silversolver 849 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 This is a cool concept, and something I had never really considered. To the complaint that mobile browsers are terrible (I mostly agree) I suggest using Brave for Android in Desktop Mode. I do on my hijacked Droid 4 running 7.1 and it's very nice (if a little small on the D4 screen.) I had never really considered running a real desktop OS on a mobile device, but certainly see where it would be very doable on a powerful device like P1. However, I see a limitation beyond HDMI; desktop OSes are designed for mouse input, and generally are clunky without its precision input. I'd probably try it, but doubt I'd like it. I prefer a desktop OS generally, but would hesitate to use it on a device with no mouse. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteffenWi 139 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 20 hours ago, FlyingAntero said: UBports community is still working on that project. https://ubports.com/ Yeah but seems like Pro1 isn't supported. I really don't understand that about smartphones - why do they all need seperate images? That is such a frustrating thing about Android/ARM. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
VaZso 1,988 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 8 hours ago, silversolver said: I'd probably try it, but doubt I'd like it. I prefer a desktop OS generally, but would hesitate to use it on a device with no mouse. It would be better if we had touchpad emulation (on touch screen) in that case instead of normal touch screen function. 🙂 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SchattengestaIt 553 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 8 hours ago, silversolver said: I'd probably try it, but doubt I'd like it. I prefer a desktop OS generally, but would hesitate to use it on a device with no mouse. That's why I proposed one of those small mice that you have in the keyboards of ThinkPads. I used those a lot and if space is missing, they do a very nice job. Of course, there won't be a mouse on the Pro1. 4 minutes ago, SteffenWi said: Yeah but seems like Pro1 isn't supported. I really don't understand that about smartphones - why do they all need seperate images? That is such a frustrating thing about Android/ARM. I think it's because they use different chipsets with components that don't work plug and play. You basically include some sort of drivers in a chipset that are not available to the public. So one compatible device doesn't mean others are. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
netman 1,424 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 7 minutes ago, SteffenWi said: Yeah but seems like Pro1 isn't supported. Yet... Let's be hopeful, to get sailfish etc there is also a want to get hybris working on the device and that code can be shared i believe 🙂. 8 minutes ago, SteffenWi said: I really don't understand that about smartphones - why do they all need seperate images? That is such a frustrating thing about Android/ARM. Because there is no standards for bootloader, how to tell the OS what devices are connected where, drivers, etc. The image has to be built to know where and what about the hardware. It's a regrettable fact of life, but shows you how good we have it with modern PC/laptop hardware. It's almost the same way it was back before when IBM PC type stuff took over, and instead of the BIOS abstracting the hardware for the OS there was only a manual telling what port or memory address the devices are at and how to interact with them. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
silversolver 849 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 (edited) 17 minutes ago, SteffenWi said: Yeah but seems like Pro1 isn't supported. I really don't understand that about smartphones - why do they all need seperate images? That is such a frustrating thing about Android/ARM. It's because you have to bake all the hardware drivers into the image. Desktop OSes tend to have a bazillion drivers for common hardware baked into the image, but storage on mobile is much more limited, and this waste of space is more noticeable. On top of that, generic handles for things like video and storage to make something work without hardware-specific drivers are nearly universal on x86 machines (although servers can be fiddly), but ARM devices need the specific drivers for the hardware to even work in most cases. edit: lots of great answers to this question from others. Edited November 21, 2019 by silversolver comment 3 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteffenWi 139 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 (edited) 8 minutes ago, silversolver said: It's because you have to bake all the hardware drivers into the image. Desktop OSes tend to have a bazillion drivers for common hardware baked into the image, but storage on mobile is much more limited, and this waste of space is more noticeable. On top of that, generic handles for things like video and storage to make something work without hardware-specific drivers are nearly universal on x86 machines (although servers can be fiddly), but ARM devices need the specific drivers for the hardware to even work in most cases. edit: lots of great answers to this question from others. Yeah - except the Linux kernel itself already includes a lot of drivers to a point where on the x86 architecture every imagineable driver is already included. And the entire thing barely reaches 90 MB of space. Driver size isn't the issue. As others mentioned, ARM doesn't have a BIOS equivalent (which I didn't knew.) and a lot of propiertary drivers (why companies do that is beyond me.) @netman thank you for that explanation Also: Apparently Ubuntu Touch can be compiled if one has the kernel sources of the phone available. I think Waxberry once said they would put those somewhere...? Edited November 21, 2019 by SteffenWi 2 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
VaZso 1,988 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 4 minutes ago, SteffenWi said: I really don't understand that about smartphones - why do they all need seperate images? That is such a frustrating thing about Android/ARM. Because every phone is different. 🙂 I mean any of them use a specific SoC (like SDM835 in this case), but different solutions in hardware. Different sensors are connected to different ports (other I²C or SPI), the CS pin of an SPI device may be connected to different outputs, enable signal for specific power supplies may be connected to different outputs, after hardware switches on it may have a "self-powering" technique which has to be driven, uSD can be connected to different port (if there are more), displays are different (resolution, driving method / driver IC, mirroring, etc), touch screen /it's driver IC/ may be different, etc. Linux kernel has to include drivers for a lot of components with appropriate parameters, upload firmware to specific hardware modules, initialize components, handle specific things. On PC, there is a specific code (BIOS / UEFI) which has some standard helpers to boot up an operating system, but still there are a lot of difference between computers which are solved by internal drivers - this is why in Linux, one (or an automatism) should specify some parameters, so "work like a Dell" or "work like Asus"-type settings for some hardware or workarounds for some specific models of hardware. 1 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteffenWi 139 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 @VaZso yeah, I'm now clear on the reasons. All the hardware com stuff - I didn't know about that since I assumed that there would be some kind of BIOS that handles that for the operating system - similiar to x86. All good now in the sense that I got the message ;). 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_DW_ 628 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 12 hours ago, Craig said: I don't understand this stuff well enough myself to explain it, but if you need a desktop solution that works today, I think your best bet is sfos with linux chroot. For example Filez and more infoz here: https://github.com/elros34/sailfish_ubu_chroot It's up to Ubuntu 19.04 now and appears actively maintained. I recognize the name elros34 as he did the sfos port for photon q. Wonder if it will run unity (better for touch) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
