Will Sailfish OS be officially supported on the FP2?

A new year but the same dream!

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Add me as one more voice who is still waiting for a Fairphone with officially supported Sailfish OS! When that is released, I will buy one in a heartbeat. I don’t care about any of the other selling points, and I would not buy an Android device in a million years. In the past I’ve had 3 Nokia N900’s, one N9 and one N950. I have had a Jolla 1 since the start, and right now I have a Jolla C and a backup Intex Aqua Fish, but I will be first in line for a Sailfish Fairphone - even if it is built with conflict minerals by starving African child slaves! Alternatively I’ll buy the Finnish PuzzlePhone, but that seems to be a long way off, still…

In any case, am I the only one seeing the hypocrisy in making a supposedly “fair” phone, and then letting it be powered by an OS made by the most evil company in the world - Google?

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well, FP is more about fair hardware and much less about fair software. And these are different points.
And you should care about where hardware is coming from, about ecology and pollution and slavery and other stuff… it’s not all about you and your personal data, you know.
But it also saddens me a lot that i can not use official SF build on FP. I don’t want to use Adnroid and it’s really hard sometimes without official SF support. It’s like sophie’s choice=(

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Do you know Fairphone Open?

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oh come on=) everyone here knows it! But it’s still android. And many android applications depend on google services

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What’s so bad about AOSP? Sailfish OS itself uses AOSP code, if I’m not mistaken. PS.: I’m running my phone without Google Services.

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Stefan, the Problem is, we want a real Linux OS on the Phone. Android AOSP is a bit better than Android with GMS, but it is still Android. It uses Linux Kernel, but it is still not a real Linux OS.

If you ever had a Nokia N900, Nokia N9, maybe Nokia N950, Jolla Phone… You will understand it.
We want a full Linux. Not just Android with an Linux Kernel

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No, I only had a Nokia C5 that I used for about half a year because the rest of the year it was in “reparation” (three times!), and they could not fix the trashy phone… :sweat_smile: That was my reason for buying the FP1… :wink:

I have played around with Sailfish OS on the FP2 and it wasn’t very useful in my opinion…

Which Linux functionality are you missing in Android?

Well, you are not using Linux on your PC, or am i wrong? :slight_smile:
Linux give an advanced user not only the ability to use (consume) the apps, which other people have created.
Linux give the ability to create something by yourself. And I am not a software Developer!

With Linux you can repair (and also brake) anything you want. Sky is the only limit.
Of course, this is not for everyone, but People, who crying loud for official SailfishOS Support, you can’t fascinate them with Fairphone Open. A normal 08/15 user - maybe. But not us, mature Linux freaks…

This is ok, that you did’n find SailfishOS very usefull, its depends on what you want to do with you phone.
I bought FP2 not because its Fair and ethical, but because its easy repairable and open.

This aspects are important for me - for you can be other aspects important. Its ok. All people are different.
All i want to say - if we would be fascinated with Fairphone Open - we would never cry for official Sailfish Support. We want to have a real Linux Computer in the pocket. Taht is our dream, and we live this dream…
Who knows, maybe we will get with FP2, Maybe not. Maybe with FP5 or any other company…

lets look…

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No, I’m on Windows 10, but I have used Linux. And I would happily change to Linux if there was AutoCAD and Adobe Illustrator on it… I often curse Windows for not being intuitive.

Still, I don’t see what I can’t do in Android. There is a terminal emulator and Busybox. With root you can modify any file. There are a lot of modifications, such as Gravity Box and Xprivacy. Can you give me an example, other than Sailfish’s great user interface, for something that Android can’t do?

Hi @explit,
I’m not a power user and the reason why I’m interested in the Sailfish project is that I would like to see on the market an OS that is really independent. I’m happy that Fairphone offers an open OS, but they depend too much on Google, as they must follow Google security updates and follow Google’s agenda.
I have two questions:

  1. what do you think about Ubuntu Touch? Would it also be a good alternative for you?
  2. What do you think about all the news about Russia’s interest for Sailfish? Do you think it will help Sailfish to develop faster or do you think that there is a risk that sailfish will be less independent?
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Ubuntu Touch is a good OS, but i see more future behind SailfishOS. Its simplier, more intuitive, less complex.

Even if your phone show you a black screen - you can access it from ssh and fix the broken component which prevent UI from starting. That is not possible with android. you can compile on the device. you can work on a very low level. You can use all the tools, you have in linux: mutt, gcc, make etc. You can use all the network tools, traceroute, nmap etc.

In Android is all that not possible. Even with root, even with Terminal

Android is an Mobile OS on top of Linux Kernel, you can go on a level deeper with root and terminal, but you can’t go as deep like in SailfishOS

Have you actually compiled anything on Sailfish OS? :hushed:

Well, you’re not the only one, Russia wants to buy 15000 phones with Sailfish :grin::

Why we want to have sailfish? I think because we are a little bit crazy like everybody who buys a fairphone :wink:

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Main reason for me to favour Gnu/Linux instead of Android is the higher degree of openness. See FP1 and the trouble you are having to get updates. This is not likely to happen under Gnu/Linux. See the situation on desktop computers: you can run the latest OS-versions on very old computers. And this just makes sense, if it comes to durability. And I want the same in the phone world.

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@sverris That’s because of the closed source blobs. The FP2 faces the same problem to a lower degree. I’d have loved Sailfish OS on the FP1, but that’s not possible because Mediatek made this phone’s software as hard to modify as possible.

Sailfish OS and AOSP both suffer from closed source drivers.

Yes, and this is the main problem of Android that vendors give sh** about maintaining their software for a longer period of time, and Google does not care about it either. Less openness > no outsider can maintain > bad for durability.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html

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It’s about the hardware. Almost all smartphones, including Fairphone 2 (and to a worse extend Fairphone 1) have some proprietary hardware components, thus binary blobs are needed to make the hardware work. Whether you want to have Android or Sailfish or whatever on it, does not make a difference.

I believe that the whole Sailfish story is a hype. I do not understand why people want it. Some people speak of fairness. If you talk about software, I’d think you talk about free software. Sailfish is not free software. As with Fairphone OS and Fairphone Open, there are some binary blobs. In case of Sailfish you have a proprietary user interface on top of it. In case of Fairphone OS you have Google Services (normally) enabled. None of them are free software, but relatively speaking, Fairphone Open is the “most free”, as in: there are only a few binary blobs, and as long as the hardware is not open, there is no option to avoid those.

It is argued that you have more control over your system with Sailfish. Since it is not free software, I’d argue that this is not true. Still, maybe it is more Unix-like — is it like GNU or BSD? —, but I need to see first that this is the case before I believe it. In any case, on my Fairphone Open (without Google Services) I have the app Termux. From this I ssh to my server if I want a Unix-like system.

I have the feeling that Sailfish is very overrated. Am I wrong? Do people have experience with this OS, specifically the experience that you have more control over your device, or are there features in Sailfish that you need that are simply not available on Android and derivatives?

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