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Furilabs Linux Phone

(furilabs.com)
223 points nikodunk | 2 comments | 14 Oct 24 16:52 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mmh0000 ◴[14 Oct 24 17:56 UTC] No.41840012[source]▶
I want to like it... But, I've been bitten too many times by expensive Linux phones (Oh Nokia N900, how I wanted to love you. but you couldn't even make phone calls without threatening to crash).

It's a little weird that there are very few details on this thing. Notably, one of my #1 concerns when looking for a new phone today is a good camera. And all I can find on the camera is "it's 50MP!!! " But how do actual, non-photoshopped pictures look? Does it do okay in low-light? Does it support any sort of optical zoom?

Their website is currently as slow as a frozen snail (which, if they can't run a basic web server, leads to a lot of doubt they can maintain a long-term Linux distro). So I couldn't click around much, but I didn't find anything really informative.

I tried looking at YouTube videos and only found some weird official videos of a person's hand putting the phone in a sink. Like... Yes, it has been expected for the last 8ish years that my phone will be waterproof, that's not an amazing achievement.

It also seems to be "weird" Linux, like Maemo was for the N900. I don't want weird, custom-built stuff that will be forgotten about in 12 months. Just give me a standard Debain/Fedora/Whatever and an unlocked bootloader to reinstall with what I want.

IMHO they should really look at what Valve did with the steamdeck and SteamOS, It's a custom Linux that works well, but, it's also standard hardware with an open bootloader. There are dozens of SteamOS alternatives.

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1. freedomben ◴[14 Oct 24 18:13 UTC] No.41840236[source]▶
> It also seems to be "weird" Linux, like Maemo was for the N900. I don't want weird, custom-built stuff that will be forgotten about in 12 months. Just give me a standard Debain/Fedora/Whatever and an unlocked bootloader to reinstall with what I want.

I wouldn't say it's a "weird Linux as it's mostly Debian and it's fully rebuildable by the user from the open source scripts[1]. I would likewise love a phone that was just mainline Fedora, but given many of the current challenges around ARM devices with linux, I fully understand why a "custom-built" OS is needed. As long as it's as light-weight as possible and is open source/rebuildable by the user, I think it's a good compromise given the realities around the platform.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840036

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2. mmh0000 ◴[14 Oct 24 19:17 UTC] No.41840879[source]▶
To be fair (insert meme here)

Maemo was "mostly Debian" as well, it was one of the big selling points. Except Maemo was quickly abandoned by Nokia and left unmaintained. To further complicate matters Maemo required arcane tools to build it and install it to a device. Custom community kernels quickly became standard for enabling basic functionality which Nokia should have provided, but, didn't. However, the custom kernels were also frequently left unpatched and abandoned because they were being built and maintained by random internet users who found other hobbies.

I think the idea is awesome and I am excited if not skeptical. I hope Furi manages to build a healthy community around this. And doesn't go the path of so many previous Linux phones.