It’s not specific to Microsoft, but the general idea of letting proprietary software install whatever it wants whenever it wants directly into your kernel is a bad idea regardless. If the user had any control over this update process, organizations could do small scale testing themselves before unleashing the update on their entire userbase. If it were open source software, the code would be reviewed by many more eyes and tested independently by many more teams before release. The core issue is centralizing all trust on one organization, especially when that organization is a business and thus profit-driven above all else which could be an incentive to rush updates.

I started using Linux with Ubuntu 6.06 and at the time I was really into the game Jedi Academy. It used OpenGL and thus ran fairly well on Wine. I upgraded from an NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX420 to an ATI Radeon X1600Pro and the ATI drivers were absolute garbage so I kinda gave up on Linux gaming for a while. I was set on going NVIDIA on my next PC but around that time AMD bought ATI and opened up their documentation, leading to rapid improvements in the open source AMD drivers. Went with a Radeon HD 5870 and not long after I built that PC I was gaming in Wine again, though poorly on non OpenGL games still. Then Steam for Linux officially released and a lot of native games became available but I was still running Windows Steam in Wine as native Steam didn’t play Windows games. Then the Gallium Nine project offered a way to play DX9 games with significantly improved performance and I played a lot of Skyrim on Linux as well as a lot of other DX9 games. Then Vulkan happened and soon DXVK and Proton and the modern Linux gaming landscape evolved quite rapidly until we got to where we are today.

1440p is the perfect laptop resolution IMO. Significantly more real estate than 1080p without being high enough to require scaling. I have a 4K 17" laptop and 100% scaling is unusable there, but yet I have 1440p 13" and 14" laptops and can read 100% scaled text fine.

I also just got a 32" 4K monitor for my desktop and 100% scaling is fine on it. I have an older 28" 4K and 100% is readable but maybe a bit small.

100% scaling on 14" 1440p looks fine to me. More screen real estate the better.

I had this issue using the libre modem firmware on both phones. I’m not sure if it’s a modem side issue or a Linux side issue. I haven’t used either PinePhone with a SIM card in almost a year though so my knowledge could be outdated.

I want to do a follow up eventually. I have some free time next week, might try to finish up the keycaps. I have the standard size cap that most of the keys use done and a spacebar that is the right shape and size, just needs attachment points for the stabilizer.

I had call drops on both the original and the Pro. They both use the same USB-attached modem and the modem has (had?) an issue where it would lose USB connection to the main processor sometimes, so you would just randomly lose cell connectivity. Sometimes the USB connection would restart right away and sometimes it would not and you’d have to restart eg25 manager to reboot the modem.

Not really, it’s been a hassle to get them consistent enough to match the default ones. The small scale makes printing them difficult even after I got a resin printer for the project. I settled on a two piece design that works pretty well but the resin material is not as smooth as the injection molded stock caps.

I went through probably 20 different iterations of keycaps and got close to one I liked, but haven’t gotten back to finishing the project since I haven’t been using my PinePhone much. I think the main remaining thing is to make an Enter key model and a Tab key model. I want to get back to that project eventually but haven’t had time.

Then you run far, far away from that app. Even on an Android phone I don’t trust garbage apps that require locked bootloader and no root. There are plenty of banks out there and paying with your phone is not a necessity.

We have Waydroid which is close enough. It needs some quality of life improvements for better integration with the native Linux ecosystem but it runs Android apps just fine on Linux phones.

I haven’t used it on the PinePhone or PinePhone Pro in a while, but Waydroid is solid on my OnePlus 6T with postmarketOS. Android apps that only need an Internet connection work fine. I installed microG and have push notifications working for Discord and Teams. However, notifications don’t get passed through to the Linux side so they only show if you open the Android UI. Screen rotation doesn’t work on Waydroid which can be very annoying. Apps that use other hardware features such as location, Bluetooth, vibration, access to calls/texts won’t work properly.

I tried to daily drive a PinePhone for a long time, then a PinePhone Pro. It is not really ready. Too many dropped/failed to answer calls and missed texts. I love having a fully capable Linux PC in my pocket and am typing this on my OnePlus 6T with postmarketOS, but as a phone it is not ideal. My setup now is that I have a OnePlus 6 with stock Android and my main SIM for doing phone stuff (calls, texts, some apps, Bluetooth handsfree) and the OnePlus 6T with pmOS for Linux experimentation and doing pocket computer things (browsing, coding, SSH, VPN, testing Waydroid). I got a second cheap SIM so I can have service on both devices, but as the 6T with pmOS can’t receive calls in 4G mode it really doesn’t work as a phone. The PinePhones can work as a phone but the modem dropouts make it less than ideal and their battery life and performance leave much to be desired while the OP6T has fairly good performance and battery life on pmOS.