So, I bought a PinePhone :) (I used to be, well still am in fact, a Librem 5 guy)

[TRS-80]

Wherein I explain my conversion... 

 

Pine64 was barely on my radar in the past.  There are so many SBC and companies just trying to sell crap it can be hard to tell who is who some times, until you look into one company / board / device or another, a little more in depth.

 

I have been following Librem 5 development for a long time, so I was aware of PinePhone, but they seemed in my mind back then a bit like a "Johnny come lately" who were just trying to capitalize on whatever Purism were trying to do.

 

Then @lanefu was raving about his PineBookPro in IRC, it was only then I started really poking around their forums the last month or so, and now I must say my opinion of them have really changed a lot.

 

Now they seem to me like a really hacker mindset, hardware oriented company.  They really seem to just enjoy making and selling interesting/compelling hardware (for cheap! to get the stuff out there).  They sell spare parts for example, and have a wiki with lots of good information, and schematics, etc.  And they have a nice community forming around their devices, who are in turn, creating spin-off projects...  In short, they seem to be the genuine article (in a time where many other companies are riding on the wave of popularity of "open source" whilst in actuality being nothing of the sort).

 

Purism seem more committed to pushing the supply chain in a F/LOSS direction, but how can we know that Pine64 are not (without being mind readers)?  Well, I have always realized Pine64 are simply taking a different approach.  Some times I fear Purism may have bit off more than they can chew.  They are shipping now, but only in low numbers.  r/Purism is a cesspool of nasty, disgruntled people (maybe I expect too much, it is Reddit, after all).  But if Purism fail, I fear that will set back GNU/Linux on phones overall.  Which is the only thing I really care about.  At any rate, even if I were to order one now, it seems I would be waiting at least a year, also with a less than nil chance of never receiving the device at all, unfortunately.

 

The Pine64 approach, whilst admittedly not as appealing to my inner rms zealot , is perhaps more realistic and attainable.  The older I get, and more real world project / life experience, I start to wonder if this may be the better approach.  Smaller steps, and iteration.  Who knows where it will lead, if we can get more numbers of Linux phones actually in the hands of more people.  For example, apparently some guy already reverse engineered the PinePhone modem OS, and has it running with plain Linux, without blobs!  Amazing!

 

At some point I guess I realized that PinePhone and Librem 5 are not competing with one another, and that none of this is an either/or proposition.  In fact, both projects are advancing the state of the art of GNU/Linux phones; just in different ways.

 

Very recently, I was trying to upgrade to the latest LineageOS on my Galaxy s5.  Of course this is a pain in the arse and why I only get around to really doing it every year or two it seems.  And every time, it seems Google / carriers / whoever have tightened the noose a little bit more.  So, this time around, I finally reached the point where I became so disgusted, that I was willing to actually cancel my cellular service altogether, rather than continue dealing with this nonsense (specifically: VoLTE is becoming mandatory on US carriers, and LineageOS have said they cannot / will not support VoLTE for whatever reason).

 

Importantly, I think it's important to point out that I think any human being needs to reach some tipping point, where our disgust for ${current platform} exceeds the hassle and/or learning curve of switching to ${new platform}.  I have said this many times to people who are curious about switching from Windows -> Linux for example.  Also, this point varies for different people (I get there sooner as I care more about Freedom and have less patience for dinosaur sociopathic proprietary business models, etc.).

 

Anyway, reading some recent threads/posts at Pine64 forums revealed that the PinePhone is currently actually apparently quite usable as a "daily driver" at least for the bare minimum of things I would say that entails: phone/voice (including VoLTE(!)), SMS, and data (on most carriers in US, anyway[0]).  Which was honestly better than I was expecting.  Of course, there are many, many programs in the repositories that do not work properly (or at all) on a phone interface.  And what any individual will consider "bare minimum" acceptable will vary greatly!  But for me at least, that basic phone/data/SMS functionality is enough.  All the rest will not only come in time, if I have a PinePhone in hand I will be able to actively contribute to making it happen, sooner.

 

So, yeah, I pulled the trigger on a PinePhone.      And I plan to use it (more or less) as my "daily driver", likely with my old s5 along side for some period of time, just in case (I figure I should be able to tether it if needed, as tethering is also already working on PinePhone).

