<story><title>PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects</title><url>https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deltaonefour</author><text>&amp;gt;That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.&lt;p&gt;I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you&amp;#x27;re in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior.&lt;p&gt;The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers  are willing to spend years decoding an interface</text></item><item><author>matkoniecz</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones.&lt;p&gt;That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford?&lt;p&gt;In many cases they win by default. If &amp;quot;no leaking of personal data&amp;quot; is on mandatory feature list then Pinephones are already better than Android!&lt;p&gt;And there are many projects where there is simply no commercial product at all and is unlikely to ever appear.</text></item><item><author>that_guy_iain</author><text>&amp;gt; Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&amp;#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The reality is, we can&amp;#x27;t. And we&amp;#x27;ll always compare PinePhone and other things to iOS and Android and they&amp;#x27;ll always come up short.&lt;p&gt;Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone.&lt;p&gt;For me, to want to use PinePhone they would need to make it super easy to have Android on there.</text></item><item><author>katmannthree</author><text>The pinephone is great, in fact I&amp;#x27;m typing this comment from mine.&lt;p&gt;That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it&amp;#x27;s slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive &amp;#x2F; answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work).&lt;p&gt;Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&amp;#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>superasn</author><text>I used to feel the exact same way until 2 years ago. But my experience has been absolutely brilliant with Linux mint in the last 2 years. No driver issues, super nice UI and everything just works now!&lt;p&gt;As a matter of fact the only use I have for Windows now is for playing games (also Photoshop).&lt;p&gt;Otoh the amount of clutter and issues I have to deal in Win10 is just bad. I digress but thankfully there is a tool called &amp;quot;Shutup 10&amp;quot; that makes Windows much less annoying.</text></comment>
<story><title>PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects</title><url>https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>deltaonefour</author><text>&amp;gt;That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.&lt;p&gt;I would argue Linux is only superior from the IT software perspective. This is a very narrow perspective that is only inflated if you&amp;#x27;re in IT or on an IT related site like HN. From almost every other dimension Linux is inferior and therefore from an Overall perspective it is inferior.&lt;p&gt;The most important dimensions for an operating system are usability and compatibility. Average users are like this while hard core masochist programmers  are willing to spend years decoding an interface</text></item><item><author>matkoniecz</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones.&lt;p&gt;That is not true. As far as I am concerned Linux is clearly superior OS for my laptop over commercial alternatives.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford?&lt;p&gt;In many cases they win by default. If &amp;quot;no leaking of personal data&amp;quot; is on mandatory feature list then Pinephones are already better than Android!&lt;p&gt;And there are many projects where there is simply no commercial product at all and is unlikely to ever appear.</text></item><item><author>that_guy_iain</author><text>&amp;gt; Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&amp;#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m coming to the realisation that open source projects will always provide a lower quality than comerical ones. How can we honestly expect a small team of developers to compete with the larger teams a commerical project can afford? The reality is, we can&amp;#x27;t. And we&amp;#x27;ll always compare PinePhone and other things to iOS and Android and they&amp;#x27;ll always come up short.&lt;p&gt;Also, a large part of using a smart phone is the apps. Without apps the phone is just really a phone.&lt;p&gt;For me, to want to use PinePhone they would need to make it super easy to have Android on there.</text></item><item><author>katmannthree</author><text>The pinephone is great, in fact I&amp;#x27;m typing this comment from mine.&lt;p&gt;That said, fair warning to anyone thinking about getting one: it&amp;#x27;s slow, buggy, and flat out unreliable if you need to be able to receive &amp;#x2F; answer calls and texts for anything important (e.g. work).&lt;p&gt;Once they get the software worked out over the next few years though, it&amp;#x27;ll be the best thing out there. No ads, no bullshit, just a phone with a mainline linux distribution.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gm</author><text>LOL, so true. I often need to have online meetings with engineers that for some reason prefer Linux as their desktop OS. Guess which meeting participants _always_ delay the meetings because they can&amp;#x27;t get their audio&amp;#x2F;video working for routine meetings?&lt;p&gt;If that happens to pretty tech savvy software engineers, the average user has zero chance of using Linux as a  desktop effectively.</text></comment>