"I've used Linux's GNOME interface on a phone, and it's great ... I'm just waiting for a good phone to put it on" (#PinePhone)
https://www.howtogeek.com/i-ran-linux-on-my-smartphone-its-still-held-back-by-hardware/
@TheFarshief @lupyuen I have a good phone (Fairphone 4). Now I just need to put a good Linux on it...
@jago @lupyuen I like the idea of the #Fairphone quite a lot. I've got my eye on one of them for a potential next device when my current #OnePlus 9 eventually wears out.
My one gripe about them is last I heard the only model available in the US was the 4.
@TheFarshief @lupyuen or it'd be great if cell phone manufacturers had a standard boot loader like laptops. so much good hardware lying around or available to buy for cheap but needs custom work to make it bootable.
@tootbrute @lupyuen I definitely agree. I've seen some of that custom work done on the OnePlus 6 and the Pixel 3a in the form of #PostmarketOS (which are still very old phones at this point) but it would be so nice to be able to bring Plasma to any modern ARM device.
> The Current Models Are Just Too Slow
No, our software is just too slow. The hardware is fine, we just need to optimize the heck out of all Linux apps.
@lupyuen yeah, for a phone using mainline kernel the list is indeed tiny, and the hardware tends to be poor relative to new devices. Which is why the Halium project is so impprtant, as it allows alternative Linux based OS's like Ubuntu Touch to communicate with the binary blobs for hardware drivers embedded in the custom kernels used by Android phones.
@lupyuen if the pinephone had more battery life I will use it as daily driver 
@lupyuen I think we need some hero that build a gentoo image pre compiled and well optimized for the pinephone 
@lupyuen The PocketCHIP ran Debian Linux with Gnome on much less powerful hardware. The evolution of GNOME: 512mb of RAM and one 32bit core is plenty to I can't be responsive with four 64bit cores and 2gb to 3gb of ram.
It definitely seems like GNOME is part of the problem.
@AmpBenzScientist @lupyuen To be fair, PocketCHIP had a 480x272 display and the same GPU as the PinePhone (with fewer cores though). Even Neo Freerunner was fast in QVGA mode.
@dos @lupyuen The CHIP also had a custom distro. NTC and the community did a lot towards the same goal. The Pinephone was impressive but the community behind it seemed to have many goals. There was supposed to be a BSD distro available too.
Having received the early released PocketCHIP and the first available Pinephone version, neither were a disappointment. The Pinephone was arguably the best Linux Phone in terms of hardware support and the community.
The hardware isn't very powerful and that's a fair point to make but it's about as open as possible. Perhaps it's not powerful enough now but it was always underpowered. The budget SoC from 2012 lasted in a Linux smartphone for about 4 years.
My point is that it is possible. A phone that could not play videos made Linux phones a reality.
@dos I just saw the Librem in you name. The Librem was the phone we secretly wanted too. The hardware in the Librem was not a SBC that got turned into a smartphone. When people broke their Pinephones, it was a sad sight to see. Doing that to a Librem would have been devastating.
The SoC in the Librem was much stronger and perhaps the device was better in many ways as a usable phone. The Pinephone was an accomplishment in many ways but I think it's safe to say that both helped pave the way for Linux smartphones.
@lupyuen I think a lot of people are waiting on a pine phone with better specs, myself included