 

Long term, I think we still need to continue to push the supply chain in a more explicitly F/LOSS/H direction.  Therefore (assuming they don't go bankrupt before then) I will likely also purchase one or more Librem devices from Purism in the future to support that goal.

 

But buying a PinePhone now gets me in the game, sooner.  And I really started to like what they have going on over there.

 

Please discuss.

 

Cheers,

TRS-80

 

[0] some times requiring workarounds

Edited February 10, 2021 by TRS-80

[ning]

just want to know how much it is.

[TRS-80]

PinePhone are currently $150 with 2 GB RAM / 16 GB eMMC, or $200 for 3 GB RAM / 32 GB eMMC[0].  Since I posted, they have apparently sold out[1].  But they seem to do batches every couple/few months, and have good record of actually shipping devices (albeit with the usual Corona and related shipping problems the last months / year).

 

Librem 5 is like $600 or $700 (anyway, a lot more) but you cannot even get one right now, nor in foreseeable future.  People who put their money down for crowdfunding way back in 2017/2018 are just now getting them.  If you order one now?  Lots of speculation, but my read is: at least a year still, I would say, unless they dramatically increase their shipping rate.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of question marks around Librem 5.

 

I want to be clear, that I have decided this is the right device for me (and at this time), but it might not be right for everyone.  PinePhone is a bit older SoC (Allwinner A64) which is right in line with Pine64 typical strategy of targeting slightly older devices with better support in Linux.  But there are a lot of rough edges still.  It is very early days.  Probably not a problem for someone who registered at Armbian in 2016, but for your typical Reddit consoomer?  Maybe not so much...

 

I did find some decent videos from couple guys on LBRY/Odysee and PeerTube, in case you are still on the fence like I was.  You can get a good sense of current state of affairs with several different OS and interfaces.

 

[0] eMMC is soldered in the PinePhone (pretty sure their other SBC and even PineBookPro have modules)

[1] In fact, I am not even sure my order made it in, as I had placed it over the weekend.  Still no word as of now, but they are only few people company and from what I read they are pretty backed up (they get like 3000 support email per month apparently).

Edited February 10, 2021 by TRS-80
add disclaimer about who the device is for

[lanefu]

I'm curious how the pine phone performs relative to your Galaxy 5....

Man Librem5 is kind of a tragedy..  at least you even got one.

[arox]

I have a "firefox OS" smartphone. I developed some app for my personal usage, such as an openstreetmap app that use local offline maps ...

 

My goal was to have a pocket computer with simple but useful and personal apps.

 

As you can imagine, I am no longer able to develop or even maintain it since several years ! Because the SDK was part of Mozilla browser.

 

So all in all, I could buy Linux smartphone if and only if I get an SDK for linux (on an inexpensive dedicated board), the source code, and a viable base (Kernel, GUI, phone app, wifi/bt).

 

[TRS-80]

15 hours ago, lanefu said:

I'm curious how the pine phone performs relative to your Galaxy 5....

 

My s5 is still plenty snappy, BUT I am using LineageOS and no Google crap whatsoever.  s5 is essentially ODROID-XU4 (same SoC) in a different form factor.  On Android, of course you also have benefit of all the proprietary secret sauce blobs in addition.  PinePhone OTOH is based on A64 (quad core) and maybe not as optimized, either (maybe room for improvement there? I don't know).

 

From videos I have seen, I think the s5 might have the edge there, but then again that's not really what it's about, either... 

 

15 hours ago, lanefu said:

Man Librem5 is kind of a tragedy..  at least you even got one.

 

To be clear, I did not receive one, but neither did I pledge for the crowd funding in the first place.  I have just been following the saga for a long time already.  That's kind of a big chunk of change, and there have almost always been detractors (not just recently), so I was always taking a "wait and see" approach.

 

4 hours ago, arox said:

My goal was to have a pocket computer with simple but useful and personal apps.

 

I have actually heard many people describing PinePhone as "pocket Linux computer with touch screen."

 

4 hours ago, arox said:

I could buy Linux smartphone if and only if I get an SDK for linux (on an inexpensive dedicated board), the source code, and a viable base (Kernel, GUI, phone app, wifi/bt).

