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Comment by penguin_booze

4 months ago

Ugh, I don't know. From a practical standpoint, I can see why basing on Android makes sense. But I really wish we can "somehow" extend an existing Linux distribution (or an Android kernel, even) with a user space reworked to function well on small screens. Maybe that's a pipe dream.

What I'd really, really prefer is to be able to program the device with the same ease as developing a local Linux application. If I need a UI, I'd rather that be a web front end, and not something that needs GBs and GBs of special IDEs and other bloatware. That way, we don't need specialised "apps" for each and every thing: any service that already has website, should work as it is. Just point a browser at it.

And how do I tweak an "app's" UI if I must, rather than beholden to it? That's right: web extensions.

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penguin_booze

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pabs3  4 months ago

OpenMoko had that more than a decade ago, there were a multitude of distros. I ran Debian with X11 and Enlightenment on it at one point. QtMoko was probably the best one for the Freerunner hardware though, much more suited to the small touchscreen.

woodrowbarlow  4 months ago

i agree, except the web part.

Purism did a lot of work to build Phosh, based on Gnome, with GTK apps that had fluid layout. on a phone-size screen, the UI was suited for touch; but connect it to a screen and everything seamlessly switches to a standard Gnome UI.

i would rather see this get mainlined into Gnome, and for it to be common-practice to design desktop apps with a fluid layout that can adapt to phone screens.