This week, Linux Out Loud chats about the problems of being a fanboy/girl.
Welcome to episode 30 of Linux Out Loud. We fired up our mics, connected those headphones as we searched the community for themes to expound upon. We kept the banter friendly, the conversation somewhat on topic, and had fun doing it.
00:00 Introduction
01:11 Robot Update
05:30 Flathub Games
08:56 Hardware Purge
18:00 Super Fandom
40:14 C64s
43:11 PyBricks
49:05 Game of the Week
54: Close
It’s like owning a high maintenance exotic pet that no one knows how to take care of but despite the shredded furniture and crazy vet bills i’ve finally learned how to care for it and maybe it’s the Stockholm syndrome speaking but love is love and even if it claws my face sometimes I think we share a common bond that was worth the struggle. <3
I love the fact you are using it as a daily! Every time I read you talking about how much you love yours, it reminds me to get mine Pine Phone back out.
When I gave you the Pinephone challenge I had given up on the Pinephone six months before then. It was death by a million deal breakers across multiple versions of multiple OSs. Beyond turning it on and kinda-using it for a few hours it was highly unreliable and a terrible Linux device let alone a phone.
Had I just missed something? Was it just me?
Had the phone become usable in the last 6 months?
If someone had my experience of trying to really use it, would they still call it a “tinkerers phone” or a hot piece of slag?
OS developers weren’t using the phone
The best example (of many) is if you forgot to plug it in and went to bed every OS would over-discharge the battery beyond the point the phone could recharge it and you’d have to recover it externally. That’s been a problem since before 2020 and I solved it early 2022 (at least for me) with a simple BASH script. It’s a problem that can’t exist if just one OS dev actually uses the phone.
Persistance
Around the Pinephone Pro release (only a few months ago) is when the Standard Pinephone (non-pro) became usable as a decent Linux phone using Mobian or PostmarketOS Phosh (imho). It also requires the keyboard case to make daily driving viable in terms of battery life.
Heavy air quotes because you still need to be VERY curious in order to figure out how to integrate it into your life and ideally be willing to read the official Pinephone/Mobian wikis end-to-end which to their credit are extremely good.
Rewards
Pinephone development is slow, has always been slow and from what I can tell will always be slow but from everything i’ve seen and continue to see the people involved are highly dedicated, high quality individuals that just do not stop. Owning a Pinephone is like owning an exotic pet that you uniquely know how to use and once it’s done scratching your face off it’s an extremely rewarding experience that’s hard to communicate but you’ll know it when you feel it.