 

Not sure what you mean by SDK, as the phone runs no-BS GNU/Linux.  In my view I guess, the OS is the SDK (in the case of Linux).  Sources for everything are available, except of course few blobs for some of the hardware, but this is same as vast majority of ARM devices.

 

By "no-BS" I mean, real GNU/Linux, not "Linux lite" aka Android, which although technically is using (some old) Linux kernel, it is surrounded by Java VM bullshit and Google kernel interfaces.  In the case of PinePhone, it's just plain old regular GNU/Linux, with plain C GNU kernel interfaces.  Which is so nice and refreshing for a change (IMO).

 

As stated in OP, all basic things are apparently working, from what I have read (from many people on Pine forums; however I personally still do not have phone in hand).  Including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (in case I did not mention those specifically, I have read confirmations in the meantime, as I personally was also wondering about BlueTooth in particular).

 

EDIT:  Elatronion is one of guys I alluded to in my previous post.  He is on Odysee (decentralized alternative to YouTube, based on LBRY) but has made several videos about PinePhone where you can see what current state of affairs actually looks like.

 

[arox]

6 hours ago, TRS-80 said:

Not sure what you mean by SDK

 

 

My concern is primarily the bootloader and the associated flash tools.

 

I cant do anything with complex, work-in-progress basic tools as my goal is to develop personal applications and maintain them for a long time after the seller has gone bankrupt. Anything bugged and/or based on specific browser or complex virtualizer cannot do it. I cannot spend more time and money in installing and maintaining the development platform than in device and (personal) app development.  

 

I have a lot of "CHIP" devices in my drawers and always some instances in "home production environment" (of course the more critical ones). I cannot maintain them because the boot loader was browser based and bugged. (And the seller disappeared before I could provision spares). So there are migrating on esp32 microcontrollers because I can maintain them with a basic SBC with frozen OS and tools and a reasonable provision of spares. Those migrations have a high cost because it implies electronic, wiring, housing, network and organisation changes, testing, debugging, logging ...

 

Purchase price and easy and quick setup is meaningless if you spend months to debug and cannot use it 2 years after. 

[TRS-80]

arox,

 

Sounds like you are doing probably more custom and/or low level stuff than I am, but I take your point.  I target Debian for similar reasons.  Microcontrollers are another story, I just try and stick with widely known and readily available hardware (i.e., Arduino / knock-offs, Nordic RF radios, etc.).  But we are well above that here.  We are talking about an Allwinner A64 (SoC) in a phone form factor (i.e., touch screen, etc.).  Not sure what use-case you had in mind exactly for such a device, but to me GNU/Linux gives me a platform that is by far the most likely to be supported going forward for any length of time.  And the more open (and/or popular) the hardware, the better the long term support situation.

 

I mean, in an ideal world, all these things would be completely F/LOSS/H, and then we could really be sure.  But from where we are currently (with completely locked down Android, etc.) just having real GNU/Linux on a phone platform is a huge improvement.  I am pretty sure that all the rest will come in time.  If that doesn't meet your requirements right now then so be it, but this platform has far greater chance than anything else to meet them going forward, IMO.

[arox]

1 hour ago, TRS-80 said:

(with completely locked down Android, etc.)

 

The big problem for me is their business model. Collect information ! Which implies that they push to centralize all data, they multiply ten times the network traffic necessary pour anything, they make you dependant of their service, their availability and the response time, they force you to be always connected, to open a mail account, to accept unreasonable permissions and rights, they lock their apps  on devices, and of course they do not want you to put your nose in the system.

 

I bought an Android tablet years ago. The virtual keyboard was a tragedy so I searched a better one in the store. All apps required privileges that implied they would know everything you typed on the keyboard. It is just an example but it show how they put little concern on the real security - because real security would prevent them to develop their business model. (I received yesterday a notice from RPI french official reseller that they had been hacked and my name, address, mail address and password was available on the Darknet).

 

So either I get an Iphone, either I get something like an ubuntu phone if I can really tailor the system and reliably invest time in that task.

[TRS-80]

On 2/13/2021 at 1:03 AM, arox said:

Android

 

Yes, it's a mess.  In the beginning, we thought, oh it's Linux!!!111!!!  How wrong we were...  I have only become more and more disillusioned over the years since, finally turning most recently to outright disgust.

