Librem 6 Look Ahead Wishlist

[dcz]

I hope you can limit the snark in the future. You seem to be actively trying to be unpleasant now, but that will get you banned eventually.

[Captain_Morgan]

exactly why fix what worked in the past - design wise.

[Privacy2]

@dcz

I hope you can limit the snark in the future. You seem to be actively trying to be unpleasant now, but that will get you banned eventually.

Shoot. I guess I won’t post my reply to the person who listed 14 features instead of the requested 5. I was hoping to comment if only because I’m still confused about their 2nd item.

My Top 5 are:

1. Small e-ink “status panel” on top/back of phone. Examples of “status”: date/time, %battery/charging status, state of HW switches, configurable notifications (caller info, SMS info, …)

2. 12GB RAM + 128GB Internal Storage (fast).

3. Dedicated Security HW in the vein of the Pixel 6. See the Titan M2 and the Tensor Security core with Trusty ( the open source trusted security environment) except convert Trusty to GPLv2 license (currently MIT?). Allows for proper keystore, eSIM, etc. https://www.androidcentral.com/how-does-google-titan-m2-and-tensor-security-core-work

4. NFC integrated with the security hardware and supporting secure cryptocurrency (and other) payments.

5. Faster and more efficient SoC (e.g. Snapdragon 888 speeds) with full ACPI support so power management is standardized instead of adhoc-device-specific (https://docs.kernel.org/firmware-guide/acpi/index.html)

[irvinewade]

@Privacy2

Small e-ink “status panel” on top/back of phone. Examples of “status”: … state of HW switches

I totally get what you want from this and it’s a fine idea but it is slightly iffy from a security point of view. Any indicator that displays the state of the HW switches should do so directly from the hardware switch - and I think that would be rather difficult to do on any conventional general bitmap display. (All the other “status” examples that you give are not subject to that challenge.)

[carlosgonz]

@amosbatto wish list?

[steve]

1. Lower power soc
2. Better wifi (wifi 6e would be nice)
3. More performant soc
4. Better GPS reception
5. More onboard storage

[carlosgonz]

@thejackimonster

I would like to see a chip with Vulkan support,

Current Librem 5 Evergreen support Vulkan by GPU, also the libre driver is on the way for Vulkan.

@thejackimonster

a good Vulkan driver might be pretty useful for all kinds of applications. Especially considering that post-processing for Megapixels is still done on the CPU as far as I know (this could probably be done much faster via compute pipelines on a GPU).

The Purism Librem 5 Camera application (libcamera) is almost done for GPU Accelerated.
Kudos for @dcz by Purism.

[Captain_Morgan]

@carlosgonz any top 5 items that come to mind with no particular order?

[thejackimonster]

Sounds promising. Last time I read about it, it was stated that Vulkan might be possible with the Librem 5 because the chip would allow it. But the drivers would focus on OpenGL. So it didn’t get any priority.

I really hope libcamera gets off as intended. I really dislike that Megapixels is pretty much the only app which can use cameras on those Linux phones properly because of the manual fixes and implementation details in its code. I mean, it’s a good application to show the cameras can be used. But the way it needs users to setup configurations for their camera sensors is far from comparable to any Android camera app.

I already looked into libcamera a bit and I really like that it can be used via GStreamer. I’ve already adjusted an application I develop to use GStreamer instead of v4l2 or zbar directly. So I can switch to use the libcamera plugin in the pipeline pretty easily. However since it doesn’t work yet on my devices (Pinephone, Pinephone Pro) and I don’t have a Librem 5 to test it yet, I’m looking forward to further progress on this side of development.

Maybe Purism can do something about apps which won’t use libcamera as well. So applications like Cheese do not just crash but use one specific sensor by default.

[JoeBeach]

The things that would help me out are:

• 5G modem
• working GPS (not sure if that is software or hardware issue right now)
• longer battery life
• less heating of phone during operation
• change the location of the keyboard close button, I frequently hit it when I go for the spacebar and that plays havoc with things.

[LinuxNoob888]

A dockable/convergent Librem 4 with all day battery life is not as crazy as it sounds!

[MV71]

Hi, interesting post.
Let me know please, if I understood correctly:

1. Have you got information that the Librem5 software development has to be considered dead, ended?
2. Consequently will the battery problem never be solved? Because there are backers that are still waiting to receive it, the Librem5
3. Talking about a ‘next generation’ of a ‘should have been a phone’ is a bit misleading. Right now the Librem 5 is not a phone because it is not able to work even for 24 hours due to battery problems. It’s a fact, not a sterile polemic.

For sure I’ll not suggest to anyone and I’ll not spend a cent for an other phone before be sure at 100% that it will work in a reasonable manner.

[dcz]

@MV71

Have you got information that the Librem5 software development has to be considered dead, ended?

Nothing of this sort is happening. Work on battery life is ongoing.

That Librem5 doesn’t meet your definition of a phone means little to others. It’s the only device that makes phone calls in my household.

[soren]

@thejackimonster

Maybe Purism can do something about apps which won’t use libcamera as well. So applications like Cheese do not just crash but use one specific sensor by default.

I’ve seen there’s a v4l compatibility layer in libcamera. Not sure how and if it works, but they have this use case in mind.

Edit: wishlist.

1. Better battery life
2. A faster CPU
3. Smaller form factor (Librem 4!)
4. Better quality camera

[Captain_Morgan]

@johan-bjareholt

• Slightly thinner (max 13mm), it’s a bit hard to hold for me even if I have large hands

agreed i do think a rounded rear edge design would improve ease of holding the phone in addition to shrinking overall thickness (an OLED screen would reduce thickness and improve power consumption- surprised nobody wants one)

[Captain_Morgan]

@MV71

Let me know please, if I understood correctly:

The topic relates to next generation improvements mostly. For example wanting an always on display. The L5 is still in production and i imagine small tweaks may still happen to improve reliability over time but its good to get the requirements figured out for the next phone. The CPU / GPU will probably be the most critical, since that choice could reduce the chance of creating the same bottle neck that currently exists.

[Gavaudan]

@Captain_Morgan

surprised nobody wants one)

Do they still have burn-in issues?

[Captain_Morgan]

@Gavaudan

Do they still have burn-in issues?

Looking online OLED displays will always have image retention or burn in issues due to the design. However they can be mitigated through pixel shift, reducing brightness selectively, and pixel refresh, screen autobrightness, and auto sleep. I imagine as a phone developer you would need to develop all those approaches to mitigate uneven OLED degradation through normal use.

[Gavaudan]

I think the newer version of the Nintendo Switch got around it somehow, but I don’t know the details. Not sure if the solution is widespread or not.

[Privacy2]

@dcz

That Librem5 doesn’t meet your definition of a phone means little to others. It’s the only device that makes phone calls in my household.

I have a cabin and in the cabin there is a brick painted to resemble a phone. Other than as a
source of humor it doesn’t work at all, but it’s the only device that makes phone calls in my cabin.

My point is that your anecdote may not mean much to others either since we don’t know
your usage and whether it’s relevant to our needs.