They made an entire Linux-powered portable game system that’s revolutionizing Linux gaming at the moment…an embedded engineer is not the same skillset as an app developer. Not even close.
SteamOS is open source with some closed sources component. But most important think you seems not being able to understand is that Valve provide high support to Open source community, which means it wouldn’t be surprising if they decided to drop a open source phone.
SteamOS is open source with some closed sources component.
So it is not free software. It’s proprietary, unethical software that takes away your freedom. Just like Windows, Android, etc.
But most important think you seems not being able to understand is that Valve provide high support to Open source community, which means it wouldn’t be surprising if they decided to drop a open source phone.
By doing what? They only want to lock you in their proprietary platform. Most of heir software is proprietary, their games are proprietary and they restrict users with DRM. It’s a terrible company, which abuses their users. If Steam Deck contains proprietary software, why would their phone by anything different?
A lot of the libcamera work done on Raspberry Pi boards is going towards improving the camera support on linux phones like the PinePhone, which is great!
Aside from that, sadly a lot of people (including myself) are kind of fed up with Raspberry Pi, after they essentially abandoned their mission during Covid to please corporations, and are preparing to go public despite being a “charity”. Broadcom, their SoC supplier, also has left a sour taste in my mouth after their purchase and mass layoffs at VMWare.
If they created a phone it would likely end up being scalped to death, and maybe pretty pricey compared to a PinePhone
Aside from that, sadly a lot of people (including myself) are kind of fed up with Raspberry Pi, after they essentially abandoned their mission during Covid to please corporations
Just out of curiosity, could you state what you think their mission was?
(I’m just wondering if anybody even remembers their original original mission.)
AFAIK their original mission was along the lines of making computers accessible at a low price point, particularly targeting the education sector in parts of the world where computers weren’t very accessible or affordable. Comparable to the OLPC, but not on an individual basis
Don’t forget that Raspberry PI can’t run a mainline Linux kernel. You can’t install an official Debian build on it for example. I don’t get why people are ok with that.
They seem to have resolved their supply chain issues for now. I could buy a Pi 5 and have it dispatched tomorrow, and I did buy a Pi 4b recently, no issues with delays or lead times.
Maybe it’d be the first “specialty” phone with decent specs. I always get excited for these “specialty” type phones like “Linux on my PHONE? Fuck yea!”
Until I look at the specs and it’s crap every single time and then I’m just disappointed, like the PinePhone Pro has just 4GB LPDDR4 (No not even the good LPDDR4x) lmao like what is this, 2015?? Lolol
Everything that matters is open source and upstreamed or on the way there. Haven’t kept up with the state of things but as far as I am aware you can already run a mainline kernel on the Deck. Would love to see an open phone you can easily run your own distribution on without jumping through hoops.
But phones are hard. An x86 phone with decent battery life is even harder. But one can dream.
It’s certainly great that you can install any distro with mainline kernel on the deck (even if some things don’t work). But my point was that Valve doesn’t care about user freedom. Their OS and the Steam client are proprietary. If they made a GNU/Linux phone, there is no guarantee that you would be able to install a free distro and it almost certainly would come with non free software by default, which would be bad.
Would love to see an open phone you can easily run your own distribution on without jumping through hoops.
I think PinePhone Pro and Librem 5 can run a mainline kernel. It’s possible that some things won’t work, but a lot of stuff has been upstreamed. I’m curious if you can easily install an ARM build of Debian on them, but couldn’t find any information last time I looked it up.
But phones are hard. An x86 phone with decent battery life is even harder. But one can dream.
Oh yeah, that is the dream. I wonder how are the current mobile Ryzen CPUs. I’m curious if there is any that could work well in a phone.
There is a Debian spin for the Pinephone called Mobian. I ran that for quite a while with Phosh as the front end. It’s probably still installed on the device.
What I hate about ARM is that you basically need a separate image for every device instead of one for everything like with x86.
I use Mobian with Phosh too! What I love about Mobian is that it’s just a small overlay on top of Debian. The project’s goal is literally to upstream everything into Debian and to stop existing. You can see that it doesn’t add a lot of packages: https://packages.mobian.org
Yeah, you are right about ARM. It seems to be true about RISC-V as well. It’s so weird that so many people think those kinds of devices will be good for us. Sometimes I watch reviews of single board computers on YouTube and the reviewers never mention that the device can’t run mainline Linux. They can’t install Debian from debian.org on them. So instead they install some distro provided by the manufacturer and for some reason they are just fine with that. Raspberry PI is the same and almost nobody seems to be talking about this. So that’s why I’m not sure if you can install a normal distro on PinePhone Pro or Librem 5, even though they can run mainline Linux.
Also ARM SoC manufacturers don’t seem to try to have upstream Linux support. So I think that’s why PinePhone uses a 2010 SoC (if I remember correctly) and Pro uses a 2016 SoC. It’s a bad platform.
I wish Valve would make a Steam Phone. They seem to know how to do Linux devices.
Valve laptop to revive the thinkpad glory days
they don’t know to make a good android app, and you want them to make an entire cellphone💀💀
They made an entire Linux-powered portable game system that’s revolutionizing Linux gaming at the moment…an embedded engineer is not the same skillset as an app developer. Not even close.
