Purism Librem 5 got over 100% funded, ready for a real Linux phone?

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土着神
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Right before I would get to sleep, I've noticed that Purism has finally reached their crowdfunding goals to create a fully open, fully private Linux smartphone.
I congratulated them on Mastodon.
mstdn.jp

At the moment of typing (Tuesday morning), they've released a presser:
Purism Meets Its $1.5 Million Goal for Security Focused Librem 5 Smartphone One Week After Surging Past the 50% Mark – Purism

All the details and stuff can be found here:
Librem 5 – A Security and Privacy Focused Phone – Purism

The phone runs on PureOS with either Gnome or KDE (your choice), but you can also install most other Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc.
It comes with hardware kill switches for Bluetooth, WiFi, Baseband, camera, microphone, etc.

So, anyone looking forward?
 
Sooooo, this is supposed to be the best of the best to come out then?
 
It is good to see there are more choices in Linux laptops instead of just Dell, and System76.
 
Sooooo, this is supposed to be the best of the best to come out then?
Depends on what you think really.
I've been waiting countless of years for a real Linux phone myself.
Now considering the duopoly Apple and Google hold in this market with all the competition to be guaranteed to die, plus more people rely on either of the 2 nowadays far more than on PCs, Android and iOS are the perfect spying tool for governments.

Purism promises every single thing about it to be open source.
I know that Linus Torvalds even got reached out by the NSA at one point to request him to program a backdoor into the Linux kernel.
Luckily, he didn't do that, simply because of its open nature, it's not even possible to sneak such a thing in unnoticed.

Most mobile OSs died mostly due to the lack of developer support.
However, Linux apps are almost always open source, and PureOS should be able to run anything an Intel-based PC can, as long as the source code is available (so that you can compile it for your hardware, as we Linux users all know).

I ran a prototype Plasma Mobile OS on my old Nexus 5 at one point, it came with the desktop version of Firefox, and the Terminal was also just an up-scaled desktop version (mostly notable since I were unable to close the "About" dialogue window without killing the app entirely).
 
I'm not sure what you mean by that, because that's totally not my point (and not the point of this phone).

This phone already has an advantage on 2 fronts:
1. It can run everything a Linux desktop can run, as long as it can be compiled on ARM processors (so forget about Google Chrome or Discord, but you can still use Chromium and the open source version of Visual Studio Code for example).
2. It doesn't depend on software sales nor app sales, only on hardware sales.

A recent example would be Mastodon.
It's still far from as popular as Twitter, but it still can't fail.
Why? Because it's open source, and it's a hobbyist who made it and he doesn't want to profit from it (he's a student after all).

This is also how Linux has been around for 26 years, and despite its lack of popularity and recognition is still actively being maintained; there's no company behind it, but instead it relies on thousands of programmers maintaining the code in their free time.

I know this phone actually comes from a company, but as I said, they've always been selling hardware, not software.
And this phone has enough USPs to become a potential 3rd player (because the previous 3rd player (Windows 10 Mobile) is now finally confirmed dead), even if barely anyone knows about it.
 
I say that because they either make a phone that most people can use and does what they say or the end up with a phone that only knowledgeable linux users can use and doesn't come up to the standards they promised.
 
I say that because they either make a phone that most people can use and does what they say or the end up with a phone that only knowledgeable linux users can use and doesn't come up to the standards they promised.

A custom ROM will be useful for people who are stuck with a hard to use Operating System and to remove bloatware.
 
I say that because they either make a phone that most people can use and does what they say or the end up with a phone that only knowledgeable linux users can use and doesn't come up to the standards they promised.
The main point here is that you get a choice, like you do on PCs for decades.
Either you stick with a closed ecosystem, or you look for a more open operating system, and find the distribution that fits you best.
a hard to use Operating System
Each time I read stuff like "Windows/macOS is easy and Linux is hard", I wonder in what age a given person still lives.
It has been the case back in the 1990s, but mostly because Linux was still young back then, while Microsoft and Apple already had lots of experience with operating systems.
And it's also a matter of what you're used to.
I've been a Linux user since the beginning, only got introduced to Windows when I went to middle school for the first time.
Wanna know how difficult Windows XP felt to me compared to Debian at the time?
 
