PinePhone
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if there were more people donating to Ubports we would have more developers on the team.
A transition from 16.04 to 20.04 will necessitate replacing upstart with systemd. From what I gather, UBports could use some help with such a project.
Has UBports issued a call-out requesting help from those in the Linux community having expertise with systemd?
I think it is better to have a Pinephone with a good software in 16.04 in which the phone and its applications work well, than a bad software in 20.04, with malfunctions, crashes or restarts. Furthermore, keep in mind that every app has to be updated.
You mentioned two potential outcomes, but forgot at least one potential: "good software in [20.04] in which the phone and its applications work well." That's the outcome that I prefer.
Haste always brings problems.
Developing on a platform nearing EOL brings its own set of problems. The upgrade from 16.04 to 20.04 must be done, eventually. The question is when. So I'll ask that question: if not by May of 2020, by when?
And no, I'm not asking facetiously. To be taken seriously, UBports needs to publish a roadmap, or at least a rough outline of a roadmap, discussing such matters.
@Lakotaubp said in PinePhone:
Don't forget the original timeline of devices with OS ready for order in March next year. That's not only in our case UT being stable and working but all associated tooling, manufacturing processes etc. from everyone else involved as well.
Okay, if you truly need a stable release by March of 2020, then yes, I'll concede that you are making an excellent case for first releasing on 16.04 in March, and updating later.
Even so, and sorry for being so pugnacious, but as I wrote above, UBports needs to publish a roadmap, or at least a rough outline of a roadmap, discussing your goals, when you hope to achieve them, and if applicable, what outside resources (beyond money) would be helpful in achieving your goals.
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There were too many answers since my last post here, and I cannot honor all of them, just a few notes:
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There is no requirement to use systemd on 20.04, if we fork upstart and adapt it, it can be used. In fact a lot of things already now on the phone have been forked, to either use newer or older versions. Ubuntu Touch is a heavily tweaked Ubuntu, in no way just using all packages as they are.
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On the other hand, all forked stuff needs to be maintained and needs to get security updates. This will require more and more maintainer hands after some time has passed. Already now we are in troubles, like for example ofono for making phone calls etc. has diverged from the upstream, and we cannot just apply patches there. So basic rule is fork as less as possible.
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Mir and unity8 are a stack that will stay for a longer time. We cannot and will not rip out Mir to replace it with Wayland, and in the same moment create 1000s of regression bugs. Mir is a supported platform, maintained by Canonical, and we can consume it for the time being. There is no added value in just using Wayland now.
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With a small team there will be always shifting priorities. But with the pinephone everything will get much easier, true. It has a mainline kernel 5.x something already, and of course we will try to get to 20.04 with it as early as possible. But, we cannot just switch to that task in Feb or March. We promised to fix location/GPS and Bluetooth first for the old phones. There are approx 100 Bugs outstanding on those 2 topics only.
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Along with what Flohack has just said above there was the call out for developers not too long ago https://forums.ubports.com/topic/3368/want-to-develop-ut-and-need-a-device/2 which should bring more developers on stream in the not to distant future and move the whole of UT development along.
Secondly I would like to just point out this thread is specifically about and for UT and PinePhone and not general UT future planning and development discussions. I think we are just beginning to drift slightly.
No harm at all in that line of thought and discussion but probably better off in a new thread somewhere else. Thank you for your understanding. -
@GizmoChicken said in PinePhone:
please consider the reaction of a potential user who's told that the OS he/she is about to install on his/her shiny new Linux phone is based a four year old release
Honestly? They wouldn't care about it at all, if the phone works great and allow them to do what they want. There are tons of missing features and even more bugs in UT, do you really think that a user will care more about a 20 being displayed on the About page instead of a 16, or what the phone actually does? Why put pressure to switch to 20.04 when the current state of development is to do a successful phone call?
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Just when I thought I was out...
@Fla, maybe you didn't read my response to @Lakotaubp in which I wrote:
"Okay, if you truly need a stable release by March of 2020, then yes, I'll concede that you are making an excellent case for first releasing on 16.04 in March, and updating later."
But okay, if you want to continue the discussion, here's my response to your inquiries:
There are tons of missing features and even more bugs in UT, do you really think that a user will care more about a 20 being displayed on the About page instead of a 16, or what the phone actually does?
I'm tempted to say, yes, they'll care because "[20] is [4] louder than [16]."
But in all seriousness, yes, I'd rather have tons of missing features and bugs on a new platform, instead tons of missing features and bugs on a soon-to-be-obsolete platform.
On a soon-to-be-obsolete platform, I'd be asking myself why I'm suffering through these bugs now, only to suffer through an all new batch of bugs next year, or whenever upgraded to 20.04. But maybe that's just me.
In any case, as I conceded to @Lakotaubp , perhaps it's better to ship with 16.04 in March, and then upgrade to 20.04 as soon as feasible.
Why put pressure to switch to 20.04 when the current state of development is to do a successful phone call?
I'll answer that question with a question: Why do you want to strive for a successful phone call on a soon-to-be-obsolete platform, when, instead, you could switch to 20.04 soon, and strive for a successful phone call on a platform that you won't be forced to upgrade in about one year?
But again, as I conceded to @Lakotaubp , perhaps it's better to ship with 16.04 in March, and then upgrade to 20.04 as soon as feasible.
@Lakotaubp and @Flohack I promise that I had planned merely to upvote your comments and then move on. But as long as I'm responding to @Fla , I'll provide a few brief comments responding to each of you.
