got along ways to go, but i love this idea of a phone and i hope that it ends up being worth it even if i gotta wait a few years,
Wouldn't something like PopOs make more sense?
This is not a beta device. This is an alpha device for alphas
You sound a bit like gabriel iglesias. Great Vid!
I think Gnome on mobile could be somewhat successful, especially if a way to run Android apps in a sandbox can be made to work. A main case for this is for banking apps, etc. The reason for Gnome is that the interface of Gnome desktop/mobile from what I can see is similar enough to stock Android.
Google will try NOT to make this happen.
They already trying to kill custom roms 'which are android' by encouraging to implement safety net,play integrity' into apps.
Imagine what they would do for a different OS than Android...
The lack of developers is the issue.
I honestly like SXMO much more than manjaro. Daily drive the old OG pinephone for years (and have the keyboard addon). Having no other phone so its primary use daily without backup. Very productive tool for a programmer like me, but the keyboard addon is big selling point!
Hee hee I like bikes
I like the idea of physical kill switches for the connectivity and location services, but those should be accessible without having to take the back case off.
It's good to see progress being made on a Linux phone, but this shows that there is some distance yet to go. For now, I'll stick to a deGoogled Android.
With this disgusting visuals can t compete....
started w 69% ended w 56% , its still garbage
Lets talk about reasonable expectations; It is a phone and actually functions as a phone. Which this clearly does not. Do we really need to say more than that?
Phone calls worked fine. Shrugs.
@@TheLinuxCast And yet, if I can't get at least a day of use out of my phone, Sun up to Sun down when I plug the phone back in to charge, on the off chance that I need to make one, or more than one phone calls that day, it ain't a phone. It's a brick. Is a brick whose battery drains spontaneously and rapidly going to help me as a carer when I need to call an ambulance, as I am forced to do?
Throw away "Plasma" and install "Phosh".
its not even ready for the desktop ... so no its not
i think android is seriously just good enough and theres no need for linux for phones, especially because they are not a device that (at least i) would really even want to do any linuxy activities on. that being said any android phone without an unlockable bootloader is an instant blacklist from me
is this phone more secure than other phones?
please talk about difference between linux phone and andorid since android is based on linux not sure why do do something like manjaro what are benefits of pure linux on phone
Try to run an ssh server on your Android or try to add additional users or try to change the GUI (bar to the bottom maybe if anybody wants it) or try to uninstall preinstalled applications or just get a simple wallpaper changer based on a script. Android is garbage if it comes to more than just tapping on an icon and using a complete cut of program. And thats just the beginning. A lot of Linux users like to tinker here and there with their system to adapt it to their opersonal needs. Not possible with the usual Android and Android devices you get on the market.
@gintokisakata7490 if you tinker then you can root device to remove pre installed apps or you can install custom rom i once back then when i had galaxy S3 i setup like terminal no icons you need to type to start app and used only like 200mb of ram which was crazy when s3 was high end model dint have notifications bare minimum phone setup and was run on android 4.4 kitkat while official rom stuck at 4.1 i think so basically what you saying if need to run desktop programs then linux is good
But you can't get.
No contract service
Really good and popular Linux Mobile already exists, It's called Rooted Android
Android runs on a Linux kernel, however with Normal Android phones, due to security reasons, they are locked, You don't have sudo access etc. , However with Rooted Android, you basically have a full on great Android Mobile Device with full access, so if you know what you are doing it is basically Linux
But TizenOS (from the Linux Foundation), like SailfishOS, are systems based in part on Fedora (and therefore use RPM), being quasi-natively compatible with Android applications. Why use ARM versions of distributions that are further behind in compatibility with smartphones? (I would understand if they at least worked with RISC-V.)
Or early adapters device, Plasma Mobile is lovely it looks almost like Android, I like it more than Phosh. Mobian is one of the most stable releases then you could install plasma GUI via terminal. I have a spare keyboard it needs a small repair resoldering I think the seller said they replaced the USB c connector. Another crazy one is SXMO.
A patreon bought you a phone
Damn..
I have two PPP Camera apps. Megapixels never launches. The other camera app reliably loads, but only works for the selfie-camera. I've been using the phone for over a year and never seen the main camera run.
Mobian was working pretty well for me with sometimes a few app scaling bugs but overall things worked(like the camera/calling/etc) but unfortunately the Mobian team stopped supporting the original Pinephone so now I'm trying to figure out where to start to switch to Ubuntu Touch or something.
Did mobian devs abandoned that project or they switch different phone for development?
I hear you wanting to like it but everything you point out is either a dealbreaker or underwhelming. It doesn’t even sound like you had fun tinkering with it. It’s interesting and I hope it succeeds but it’s hard to see this as a good choice even as a tinkerer for now.
IPhone and Android batch schedule access to the radios during sleep to increase battery life. This extends life by reducing the amount of time the radios are powered on during sleep.
I wonder if performance and battery life would be better with a more minimal distro, window manager, and desktop on it. There's a strong tendency nowadays to spend resources making it pretty in many expensive ways. Maybe an OS without systemd, a bare-bones window manager, and a desktop that doesn't demand the utmost in graphics hardware? I use devuan on a five-year-old laptop with so-called intel integrated graphics at home. I keep looking for less heavy software to use on it, not because of performance but because of a desire for simplicity.
I'd be very interested in knowing whether such software is available and viable on this phone, or whether all development efforts are in a different and incompatible direction.
-- hendrik boom 3
Good to see a video with a phone that uses something other than Android. However, I have to use a phone on Android with CDMA and 4gLTE or 5g speed data.