Feedback: initial impressions

General
#1

I have installed sailfish on Xperia 10 Plus bought just for it.

Some background, as I will probably spam this thread in next few months, 100% self hosted, from email server to next cloud,… so most of the issues are not presenting me a problem and I can debug problems at server side too… and I will probably spam this thread for next few months, but please dont take it as complaining - I am software developer for 25 years and I know that greenhorns sometimes encounter things every experienced user would miss.

I want to share some feedback:

Day one:

  • Installation manuals are just too windows oriented, I didnt have issues with them as I am flashing android since it exists but it might be confusing for someone coming from linux. Maybe it would be better to clone the page and create a separate page for linux, there is not much to change but would give a better initial feeling.
  • Importing VCF files. The original wizards in People application doesnt work, after the vcf is selected (I had one with all the contacts packed into one vcf) it will shot something as "page doesnt exists or something). There is a relative simple workaround to use file browser and double click vcf which means you only have some trivial bug in dialog, but it spoils initial impression.
  • Nextcloud, syncing is a bit strange, I still need to test what the reason is, but until rebooted syncing doesnt stop. After reboot all is fine, similar as next one:
  • Creating email account with imap4 SSL, smtp TLS has some strange issues. It doesnt finish and starts throwing out timeout errors. I have verified it at dovecot/postfix logs, it doesnt even connect. Solution is to reset the phone at timeout page and it will sync just nicely after reboot.
  • Browser… firefox… I consider it imperative to keep the add ins and allow their download. Without some sort of ad blocker (typically ublock), today web is pain to use. Please, for the sake of your users, provide at least fingerprint canvas and ublock either in initial install or allow it to be downloaded (still need to try to add xpi, maybe your fork accepts it). And congrats for keeping about:config.
  • AOPK (i hope yo took /e/), there are some annoying sound spikes, i presume when application starts some sound.
  • After reboot I am asked for unlock password twice (i would presume first time is to decrypt the data, second time ordinary unlock?)
  • The power off soft button (hold hardware power button, the top “drawer” gets power button) is somehow unpredictable. It doesnt always go into poweroff but rather reboots the device (I would bet it did turnoff the phone at least once).
    - (solved, tribute to sigurg): Where is terminal emulator???
  • potential “off by one”, while settings running i had another program running and a few more. When I have selected settings from the “drawer”, it opened “another program” instead of settings.

Day two:

  • please remove freaking captcha from all the pages on jolla.zendesk.com, I am sick of tagging bikes, boats and hills, put it only on “post” page
  • developer mode, ssh over wlan doesnt work (wlan entry with ip is darkened), I would presume the firewall is running and is not reconfigured when you enable remote connection. sshing to loopback works, so it is a firewall.
  • getting back to home from settings is a bit of a maze, based on other functionality i would expect that swipe left should do it but you need to swipe up, and then swipe left.
  • there is no “non shell” way to install a certificate (CA in my case) into sailfish browser (firefox will allow it by specifying path to it) or adding them into system certificate store. This part is typically vital for enterprise environment. I know that this is something not every user will need, but for me it is vital.
  • first REALLY bad design encountered, sending MMS, sure it is nice to send image from the gallery but not being able to send the image from messaging application is a horrible idea. Actually user should not be even aware if the SMS or MMS is being sent, this should work seamlessly. (isImageAttached ? type=mms : type=sms;) I can see sailfish is more than capable of showing sent MMS in messaging application but it can only send SMS from there, I cant even imagine reason why this was done in such manner.

Those were some rough edges, but i will dig for more.

Anyway, initial impressions were fine, all the critical functions are working, the phone looks like stable, keep on doing good job. I hope I will be able to shift to the sailfish completely, but in any case, I am glad I have payed for sailfish, such a project needs founding.

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#2

This is what some of us experienced long ago, but it seems difficult to reproduce, so Jolla does not “track” that.

#3

That’s a recent bug already reported by some other users: basically normal shutdown/poweroff is broken and the phone always reboots. You can force the phone to power off hard (which obviously is less than ideal) by pressing and holding the power & volume up key until the phone vibrates 3 times (if you let go after the first vibration, it hard reboots).

It’s only installed when you enable developer mode. But instead of the default terminal emulator I would recommend “ToeTerm” from openrepos:
https://openrepos.net/content/direc85/toeterm

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#4

It’s only installed when you enable developer mode

Thank you for this :slight_smile:, it seemed obvious that it should be somewhere but I deliberately skipped the developer settings to not start poking everywhere before I get the first impressions :laughing:

#5

I am installing linuxes on my phones since ~2004 (angstrom on htc blueangel) and there was always something vital, that didint work. Sailfish, at least on xperia 10 plus, WORKS, which was a huge surprise for me, I have also tryed my sennheiser mementum 3 headset over bluetooth and surprisingly no (or little) issues. My freaking ubuntu on thinkpad doesnt behave that well. There are some details to be fixed that are leaving bad aftertaste, but I doubt they are something big. Fix them. Seriously, they are not P0 issues but those are something that are important to believe into the Sailfish as a daily driver.

Overall, good work!

Please fix the freaking sms/mms application, I dont really care but for ordinary user this is a deal breaker.

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#6

Nearly every (important) app asks now for confirmation to access this and that (the contacts, the internet connection, bluetooth, gallery, GPS…)…

No choice to allow/forbid this or that, only allow all or app does not work :frowning:

On one of my 2 SFOS phones mail accounts broken and not reinstallable even after deleting the old ones.

#7

7of9, this is actually wrong, check xprivacy lua. The question should not be “allow or it doesnt work” but rather “would you like to fake this information”. Android actually did it wrong here from google wish for a huge payoff, but based on GDPR:

EDPS Opinion 4/2017 on the Proposal for a Directive on certain aspects concerning contracts for the supply of digital content, 14 March 2017, p. 7.

“There might well be a market for personal data, just like there is, tragically, a market for live human organs, but that does not mean that we can or should give the market the blessing of legislation. One cannot monetize and subject a fundamental right to a simple commercial transaction, even if it is the individual concerned by the data who is a party to the transaction.”

Bottom line. If the application requires some data that don’t need to be given based on what it needs to perform its functionality, it is in direct violation of GDPR and it would be really helpful if Sailfish would help here by faking the results, preventing application from breaking and on the other side protecting the owner of the phone. If the information is really needed (like GPS coordinates for some map), the user will allow it.

On the other side, if text editor will require GPS coordinates, than any coordinates are just fine - it doesnt need them.

I am for last 10 years living on Christmas Islands for any application that wants to know my location - but this is me. I can fight back with technical measures but most users cant.

Anyway, I think that there is a great opportunity for sailfish today. People are slowly realizing what privacy means and how badly they were treated from google, fb, … Here is a sweet spot for a huge business, but supporting 2 year+ old phones will not get it there.

Start bonding.

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Aliendalvik: root access?