I was going through Pine64’s page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?

I’m considering purchasing the Pine but I’d like a better screen, more RAM and a better CPU. Don’t know if I should wait for a new model to be released (are they even planning to do that? Is the company active?). I will only really use it to browse the Web, and might even look to desolder a couple of parts that I know I won’t use.

Thanks.

Edit: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it’ll be fit for me?

Edit 2: overall, I am much saddened about the state of affairs regarding private computing on the go. I desperately hope that Linux on mobile takes off, even though its incubation looks disheartening at the moment. Thank you everyone for your comments.

  • @[email protected]
    7•7 months ago

    Why not try lineageo OS? I’ve been daily driving it for one year now and it’s reliably if you don’t throw magisk modules at it for fun.

    • Alex
      4•7 months ago

      I threw magisk modules at it for fun and it’s still reliable.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•7 months ago

      I second the recommendation for lineage OS. I’ve been using it since 2011 with my Nexus S (when it was Cyanogen). Works, defaults to de-googled, but easy to install gapps at the same time (follow instructions because it needs to be done before first boot).

      I’ll never run a stock ROM again if I can help it, and so far…

        • @[email protected]
          -8•7 months ago

          So fucking dumb how we have to look for specific models just to get support for smartphones.

          Can you image if Linux only ran on HP and dell laptops?

          • @[email protected]
            4•7 months ago

            Unfortunately that’s moistly on maufacters. If they don’t release the kernel LOS can’t do anything. Also depending on the phone it might take a while till someone picks the phone and decides to support it. Laptops do have compatibility options. But I get what your saying, it is annoying but what did you expect from such organization?

            • @[email protected]
              1•6 months ago

              It would be awesome if we could just install whatever like we can on pcs. On phones you still need a developer to make a specific rom for that device, we were close with Generic System Images (GSIs), but I don’t think they really went anywhere

              • @[email protected]
                1•6 months ago

                I think you can but I’m not sure. There’s Ubuntu Touch that works on some phones but it’s really buggy

          • bitwolf
            2•6 months ago

            Hopefully when RISCv gets there it won’t be so bad.

            Now that manufacturers are getting called out for it they tend to follow the support cycle upstream. Now, much of it falls on the chip makers, Qualcomm specifically supports chips for 5 years iirc (and 8 years for their industrial chips).

            If the manufacturers can achieve vertical integration, like Apple has, with RISCv I think we’ll see a lot more mainlined support from them.

      • @[email protected]
        1•6 months ago

        No. To root you need to extract boot.img, patch it in the app then flash it while in bootloader.