Mir and unity8 are a stack that will stay for a longer time. We cannot and will not rip out Mir to replace it with Wayland, and in the same moment create 1000s of regression bugs. Mir is a supported platform, maintained by Canonical, and we can consume it for the time being. There is no added value in just using Wayland now.
I truly do appreciate your response. But to be blunt, provided I'm correctly interpreting what you meant when you wrote that "[UBports] cannot and will not rip out Mir to replace it with Wayland," I think what you wrote in the above snippet is pretty far off-the-mark. The whole point of upgrading from "old" Mir to "new" Mir is that "new" Mir is Wayland compliant. For now, in addition to the Wayland protocol, "new" Mir also supports the protocol used by "old" Mir. But that support for the old protocol is not enabled by default in current versions of Mir, and will eventually be removed from Mir altogether. Hence the need for migrating fully to Wayland, eventually.
There is no requirement to use systemd on 20.04, if we fork upstart and adapt it, it can be used. In fact a lot of things already now on the phone have been forked, to either use newer or older versions. Ubuntu Touch is a heavily tweaked Ubuntu, in no way just using all packages as they are.
I'm less sure about this topic than I am about Mir/Wayland stuff. While it would be possible to fork upstart and maintain it yourselves, to me, that sounds like a terrible idea. So no, my guess is that, unless you move away from Ubuntu to something like Devuan (which I doubt will happen), you'll be using systemd on 20.04. But maybe I'm wrong about this. Hope this will be discussed elsewhere.
@Lakotaubp said in PinePhone:
Along with what Flohack has just said above there was the call out for developers not too long ago https://forums.ubports.com/topic/3368/want-to-develop-ut-and-need-a-device/2 which should bring more developers on stream in the not to distant future and move the whole of UT development along.
The linked posting isn't really what I had in mind. I was thinking you could identify a few discrete projects (and the skill sets needed for completing them) and posting that information.
@Lakotaubp said in PinePhone:
Secondly I would like to just point out this thread is specifically about and for UT and PinePhone and not general UT future planning and development discussions. I think we are just beginning to drift slightly.
No harm at all in that line of thought and discussion but probably better off in a new thread somewhere else. Thank you for your understanding.100% agreed. Provided no one pulls me back in, I'm out
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BTW, will the PinePhone support USB OTG? I'd sometimes like a hard-attached USB keyboard....
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BTW, will the PinePhone support USB OTG? I'd sometimes like a hard-attached USB keyboard....
I'm not sure. But have a look at the December update on the PINE64 blog, they're planning to provide a physical keyboard for the Pinephone. I'm pretty sure I'll want one
https://www.pine64.org/2019/12/05/december-update-thank-you-for-2019/
Funny quote:
We're sorry for this delay, but we don't want to cut corners on the Brave Heart batch and shove it out the door just to make the originally announced 2019 release schedule.
Uh, I wonder if it's a reference to another Linux phone project...
BTW, here's a Pinephone review by someone who got a developer phone:
https://drewdevault.com/2019/12/18/PinePhone-review.html
It's really promising!
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@normandc
Hi, I read the review but the guy doesn't even mention UT.
Even if he refers to the call made by Marius...[Edit] BTW : Just found this comparison : https://tuxphones.com/yet-another-librem-5-and-pinephone-linux-smartphone-comparison/
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@AppLee UT seems to be not really popular to people interested in the PinePhone. Most of them are really looking forward using their phones like their linux desktops which I guess will disappoint them when they use UT.
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@kugiigi you should add "right now" as in dev kits and maybe also the brave heart edition.
Once the consumer version arrives, interest in a useable phone OS like UT is likely to increase. -
@poVoq That's the hope
I just really get that vibe so far from people interested in the PinePhone 
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@kugiigi There some people interested in having a privacy driven phone and ask what is the best OS for it.
These potential users have the right mindset for UT I think, they don't care about kernel, about Open Source, they just need a good phone that will match their needs as a daily drive.And I think UT is the best alternative to Android and iOS on that matter.
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@kugiigi alternatively, they might want a linux desktop until something goes wrong... then the safety of UT's system design will be appreciated. I think UT strikes a really nice balance between hardware flexibility, and software dependability.
I think you might be right, people often want something that sounds good in theory, but once reality sets in UT will be there to offer a solution that was designed for a phone first; not the other way around.
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https://blog.bshah.in/2019/12/20/plasma-mobile-as-daily-driver/
For those patiently waiting
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https://invidio.us/watch?v=-7X0aa5XKjQ
And comments by Lucas -
@normandc Disappointingly, neither here nor on the pine64 forums have have I found an answer. Lots of views of the post, but no answers. OTG support for the PinePhone continues to be an open question...
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@vandys
This Pinephone review by a postmarketOS developer seems to indicate that OTG is supported... But maybe he's making an assumption?https://danct12.github.io/PinePhone-Review/
I guess we'll get the definitive answer when @PINE64 comes back to the topic.
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If I recall the hardware supports OTG, which is a separate issue from OS support of course. Since all OS options have missing features right now, I suspect that at worst no one has implemented it yet.
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Some camparison between PinePhone and Librem5
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ3sXMgJjnk&pbjreload=10 -
@AppLee, these comparisons are a little less than useful because not many people have these devices in their hands and not all details about the experience on either is correct. Also we don't need to feed the "us vs. them" mentality, one company getting theirs does not mean that the other company can't.