 

On 2/13/2021 at 1:03 AM, arox said:

So either I get an Iphone, either I get something like an ubuntu phone if I can really tailor the system and reliably invest time in that task.

 

I have never been a fan of Ubuntu, it seems to me like they take standard GNU/Linux (i.e., Debian) and then like to add their own "special snowflake" crap on top, after which it is no longer really even GNU/Linux any longer.  All the while diluting the (IMO very important) underlying political philosophy.  I never saw the point.

 

For me, the PinePhone is the "plain GNU/Linux phone" that I have been looking for.  Unlike Canonical, Pine64 have no delusions of grandeur interest in developing their own OS, nor locking you into their "ecosystem."  In fact, there are several different OS and interface options on PinePhone, none of which come from Pine64 themselves.  So now, all of a sudden, we are talking about a real potential viable and vibrant "ecosystem", instead of typical euphemistic usage of that term which is really only a marketing-speak code word for "walled garden."

 

As a matter of fact, some time ago (during Librem 5 research) I had come across this (IMO excellent) article by this guy called Amos Batto, wherein he compares all the various Linux phone projects / interfaces / OSes which came before.  He is talking from point of view of Librem 5, but it's all equally relevant to any other Linux phone (including PinePhone):

 

The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux

 

He also points out some problems with Ubuntu Touch (and others) which now seem quite prophetic, as (the Purism developed) Phosh is rapidly becoming the most used interface, even on PinePhone!

[TRS-80]

 

 

I started playing with my PinePhone last night.  It's KDE Community Edition, so out of box it comes with Manjaro KDE installed (which can be changed of course) and the KDE logo on back cover plate.  Probably would not have been my first choice, but I just wanted whatever was available at the time.

 

 

 

I gave Manjaro KDE a fair shake I think.  From what I have been reading / watching, it has apparently come a long way in the last few months.  It definitely looks/feels like KDE (I used to use KDE when I first came to GNU/Linux).  I thought it actually looked quite nice (but maybe I had just set my expectations very low, lol).  Button presses don't always register though (could be hardware related for all I know) and there are some times some slowdowns, so I think I am going to try a different OS.

 

My understanding is a lot of people saying Mobian w/ Phosh is the way to go currently.  The cool thing is, you can pop in an SD card, and that will be preferred over internal eMMC when booting.  So, you can essentially experiment with new OS whilst leaving main one intact.  So I will probably do that with Mobian, as I am Debian guy anyway (as soon as I tried to do apt update in Terminal and it didn't work, I was like "Oh yeah this is Arch based, screw this!").    Maybe some day I play with Arch and learn it, I just don't have the time right now.

 

[arox]

" as I am Debian guy anyway ..."

 

I am not so happy as you with Debian. But I ditched Crux a long time ago anyway for the same reason. I notice a lot of problem in the forum with network. I am struggling with the same sort on problems on Raspbian because they are Debian related, but not even Debian but upstream related.

 

Anyway, I won't precise my mind because it generally hurt some feelings.

 

What imports is :

- is the system usable,

- can it be tweek with workarounds because the same problems will probably be present in other distributions.

 

(Thanks anyway to report your experience).

 

 

 

[@lex]

Hi,

 

I haven't follow the progress, but i like the  Mobian w/ Phosh design, if you can report your findings would be great. Thanks.

 

I have a few (noob?)  question about the device and interfaces.

 

* Would you know if it is possible to have access and use the UART to interface with some peripherals? I know there is an extension with HDMI, ethernet and USB. I don't mean USB to Serial.

* Can you stick a barcode reader, or something similar like a proximity reader (if you have that extension)?

* Last time i checked (was really long time ago) there was no HW acceleration. today there is A64 HW in kernel 5.x , how is the status?. I know GNOME is a bit slow but maybe with HW accel it would be great.

 

 

If you have time, can you try to:

 

* rebuild Mobian w/ Phosh image and provide some inside info and what is needed?

* Disclose the blobs that are still needed?

 

I was expecting to see a similar device but with rockchip inside.. and then join the club.

 

BR

 

[TRS-80]

@@lex,

 

I must admit that some of your "noob" questions are even a bit beyond me, at least at the moment.  There are a couple relevant factors in play from my end at the moment:

 

1. So far, I have done only surface level playing around.  My time is limited currently, as I am heading back to work and during these periods I have little to no time for anything at all outside of work.

