I think I’m reading this blogpost correctly: Mobian devs working on maintaining Linux kernel support for Pinephone painted themselves into a corner with tech debt, and may not be able to continue porting new kernel updates. Pinephone Pro runs a different chipset with wider community support, so it’s not affected.
I didn’t see any communities or articles talking about this, so either it’s not a big deal, or nobody is talking about it.
A 200 dollar Xiaomi phone or a used pixel phone is at least 10x more powerful than the pinphone. After unlocking the bootloader and rooting it, you can use termux and have a linux environment at hand. You can even install a DE and access it. Enjoy. The plus is that you don’t lose any compatibility with android apps .
I really hope you don’t go around telling anyone that is criticizing something to just make a better version, do you ? You don’t need to be chef to say bad food is bad. To make it easier to understand let’s transpose it again : There’s a novel motor design that is free and open source. Someone make a car using it and sell it but the car can’t go beyond 20km/h and has a range of 50km. Would you tell anyone that says it’s unusable to just make a better one ??
You focus on performance while I focus on the ability to tinker. That’s perfectly legitimate and we don’t have to have the same needs. It though shows me that we don’t have the same understanding about the point of Pine64, especially as you mention Termux or rooting (which I’ve both used and done numerous times, sadly) as if it was equivalent to selling an actual Linux phone in the first place. I actually do NOT want Android. The point I believe is not to sell a replacement for end users today (even though, clearly, it would be nice, and I believe Purism is closer to that) as it says on the product page, but rather show that a legitimate (again, not hacks) alternative is possible but it must be built by the community. And yes, I do tell people who make criticism that it’s not enough because very often it shows what I believe is the case here, a lack of understanding of what it takes. That being said, again, I sincerely enjoy being proven wrong (means I can learn, new opportunities), hence why I’m not teasing you when I say I can put my money where my mouth is if you can do better. I believe in fact that’s what open source is all about, we’re in it together, to do better, to be better.