PureOS is not backed by multi-million dollar corporations who engage in vendor lock-in practices and selling your data to the highest bidder in order to satiate consumers’ never-ending demands.
Among other reasons (e.g. isolated internal components instead of a system-on-one-blackbox-chip), your Samsung phone is not running what is essentially a desktop computer with associated desktop applications.
Personally, I have my doubts that the Librem 5 will ever be able to achieve the same kind of power optimization as a simple smartphone. I hope it can be improved on a lot more, though.
Wouldn’t be an option to halt all processes, which have to do with the desktop applications (except the PIN screen) and only run processes, which have to do with incoming calls and sms? Or is it already implemented in this way?
For listening music there could be an exception that it is a desktop application and then the desktop applications would run, too.
Yes it is. I’m not sure why you don’t think an Android phone is every bit a “desktop computer” as the Librem 5. Haven’t my discussions about Termux as well as installing a full Linux distribution (under proot [a fake privilege mode]) dispelled this notion?
I think the meaning is … out-of-the-box. In other words, you may be able to make it like that but it’s not like that out-of-the-box - which is the experience that is relevant for most actual Android users.
Regardless, this is a relatively useless comparison. I don’t care if Android can run for 1 year on a single charge, I’m not using Android.
A desktop computer can more than just run software on a second monitor with mouse and keyboard attached. It can change hardware, can disable sensors on hardware level (usually via unplugging USB, but killswitch is an alternative way), can install any OS you want by default. And it’s not just "a Fairphone can replace parts, a Samsung phone can be used with a close to desktop experience, a Google Pixels let you install other OSes etc … it should have nearly everything in one device by default. Otherwise it’s just a smart device that cuts out functionality by design. And non of these can disable sensors on hardware level (as far as I am aware), which is absolutely required.
Androids are very capable these days, no argument there, but I wouldn’t credit them with equivalent functionalities of a desktop computer (and its operating system).
But, more relevant, what I was getting at is that the Librem 5’s internal components can be considered more similar to desktop/laptop (GNU/Linux) internals, with power draws and power management that is (probably?) more similar to those, due to its separate, isolated hardware pieces. Android mostly doesn’t have such separate hardware components inside, as far as I know.
The Librem 5 is also running mainly desktop programs that have been adapted for it, possibly not yet optimized to save power. Whereas Android has its optimized, native mobile apps, as well as aggressive “uni-tasking,” if I can suggest an opposite of “multitasking.”
At least, that’s how I understand it from Purism’s historical descriptions of the L5’s design. I’m no expert on any of this, of course.
Btw, I would not say it’s necessary to run desktop programs to be a desktop. There is no huge difference between mobile- and desktop apps. And Samsung also shows how a Galaxy-Smartphone can do desktop multitasking stuff (around 7:00), so monotasking and multitasking can be used depending on the situation. And I also think it would be great to have desktop programs that are energy optimized (100,000,000 people that run a program have a huge impact, even on small energy improvements). All of that just does not matter between pocket computer and smartphones. But hardware and hardware access (firmware) matters. All on top can be everything possible.
Google could make all the code FOSS and upstream it, use an original Linux kernel unmodified and is providing the same Linux experience as we have on L5 - just with energy efficient kernel. The typical smartphone devices with the “new Android” would still are smartphones because of hardware and firmware limitations. On the other hand, this kind of Android installed on L5 would still be a pocket computer.
I see. The Librem 5 uses a SoC/SoM. Because of that, other than the software it runs, it’s more like a phone/tablet/phablet than a desktop in the sense of hardware. The only hardware that is electronically “more isolated” than any other phone is the wifi and cellular modem (those are usually integrated on the SoC). On the other hand, phones like the Pixel have a NPU/TPU (neural/tensor processing unit) which is more desktop-like than the Librem 5.
There are two issues in regard to power usage.
The NXP SoC wasn’t designed for low power settings. Even the CPU is something like a 28nm fab and power requirements per flop are related to that 28nm. The Pixel 9, I think, uses a 3nm fab.
I’m not certain about this, but I also think that the OS hasn’t been optimized to deal with the various power usage modes of the SoC/Wifi/CellularModem. Google and Apple spent a lot effort minimizing their power usage.
My Chromebook Asus C201 can be in suspend about a week. Of course, it has no modem inside. But that is interesting, when I boot mainstream kernel, time in suspend reduces in 2 or 3 times! So, I believe there are some possibilities for librem 5 too, but using some hacks and strongly cpu or board related code in the kernel…
