At first, I agreed with the critics, but after reading @Kyle_Rankin’s posts and thinking about it more, I agree with him. Today’s laptops and desktops are overpowered for the vast majority of computing that most people do most of the time. I am writing this now on a fancy smancy laptop with an Intel Core i7-8550U CPU that cost me $1900. The only time it is regularly helpful for me to have such a powerful CPU is when I am compiling software or my IDE is indexing code. Everything else is just as smooth on my mid-grade laptop from 2011 since I replaced the mechanical hard drive in that with an SSD. What I most notice the difference on with my newer laptop compared to my old laptop is the new one’s beautiful 3840 x 2160 screen. Considering the Librem 5 could power such a screen, I don’t doubt that it could replace a desktop or laptop for most people. Obviously if you want to run demanding games or regularly edit videos, you’d be better off with more powerful hardware. But you’d probably not be satisfied with the hardware in most laptops or desktops today either and specifically seek one with more powerful hardware. So arguing that the Librem 5 is not a desktop computer because of that seems kinda silly.
In the future I’d love if Purism made a portable enclosure with a screen, keyboard, and touchpad to turn the Librem 5 into a laptop. Using a touchscreen for that would be ideal IMO.
Lots of people already use a “phone” as their primary computing device. Many can only afford this and don’t have a laptop or desktop. Being able to plug a “phone” into a “TV” and add a keyboard and mouse to have a traditional computing experience could be a big deal for many people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it. I am especially thinking of many kids today who are growing up only knowing the locked down Android and ChromeOS worlds.
My “full-blown working/gaming computer” is also not “full-blown” because I need an adapter for my 3rd monitor or I cannot plug and work like I do… makes no sense, does it? I may need more USB ports then my motherboard has… The industry also could create a monitor with USB-C input and USB-Hub inside (USB-C input is the only missing thing on market as far as I know). What would you say then? Missing cables and hubs to periphery says nothing about what computer hardware is or what it is not.
The part I underlined is the part what they mean with there post, nothing more or less. The fact, that you argue again like this seems to me like “but I want to be right!!11!” (or you really don’t understand the point).
By the way: Germans define a desktop computer (“Rechner” = 1:1 translated as “calculator”) as machine which can calculate something. We also have Taschenrechner (1:1 “pocket calculator” means the real calculator), Rechenzentrum (data center) and so on. “Full-blown desktop computer” would mean for Germans “a machine which is not locked into some specific calculations like a usual calculator or a typical smartphone nowadays”.
Not really. I told it my post above: people who wants to buy it already know that this is no powerful gaming PC or something similar. Or do you want to say people are dumb and buy this special phone without knowing what it is? I mean it is no mainstream Galaxy XX where the cool kids want to buy it because “it’s the newest and best and for this reason coolest device”. There is nothing inside the video or post what shows the performance or something else. They just show that Librem 5 has the minimum requirements to run these editing programs. And these words of “full-blown” are also context related. I don’t know why this is so hard to understand that people need to fill a whole thread about it.
The adapter you are using looks a lot like the one I use with my MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro only comes with four ports (all USB-C)… a huge limitation. Getting a few more ports through the adapter (especially the HDMI port) is a must. It also makes me appreciate the Librem Mini, I have all the ports I need
It makes me think, though, that I might already have the needed accessory to use my Librem 5 as a desktop computer
Yeah, it’s very likely - after all, what’s needed here is the exact same kind of adapter that is used with many laptops these days, not just Apple ones.
I apologize for going off of the previously discussed topic, but about those adapters/hubs…
I’ve removed this comment to a new topic.
Would that be a technology that Purism should take a look at? As in, how much should we trust them - after all, they are full of chips, may have access to all of our wired web traffic (record or relay to a new destination?) and can be pose as any USB device (keylogger)…? I don’t trust random usb dongels or cables, so why should I trust any hub? I mean, USB threats have been around for some time but a adapterhub with LAN-port might increase the risks, surely? Would there be a market need for open and secure tech with trusted supply-chain: add a battery to it (“internal UPS”) and a heat dissipating cradle, and the desktop dream gets better. But yeah, could the threats now move from secured device to a unsecure adapter that we have no way to interact with?
Speculation and opinion are just something to read and fill my time till my phone arrives.
Solving software/hardware issues are a lot more helpful to a novice like me.
Pretty sure that already exists - but I don’t own one.
That definitely exists. I already own such a monitor. Just waiting for the day when my L5 turns up.
Technically, you don’t need a hub for the keyboard and mouse, because you can in theory use a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse and pair them directly with the L5. (Obviously this is not something that I have tested, your mileage may vary, yada yada yada. I think I do have a spare BT keyboard/touchpad combo somewhere though …)
Some number of years back, Canonical was showing off Ubuntu Touch and part of it was that if you connected the phone to a monitor, the phone itself would act as a touchpad and it had a icon for a popup keyboard. I thought this was brilliant as it could allow you to do actual work by just connecting your phone to a monitor.
The reason I asked whether it works with the L5 is because the nexdock web site talks about (future?) compatibility with the L5 running Ubuntu Touch, which seemed a bit odd to me. Not that there’s anything wrong with Ubuntu Touch but I wondered how far advanced it is on the L5 (and @amosbatto’s indefatigable FAQ says “not very”).
Presumably once Purism finishes the work to get the L5 + PureOS compatible with the Nexdock, Purism will be asking Nexdock to update the nexdock web site.
Hopefully there’s no proprietary driver involved. I dunno why there would have to be, and it wouldn’t be a showstopper, but it’d be nice if there wasn’t.
I think it would be a showstopper for Purism. I don’t think they would waste their time on it if it were going to require a blob and so, based on the quote above, I would say there won’t be a need for a proprietary driver.
Based on my experience with somewhat similar hardware at each end (similar, not the same at either end) I see no reason for a proprietary driver. USB-C is defined so that this should work out-of-the-box without any driver.
The one thing that I can think of that might be quirky is how rotation is handled. For a start, you might be able to rotate the L5 and the screen independently (and in conflicting ways). The L5 may or may not recognize if the external screen is rotated - whereas the expectation is that the L5 will automatically recognize when it itself is rotated. (So if you want a simple life, ensure that the two screens are in the same orientation and manually set the orientation of the external display, if needed.) But who knows? They might surprise me and even that works out-of-the-box.
I was thinking something like “the driver would end up in the Debian nonfree repo, so you could still use it with the L5.”
Though I also agree there could certainly be a way to get it to work without a proprietary driver (it’d be cheaper too, I think) unless they had to come up with some novel way to get something to work the way they want. They might see that as a trade secret and want to protect it, and thus you’d end up with a black box driver.