 

2. Honestly I am only a low to mid level wizard in my own right after all. 

 

With that out of the way, I will do my best to answer you.

 

4 hours ago, @lex said:

* Would you know if it is possible to have access and use the UART to interface with some peripherals? I know there is an extension with HDMI, ethernet and USB. I don't mean USB to Serial.

* Can you stick a barcode reader, or something similar like a proximity reader (if you have that extension)?

 

I guess you are referring to what they call the convergence dock.  Yes, I completely forgot to mention that earlier.  So, here are some more pics:

 

 

 

 

You can order PinePhone in 2/16 or 3/32, but only the latter come with this "convergence dock."  I have to be honest, personally I spent the extra money (+ ~50 USD) strictly for the extra RAM and internal storage.  I thought the dock was a gimmick/meme.  But now that I am starting to actually play with the PinePhone, my mind is starting to change, for a couple reasons:

 

1. I thought the thing would be some plastic piece of cheap crap.  However it does not seem that way at all.  It is actually a fairly nice piece of what appears to be maybe anodized (or at least painted) extruded aluminum.  I was actually quite pleasantly surprised upon opening the packaging.

 

2. Vast majority of software is no where near usable on a mobile / phone / touch interface yet.  So this thing is going to actually help out a lot with making the PinePhone actually useful for anything in the meantime.  And now I also understand why I keep reading people saying to think of it less as a phone and more like a portable GNU/Linux computer with a touch screen.  Because that is more accurate description of what it really is (at least, currently).

 

Now, as to your specific question, I do actually own a USB/bluetooth barcode reader.  I am vaguely aware the difference you refer to with UART, but so far my use case was served well enough just by using it as a USB HID keyboard (and my understanding is this is the way the vast majority of them work, especially newer ones like mine, but maybe you have some existing specific hardware).  So, for me to tinker around in order to answer that might take me some time to get around to, unless you can maybe give me some specific hints or link to some instructions I could quickly follow.  In other words, I am willing to test / report, I just never did that before and don't really know what I am doing there.

 

4 hours ago, @lex said:

* Last time i checked (was really long time ago) there was no HW acceleration. today there is A64 HW in kernel 5.x , how is the status?. I know GNOME is a bit slow but maybe with HW accel it would be great.

 

Here I must again admit to being more of an "Armbian on servers / command line" guy (and that even only for a few years).  I am still trying to get my head around the graphical stuff.  I am afraid someone like @NicoD or @JMCC or @fabiobassa or @balbes150 or @Myy (apologies if I am forgetting anyone) or one of other people who know about graphical stuff (maybe even @lanefu?) might have some better information for you there.  Sorry.

 

Edit: looking at Community Governance, apparently Allwinner maintainers are @martinayotte, @Igor, and @jernej (assuming that's up to date).

 

Hopefully one of above people can cast some light.  Because I am actually curious as well.  And apologies for spamming everyone.

 

4 hours ago, @lex said:

* rebuild Mobian w/ Phosh image and provide some inside info and what is needed?

* Disclose the blobs that are still needed?

 

These are things that, given the development status of the device, I am sure I will get around to eventually, but due to above stated reasons it might not be right away.

 

For example, one extremely annoying thing is that the decision was made not to have any empty desktop in Mobian with Phosh.  It just goes immediately from app drawer to running / switching app management.  If you close all apps it reverts to app drawer.  Never you can get to a plain empty desktop.  Maybe it is only my OCD/autism but that is currently driving me bananas.  Luckily someone at Pine forums already made a thread about it (and further in the thread they link to their fork of Phosh to put it back to "normal").

 

Above annoyance aside, some aspects of UI on Mobian / Phosh are much better IMO.  For example, there is always a button to hide the keyboard.  Which is something I really struggled with on KDE Plasma (where keyboard often seems in the way).  It also seems to be snappier than KDE / Plasma.

 

FWIW, Mobian also seem to have some better documentation, wiki, etc. than some of alternatives.  Which I suspect may be driving some of its higher adoption / development.  I only briefly look around so far, but I am sure you could probably find an answer over there.  They also have a quite active IRC / Matrix.  There seems to be a lot of excitement and activity around the project currently.

