20241025-pinephone_paperweight.txt

I recently bought the Pinephone. I was thinking this would be an
underpowered phone, which I don't need my phone to be a PS5. I don't
need more than 3GB for a freaking phone. But my God, the Pinephone is
a disaster.

This is stated as a "beta" device, which means it has already been
tested by developers and is ready to be tested by consumers. This is
not how I would describe the Pinephone. I would define it as a piece
of shit that has the hardware I want without the software to make use
of it. My God, it's horrible. First boot was tough. That's a great
introduction. But I finally got... Manjaro-arm with Plasma to boot.
Yay!

After seeing how laggy and buggy it was (seriously fucking slow. I
don't think Macs from the 1990s were even this slow), I decided to try
Mobian... Or at least I tried to? I can't even recall if I got it
installed because I was logjammed by the fact that I basically needed
to use Jumpdrive just to flash an OS on the little bastard. Again, I'm
not even sure I installed Mobian, but my latest/current OS on it is
Postmarket OS. This was touted as the "best" solution (Top 10 Best
Linux Distros - For Phones!), but it's still a sack of shit.

My idea was a portable computer that you can bring around, but it
massively fails at either. I suppose I can't get mad at the
developers, but holy fuck, they need a professional team. If Ubuntu
didn't ship with adware and some other shady shit, I would use Ubuntu
Touch. Somehow, I don't think that would fix the issue that this phone
is 100% garbage.

Granted it was relatively cheap as a phone (about $200 for the
"Convergence" package). But the software makes it barely usable. Why
the fuck did they use ARM? Why? Just put an x86 chip in there, you
knuckleheads. Then we'd get an ACTUAL software library instead of
bloated shit like Firefox that can barely function. Don't tell me you
can't put an x86 chip in a 6" phone. Don't you dare tell me that. 

I'm not a great fan of Puppy Linux distros, but if anything would be
perfect for a Linux phone Os, it's Pupply Linux. Holy shit. It's
mind-boggling how bad the options are. To me, this is pre-alpha. I've
played public betas before, most notably the Halo 3 beta that came on
the Crackdown disc. You know how many glitches I remember from that
public beta? None. Zero. I don't recall anything that made me think
"Yeah, this isn't quite ready." But virtually
everything---EVERYTHING---about the Pinephone screams "This is not
meant for anyone to use." It actually seems like a troll job.

I suppose I could have gotten a Pro model, but somehow I think that
would barely abate the problems of the original. Like I said earlier:
it has the hardware I want: removable battery, hardware toggles
(though hidden away), microSD card slot, a SIM slot, 3.5mm jack, and
WiFi/Bluetooth. But the software is a fucking shambles. For the love
of God, someone please bring Puppy Linux to ARM.

Also I'm kind of in a bad mood because my favorite team is a fucking
disaster and I'm sick, so maybe that's why I went off today. But I
have had the Pinephone long enough that I've decided to not use it
unless I have some spare time where I can be patient.