merry christmas, everybody!
did you see the piece in the register today (or maybe yesterday, or saturday) about the new psion or psion-ish device that is a tiny postable computer with keyboard, phone, and so on, that dual boots android *and linux*? this may be the gadget we've been waiting for. the question, of course, is whether it will run trinity. looking at the specs -- 4 gigs of memory and 64 gigs of storage -- i see no reason why it wouldn't. the video is 2160x1080, which ought to work. (it apparently ships with xfce.)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/22/gemini_special/
i do wish it had a better pointing system -- it has a touchscreen, but i'd prefer a pointing stick ala the good thinkpads or the toshiba librettos.
my sense is that this is the device many of us have been waiting for.
i'm not rolling in money by any means, but i'm very close to making the leap to pre-order of the wifi-4G version. i'm weary of my little ipad and my blackberry, though still functioning, is, well, a blackberry and whatever rim calls itself nowadays doesn't do proper blackberrys anymore, so this seems just right.
going crazy here imagining being on a story, shhoting the pictures, putting the card in a SD adapter via usb, opening the GIMP and adjusting color and saturation, and shipping the pictures to the paper, just like that.
a phone and tiny laptop device for grownups!
dep wrote:
a phone and tiny laptop device for grownups!
Thanks of the post indeed interesting.
As far as linux kernel runs on top of it, TDE will also work.
I have not played with ofono, but I am afraid ofono is missing TDE integration and this device is usable only with headset for calling. I am looking for replacement for my Nokia N9, but still not satisfied with what I found so far. SailFish came closest to it, but lacks many of the crucial functions.
For the rest ... if one needs a pocket size notebook - might be good choice. However keyboard looks pretty small size and display too, especially this high resolution... might be good only with external one
regards
Hi everybody,
while interesting, I would suggest to have a look at this device: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/
It was developed as an successor of the openpandora and will be open (source and hardware) from the point the first productioin run is on the way. It's currently in the final phase of development (read the last Pyra news Post first to get the latest status).
Since it is ment to be a tiny laptop with gaming controls, you can use the game controls (nubs) as an excelent pointing device. (you can use one as a pointing device and the other to emulate mouse clicks.
And it has an internal Display with a 720p resolution, which makes a lot more sense to me then HD resolution on sich a tiny device).
And it was developed with the support and ideas of the community, which is finaly using it.
just my 2 cents mclien
On 12/25/2017 07:22 PM, dep wrote:
merry christmas, everybody!
did you see the piece in the register today (or maybe yesterday, or saturday) about the new psion or psion-ish device that is a tiny postable computer with keyboard, phone, and so on, that dual boots android *and linux*? this may be the gadget we've been waiting for. the question, of course, is whether it will run trinity. looking at the specs -- 4 gigs of memory and 64 gigs of storage -- i see no reason why it wouldn't. the video is 2160x1080, which ought to work. (it apparently ships with xfce.)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/12/22/gemini_special/
i do wish it had a better pointing system -- it has a touchscreen, but i'd prefer a pointing stick ala the good thinkpads or the toshiba librettos.
my sense is that this is the device many of us have been waiting for.
i'm not rolling in money by any means, but i'm very close to making the leap to pre-order of the wifi-4G version. i'm weary of my little ipad and my blackberry, though still functioning, is, well, a blackberry and whatever rim calls itself nowadays doesn't do proper blackberrys anymore, so this seems just right.
going crazy here imagining being on a story, shhoting the pictures, putting the card in a SD adapter via usb, opening the GIMP and adjusting color and saturation, and shipping the pictures to the paper, just like that.
a phone and tiny laptop device for grownups!
said Frank Lienhard: | Hi everybody, | | while interesting, I would suggest to have a look at this device: | https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/
That is an interesting device, but it falls short of at least my minimum requirements -- the keyboard isn't really much of a keyboard and doesn't look to be up even to the standards of the Atari Portfolio from 1989 that I have in a drawer somewhere. It also seems a bit thickish.
| Since it is ment to be a tiny laptop with gaming controls, you can use | the game controls (nubs) as an excelent pointing device. (you can use | one as a pointing device and the other to emulate mouse clicks. | | And it has an internal Display with a 720p resolution, which makes a lot | more sense to me then HD resolution on sich a tiny device).
To me there's no such thing as too much resolution, and in that I'd be called upon (occasionally, not always) to do photo editing with the device I get, having high-resolution in a screen only a little bigger than the one in the device to which you linked is markedly better -- I'm trying to imagine one of my 4000x6000 pictures on a 720p screen, and it's a little frightening. This combined with a keyboard that would make typing captions painful . . . while I'm sure it would be just what some people are looking for, it's antithetical to my needs. And I'm at the age that reading glasses will be needed for pretty much *any* portable device!
| And it was developed with the support and ideas of the community, which | is finaly using it.
As noted above, the community's ideas do not much correspond with mine. Additionally, the frequencies supported by the Pyra device would severely limit it in the U.S., and the mobile edition is $850 U.S.
I've rolled the dice and ordered (and paid for) the Gemini/Psion 4G device on Indiegogo. I may be foolish (of that there can be little doubt; the only question is whether I was foolish in this case), but if it is even close to the device described, and if they do actually ship it -- always a concern in these kinds of things -- I think it will be a very useful Blackberry-iPad replacement, all the more so for it running/dual booting Linux. The specs have it being as powerful (more so in several ways) than the ThinkPad I've been using for a portable machine running 14.04 and TDE. The idea of having all that running on my telephone, along with a good-enough keyboard is worth the risk. Well, unless they never deliver, in which case it isn't.