 

But again, no time (for me, personally) at the moment for any of this.

 

4 hours ago, @lex said:

I was expecting to see a similar device but with rockchip inside.. and then join the club.

 

That would certainly be nice!  However I think Pine64 are actually taking a good approach here, strategically speaking.  Current state of GNU/Linux phone ecosystem is honestly in very early days.  A lot of work will still need to be done to adapt the many existing programs to phone/touch interface.  So I think their plan to get a lot of devices out there into the hands of devs and tinkerers is a good one.  Because, even if you had such nice spec device, it would be essentially useless for lack of usable software (on phone/touch interface, anyway).

 

This device is not ready for end users, especially if they are going to compare it to current gen iOS and Android devices, which have had many years and millions of dollars of development.  If you are interested in tinkering / helping make GNU/Linux phones a viable alternative to incumbents (I certainly am), then buy one.  They are cheap (relatively speaking).  In fact, if anyone here is higher level wizard than myself, and cares as much about moving the state of GNU/Linux phones forward, and has some time available to do so, but cannot otherwise afford one, I will buy you one!  Just send me a PM!

 

 

[@lex]

6 hours ago, TRS-80 said:

If you are interested in tinkering / helping make GNU/Linux phones a viable alternative to incumbents (I certainly am), then buy one

I was an early backer of Pine64, it took so long to get my hands on one plus the learning curve in order to contribute with something useful, around 6 months, today things have evolved and 'this time' is an eternity. Not to mention the restriction to ship the battery from US.

 

I just think they missed a great opportunity to create a kind of "convergence docker" that would export the gpios so you could drive other things, create  an ecosystem around the device just like the Raspberry Pi has.

The Makers should get this tip and launch a similar device and export all the pins. RK chip ofc. but don't know if they have a mobile chip or the new chip could be used. Rockchip seems to be committed to helping the Linux community, at least they contribute to the kernel.

 

Anyway, Manjaro + Phosh is really a good alternative, i don't know if they improved their edition or not. You should give it a try.

 

[FrankWizza]

23 hours ago, @lex said:

I was an early backer of Pine64, it took so long to get my hands on one plus the learning curve in order to contribute with something useful, around 6 months, today things have evolved and 'this time' is an eternity. Not to mention the restriction to ship the battery from US.

 

I just think they missed a great opportunity to create a kind of "convergence docker" that would export the gpios so you could drive other things, create  an ecosystem around the device just like the Raspberry Pi has.

The Makers should get this tip and launch a similar device and export all the pins. RK chip ofc. but don't know if they have a mobile chip or the new chip could be used. Rockchip seems to be committed to helping the Linux community, at least they contribute to the kernel.

 

Anyway, Manjaro + Phosh is really a good alternative, i don't know if they improved their edition or not. You should give it a try.

 

 

I got the kde community edition, and I would say that it came a long way. It is currently the way to go. Mobian is the most useful, the repos have everything, even if it doesn't work on mobile. Phosh on the other hand is pretty bad currently. They don't have auto screen rotation, and the prox sensor is always on, so the screen will shut off when you put your hand near it. 

 

Things with lomiri run the smoothest. Manjaro lomiri (under developed) and ubuntu touch (closer to android than linux).

 

They are about to open orders again. 

 

I recommend getting the community edition, it comes with more ram, more storage, and a nice type c expansion dongle. 

 

Totally worth the price, but still needs a lot of work.

 

All they really need to do is make a back cover that exposes the gpio. It has i2c, which can be used for a lot.  

 

I would also like to add an answer to one of your questions. You can access serial through the headphone jack. 

 

https://bloggerbust.ca/post/my-first-experience-connecting-to-the-phinephone-via-serial-console/

 

 

 

 

[balbes150]

12 часов назад, TRS-80 сказал:

I am afraid someone like @NicoD or @JMCC or @fabiobassa or @balbes150 or @Myy (apologies if I am forgetting anyone) or one of other people who know about graphical stuff

I'm just starting to get into the specifics of Allwinner, so my interests in this area are limited to H6 and H5 (in the future, H616). A year ago, I was interested in the possibility of acquiring PinePhone and PinebucPro, but due to the peculiarities of delivery in my area, Pine64 politely explained that this is not possible (I have no complaints about them, this is their business, they decide how to run it).