The first 1000 people to use the link will get a free trial of Skillshare Premium Membership: https://skl.sh/thelinuxexperiment02211 A lot of work has been put recently into making the various Linux desktop environments more able on mobile form factors. Let's see how these efforts are panning out, starting with PHOSH, the GNOME mobile shell, and its applications. Become a channel member to get access to a weekly patroncast and vote on the next topics I'll cover: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5UAwBUum7CPN5buc-_N1Fw/join Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Follow me on Twitter : http://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP My Gaming on Linux Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaw_Lz7oifDb-PZCAcZ07kw Follow me on LBRY: https://lbry.tv/@TheLinuxExperiment:e Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/nN8wwZPpwr The Linux Experiment merch: get your goodies there! https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/the-linux-experiment ## What is Phosh Phosh is GNOME shell, re-jigged for mobile. It's developed mainly by Purism, for their Librem5. It's open source, used by a lot of distros that you can flash to and SD card and use on the pinephone for example. I'm trying this out on the baseline Pinephone model, with Manjaro Phosh, but you could also try phosh on Fedora, Debian, Manjaro, postmarket OS... Obviously it's manjaro, so expect more apps than the default, and a specific icon theme, which I changed so it would look more "vanilla". It's only one of the available mobile interfaces for Linux mobile devices, you could also get Plasma mobile, Ubuntu touch, and a lot of other. I'll only talk about Phosh, not the battery life, the use of hardware, etc... as it is dependent on what you'll run it on: pinephone, Librem 5, or maybe something else in the future. ## The shell Phosh takes the concept of GNOME shell, and moves it to a mobile form factor. Basically, you've got this arrow at the bottom of the screen, which brings up the activities view, combined with the app grid. You'll see all your running apps, and the ones you can launch as well, on the same screen. It's a simple enough interface, although it might not scale all that well when people have the option to install tons of applications. There is a search feature, obviously, which only searches through applications, you won't get the full system search you can enjoy in desktop GNOME here. Up top, you get your standard indicators, with the cellular icon, which is not enabled here as I haven't moved my SIM to the pinephone, the wifi, bluetooth, time, and battery. Clicking in that black area up top displays the settings shade, with quick settings, much like on Android. You can't customize these, but you'll get the essentials: rotation, do not disturb, flashlight, and docking mode, as well as volume and brightness sliders. If you have notifications, they'll be displayed underneath these sliders. To dismiss this shade, just tap on the top of the screen again. In the activities view, you get a horizontally scrolling list of your recent apps, and a favorites bar. These favorites can be customized with a long press on the app's icon, which also display the various options for this application, just like right clicking an icon in GNOME's dock. Underneath that, you get your app list, sorted alphabetically. Now, it ships with a bunch of default applications, which manjaro supersedes with more stuff, just like on the desktop version of the distro. You have the basics: a text messenging application, a phone dialer, a contacts app, a calculator, a calendar, a clocks application, everything you'd expect to get on a phone. These apps are all responsive, which means that they are, in fact, the desktop GNOME apps, that just know how to behave when opened on a phone screen. All the features are still there, but things are moved to a hamberger menu, or to tabs, displayed on the bottom instead of being on the top of the app, as they are positioned on the desktop. Some apps have not received that mobile treatment, though. The calendar, for example, is the full desktop app, whish is displayed with very small text, and touch targets, and is barely usable. The file manager manjaro ships is called portfolio, so it's not the GNOME FIles app, Nautilus. I tried older versions of Phosh where Nautilus was included but it wasn't adapted for mobile at the time. If you need more applications than what your distribution ships, you have GNOME Software, which works fine, even though you can feel there are still some hiccups. This means that you'll get to install any desktop app on your phone as well, like GIMP, Inkscape, or Libre Office. Why would you want to do that on a phone? Well, because this shell turns into a full desktop shell once you plug the phone to a display. You then get the full GNOME experience, with the desktop shell, and all the apps you've installed spring to their full size. This video is sponsored by Skillshare

Oh my, I cant say I like the length of the snippet the link brought over - tried to edit it but you cant (seems tied to the link) - apologies for that!

  • @SirLotsaLocks
    5•3 years ago

    Yeah for some reason peertube doesn’t limit the snippet preview. Still love seeing it be sharedf more often now though. Great video though.

    • @AxaoeOP
      4•3 years ago

      I haven’t shared Peertube here before, thanks for the explanation! I tend to go between it and Odysee, definitely agree it’s nice to see more of it shared now (and TLVids instance is quite smooth).

      I liked the video as well, I only found myself somewhat disagreeing on his PinePhone power comments but that was only because other distros like Lomiri can run smoother than Phosh - while I agree we need more power I think there’s still improvements to be made that will make the experience better on the existing hardware.

      I would have loved to see more of a Librem 5 Phosh overview, especially with that device having more power (I know there are a few videos other there but not quite like this one).

      • @SirLotsaLocks
        3•3 years ago

        Yeah I really like tilvids. My main complaint with peertube in general is the big instances are full of wierd and chaotic videos which isn’t that great for new people coming in. tilvids is a great example of what I think a better peertube instance is. It takes a genre that has variety but is still pretty straight forward, and it serves as a hub for that kind of video. Another instance like this is ConfTube which I don’t use often but it’s another similar situation. I would love to see more instances like this pop up in the future, maybe for gaming or music. Another thing that I think is great about it is that they aren’t just unofficial reuploads, the people on tilvids are the actual creators.

        Also for the pinephone and power I agree that further optimization is possible for sure, mobile linux is still a full blown desktop os that’s been trimmed down for lighter devices. I think that mobile linux could definitely use more power, especially as a convergent os.

  • @lorabe
    2•3 years ago

    Untill the arrival of GTK4 plus good drivers support, no, GNOME is not ready to be an android replacement at the very least in the technical sense.

    But we’ve been waiting for a long time and most things have been accomplished, i give it 1.5 to 2.5 years to reach the ideal point of usability for someone who cares about privacy or likes FLOSS.