Pinephone Rant

flohack · 10 Jun 2021, 06:31

@c0n57an71n Sure but we also need someone with time and knowledge to work on it Thats maybe better to look for someone first, than to collect money and then noone is there to take it

Equareo · 6 Nov 2021, 21:42

It's a bit weird that the best and most stable ubport experience is hidden away on the kernel upgrade channel. I am very happy with that version, but most people are running "stable" and many are experiencing phone blanking after the power button is pressed (fixed in kernel upgrade). source 1 source 2 source 3

It's also quicker and the modem is more stable.

TotalRando · 11 Jun 2021, 22:26

@equareo why not just declare that one the stable version and work off that one then? Honest question- not really a coder

Equareo · 11 Jun 2021, 22:31

@totalrando yeah, that was my point :beaming_face_with_smiling_eyes: I'm just a total rando though

Fuseteam · 11 Jun 2021, 23:57

@totalrando the reason that hasn't been done is, regressions it still has regressions compared to the stable channel so untill those bugs are figured out, it'll be "hidden" away

unrealb2 · 12 Jun 2021, 03:11

Lol 38 common ur a baby i started learning code at 48.

Help out the mobian or arch community with pinephone. If you put in a little effort everyday eventually youll be able to copy other peoples software and put it on ur OS of choice for everyone to enjoy.

I personally think UT is too polished(bloated) for an underpowered device like pinephone. I like UT and use as a daily driver, but just on a quicker device like my nexus 6p.

Equareo · 13 Jun 2021, 11:22

@flohack

One suggestion:

Create a forum post on the ubports subforum on pine64 and ask for help: Here and get it stickied.

Say what you are working on, and that you are looking for people to help out. Add a link to ubports forum for further communication.

I know you guys made a newspost with pine64 earlier, but not everyone reads that, and it's only "valid" for a month.

flohack · 13 Jun 2021, 19:58

@equareo I would love if you can do this for us, because that is what community is all about

Equareo · 13 Jun 2021, 23:03

Sure, i can do that. I just thought that it coming from a developer would carry more weight.

dobey · 14 Jun 2021, 14:18

@unrealb2 said in Pinephone Rant:

I personally think UT is too polished(bloated) for an underpowered device like pinephone

On the contrary, UT is pretty spot on for what the pinephone hardware is. And if you find some odd things there, it's more than likely an actual bug with graphics or power management stack, than "bloat" in UT.

There's also a lot of room for performance improvement in the stack of software which makes up Lomiri, as much of it was written around Qt 5.2, and hasn't been kept up to par with improvements in upstream Qt. Many things in lomiri-ui-toolkit for example, just didn't exist back then in QtQuick, and I'm sure there's still plenty of funky assumptions throughout the code based on behavior in Qt 8 years ago.

unrealb2 · 15 Jun 2021, 09:05

@dobey thats great news, so your saying theres definitely room for performance improvement. I look forward to seeing that.

Keneda · 15 Jun 2021, 12:46

@unrealb2
uTouch works great on my device that is 7 years old and have 1.5Go ram, i don't see why it could not run great on Pinephone.

poVoq · 15 Jun 2021, 13:32

Speed wise it seems to be by far the best on the PinePhone:
https://youtu.be/LVkOWclo52c

unrealb2 · 17 Jun 2021, 06:51

This post is deleted!

unrealb2 · 17 Jun 2021, 06:53

This post is deleted!

lsitongia · 23 Jun 2021, 18:46

@joelandsonja
I think this is a reflection of the nature of the FOSS world. As a systems administrator and software engineer over the years, I've seen a number of cases of what I call the Hero Model of software engineering. One person has the interest, the focus and the energy to develop a project. I've seen amazing free software developed that way. Of course, there will be many other cases of different people creating the solution to the same problem, but working separately.

Look at the PinePhone forums. There are close to 20 different combinations of OS, window systems and other fundamental variables. Each has a small number of people working on many solutions to one problem. Add in all the phone models, and wow, I'm amazing anything gets done. There are a lot of heroes doing what they can. Compare that to Google or Apple, with all the engineers they have focused on one OS for a small number of phones.

I have a Nexus 4 running UBports. There are still things that don't work there. More generally, it's always amazed me that there isn't a mail client installed by default. Dekko 2 has been Experimental for a long time. Camera doesn't work. Other problems have been reported. This is an old phone which has pretty official-looking support in UBports. I don't think it's a daily driver.

I'd like to have Touch on my Moto G7 Play. Halium? Okay, I'll accept that. But, there are lots of problems with the result. I don't think that's a daily driver.

Many of the supported phones for UBports don't have everything working. Fairphone 2 is probably the closest functionally to the PinePhone. It is a six year old phone. Flashlight and hotspot are partially working. Battery life isn't great.

The installation process, the website, the apps all look great in UBports. Touch is a really nice looking and feeling phone OS. I keep trying it and will continue to do so because I remain hopeful.

For the PinePhone, Mobian is best for me. Import stuff doesn't work, like the camera (well), MMS. It's not a daily driver. But, for example, some things are better, like a lot from the NextCloud server syncs to the phone, but in Touch only the Calendar syncs.

olddh · 26 Jun 2021, 15:59

I would have to agree with the OP, I appreciate all the work put into Ubuntu by so few people as like a passion project, but putting the UBPorts name on the Pinephone and doing almost nothing to support just seems wrong. If anything UBPorts should be focusing almost all their energy on an alternative phone like the Pinephone rather than old Android phones as it would create viable third option completely different than iOS or Android.

I mean Nexus 5 is good, but its a decade old, yet runs Ubuntu Touch well other than maybe MMS. Pinephone could be huge if only it was supported and developed. Pinephone should be a priority, the true linux based phone.

AppLee · 26 Jun 2021, 16:22

@olddh
It has been said many times that UBports is a small community with very limited resources.
If the UBports edition was the first one out that is not by accident.
Now there are a large community using Ubuntu Touch daily and needing replacement for decade old phones... Also this users community expect support for their OS.

So the foundation is focusing on rebasing Ubuntu Touch to Ubuntu 20.04 because the actual 16.04 is not supported anymore.
It is the logical choice and it will set a working base for any major update to come including work on the PinePhone.
Patching stuff on a soon discarded code base is a waste of time and effort, upgrading so the upcoming work will be time proof was the choice made.

No one is forgetting efforts on the Pinephone and it was again said by Dalton during the last Q&A. He needs to sleep, I want him to sleep so he can code better (and so he stays healthy ; that's a wish for everyone).

kugiigi · 26 Jun 2021, 19:08

@olddh I think it's unfair to say that there's almost nothing done on UT for the pinephone. It's not fair to the countless hours of frustrations and hair pulling done by those who worked on it. The mainline devices is a huge task for UT and putting time and effort won't be enough. I think UT can benefit from other distros anyway and sone of them are much bigger communities than UBports.

PhoenixLandPirat · 27 Jun 2021, 01:34

@olddh
Its okay to ask questions, its okay to voice concerns, but damn, try and run Ubuntu Touch on a Nexus 5 running Linux 5.10, and Wayland, and you'll be in a much worse state then Ubuntu Touch on the PinePhone.

Like, you would have a brick if you tried to do anything like the PinePhone with the Nexus 5 because its probably more than double the amount of work, but also, its very dismissive of all the actual work that people like Dalton have put into the project, like, maybe you have to have a good eye, but everyone works extremely hard on the Ubuntu Touch project, and UBports has put in a HUGE amount of effort to support the PinePhone, more effort has absolutely been put into the PinePhone than the Nexus 5 by the core team.

I dont know if you realize this, but its rare that the Nexus 5, OPO, FairPhone, even OP3 get device specific updates, a lot of the time, they get ported, and then left alone until something breaks them, or there's something that hasn't worked for a while and someones just decided to work on it for a bit.

Anyways the whole team needs a break, they all need time off, a good week or so time of rest, to do whatever be that bowling, going for walks, just sleeping, watching movies, or playing video games, they deserve a lot for what they do and have been able to do, and the amount of work thats gone into the PinePhone is, well, commendable!