Re: Re: linux phone, ultra portable, the universe, and everything!

dep wrote: Hi, I still use Nokia N9 that is meego and debian based - stable, solid and reliable. Same people downsized built Sailfish. I was expecting the same and follow the project from the start. Unfortunately I am working father and don't have much time to follow as close as I wish. I will just give a brief answer of my impression and experience. Sailfish OS is developed by Jolla (former Nokia employes) and is based on mer - operating system based on linux, open source and designed for mobile devices (no buttons except volume up/down and on/off key). I bought the Aquafish in Nov. 2016. Hardware is average - the OS is really good. It is based on RPM in contrast to N9 based on deb. pkcon is your friend - and I still have to learn a lot. I bought Sony Xperia and Sailfish X this Nov. 2017 and installed Sailfish X on the Xperia. Linux kernel is 3.10. There is SDK in virtual box format with QT5 designer that interacts with the VBox. Actually there are two vboxes in the SDK - a builder and emulator. I build couple of packages and deployed them easily. The great thing is that there is Dalvik (Android emulator) that is fully integrated (on licensed devices - not community ports like freephone) and the user can install and use android apps. The Sailfish eco system is not impressive also compared to the N9 it is really poor and many developers complain lack of interest and ability to monetize. I use few android apps and overall performance is really good. What I see as a problem is the lack of developers, licensing issues preventing many apps or libraries be adopted and lack of functions compared to N9. What I am missing most is the ability to sync via bluetooth (I wrote syncevolution plugins for TDE and I am using them on daily basis, which makes my life easier), but syncml is neglected by Jolla and mer community - today everybody is on the cloud and Jolla is focused on that cal/carddav crap. The second problem I have with Sailfish X is that they adopted bluez5 (Aquafrish is still with bluez4) and I can't make it work with my car navigations system (it's a honda 2008). bluez4 connects and operates without a problem, but bluez5 does not. It turned out bluez5 removed HFT/HSP and it was moved to ofono, however ofono provides plugin to pulseaudio and pulseaudio is still in version 8. Recently it was discussed on the meetings to target pulse 11 and I read in pulse 11 HFT/HSP would be fully supported and stable, so perhaps if I find time I track this thread, compile, install test etc, as it is important to me to have HFT support. I tested Sailfish X with a more modern navigation system on KIA 2017 and it worked like a charm (phonebook access, recent calls etc - no issues) ... perhaps it's really time to buy new car :) You can check details on youtube or sailfish or together.jolla.com which is a big community blog - I still don't get the logic if there is one how this block operates, but there is a lot and also the mer project with the source code. There are rumors that Jolla is targeting BRICS, where they hope to get also governmental support, reported devices with pre-installed Sailfish are produced/sold in Russia, China somewhere in Latin America recently, EU (Xperia), India. The problem for Jolla is to find hardware manufacturers, but things may change next. Overall it is worth watching this story - I just hope they don't die as the other alternative mobile phone OSes did. For me it works perfectly (except for those 2 problems I described above). I would really love to have the better Sony hardware as primary device but I don't have workaround for the HFT issue. It runs stable - there are minor things that can be improved, but there are also many solutions one can apply and customize the os for better experience. It is not for your grand mother, unless she had a degree in computer science :), but even the default setup is really good. I will not give recommendation. One should try and see if it works for him. For me as N9 user it was easy as things are almost the same. Unfortunately I have this bitter taste of being downgraded compared to N9, but when I imagine using android or iphone ... I pray for Jolla and the people doing this! regards