• lemmeee@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    2 years is a lot of time. Things have changed a lot since then. The community and Purism are the ones developing the software. Pine64 has nothing to do with it.

    Out of all the things you just mentioned, Signal is the only one that won’t work, because it requires an Android/iOS app. You can’t use it on desktop by itself either. But you could try running the Android version with Waydroid. I use Matrix instead.

    • bisby@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I’m sure it has. Pine64 has nothing to do with it, but it’s their hardware, so they should. And the point of Drew’s blog was that they did a nice job of disincentivizing the community. so the community is smaller than it could have been.

      And “work” here being a shorthand for “work to satisfactory levels”.

      The camera works on my pinephone, and it takes pictures that remind me of the digital camera I had in 1999 that saved images to floppy disks.

      Bitwarden would run, but it was running as a desktop app and was a pain to use (no lib handy here), and it obviously wasn’t going to offer to auto fill across the entire OS.

      Phone worked, but I don’t receive enough calls to validate it, and pine’s own wiki states that the there are modem issues. It may be perfectly fine for me, but not something i fully trust, and that’s a factor in acceptance.

      and signal I would assume I would have to waydroid. But I never got waydroid set up. Hopefully that’s something that has gotten easier in the past 2 years. 2 years ago there was multiple hoops to jump through with installing kernel modules or something, and seeing a list of steps to take (and not just being able to install it from a repo in 1 go), when I was already dealing with performance issues, I just assumed it wasn’t going to be worth it.

      Who knows, maybe I’ll give it a try again and come to a more favorable “it’s fine i guess, but still not as good as my 2017 android phone in any capacity except ‘not google’”

      • lemmeee@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        Pine64 has nothing to do with it, but it’s their hardware, so they should.

        I agree. I wish we had better companies making GNU/Linux phones, but this is all we have for now. It’s either Pine64 or Purism.

        The camera works on my pinephone, and it takes pictures that remind me of the digital camera I had in 1999 that saved images to floppy disks.

        Yeah, the original PinePhone has only a 5 megapixel camera. PinePhone Pro’s camera is way better, but I’m not sure about the current state of software support. The author of the Megapixels camera app is working on a new, improved version, but it seems very complicated: https://blog.brixit.nl/fixing-the-megapixels-sensor-linearization/

        Bitwarden would run, but it was running as a desktop app and was a pain to use (no lib handy here), and it obviously wasn’t going to offer to auto fill across the entire OS.

        I use Gnome’s Secrets (available in Mobian Bookworm). It works well on mobile, but I don’t know about autofill. For 2fa you can use Gnome Authenticator (not available in Mobian Bookworm) or Numberstation (available in Mobian Bookworm).

        Phone worked, but I don’t receive enough calls to validate it, and pine’s own wiki states that the there are modem issues. It may be perfectly fine for me, but not something i fully trust, and that’s a factor in acceptance.

        You would just have to test it. I only have the original PinePhone with the libre modem firmware and I haven’t noticed any missed calls, but I don’t get a lot of calls in general. According to this recent blog post there seem to be some modem issues with PinePhone Pro (but I’m not sure if that includes missed calls): https://zerwuerfnis.org/daily-driving-the-pinephone-pro

        and signal I would assume I would have to waydroid. But I never got waydroid set up. Hopefully that’s something that has gotten easier in the past 2 years. 2 years ago there was multiple hoops to jump through with installing kernel modules or something, and seeing a list of steps to take (and not just being able to install it from a repo in 1 go), when I was already dealing with performance issues, I just assumed it wasn’t going to be worth it.

        Ah, that sounds painful. I’ve never used Waydroid, but a lot of people say it works well for them. I don’t see it packaged in Debian or Mobian, but 2 years is a lot of time in software development, so maybe it’s easier now. There is also some alternative Signal client called Axolotl. Some people use it, but I don’t fully understand how it works, so you would have to investigate on your own.

        Who knows, maybe I’ll give it a try again and come to a more favorable “it’s fine i guess, but still not as good as my 2017 android phone in any capacity except ‘not google’”

        Yeah, it probably won’t be as good. It requires GNU/Linux experience and some workarounds. But if you manage to set it up in a way that makes you use Android less, that would be pretty great.

        • bisby@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Speedrun reply:

          • “megapixels” aren’t always the right metric either. a super high pixel count, but noisy camera isn’t great either. I think in general, neither model has a camera that is going to generate great photos, even if the pro is much better
          • I’m already invested enough in bitwarden, and not interested in migrating back to keepass. This is a prime example of “I could make it work, but also, they need to meet me where Im at, I’m not redoing my entire life for a phone”… Could probably also use waydroid for this
          • I’m already not just using Android as is, and use LineageOS on my phone. Which isn’t GrapheneOS (which isn’t available for my phone) but at least allows me to not need to have gmail installed on my phone, etc.

          In conclusion, I want to thank you for such a cordial and friendly conversation. I’ve borderline forgotten how decent people on the internet can be. I can’t imagine a “debate” remaining this civil on reddit. (And if I was anything less than civil, I apologize! The broader internet has trained me for a fight or flight response for replies.)

          • lemmeee@sh.itjust.works
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            9 months ago

            The camera isn’t going to be as good as modern high-end smartphones, but it should be usable. But I have a separate camera for taking photos and don’t know that much about mobile cameras, though.

            I’m already invested enough in bitwarden, and not interested in migrating back to keepass. This is a prime example of “I could make it work, but also, they need to meet me where Im at, I’m not redoing my entire life for a phone”

            You wouldn’t be doing it for a phone, but for freedom (and with that comes better privacy and security). That should be your goal. But I understand that it’s difficult.

            Could probably also use waydroid for this

            Yeah, sounds like that could work.

            I’m already not just using Android as is, and use LineageOS on my phone. Which isn’t GrapheneOS (which isn’t available for my phone) but at least allows me to not need to have gmail installed on my phone, etc.

            Nice, that sounds like a big improvement over normal Android.

            In conclusion, I want to thank you for such a cordial and friendly conversation. I’ve borderline forgotten how decent people on the internet can be. I can’t imagine a “debate” remaining this civil on reddit. (And if I was anything less than civil, I apologize! The broader internet has trained me for a fight or flight response for replies.)

            Thank you too, I don’t always meet nice people either (even on Lemmy). Have a nice day!

            Edit: I checked and the instructions for installing Waydroid don’t look that complicated nowadays, but this might depend on the distro:

            https://wiki.debian.org/Mobian/How-to#How_to_run_Android_apps_via_Waydroid

            https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Waydroid

            https://docs.waydro.id/usage/install-on-desktops