enPfzr4v 239 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 15 hours ago, SchattengestaIt said: For me, Windows is more than a gaming platform You won't be able to do much gaming in Windows on an ARM processor. Apps mostly need to be compiled for it. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
netman 1,424 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 2 minutes ago, abielins said: You won't be able to do much gaming in Windows on an ARM processor. Apps mostly need to be compiled for it. IIRC the windows 10 for ARM does run x86 applications with an emulation/translation layer type of thing, but I don't know how well that performs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
enPfzr4v 239 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 24 minutes ago, netman said: IIRC the windows 10 for ARM does run x86 applications with an emulation/translation layer type of thing, but I don't know how well that performs. Only 32-bit x86 apps. Most games nowadays are 64-bit only I believe. Please correct me if I'm wrong. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_DW_ 628 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 You could probably get away with very old games but they would need compiling for ARM. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
fredrick 36 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 Well, you could probably use something like the swiftpoint or microsoft arc as a tiny portable mouse. :) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RI47ECS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1462307529&sr=8-1&keywords=swiftpoint+gt&linkCode=sl1&tag=socialtech109-20&linkId=6be44db6d3952d25306c33582e8b0741 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SchattengestaIt 553 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 3 hours ago, abielins said: You won't be able to do much gaming in Windows on an ARM processor. Apps mostly need to be compiled for it. I said more than gaming (since somebody mentioned that he doesn't play games and therefore doesn't need Windows. I'm not expecting to play Witcher 3 on the FxTec Pro 1 and I'm not aiming for that either. I mainly use my phone for browsing and setting up text, researching, etc. That's where Windows (or probably any desktop OS) would be the perfect platform for me because you've a much wider functionality and customizability. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
_DW_ 628 Posted November 21, 2019 Share Posted November 21, 2019 Only things I'd like to be able to launch are java apps mainly but they are just normal apps. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SteffenWi 139 Posted November 23, 2019 Share Posted November 23, 2019 So I started setting my machine up to compile UbuntuTouch for Pro1, but I'm now stuck at the step where I need to get source files for the Pro1. The thing that I just read, before I seem to have skipped the version number, is that you need the sourcefiles for LineageOS 14.1 which would be Android 7. Not Android 9 / Lineage OS 17. That doesn't seem really...secure? https://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/get-sources.html 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ksal95 227 Posted November 23, 2019 Share Posted November 23, 2019 1 hour ago, SteffenWi said: So I started setting my machine up to compile UbuntuTouch for Pro1, but I'm now stuck at the step where I need to get source files for the Pro1. The thing that I just read, before I seem to have skipped the version number, is that you need the sourcefiles for LineageOS 14.1 which would be Android 7. Not Android 9 / Lineage OS 17. That doesn't seem really...secure? https://docs.halium.org/en/latest/porting/get-sources.html That's weird, but hopefully more up to date sources can be used in the future. I'd be interested to see a UbuntuTouch port for the Pro1 so thank you for at least trying! 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
silversolver 849 Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 11 hours ago, ksal95 said: That's weird, but hopefully more up to date sources can be used in the future. I'd be interested to see a UbuntuTouch port for the Pro1 so thank you for at least trying! Likely they're just pulling out the boot image and some drivers, nothing more. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Hook 2,821 Posted November 24, 2019 Share Posted November 24, 2019 Also, TBH, I have Lineage 14.1 on my Tab S and it still gets all current security patches. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
SchattengestaIt 553 Posted November 30, 2019 Share Posted November 30, 2019 I was thinking about this topic again... Would it be possible to program the touchscreen as a touchpad in Android or a desktop OS? That way you could use a cursor in a desktop OS or games in emulators with swiping over the touchscreen. I'm not talking about the exact position of your finger but controlling a cursor with the movement only. Don't blame me, I myself am not sure if this is a good idea either, but it should be possible, right? 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
silversolver 849 Posted December 1, 2019 Share Posted December 1, 2019 5 hours ago, SchattengestaIt said: I was thinking about this topic again... Would it be possible to program the touchscreen as a touchpad in Android or a desktop OS? That way you could use a cursor in a desktop OS or games in emulators with swiping over the touchscreen. I'm not talking about the exact position of your finger but controlling a cursor with the movement only. Don't blame me, I myself am not sure if this is a good idea either, but it should be possible, right? Sure, it's definitely possible, as it could be done entirely in software, but I do question whether or not it would be usable. Can we get an adapter to plug in a real mouse? LOL 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Craig 1,435 Posted December 1, 2019 Share Posted December 1, 2019 7 minutes ago, silversolver said: Can we get an adapter to plug in a real mouse? LOL Yes. Any OTG adapter/hub should work for USB mouse; bluetooth mouse also works. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
EskeRahn 5,350 Posted December 1, 2019 Share Posted December 1, 2019 8 hours ago, silversolver said: Sure, it's definitely possible, as it could be done entirely in software, but I do question whether or not it would be usable. Can we get an adapter to plug in a real mouse? LOL Believe it or not, actually I have come across people that prefers these horrible touchpads over real mice. For those it could be interesting. And for use at some random remote location borrowing a display to show something, it would simplify to not have to consider a real mouse also. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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