They made a device with a proprietary operating system and proprietary software. If you really want that, why not just use Android?
Since when is Arch proprietary?
Steam OS is proprietary.
But Arch contains proprietary firmware, so technically it’s not fully free software either.
SteamOS is open source with some closed sources component. But most important think you seems not being able to understand is that Valve provide high support to Open source community, which means it wouldn’t be surprising if they decided to drop a open source phone.
So it is not free software. It’s proprietary, unethical software that takes away your freedom. Just like Windows, Android, etc.
By doing what? They only want to lock you in their proprietary platform. Most of heir software is proprietary, their games are proprietary and they restrict users with DRM. It’s a terrible company, which abuses their users. If Steam Deck contains proprietary software, why would their phone by anything different?
Haven’t you heard of proton ?
They can do the hardware and let someone else compile the os
Idk SteamOS seems pretty ok to me
Good point, now I’m wondering why the steam mobile app sucks
they prob put 0 effort into it because they see almost 0 ROI
Well, I don’t want it to be android powered anyways. That’s the entire point.
Hell, I think even Raspberry Pi Foundation getting into the phone market would be a game changer too.
A lot of the libcamera work done on Raspberry Pi boards is going towards improving the camera support on linux phones like the PinePhone, which is great!
Aside from that, sadly a lot of people (including myself) are kind of fed up with Raspberry Pi, after they essentially abandoned their mission during Covid to please corporations, and are preparing to go public despite being a “charity”. Broadcom, their SoC supplier, also has left a sour taste in my mouth after their purchase and mass layoffs at VMWare.
If they created a phone it would likely end up being scalped to death, and maybe pretty pricey compared to a PinePhone
Just out of curiosity, could you state what you think their mission was?
(I’m just wondering if anybody even remembers their original original mission.)
AFAIK their original mission was along the lines of making computers accessible at a low price point, particularly targeting the education sector in parts of the world where computers weren’t very accessible or affordable. Comparable to the OLPC, but not on an individual basis
I could be wrong though
Remember when they donated one pi for every one sold?
That’s basically it. Here’s the thing: if they followed through on that to the letter, most of the people complaining wouldn’t have ever gotten one.
Don’t forget that Raspberry PI can’t run a mainline Linux kernel. You can’t install an official Debian build on it for example. I don’t get why people are ok with that.
If they did that, it would be sold out for years before you or I could get it.
They seem to have resolved their supply chain issues for now. I could buy a Pi 5 and have it dispatched tomorrow, and I did buy a Pi 4b recently, no issues with delays or lead times.
Raspberry PI can’t run a mainline Linux kernel.
I don’t think you could go fast enough to catch Valve as they ran screaming from that idea.
Maybe it’d be the first “specialty” phone with decent specs. I always get excited for these “specialty” type phones like “Linux on my PHONE? Fuck yea!”
Until I look at the specs and it’s crap every single time and then I’m just disappointed, like the PinePhone Pro has just 4GB LPDDR4 (No not even the good LPDDR4x) lmao like what is this, 2015?? Lolol
Steam OS is proprietary, so what would be the point?
Everything that matters is open source and upstreamed or on the way there. Haven’t kept up with the state of things but as far as I am aware you can already run a mainline kernel on the Deck. Would love to see an open phone you can easily run your own distribution on without jumping through hoops.
But phones are hard. An x86 phone with decent battery life is even harder. But one can dream.
It’s certainly great that you can install any distro with mainline kernel on the deck (even if some things don’t work). But my point was that Valve doesn’t care about user freedom. Their OS and the Steam client are proprietary. If they made a GNU/Linux phone, there is no guarantee that you would be able to install a free distro and it almost certainly would come with non free software by default, which would be bad.
I think PinePhone Pro and Librem 5 can run a mainline kernel. It’s possible that some things won’t work, but a lot of stuff has been upstreamed. I’m curious if you can easily install an ARM build of Debian on them, but couldn’t find any information last time I looked it up.
Oh yeah, that is the dream. I wonder how are the current mobile Ryzen CPUs. I’m curious if there is any that could work well in a phone.
There is a Debian spin for the Pinephone called Mobian. I ran that for quite a while with Phosh as the front end. It’s probably still installed on the device.
What I hate about ARM is that you basically need a separate image for every device instead of one for everything like with x86.
I use Mobian with Phosh too! What I love about Mobian is that it’s just a small overlay on top of Debian. The project’s goal is literally to upstream everything into Debian and to stop existing. You can see that it doesn’t add a lot of packages: https://packages.mobian.org
Yeah, you are right about ARM. It seems to be true about RISC-V as well. It’s so weird that so many people think those kinds of devices will be good for us. Sometimes I watch reviews of single board computers on YouTube and the reviewers never mention that the device can’t run mainline Linux. They can’t install Debian from debian.org on them. So instead they install some distro provided by the manufacturer and for some reason they are just fine with that. Raspberry PI is the same and almost nobody seems to be talking about this. So that’s why I’m not sure if you can install a normal distro on PinePhone Pro or Librem 5, even though they can run mainline Linux.
Also ARM SoC manufacturers don’t seem to try to have upstream Linux support. So I think that’s why PinePhone uses a 2010 SoC (if I remember correctly) and Pro uses a 2016 SoC. It’s a bad platform.