**** BEGIN LOGGING AT Tue May 26 02:59:57 2020 May 26 12:47:18 Pushing forward Debian on mobile devices https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/d820059d-a4fd-a0c7-851a-164f76ec9652@gmail.com May 26 13:01:20 very nice! May 26 13:02:09 Not sure I understand what's the plan about it. What middleware, what UI... May 26 13:02:34 probably all the stuff from distros like Purism PureOS and postmarketOS May 26 13:03:15 IIRC Purism use GNOME primarily, postmarketOS wrote a bunch of stuff May 26 13:03:26 and freesmartphone is completely ignored May 26 13:04:36 The architecture is unclear :( May 26 13:09:21 sounds to me like a debian based postmarketos (which i think is a very good idea) May 26 13:10:03 But what is postmarketos? What the main idea of it? May 26 13:10:11 I've read about it several times but couldn't get it. May 26 13:12:01 postmarketOS is basically Alpine Linux optimised for mobile. May 26 13:12:26 ... May 26 13:12:30 It doesn't tell a thing May 26 13:16:40 it is what OSes like SHR were May 26 13:18:11 except in this case, the UI stack isn't built from the ground up, but makes a few adjustments to what Gnome (in the case of Phosh/PureOS) and KDE (Plasma Mobile) May 26 13:19:59 I can tell what SHR was. May 26 13:21:15 It was an OE-built system with FSO middlewhere (including opimd for managing contacts etc) and custom GUI apps built with enlightment libraries; e17 with Illume module on Xorg for system GUI. May 26 13:21:29 PaulFertser: what is the architecture of Debian? May 26 13:22:24 rah: Debian is a general purpose GNU/Linux system, using apt+deb, systemd for process management etc by default. Not rolling release type. May 26 13:23:27 It's possible to run FSO + SHR packaged for Debian. It is not really important for telephony functions what kind of general purpose OS distro is used. May 26 13:23:42 PaulFertser: I would imagine that is also the architecture of Mobian May 26 13:24:01 rah: pabs3 just told us Mobian doesn't use FSO. May 26 13:24:17 I mean "a general purpose GNU/Linux system, using apt+deb, systemd for process management etc by default. Not rolling release type." May 26 13:25:13 I would be surprised if the Mobian people have got as far as thinking about an "architecture" May 26 13:25:17 Well, it would be odd if Mobian deviated much from Debian in that regard. May 26 13:25:31 their focus is on packaging software at the moment May 26 13:25:57 they don't have a coherent whole as a vision they are aiming for, they just want Debian on the PinePhone and friends May 26 13:25:58 plasma and phosh/pureOS have their own middleware (which can also be run on any distro, hence postmarketOS/Alpin and Mobian/Debian) May 26 13:25:59 Yes, and my question was about what relevant software is going to be packaged and what architecture of the result is going to be. May 26 13:26:46 I would guess that the software which will be packaged will be whichever software each particular developer feels like packaging May 26 13:27:12 the resulting architecture, as is, will most likely be: mess May 26 13:27:50 rah: so can you please tell more about the alternatives? Is there any overview of a sane software stack? May 26 13:28:46 as I understand it, no sane software stack exists May 26 13:29:26 various groups are trying to build various software stacks May 26 13:29:42 closest to success is probably UBports May 26 13:31:25 I would expect any attempt at creating a product like that to provide a comparison with FSO2 listing the rationales behind doing things differently/sane for all major points. May 26 13:31:49 an expectation eh? May 26 13:32:01 dangerous things those :-) May 26 13:33:00 what do you guys mean by 'software stack' - noob question :) May 26 13:33:07 Oh well, how about comparison with maemo architecture? With what Replicant is doing. Etc etc. May 26 13:33:49 To create something new and good one has to be aware of the previous attempts right? May 26 13:36:03 Maemo is still very much alive, as Maemo Leste (https://maemo-leste.github.io/ ) May 26 13:36:30 sicelo: complex software systems are not monolith so it's very important how a set of big tasks is split into subtasks, what are the abstraction layers, what the API between them is like etc. And the most important question is why it should be done that way, hence my expectations for the rationale to exist. May 26 13:39:30 https://leste.maemo.org/Nokia_N900 doesn't look encouraging. May 26 13:40:20 in what sense? May 26 13:40:55 In the sense that I still can't use an N900 as a daily cellphone without proprietary software. May 26 13:41:37 well, it's still WIP May 26 13:41:41 the Leste team is small May 26 13:41:49 For 10+ years... May 26 13:41:52 the UI code still needs to be written for those daily cellphone asks May 26 13:42:11 PaulFertser: that's the part that nobody bothered rewriting during the past 10 years May 26 13:42:35 The status page says sound is not usable, doesn't matter if GUI is there or not. May 26 13:43:10 bencoh: I'm not blaming anybody. I'm just sad to not see it working. May 26 13:43:15 * sicelo checks ... sound works May 26 13:43:22 sicelo: for GSM calls? May 26 13:44:19 bencoh: I wrote my own UI for FSO2, it was relatively easy, and I can assure you I used it daily for many years, so it's not too clumsy. But of course that was possible just because FSO2 was doing all the real work. May 26 13:45:14 ah, that works, but with bad quality, due to how the modem handles sound. a lot of the filtering then has to happen in pulseaudio, and no one has figured out how to do it right yet May 26 13:45:24 Well, if you want comparisons, maemo-leste is probably going to use ofono as part of the core telephony stack May 26 13:45:31 that and telepathy (I think) May 26 13:45:42 TBH I didn't check re FSO, but OpenMoko-era stuff has very little mindshare so it is extremely unlikely people working on 2020 mobile stuff have heard of FSO, let alone be using it May 26 13:46:02 pabs3: actually some of those heard of it May 26 13:46:06 ;) May 26 13:46:18 (not that I'm really active tbh) May 26 13:46:30 I even dove in the code May 26 13:46:33 oh, did the postmarketOS people package it? May 26 13:46:48 Dunno about pmOS May 26 13:47:04 I'm more interested in leste than pmOS to be fair :) May 26 13:47:53 +1 :) May 26 13:48:13 * pabs3 wonders if there any chance of Maemo folks working on Debian itself May 26 13:48:30 maemo-leste is devuan-based May 26 13:48:48 it basically provides a repository with extra software on top of devuan May 26 13:49:32 (and replaces a few packages that needed patches based on previous fremantle work, or to provide recent fixes) May 26 13:50:32 So it's not a custom debian-like frozen distribution this time (unlike maemo4/maemo5) May 26 13:50:42 ofono is more focused than FSO though. IIRC it has nothing like fsodeviced and opimd. May 26 13:51:42 PaulFertser: indeed. maemo has other daemons to take care of part of the things fsodeviced used to do May 26 13:52:26 ofono is more telephony/data-oriented May 26 13:52:50 (basically expose/manage modem resources) May 26 13:52:52 hmm all the FSO stuff got removed from Debian over the years, ofono still around though May 26 13:53:10 which is one of the reasons it was chosen, yes May 26 13:53:23 FSO is probably harder to maintain thanks to Vala. May 26 13:53:29 * bencoh nods May 26 13:54:20 But ofono should be harder to develop thanks to C :) May 26 13:54:51 well, I read/write C all day, but ... to each their own ;) May 26 13:55:09 Is DBus still the preferred RPC solution? Is it rock-solid by now? May 26 13:55:43 Well, I don't really like it, but it certainly works May 26 13:55:55 it's the main RPC in maemo **** ENDING LOGGING AT Wed May 27 03:04:13 2020