Is there a future for SailfishOS?

General
#1

I’m using SFOS on my XA2 (single sim) for over 3 years as a daily driver. In general I really like the OS. The user interface is great and there are a lot nice tweaks.

There are already some threads about the situation of Jolla and SFOS:

I really like it, that I don’t have to choose between the devil (Apple) and the deep blue sea (Google). That’s why I’m using SFOS.

When there was the cooperation with the Russians (https://auroraos.ru/) there was a lot new functions and improvements for SFOS coming from this side. Now I don’t see a future for this part of the project. For app developer and Jolla I see no possibility to gain money with SFOS. If SFOS would be a fully open source project the community could help improving, but SFOS is not fully open source.

On the other hand there is the cooperation with the automotive industry, were Jolla sold the android support layer. There are a lot improvements going on, but if SFOS is not working properly, the best android layer can’t help.

Right now I’m a quite frustrated SFOS user. Since approximately SFOS 4.0 there are big problems dealing with memory (RAM). Using apps like mapsMe oder OSMand is quite difficult. After some time of navigation the app and the android support layer crashes. I noticed the OSMand is working better, when I close all other apps while navigation. But since SFOS 4.5. even in this case there are crashes. Normally the android support automatically restarted and after some time I could restart OSMand. But with SFOS 4.5.0.19 I manually have to stop and start android support. This is quite “ugly” while driving. After I have restarted android support I have to wait some time otherwise there is no android support for the sd card and OSMand can’t load maps. So android support is some how good, but the memory management (of SFOS) is terrible. There are a lot threats in forum about that!!

Other problems:

  • In one of approximately 15 cases can’t call somebody. – restart of phone solves the problem
  • In one of approximately 20 cases can’t sent a SMS. – restart of phone solves the problem
  • In one of approximately 5 cases opening an email with the stock email app, the email app crashes. – restarting the app usually solves the problem
  • If I open some contacts with the stock contacts app the app crashes. – no solution yet, for now I don’t use the contact app to start a call, write a SMS or email to this contact, but use the special apps
  • In some cases the battery usage is quite high. So I lose 40 % of battery over night. – Restart of phone solves the problem for some time.
  • The fingerprint sensor of my phone was never working good. But now it is impossible to unlock the phone with the sensor. Training a new “finger” is also not possible.
  • Syncing contacts using CardDAV stopped working. Something like this can happen, but there are NO information at all, that there is a problem. Even if I open the settings, there is no hint that there is a problem. - I have to connect using ssh to the phone and have to deal for “hours” with this problem.
  • In some cases it was great to use android settings. But there is no alien dalvik control app any more.

I don’t have much time for “baby sitting” of “daily driver” phone. I need a reliable phone for every day use!! Is there some hope?? Is there a perspective for the future of SFOS?

14 Likes
#2

There has always been people complaining in this manner. Apparently now it is your turn.
Perhaps you are simply due a phone upgrade because the world has moved on?

If you deliberately choose (like you did here) to not be the least bit constructive, what do you expect to change?

To misquote Winston Churchill: Sailfish OS is the worst OS - except for all the others.

11 Likes
#3

Remark: I think about moving to iodéOS:

#4

That’s just another Android distribution. That makes you part of the lock-in problem, kind of like using Brave (a Chrome clone) instead of Chrome, a very shortsighted workaround. But to each, their own.

9 Likes
#5

As I told I in general like the OS. There where some threads where people where just “yelling” at jolly about there “bad” system. I gave conret not working points. And I think there is a big need for cooperation with other companies like in the case of auroraOS or/and making SFOS fully open source. So I think my post is quite constructive.

1 Like
#6

No; these are not bug-report quality problems (which should be reported separately, and with logs where applicable). They are also not universal to everyone.

Some are very likely just simply due to that the phone in question does not have a modern amount of RAM.

Battery consumption can still be an app misbehaving, especially to get those levels.
Your finger print sensor is probably just dirty - at least it’s not a software fault.
Android settings is still available - for example through “View Licenses” in the AppSupport settings and a tap back. I could have sworn this got a dedicated button recently, but apparently not.

Late edit: they did, but hidden - tap 3 times on Android version.

It is just another end-user list of personal grievances.

10 Likes
#7

Good to know and interesting that this exists, thank you!
But please mind that you then have to use Android apps with ‘their’ look & feel and also ‘their’ data safety.

Reading about your problems, I strongly suggest a reflash with the latest SFOS version - and it will surely work much much better than before! This is also the fastest and easiest way for the first.
Long time updated and updated and updated devices cumulate a lot of unclean update errors, updater also doesn’t work 100% error free - such is life.

If you are not satisfied at the end, iodéOS surely may a not so bad option.

7 Likes
#8

For the non call problems, maybe it is enough to restart connman or the phone service. You could try Sailfish utilities. There is also a patch to get an icon for the Android settings. You could also write a small script which restarts AlienDalvik and turn this into an desktop icon. Not every problem needs a reboot. Sure it would be better to not use these workarounds at all.

