Is there a future for SailfishOS?

General
#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
#21

SfOS works great for me (10ii) and there is absolutely no reason to change OS at present.
You should maybe get yourself a newer phone to solve your issues.

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#22

Be sure to join low memory workarounds working group thread at Low memory, apps crashing - change zram settings or add swapfile? [4.x] - #53 by lkraav

But long story short is still, SFOS technology is best suited for phones w/ 8G RAM and up.

#23

Not actually screwed. We would have to flash another OS on our phones at some point in time.

#24

Will this one finally be the one of these more or less identical threads about a bunch of otherwise noted bugs, personal annoyances, old hardware and for sure complete celestial insight in the future of mobile operating systems that will once and for all solve it all?

Chances are as high as ever.

6 Likes
#25

Feels very weird to need 8gb ram for this type of OS, but i would gladly get a high end device if jolla supports it and focuses on that device for a few years.

#26

on the jolla it was marketed as lightweight os that only needs 1GB of ram^^

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#27

And that would be my expectations too. Maybe now with the focus on android support things are different?
My usage is not that heavy so I cannot verify or deny :slight_smile:

1 Like
#28

i think what slows sfos down is encryption and sailjail (or firejail)

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#29

Right, and there are so many possibilities for xperia 10 III… Shame official sailfish os is not for fairphone 3 or 4, then there would actually be other options.

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#30

Yes. Two, if you own both.

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#32

I’m thinking the same.

Is there an option to throw these two things away from the phone? Or is this so deeply integrated into the system that it can’t be removed? I really would like to get rid of this.

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#33

If you have a phone that was aleady around before the encryption was introduced (something like 3.4?) you could flash the older version (if you get it from someone) and upgrade. The encryption was not automaticallx activated, my XA2 Ultra is still unencrypted.

If I think about it that could explain why I don’t have any performance issues.

#34

You can disable encryption after flashing. Instead of booting Sailfish you need to boot into recovery, mount the root file system and delete/rename the file:

/var/lib/sailfish-device-encryption/encrypt-home

and thats it.

8 Likes
#35

It seems like a good idea to check out, especially if you have few XA2 laying around in various conditions :slight_smile:

Only question is, where to find images of older SFOS?

#36

If you ask for it on the forum usually someone shows up who has kept old images

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#37

Filesystem encryption overhead is negligible.

Sailjail I’m not familiar with, nor do I use SELinux or alternatives on desktop. These could have a more significant impact.

But the main killers, way above anything else

  • 2 system runtimes: SFOS, Android
  • Browser: I can see closing it free 1+G memory just by itself
  • memory leaks: it’s highly likely with these complicated systems

I haven’t been able to reach a conclusion on how native Android can appear and render so fast and smooth even on a low end device like Xperia X, vs SFOS containerized Android on let’s say X10II and up :thinking:

1 Like