Sailfish OS (officially) on Sony Xperia devices - Page 17 - maemo.org

thedead1440 | # 161 | 2017-03-12, 17:30 | Report

Originally Posted by deprecated View Post

I think people are looking at this all wrong.

Sony is looking for new ground to differentiate itself in the smartphone market. Their "open hardware" wing is working closely with Jolla to provide OFFICIALLY SUPPORTED images for Xperia X and several other models in the same Xperia family. This is a test, nothing more, to determine whether or not they want to release branded devices with Sailfish already baked in.

If either dumped everything into it without gauging interest, well... you know how that would go. Jolla and Sailfish would have another mark against them and then this chance will have been wasted.

I for one am very excited to get Sailfish on modern hardware. Even if that means doing it myself with officially supported images.

I have had the Xperia Z-Z5 and this open hardware thing of Sony is just hogwash. Most of the time, the SW is not properly optimised or camera has missing drivers for months. For example, the Z3 I remember very well even 9 months after release didn't have a daily driver AOSP due to missing camera binaries leading to a "fish-eye" effect on photos. Their DRM means unlocked bootloaders usually have to work-around to maintain camera quality even though most other OEM devices on the market today use Sony sensors and don't have this DRM but are able to produce superior quality images.

This "open hardware wing" of theirs is at most a few people who they got from the XDA community and I wouldn't be surprised with devices other than the Xperia X having issues. Even with the Xperia X I am pretty sure something or another will be compromised i.e. battery life, camera quality etc.

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juiceme | # 162 | 2017-03-12, 17:43 | Report

Originally Posted by t-b View Post

SFOS was indeed 'sold' as being a proper Linux OS but doesn't feel like that, for me probably due to the lack of 'apt-get' and just being a non hardware keyboard focussed OS. I am certainly going to give it some more time as you suggested. I like playing around with different technologies.

Well apt-get is for debian packages, SFOS uses RPM's which means you just need to use pkcon or zypper to work with it, otherwice the experience is pretty much identical.

Originally Posted by t-b View Post

I have installed Termux on android and was pretty impressed with the ability to apt-get some of my favourite Linux programs and as far as I know rsync, ssh are available as well.

I suppose there are lots of ways to get better console experience to android devices, however all those are more or less glued-on-top solutions; it is a pain to maintain your setup and you will miss lots of the advantages of the simple GNU/Linux userland.

Originally Posted by t-b View Post

Originally Posted by juiceme View Post

In just 3 words; glibc vs. bionic

GPL vs BSD or is there more to it?

There's loads and loads more to it. The whole android userland is a perversion of the real thing. It's a bad joke. You can patch it and add stuff to make working on a terminal better but why bother since the user experience will always be inferior.

On true GNU-userland-having mobile device like SFOS you can really easily do anything you can on a larger desktop machine, anything.

Originally Posted by t-b View Post

So I guess in theory easier to port existing programs? Emacs seems to be still 24.3 in openrepos (latest version of Emacs is my personal OS litmus test

) . Even my good old N900 has 25.1

Porting just about anything is possible, of course some things are harder than others. I have not looked into emacs but I suppose if one version has been ported it is no-brainer to port a later version.

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rinigus | # 163 | 2017-03-12, 18:33 | Report

Originally Posted by kinggo View Post

@rinigus well, I said "a few....". But how many people do you know that would be willing to go through that process just to try new OS?

Not much, maybe 1

. And I am not arguing its gonna bring masses. However, device like this, is required to keep people on the platform. Let's not forget, before that, we did not have anything to get in EU/US and many other places. If its gonna expose platform to more, then its fine. But its important to give developers and current users some hardware as well.

I am sorry, can't keep up with this thread fully and probably someone already voiced this opinion earlier.

Originally Posted by t-b View Post

So I guess in theory easier to port existing programs? Emacs seems to be still 24.3 in openrepos (latest version of Emacs is my personal OS litmus test

) . Even my good old N900 has 25.1

Depends on a program. Some are quite easy and some are harder (we don't have X11, for example).

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t-b | # 164 | 2017-03-12, 19:05 | Report

Originally Posted by juiceme View Post

You can patch it and add stuff to make working on a terminal better but why bother since the user experience will always be inferior.

Thanks for all your answers - probably have to work a bit more with SFOS to experience the better user experience

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r0kk3rz | # 165 | 2017-03-12, 19:37 | Report

Originally Posted by rinigus View Post

Not much, maybe 1

. And I am not arguing its gonna bring masses. However, device like this, is required to keep people on the platform. Let's not forget, before that, we did not have anything to get in EU/US and many other places. If its gonna expose platform to more, then its fine. But its important to give developers and current users some hardware as well.

Spot on, without first-party devices to buy its not so much about growing the userbase as slowing the rate of attrition. Unfortunately thats what it has come to but maybe it might lead to a proper sony supported device in the future.

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r0kk3rz | # 166 | 2017-03-15, 10:20 | Report

Ok even though the Community Meeting was postponed today we managed to get a little information from Jolla about the Sony Devices Project.

On the question of how it will be released, it sounds like thats still to be decided.

Originally Posted by James Noori

Sony Xperia plans are on-going. As you know, we are going to collaborate with Sony Open devices to bring Sailfish OS to certain Xperia devices. How that will be available is still in the works, will it be a ROM, will it be a phone you can purchase? We don't have that answer for the public yet.

But as promised, we are planning to be done with everything by the end of this year's first half. Of course that could possibly depend on Sony as well as they form half of the deal here

But expect official news during that time frame

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mosen | # 167 | 2017-03-15, 12:28 | Report

Originally Posted by r0kk3rz View Post

*snip* bring Sailfish OS to certain Xperia devices *snip*

certain ≠ all, to row back on that rumor.

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lantern | # 168 | 2017-03-15, 13:19 | Report

mosen
You couldn't expect all, because there are MTK devices and old ones.

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kinggo | # 169 | 2017-03-15, 13:39 | Report

and we knew that since devices in open program are only qualcomm based.

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mikecomputing | # 170 | 2017-03-15, 20:13 | Report

Originally Posted by t-b View Post

Can someone explain to me why Sailfish OS is better than Android (without GAPPS)? I have tried LineageOS and Sailfish on a Droid 4 and they both work fine.
SFOS is indeed different but tbh not that different. Not even sure if something totally deviating is possible on any modern phone with a capacitive screen. They all feel roughly the same to me.

I like SFOS for two reasons:

* Qt
* I prefer swipe over those shitty legacy buttons used on Android/IOS to navigate.

It's such a shame no more apps are ported to SFOS. Qt is nice.

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