Pine64 uses a fairly neat method for their hardware. They start by selecting a chip and build an affordable SBC that allows devs to mainline the basic hardware into the kernel. Once things have stabilized enough they can continue with the next generation of the Pinephone, Pinebook, etc. So since they are still working on the SBC for the next platform it will probably be 2 or 3 years before an updated Pinephone gets shipped. I'd highly recommend reading some Pine64 blogs to see what they've got planned for the future.

From what I've seen the Librem 5 has the same amount of ram and a little more powerful cpu plus a bigger battery. I'm guessing the bigger cpu consumes more power. Currently they've got the battery life about 7-8X better than it was back in Chestnut/Birch and it's still about half of what my device is currently capable of. Hopefully they can improve that before too long because the battery life on my device isn't all that great and half of that really limits usability.

A lot of people are put off by the low specs of the current Pinephone model and thats something I really don't understand, I guess it's the mentality that comes from needing the latest IPhone/Android in order to keep up with bloatware. I'm not saying a higher spec device wouldn't be nice but my theory is "You don't write efficient software for a super computer"(thinking UNIX here). It's especially true for the Pinephone, properly optimised software does run smoothly. The better it runs on a low spec device, the better it'll run on a better spec device. Needless to say I have developed software on a RaspberryPi already

Phosh and the GTK stack are actually the most sluggish right now since they don't support GPU acceleration yet, hopefully GTK 4 gets this sorted out. I do prefer GTK over QT but I guess this is Linux, a GTK should run fine on a QT desktop and vice versa.

Thanks a gain for post #43, it was very informative. I think he made it clear that he is critical because he's disappointed, not for the sake of being critical, and fully explained his reasoning.
He made all the arguments I made, plus a few more, e.g.: openssh not installed by default? Mindless omission.
Unfortunately his youtuber skills are just as shoddy as the device he's complaining about...

enorbet: So you read it and still manage to believe in Purism/Librem5. That's your prerogative of course. Although I sense you are slightly more cautious now. But still giving them the benefit of the doubt, and patience.
But a large part of my criticism addresses precisely that last bit: Purism shamelessly exploited the enthusiast's mindset in a way that gives a bad name to FOSS crowdfunding.

The software is out there now, it's FOSS, and whatever development we see is thanks to the community, and not to Purism.
In fact, I couldn't even find proof that phosh is purism's baby. Only that it's largely a one-man project, but is he employed by them?

Seems phosh is largely developed by Guido Gunther. From his page on GitLab, there's a link describing phosh, which says,
So it seems he credits Purism's Librem 5 with bringing it "to life".

Just FTR, ondoho, I was never incautious. The video by Gardiner I realized was a fanboi post right from the start and I'm certainly not going to jump to a conclusion on one guy's say-so. I also didn't expect anyone else to jump to such a conclusion. As I stated, the main value was 1) Seeing them in action for response time and relative milestone of reduced bugginess going forward, and 2) noting that the hardware phase was now considered no longer just in testing. I'd welcome a variety of companies building Linux phones, and I care only little about "blobs" (Foss? Great! Not entirely FOSS? possibly great!) and I suspect that will happen at some point.

This. And I imagine that will happen soon enough. Just look at the raspberry pi and arduino platforms. There's a lot of clones by now that are perfectly usable and in some cases, even better than the platform that started it all. Personally this is where my interest is. I'm not sure if the Librem 5 has schematics available but the Pinephone does and I could be wrong but I'm under the impression that the design is open source. In that case, any hardware manufacturer could easily create a clone that equals or excedes the original.

Let's assume you mean Linux as a full operating system with familiar structures and utilities - what RMS calls GNU/Linux. So not Android.
I'd like to point out that this already exists (the variety) and has for quite some time.
Nokia's smartphone projects were true GNU/Linux systems (Maemo/Meego), most notable device N9 and N900. 10 years ago. Maemo Leste reviving it (with funding).
SailfishOS, which is essentially born out of Nokia's smartphone project's ashes, also. Selling two devices, starting 2013 iirc. Now only to install yourself on a few select devices, both consumer and niche.
One or two other projects (OpenMoko...).
A few more projects that attempt to bring real GNU/Linux to consumer Android phones.
DIY dumb phones, DIY "raspi phones", etc...

Purism recognized a trend and wanted to capitalise on it.
I say that without judgement, hooray for wanting to raise the numbers.
So, economically they broke some barrier, collapsed in the act, and haven't managed to get up again while PinePhone comfortably walked through the hole, over Librem's paralysed body.

Ondoho, I think it remains to be seen if Librem 5 is actually paralyzed or just starting to grow. I frankly don't want to limit scope by any manner of "real GnuLinux" limitations. I think Android, as much as I am resolved to never own a phone running it, was a very important step in development, a proof of concept and commercial viability if you will. I think we need it all - FOSS, Proprietary, you name it, ALL of it.

When Purism announced/crowdfunded the project in 2017, they knew there was a market for such a device. They also knew that they had no direct competition to compare against. In 2019 Pine64 announced that they were working on a phone. Less than a year later, end users had devices in their hands. I'm sure this hurt Purism but in the same time helped them tremendously with software development. Before the Pinephone, there was no easy way to test Phosh, sure there's qemu but that's not realistic compared to a phone. For the first time, thousands of users could test Phosh and the development accelerated drastically.

