Six years ago the entire Linux enthusiast space was super excited for the PinePhone, then everything fell apart. What went wrong? Was PINE64’s favoritism towards Manjaro the sole issue or were there other problems?
Six years ago the entire Linux enthusiast space was super excited for the PinePhone, then everything fell apart. What went wrong? Was PINE64’s favoritism towards Manjaro the sole issue or were there other problems?
The only reason why consumers like you and me get to enjoy free software on modern PC hardware is because of the expectation of open standards and interoperability set way back when the industry was still growing and computer users gave a shit (or rather, when only the people who gave a shit owned a computer).
Much to the industry giants’ enthusiasm, mobile hardware stacks were developed without this baggage, and so unless something fundamental changes, all mobile devices trying to focus on free software will be doomed to failure by abysmally poor hardware support and aging hand-me-down hardware.
I hope Raptor Computing sticks around. If I manage to get a well paying job I’d love to move on to the POWER ISA on desktop and a Fairphone with Ubuntu Touch.
I know it’s exteremely expensive (I mean the POWER desktop) but with the recent Android news I believe the time for compromise has passed. Those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to do so should adopt fully open hardware whenever possible.