#9

The problems with sailfish are minor for me and I’m willing to live them. Though I am worried about how Jolla is doing finacially, does anyone know anything? If they go down and don’ t make this open source we are screwed.

2 Likes
#10

I’m not sure I’d agree to that… maybe with an intensive Browser and Android apps usage?
Using an XA2 Single with 4.5.0.19 as daily, here.

Still very happy and encounter none of these problems.
I almost never use Android nor CardDAv though.
Rarely, The browser restarts.
I wouldn’t swear other minor annoyances don’t happen, but from far nothing as heavy as what is described above.
Navigating twice a day with Pure Maps, sending mails, sms, mms, phonecalls. “Just works.”

@luddwig27
As @Seven.of.nine said, I’d reflash. Not very difficult. One shot. (no daily baby-sitting)

'Cause everything has a price.
The freedom and independence promised by Jolla with SFOS is really not expensive. But we have to pay with some tolerance, time, brain usage and patience.
On Android, we pay private life-leak.
On IOS, money and private life-leak.
On Android flavours like Iodé, we have to accept that the apps have their own behaviour regarding data, and I’m not sure they are as hermetic as SFOS.

Give it a chance: reflash! :wink:
As I said, XA2 suits my needs every day, even for work.
I’d also recommend you to try Pure Maps with HERE services. This allows route calculation taking traffic into account, and good maps. (but I admit I have no idea in what proportions private life is/is not compromised with HERE service )

5 Likes
#11

My wife is on e/os.
cant say that she is happier then before on sfos
she does not complain about her ipad

1 Like
#12

That’s true, for this reason I upgraded from XA2 Plus to 10 III.
Unfortunately, 18 months after purchasing the phone, I still cannot use it since data connection does not work with my operator, and I am still using the XA2.

1 Like
#13

Month ago I buy second XA2 with Android 9.0. Man, that’s horrible. OS developed by most rich and advanced corporation is ugly and works with bugs. So i don’t complain, because I’ve comparsion 24/7.

2 Likes
#14

My guess would be that most of those random glitches which require restarts are caused by random processes randomly crashing when the device runs out of memory.

I stopped upgrading Sailfish OS on my daily device (which is also XA2) just before sadboxing and a few other memory-hogging features were introduced and keep Android runtime turned off most of the time - and I’m very pleased with the stability and performance. If in addition to that I keep wifi and mobile data off except when I actually need the Internet, the phone easily survives 3 days without a charger.

I don’t remember when I last time had to restart the device - it was months ago. Probably in the end of last year.

Efficiency doesn’t seem to be much of a priority for mobile OS developers these days, and unfortunately Sailfish OS hasn’t become an exception. It’s probably safe to assume that the situation won’t significantly improve any time soon, at least in that respect.

And I don’t think that open-sourcing the whole thing would make much of a difference, honestly. Without a company behind it, which provides overall coordination, planning, server infrastructure, bug tracking, QA etc. the OS will quickly stop being usable, open-sourced or not.

11 Likes
#15

Hi Hi :laughing: Good one!

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#16

I just hope that they will find some revenue sources to keep the OS alive and keep improving it!
I am going to do my part supporting however I can, but at the end of the day I am not going to complain about an OS that I really enjoy, I got for free and a license that costed me 50€.

I do understand the frustration some people might have, but we are talking about a very small company here so I think we already knew what we signed up for.

15 Likes
#17

I’ve been a full-time Jolla user (and developer) for almost 10 years. I don’t use Android or Apple devices.

I do worry about the long-term sustainability of SailfishOS (separate from Jolla).
Right now it feels like SailfishOS is “stuck” on Qt 5.6, with no clear goal for what’s next. SailfishOS cannot survive another 10 years on Qt 5.6.

My hope is that the other Linux mobile technologies (phosh, libhandy, GNOME shell, KDE plasma) and the respective distros (e.g. Mobian) get to a level of maturity where I can start using them instead. It would bring me one step closer to using a (more) FOSS Linux mobile system.

7 Likes
#18

I forgot to talk about battery usage.
Overnight in Flight Mode on the XA2 here drains approx 13mAh. This represents some few percents.

#19

That’s true, and for this reason I decided to move on from my faithful XA2 to a 10iii.
Unfortunately, for the first six months of ownership i had no mobile data, and now having solved this (by switching providers!), i now still face random browser crashes which apparently relate to OOM (on a 6GB phone!).

Now, i still love the experience and SFOS does ‘work’ for me, but i see absolutely nothing invalid in this user asking what he is asking.

3 Likes
#20

Regarding mobile data; as you might have sees, Jolla has done quite some work with CLAT recently, adapting to networks that only gives ipv6 addresses to that phone. A complete surprise to everyone that some networks would do this.

I’m not so sure all browser crashes are OOM-related - or rather i know that is not true. The one i see most is a bug related to hardware accelerated video.

If you read more closely, you will see that my main gripe is with the how of the complaints, only some of the what.

7 Likes