I don't understand. Why did Purism crowdfund the L5? They have been making hardware for several years.

It definitely was when Pine64's phone climbed over it. I deliberately didn't say dead. And I'm stretching the metaphor now. That's all your fault.

Well then you should be just happy with Android - oh, wait, no, you're somehow kindof not happy with it? let's see what you write next:
Ok... you're just spiraling into one of your intellectual meaninglessnesses now, hoping to pull me in. No thanks.

Do you mean: they shouldn't have bothered with the Librem5 at all? Or: They should've developed it without crowdfunding? If the latter:
I remember reading that they're not doing all that well as a company. I mean, well enough to survive with their laptop stuff, but not well enough to take on an ambitious extra project. Maybe they thought they could kill 2 birds with one stone: good "ethical" publicity and funding.
In any case, I also read that the L5 brought them dangerously close to bankruptcy, so they had to resort to dirty tricks like taking backers' money by false promise of production, when really they needed the money for hardware development.
Maybe it was that jaylittle article I linked a few posts back. There was also an interview with a former CEO somewhere, maybe on phoronix.

No I'm not against them developing the Librem 5. But why didn't they think it through and get a rough hardware prototype put together BEFORE creating hype? I followed the Librem 5 from day one so I'm fairly informed. I never intended to purchase one since the price was way out of my range. They always point out that they need to recoup losses and that software development cost them a lot. Both have truth but both need not be a problem. For hardware it's not a good idea to jump into the river before learning to swim. And for software it's not like there was any need to even write another DE. There's a lot of projects that only need a readily available unlocked hardware platform. The Pinephone has proved this. Purism seems to be trying to become an Apple and Google alternative. We do not need that. We just need unlocked hackable hardware. Few mobile Linux projects support the Librem 5. Why? because some of them still don't have hardware Hopefully that changes soon.

Yeah, why didn't they. Why do people and companies make mistakes.
And why do they keep covering it up when it's all too clear what really happened.
It's all PR, glossing over in the hope that the majority of media attention will swallow it.
You should watch the YT video where the CEO visits the fanboy. Not only cringeworthy, but the narrative is also full of holes. Thanks for thinking we're stupid.

I've watched almost all the Librem 5 videos as they were released. So I've watched that video a long time ago.

Here's is a recent, realistic Librem 5 review. https://youtube.com/watch?v=BH8DRyKUZDg

Thanks Mill J. I hadn't seen that video yet and I "know" that guy from Linus (not Torvalds) Tech Tips, a rather excellent and wide-ranging (phones to server gear) unboxing/testing/review/info vlog . He is what he seems to be in that video as he pointed out, the antithesis of Fanboi. The video demonstrates how far Librem5, and by implication Linux Phones in general) have come in a year - not great yet but getting there and certainly usable by anyone familiar with desktop Linux, especially Debian-based stuff. It also shows, besides the tradeoff between privacy and function) the loss accepted by being so devoted to FOSS. Not all proprietary is bad, and much of it objectively just works better. One case in point is the current lack of hardware acceleration on the Librem.

This is why I applaud diversity in the field of Linux Phones.

ping ondoho - This is also why or rather where I draw the line at Android. I don't favor proprietary anymore than I (slightly) prefer FOSS. I judge on an individual basis and Android definitely crosses a line I won't having largely to do with Freedom and Privacy. I sincerely hope some player enters the field that similarly blends the best working hardware and software. For example, for decades I have relied on Nvidia's proprietary graphics and drivers. Even while I respect and am impressed with just how good Nouveau has gotten, I only use it on boxes where I don't care about 3D acceleration. On my main PCs I always use the "NVIDIA-foo-version.run" installer. My logs and firewalls demonstrate it is entirely innocuous and tracks nothing beyond the initial download. IMHO that's good proprietary and I hope someone explores that on Linux Phones.

Incidentally, way beyond "dead", my take is Librem5 is still quite viable and will likely grow improving themselves and the field itself.

I agree, the Librem 5 will probably recover, and become a viable option. It's slowly finding it's way into users hands.

P.S. you were wondering about convergence. I got a cheap <$15 generic usb-c dock off of eBay and I am happy to say that I am typing this on a full sized usb keyboard and my -20" hdmi monitor connected to my PinePhone. Fun Stuff

Hi i am both a linux and mobile phone hardware newbie so do bear with me if my questions seem rudimentary to others as many like myself may have the same questions

#1 The Pinephone is made up of 4 "Little Cores"
Is this for the sake of making a simple/easy/cheap platform to move linux phone development/take up rates? For example how well does big.LITTLE work on the linux/GNU OS on mobile hardware with ARM cores?

#2 Related to #1 : for a high end Octacore phone (4 big + 4 little cores) would a linux/GNU phone be snappier than the same phone running android?

#3 Are there plans to develop "Samsung Dex" feature for linux phones? Can a linux phone have 2 Desktop Environments for example - one mobile/touch (default) and another DE that works best with mouse/keyboard?

#4 Other than ARM, are there plans to explore other ISA/architecture CPUs like MIPS64 for example for linux/GNU phones?

#5 Lastly i noticed people have been using Pinephones as daily drivers? Which current OS is best at making/taking calls/sms/camera? Let say one loves appimages - which linux distro would run fastest on pinephone hardware and allow installing apps via appimages ya think?