Fairphone 3+ or FP4 - FPOS, OpenOS, Sailfish OS?

Android is a Linux OS, maybe you mean de-Googled, but I can’t see any of the other Linux OS’s becoming mainstream. I was rooting for Ubuntu Touch, but alas, it’s peripheral.

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What do you determine is a ‘Linux phone’

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Thanks for your response. I suppose I just see them all as Linux and none other than Android are likely to be mainstream for a very long time.

This is a list of Linux distros directly targeted towards use with mobile phones, being offered preconfigured with the mobile-oriented software listed below. There are both phone producers who develop their own operating systems and independent developments by community projects. Outside of these, several traditional distros have versions compiled for ARM architecture, which could be configured to use these components. This is done, for example, with Manjaro by the PinePhone.

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Additionally, regarding Fairphone Open OS for the Fairphone 3/3+ they say “For Fairphone 2, we offered Fairphone Open, an OS with no Google services pre-installed. Fairphone Open will NOT work on the FP3/FP3+.”.

For the Fairphone 4 however, they say “In the past, we offered Fairphone Open for our devices. Fairphone Open is an OS without pre-installed Google services. Unfortunately, you will not be able to run Fairphone Open OS on your Fairphone 4. Yet.”Yet :bangbang:

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I just tried it again by re-installing Ubuntu Touch on my Nexus 7 2013 (flo) tablet, and I actually like it more now. I am still not sure how viable it is for my needs, but I will keep testing…

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While much has been written about alternative OSs and custom ROMs. I notice that the Fairphone 3(+) still appears to have an unsolved issue regarding random reboots. Is this being addressed?

Not something that has happened to me. I think there may have been some occurrences on certain carriers.

If you are thinking of getting an FP3 maybe you would like to mention your location and the carrier you would use.

Denmark / Oister are the location and carrier.

Maybe worth contacting someone in Denmark to see if they have ever had a problem with that carrier. I haven’t heard of such.

Here are some posts referencing Denmark, you could look at them for some guidance or contact that may help.
https://forum.fairphone.com/search?q=denmark%20

You could also ask via fairphone@support//dot\com for an official statement.

The OSs are rolled out to the main networks/carriers

Oister is a virtual network. You can dig deeper but it’s all a bit of a web

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Just wanted to chime in: you can print your QR code multiple times, have one with you in your bag, your jacket, etc. Never have to take out your smartphone or have it with you.

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Be aware Pinephone only give one month warranty to their products, and you get to pay tax on top of the mentioned price (for me 21%, Germany 19%, etc).

I can recommend a Pinephone to play around with alternative OSes. But I cannot recommend it as daily driver. Nor would I recommend a Pinephone Pro for that purpose as it is an expensive device (400 USD + tax + S&H) while it has one month warranty. Read it again, slowly: one month warranty on a device costing 400 USD. WTF?

The list of OSes might seem impressive:

https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php?title=PinePhone_Software_Releases

Let me quote the list:

1.1 Arch Linux ARM
1.2 ExpidusOS
1.3 Fedora
1.4 Gentoo
1.5 GloDroid
1.6 LuneOS
1.7 Maemo Leste
1.8 Manjaro ARM
1.9 Mobian
1.10 Multi-distro demo image
1.11 Nemo Mobile
1.12 NixOS
1.13 OpenMandriva Lx
1.14 openSUSE
1.15 postmarketOS
1.16 PureOS
1.17 Sailfish OS
1.18 SkiffOS
1.19 Sxmo
1.20 Ubuntu Touch

However, it just denotes the fragmentation of Linux distributions (Arch, Fedora, Gentoo, Manjaro, Mobian, NixOS, OpenMandriva, openSUSE, Ubuntu Touch being familiar names in desktop/server world) if you ask me. There’s only a couple of usage capacitive touch UIs.

pmOS is basically what I thought Mer would be 10 years ago. Nemo is just SFOS with Glacier, their replacement for the SFOS proprietary UI, and it isn’t ready at all. PureOS is just Purism’s fork of whatever FOSS plus their proprietary services. The only interesting OS nowadays, is IMO NixOS, but it isn’t about OSes. It is about mobile UIs. And there’s only 5 viable choices (with whatever name of proprietary UI): 1) iOS 2) Android/AOSP 3) Sailfish OS 4) KDE Mobile 5) GNOME Mobile. Something like Suckless isn’t worth mentioning, nobody’s gonna use that with a touch UI. With a HW keyboard, sure. Also of note: JumpDrive is cool stuff to give things a whirl, makes it very easy.