If there's interest, I'll let the list know when it arrives and whether I got TDE to be happy on it.
Cross your fingers for me!
dep wrote:
To me there's no such thing as too much resolution, and in that I'd be called upon (occasionally, not always) to do photo editing with the device I get, having high-resolution in a screen only a little bigger than the one in the device to which you linked is markedly better -- I'm trying to imagine one of my 4000x6000 pictures on a 720p screen, and it's a little frightening. This combined with a keyboard that would make typing captions painful . . . while I'm sure it would be just what some people are looking for, it's antithetical to my needs. And I'm at the age that reading glasses will be needed for pretty much any portable device!
To me the resolution is probably the only thing I liked in it as I hate high resolution on small size. I agree with the rest what you wrote - the Gemini/Psion beats it definitely. I was trying to imagine what faces the people (clients, colleague and friends) would make if I come up with this pyra misfortune. And what I am wondering most is who the ***** is buying this. Why are people wasting time with such a thing? Unbelievable !
I bought Intex AquaFish and Sony Xperia X with SailFish.
I keep my fingers crossed for you - let us know if you get it, what your experience is!
regards
said deloptes:
| I bought Intex AquaFish and Sony Xperia X with SailFish.
What is your experience with it? Does it have good Linux application support? What little I know about it suggests that it might.
| I keep my fingers crossed for you - let us know if you get it, what your | experience is!
Thanks very much if/when I do, I will.
dep wrote:
said deloptes:
| I bought Intex AquaFish and Sony Xperia X with SailFish.
What is your experience with it? Does it have good Linux application support? What little I know about it suggests that it might.
| I keep my fingers crossed for you - let us know if you get it, what your | experience is!
Thanks very much if/when I do, I will.
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
Thank you for the comprehensive and interesting description.
| 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 :)
I thought that only Apple would produce a phone that would require you to buy a new car (and only Apple users would actually do it).
I'm foolishly hoping that the Gemini device has a fairly normal Linux API so that just about anything can be downloaded and installed (or compiled and installed), preferably .deb-based. It has 4-gb of RAM and 64-gb of storage and a fast chip, so it should be able to run whatever is thrown at it, as long as there are drivers and the X is robust. (The discussion following the register story included a lengthy conversation about the Nokia devices, though I don't know if the N9 was mentioned.)
But now I'll look more closely at the Sailfish OS and the devices that run it. Fortunately, my Honda is 2004 and therefore won't work with anything!
Though I still hope to be the first person to get TDE running reliably with all its features on a telephone!
dep wrote:
I thought that only Apple would produce a phone that would require you to buy a new car (and only Apple users would actually do it).
haha - it was actually bluez people made the descision and ( I had to do with automotive industry in the past) I can tell you it is pretty hard to cover all the differences and kind of implementations people do. I follow bluetooth since maybe 10y and it is "the most misterious" project - especially the older implementations. bluez5 tried to clean up things and put order, but decisions collide with the past, such that new things work, but old may be. However this does not change the experience from the past, where some things worked and some didn't.
I'm foolishly hoping that the Gemini device has a fairly normal Linux API so that just about anything can be downloaded and installed (or compiled and installed), preferably .deb-based. It has 4-gb of RAM and 64-gb of storage and a fast chip, so it should be able to run whatever is thrown at it, as long as there are drivers and the X is robust. (The discussion following the register story included a lengthy conversation about the Nokia devices, though I don't know if the N9 was mentioned.)
It was said that any linux would boot, so why not debian with TDE? Perhaps
But now I'll look more closely at the Sailfish OS and the devices that run it. Fortunately, my Honda is 2004 and therefore won't work with anything!
As I said bluez4 on Sailfish works - perhaps buy used Intex Aquafish and try it or just try the emulator and youtube to get an impression.
Though I still hope to be the first person to get TDE running reliably with all its features on a telephone!
I'm not sure that the user interface is designed for a phone use - meego and mer are. I wish I would have more time to learn a bit more Qt5 and the mer framework. It is indeed high quality OS despite the hickups. IMO comparable to iOS, but still a bit immature.
regards
said deloptes:
| It was said that any linux would boot, so why not debian with TDE? | Perhaps
I've made a hobby/career of running or at least trying to run Linux and K/TDE on tiny devices. Here's an experiment from 15 -- almost 16 -- years ago. Linux was more difficult then!
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/3981/1
dep wrote:
I've made a hobby/career of running or at least trying to run Linux and K/TDE on tiny devices. Here's an experiment from 15 -- almost 16 -- years ago. Linux was more difficult then!
Meanwhile OEM s**k - with that stupid google licensing etc no one is telling you whats in the device, or how it would boot etc. It's like the M$ BS from the 80s. + handheld devices got more and more complicated with all those SoC or all in one chips - without a driver you are lost (like in the 80s).
TDE is not that much an issue now I guess - as soon as you can boot linux - this is the challenge now IMO. The handheld devices beat from performance perspective the desktops from 10y ago already.
Respect for your work, I wish you luck!
regards
-
deloptes -
dep -
Frank Lienhard