I wanted to make a video on this… I loathe editing. The best you get is a long-winded, off the cuff, disorganized rant about my feelings, opinions, and thoughts on the pinephone and the pinephone pro. So, I no longer have any pinephone. I recently sold my pinephone pro and keyboard with my batteries. (Continued in comments)
@linmob #linux @linuxphones #pine64 #openmoko #rant #offthecuff #mutantc #sxmo #sway #swayisbae
It's a little weird... I really loved the device, but circumstances happened and it just made sense to sell it off to hopefully continue living on.
It needed a repair that I was unable to do and my main laptop needed a battery. I was already not using my pro as a phone due to work reasons… and it just didn’t feel right. To say that I'm a bit sad about this, is an understatement.
My first true love in the linux world was the jornada 720.
It was my introduction to handheld linux and it taught me so much. I learned how to compile my own kernels, build software from source, and troubleshoot a debian system. I remember war driving around with a cantenna in college and just being so happy with this device. It was aging and no longer keeping up with my work load. . The Jornada 720 is one of the big reasons that I love linux.
Ever since selling that device, I've been looking to fill that void. And ever since then I’ve been looking for a mobile and pocketable work station… I bought an openmoko freerunner. That was the first device that taught me my limits. Genuinely, with all the hate pine64 gets for their pinphone releases – y’all do not truly understand disappointment. It was a great, important, and fun project but …
Man, was that a very optimistic project and an abysmal entry point for linux on phones – for me.
Pine64 markets their phones as ‘pls this ain’t ready’ and people still complain. I know I might be going on a tangent for a second, but this is relevant to this point… I recognized back then that I was way over my head. I never blamed the project – I wasn’t ready.
People login to the pinephone chat and want to install Android on it or complain why something doesn’t work ignoring the red bold letters saying this is dev phone for experienced linux users and start spamming the room with awful things. Y’all are the problem. Should pine64 be better at supporting dev work like they used to with community projects? Sure… but they’re honest at what they provide. I digress, that’s not the point…
@linmob @linuxphones
I had a zipit 2 and that was a lovely device but was incredibly limited. I’ve had a handful of netbooks and other devices in the meantime and … yeah nothing scratched that it. The nokia N810 was very close... Oh, the MutantC project was another I learned I was not ready for… Very neat project, give it some love. Then came the pinephone. A 150 dollar phone with day one support for linux. Immediately I had flashbacks to the freerunner.
I tempered my expectations. I started reading… I lurked in the various chat rooms to get a feel. OH, they dropped a ubports community version. Another flashback to the ubuntu edge phone. I decide to jump in… Skeptical, broken…. I bought it only because there was talks of a keyboard coming down the pipelines and I happened to get a work bonus and felt like this was a nice fair reward.
Finally…. I didn’t care the battery life was ass. I didn’t care at the time the og phone camera didn’t work. Once I got over my disappointment of ubports (personal preference but I LOVE lomori), I found mobian, pmos and danct12’s arch builds. Then it really happened. I was learning again. I was so scared of arch. I’ve seen the memes, I heard the lore. Pinephones taught me arch. It also taught me the understand the appeal and use case for tiling windows managers.
I took my pinephone traveling and daily drove my pinephones proudly. It’s genuinely probably why any of y’all are seeing this and I thank y’all for the engagement. Now my criticisms… The modem… I had an install that was stable for over a year. I spent time tweaking stuff in the audio settings and the amazing community firmware projects. Wait let me pause here – that project is so good. Big ups to everyone in the chat rooms there… so much good work happening there.
@linmob @linuxphones
But yeah I did all the things and I had a very stable modem and decent calls. However, there were times whether it was suspending issues or audio issues… I could not rely on it for my work. So fine I would keep my android phone tethered in my backpack (oneplus nord n30’s battery life is pretty great and I can tether all day with some settings toggled) and use my pinephone as a work station and interacting with my other messages.
Quick hot take… I like beeper. Please read there newest plans for their bridges before hating on me pwease. But yeah… I was happy. Even with the modem being unreliable… Then it broke. This is after my first og pinephone got fried from an overcharged battery (clearly my fault to be claro). There does seem to be some QC issues for both phones… From the chatroom it seems fairly well documented. However, that said, it they seem pretty good with customer support.
@linmob @linuxphones
But not everyone can afford this nor have the technical know how…. But again, I knew this going into it. A handier person could have fixed both issues and I am not a developer and knew I wasn’t to expect a smooth experience. I never expected my pinephones to be daily drivers and yet they were. And I loved it. I loved the aesthetic of the cameras, I loved the experience… SXMO is such a good fucking project. So much so I have it (improperly) installed on my newest device.
@linmob @linuxphones
What was I saying … I loved what pine64 has offered to our community but I won’t deny the experience could be better. I wish people better understood their purchase, but I do think that’s on the purchaser… I don’t understand the oddly targeted hate… I look forward to any future releases.
/end rant
@qkall oooof, I feel this. I feel there is something that has been lost about open source projects, people have lost sight of the fact that they could be the developers, and that what they are asking of the developers is effort, and not something many are paid for.
@qkall man, that is an excellent way to learn linux. I am glad you had that experience.
Building the kernel was one of those things that taught me a ton about computer hardware / components.
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I know the hardware was old, but it was cheap and I feel like most people's major gripes were more related to lack of software support.
I really wish they'd just added an extra $20-$30 to the price of the phones and thrown all of that money towards funding capable volunteers (like Megi) to fix pain points in the stack where possible.
Hopefully they'll learn for future projects like the #PineVox.