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I think you need to read the store page for the PinePhone again. It states on the page:

This is the Beta Edition of the PinePhone. The pre-installed Manjaro with Plasma Mobile OS, that ships with this edition of the PinePhone, is a beta software build. This effectively means that while core functionality of the PinePhone still an ongoing effort. Thus, the device cannot considered a consumer-ready product.

So this is very much a development device, and as I mentioned further up I suspect 4-5 years until we have something that can be used as a daily driver, if we are lucky.

As far as a HW keyboard there is this in development.

image

400 USD is only for the Pro model, 150 or 200 USD for the regular model depending on if you want the convergence edition (for desktop mode wit usb etc). Paying tax and handling fees on top is quite normal, I have to do this for any product shopped from outside of Norway. They are a small company and you won’t find anywhere else that have assembled the components and put together a system that gives you a development platform at these prices. I don’t believe they make much money from these either

So I would prefer if we were honest when talking about these things, it is doing others and Pine64 a disservice otherwise.

Off topic response to the off topic addendum

There is no we, each person has their view of the world around them and you can note yours. There is no obligation to have a fixed view but I agree that some views are so estarnged from others I do wonder if some people are even looking in even the same sector as me let alone a similar direction.

Still as there is no set ‘we’ I accept that some people believe in words and views of Mohamed others Trump and still others Bezos

People are honest in reporting what they see, which doesn’t have to be a universal fact or even true to another single individual.

It is not if you buy B2C within EU. If you buy B2C within EU the mentioned price is always excluding VAT. Shipping fees must be clear before transaction is finalized. Now, the question is, is this ‘within the EU’? Good luck finding that out on the website of Pine64 :slight_smile: they’re in Hong Kong, but its hard to find on the website. Also, within the EU, it would not matter if it is a ‘development device’. You get warranty regardless. So, yes, this is all very important information to know from a buyer perspective. Information which isn’t easily deducible from their website. Why not? Why obscure such? And I did mention it is a development device. 400 USD for a development device with a month warranty, are you kidding me?

That you are from Norway (outside EU) is also an exception on this forum. The vast majority of visitors on this forum are from EU.

Of course you don’t find for such price, nobody’s in EU can compete with one month warranty, as it is illegal. The smartphones are not fairly made (in any way) so its very cheap labor, and the SoC in Pinephone is from like 5 years ago.

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I agree that one month warranty is a joke. 1 year warranty would be the minimum norm IMO, regardless of where it is manufactured. I didn’t know that they ship from Hong Kong - I agree that this is something that should be easy to find. Those two issues aside, there really isn’t any alternatives to what they provide.

The subject wasn’t really about Pine64 though, I was looking at the possibility that we may have a decent Linux option in a few years. There aren’t any consumer-ready distributions at the moment, but I am following the progress of various projects since I am personally interested. The problem is the same as it has always been though, most of the device drivers for ARM-based products are closed-source. As SoC get more and more powerful we will eventually have well supported (albeit older) hardware that can function well for a Linux-based smartphone. Significant progress has already been made since the release of the PinePhone, and I’m hoping that they keep the momentum up.

where is possible to get what you are trying to do? thanks

Edit: maybe I got you wrong and you are just working with a port to FP2? or it was to FP3’?

I’m working on Sailfish OS ports on both FP2 and FP3, but FP3 port is not yet public.

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Looking so much forward for it. Thanks