Hacker News: poetaster

New comment by poetaster in "Easyduino: Open Source PCB Devboards for KiCad"

poetaster — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:32:56 +0000

Strongly agree. I have a number of projects (RP2040/RP2350) where I stick to using the piggy back mcu because it's actually cheaper than doing the whole design with small quantities (<50). Not to mention, much less complex.

New comment by poetaster in "Easyduino: Open Source PCB Devboards for KiCad"

poetaster — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:27:40 +0000

I do workshops with kids occasionally. Last week, 4 13 year old boys. In this case I did breadboarding with them first and then showed them the transfer to fritzing -> breadboard -> schematic -> pcb. https://fritzing.org/ If you're looking for stuff they might find fun, logic noize (for instance https://hackaday.com/2015/03/09/logic-noise-sawing-away-with... ) has a bunch of fun cmos audio tutorials with great videos. Personally, I build audio toys, both analog and digital (mostly pi pico2) and still mostly use fritzing for the breadboard education element, but kicad if I need smd positioning and the like.

New comment by poetaster in "Jolla Phone Pre-Order"

poetaster — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 18:25:15 +0000

Yipee! Ok, I can't afford more hardware, but it's my favourite mobile os and I develop/maintain apps for it, so I'm happy to see the amount of effort Jolla has put in in the last 2 years to stay relevant and up their game!

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:17:29 +0000

Exactly! SDL2 apps run well on SFOS :)

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:16:23 +0000

Not true. Gradual but slow progress. https://github.com/sailfishos

They also recently split the automobile UI part off from the Phone bits. That joint work was part of the problem for FOSSing everything, since they have deals with Car manufacturers which depend on their IP.

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:13:58 +0000

The main distinguishing feature is that you generally lack a keyboar / mouse /pointer thing. Hence, the window manager and interaction in general are tuned for touch interactions, single handed use and the like.

It's for this reason I like SFOS. I've tried android and ios. But they suck.

As a developer, I also appreciate the flexibility even within the limits. Gradle and co. suck.

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:09:54 +0000

I've also been using hardware that some of the Jolla team worked on 20+ years ago. N9, N900 to currently Sony and Volla/Gigaset devices.

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:08:35 +0000

There are a number of rust developers building for SailfishOs. Rubdos maintains a Signal client in rust. The toolchain also runs on the build service maintained by Jolla (obs). I'm not sure what the editor has to do with it. I use vim for most of my SFOS development but sometimes use the SDK, sometimes I use Godot.

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 12:05:00 +0000

People often use micro-g and co.

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 11:47:35 +0000

Nope. You can use SDL2, which is behind the Godot port for Sailfish (3.5 still). Supertuxcart, Openlara a bunch of games stuff is viable. There is an active Lua Love porter and and and ...

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 11:43:19 +0000

They've been opening up bit by bit. First stuff like 'jolla-weather', recently, the notes app and numerous bits in the backend ... Currently sync for nextcloud system integration is in the works.

New comment by poetaster in "SailfishOS: A Linux-based European alternative to dominant mobile OSes"

poetaster — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 11:41:24 +0000

The hardware issues are camera related. As in the camera is not operational. They are working on it. Sigh.

New comment by poetaster in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

poetaster — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 14:21:09 +0000

Ah, I just abandon the idea of recovery on these phones and use the ubports installer once. Thereafter, I just flash directly. I have done the MTK tools dance, but don't any longer. Sorry :(

Ah, I have to admit I don't know much about porting :) We did put up a community wiki and the HADK is up there: https://sailfishos.wiki/books/hadk/page/hadk so that you might get some idea of the process ... I'm not sure to what extent this is different from that 'halium' builds that piggz makes. It makes sense to ask him directly, since he has a stream lined process that targets, among others, the phones you have.

As to why the hardware adaption layer is needed (ie. the android one) it's where all the binary blobs are :) Among other bits.

New comment by poetaster in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

poetaster — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:03:30 +0000

Interesting. I had a poke at postmarket, which wasn't ready in comparison with SFOS. Would you say the FLX1 is at better stage in development than postmarket?

New comment by poetaster in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

poetaster — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:58:59 +0000

I also have this setup and SFos on Gigaset GS5. Similar battery performance. I did a roadtrip last week with navigation (starting with about 90% battery) and after 5&1/2 hours navigation was down to 65% or therabouts. Works for me.

And, yes, I often turn off wifi. I never go over my Data limits and 4G/5G is much more efficient for some reason.

New comment by poetaster in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

poetaster — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:56:26 +0000

With my, atypical maybe?, use, I get up to 2 days on a 4KmA battery (Gigaset GS5, SailfishOs). Sometimes I'm down to 1 day if I do social media scrolling.

New comment by poetaster in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

poetaster — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:55:21 +0000

I do have an Android for one app. But daily drive linux and have since the Nokia N9/N900.

I must admit, I don't do banking on the phone and keep all sensitive data off my mobiles.

New comment by poetaster in "Linux phones are more important now than ever"

poetaster — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 11:53:03 +0000

I'm a very happy Sailfish OS user, since 2016, before that Meego, Maemo (Nokia N900, N9). I do have an android phone for one App (Deutsche Post) which I use only when I need to ship stuff. Running on a Gigaset (made in Germany, 4KmA battery) I generally get two days of usage, 1 day if I'm stuck on Mastodon.

From being able to do SDL2 stuff (Godot 3.5 for instance) with a wayland compositor to just not having f'ked UI, I'm happy. The challenge of getting more apps is certainly a challenge. But that's good, gives me lots to do.

Linux on Mobile has already long been here to stay.

Show HN: Porting Mutable Instruments to Arduino, RP2040

poetaster — Tue, 20 May 2025 18:39:20 +0000

I'm sharing this since it's been eating at me since about 2021 :) A little background and example sounds at https://poetaster.org/news/2025-05-11/

In short, Volker Boehm had done some ports of the MI synthesis code in 2020, unbeknownst to me. Once I discovered it a bit over a month ago and compiled his supercollider port, I realized, no excuses, get to it.

The intention is to keep the source as simple to use in an arduino context, so it's NOT as nice from a c++ developers vantage point. But, I think it's becoming approachable for less adept programmers.

Niek from Sluisbrinke has pushed me along, wanting to build a 'Meta-Mi' module: https://github.com/niektb/sluisbrinkie-eurorack-published

I just play these things on my scarp.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44044527

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by poetaster in "Show HN: Franzelio – Draw lines, make music, share your instrument"

poetaster — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 11:59:52 +0000

And a youtube video of the original https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhKnGPcZmE4