[Linux-aus] Linux Phone and Convergence progress

[Russell Coker]

On Tuesday, 18 July 2023 10:54:37 AEST Craige McWhirter via linux-aus wrote:
> I'm running NixOS + Phosh on both my PinePhone and Librem5. I find that
> despite all the determination I can muster to make these devices usable in
> a similar manner to my Android devices the biggest barrier appears to be
> RAM.

I've found the biggest barrier is things just not working the way any 
reasonable person would expect (like windows going to the wrong size after 
rotating, programs that don't scale their content down small enough to fit, 
etc).  The next biggest barrier is things that are obvious bugs like delays in 
waking up from suspend.  The number three problem is things working in ways 
that might be good if it's to your taste and you have got used to it but isn't 
so great if you are really used to Android and want more of the same (EG 
everything about Phosh).

> I have the Braveheart Pinephone and the Evergreen Librem5 - both of which
> have 3G of RAM.
> 
> Did you get the PinePhone Pro with 4GB RAM? If so, how do you find common
> apps, like Librewolf (or firefox), the terminal, Chatty (messaging), Geary
> (email) and newsflash (RSS reader) run at the same time and how do they
> handle the constrained memory?

I have the PinePhonePro.  I haven't run a lot of apps at the same time.  I 
have done some experiments with things like loading LibreOffice which isn't 
too slow.  That said my personal laptop has only 8G of RAM and at the moment 
only has 1312MB of swap in use.  If I didn't have Chrome running with hundreds 
of tabs open it might work OK with 4G of RAM.

Do other browsers use less RAM than Firefox?

Currently my tests of USB-C docks haven't worked as well as I had hoped and 
I'm not sure that the PinePhonePro or Librem5 can even support a single 4K 
display.  So neither of these phones will work the way I hoped for 
convergence.  But they will do well enough to facilitate software development.

> For me, opening more than two at present significantly degrades performance
> and three or more can cause genuine problems.
> 
> After putting significant effort into trying to make this models my primary
> phone, I'm considering scaling my expectations back to "terminal + webrowser
> + mobile internet" _or_ buying the PinePhone Pro.
> 
> Have you tried this usage or are you more focussed on the sandboxing side?

I've been focused on sandboxing and writing SE Linux policy so far.  When I 
get it to a stage where I don't think I'll be wiping it in the near future 
then I'll put in my main SIM and start doing more real stuff with it.  My 
current installation is Ext4 with no encryption and I want to move it to BTRFS 
over LUKS.

To use the PinePhone or Librem phones for real work now requires either Karen 
Sandler's level of dedication, a plan to make phone development a large part 
of your use, or a usage model that involves it as a small tablet.

https://pine64.com/product/pinetab2-10-1-8gb-128gb-linux-tablet-with-detached-backlit-keyboard/

Probably a lot of the people who get Librem5/PinePhonePro devices would be 
better off with a Pinetab2.  Similar specs but twice the RAM and a physically 
larger screen, that unfortunately has a similarly low resolution.

-- 
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