The main point here is that you get a choice, like you do on PCs for decades.
Either you stick with a closed ecosystem, or you look for a more open operating system, and find the distribution that fits you best.

Each time I read stuff like "Windows/macOS is easy and Linux is hard", I wonder in what age a given person still lives.
It has been the case back in the 1990s, but mostly because Linux was still young back then, while Microsoft and Apple already had lots of experience with operating systems.
And it's also a matter of what you're used to.
I've been a Linux user since the beginning, only got introduced to Windows when I went to middle school for the first time.
Wanna know how difficult Windows XP felt to me compared to Debian at the time?

A lot of people don't do a lot of research, and rely on the computer sales staff, news, or tech blogs opinion on which operating system is harder or easier to learn. A lot of professionals working at computer stores and the media like the local news may favor Microsoft and Apples because they earn a lot of money selling and advertising MS and Apple products. Some computer stores also earn a lot of money removing viruses, and malware from Windows computers, so if they recommend Linux, their virus removal business may not earn as much money for their store.

But, Windows seems to break more easily than other operating systems, so Windows can be more frustrating and harder to use when it comes to maintenance. A lot of the times, it is almost impossible to fix Windows without formatting the hard drive, and reinstalling Windows from an install disc.

The reliability of Windows can be difficult to predict because viruses, and failed Windows updates can break Windows at any time.
 
That's also not entirely correct.
Windows isn't an OS that breaks more easily per se, the reason it breaks more easily than anything else is because it has a way larger user base (majority of them are those that aren't nearly as technical), and the OS allows too much.
That kind of people are more likely to believe ads like "this app will keep your computer fast" or people with an Indian accent claiming to be Microsoft staff that call you out of nowhere to inform you you've got a virus.

I've let a child use Linux Mint for a week at one point, first on Cinnamon, and then on MATE.
She managed to break MATE much sooner than Cinnamon, not because MATE is harder to use, but because MATE provides more freedom and power to the user.
 
That's also not entirely correct.
Windows isn't an OS that breaks more easily per se, the reason it breaks more easily than anything else is because it has a way larger user base (majority of them are those that aren't nearly as technical), and the OS allows too much.
That kind of people are more likely to believe ads like "this app will keep your computer fast" or people with an Indian accent claiming to be Microsoft staff that call you out of nowhere to inform you you've got a virus.

I've let a child use Linux Mint for a week at one point, first on Cinnamon, and then on MATE.
She managed to break MATE much sooner than Cinnamon, not because MATE is harder to use, but because MATE provides more freedom and power to the user.

I know with sone Linux operating systems like Ubuntu, you need an admin password to install software, and change settings, so if you dont give them the admin password, it maybe harder for some users to break.
 
This actually applies to all Linux distro's, unless you explicitly turn it off or if you use your computer as root, but in both cases you'll be called out for being a major retard by premu the entire Linux community.

But I was rather talking about stuff that don't require root permissions, like changing the way the panels look like for example, or keyboard layouts for your own account, etc.
 
This actually applies to all Linux distro's, unless you explicitly turn it off or if you use your computer as root, but in both cases you'll be called out for being a major retard by premu the entire Linux community.

But I was rather talking about stuff that don't require root permissions, like changing the way the panels look like for example, or keyboard layouts for your own account, etc.

A lot of users are teach by the owner of the computer, school, and workplace to not change settings on system settings program related to the keyboard, mouse, sound, and video.

The settings programs in Linux operating systems like Ubuntu, Lubuntu and Puppy Linux are not very difficult to use in my experience.

I think users can always change back settings if they remember what program they use for changing settings related to keyboard and panels, and change back to the original settings by using their mouse and keyboard.

At least, in Linux it is less common for new users to change Settings Registry files and settings text files like Windows where an error in the registry, or settings text file can break the OS,
 
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