Planet Computers : Gemini - Psion Returns

[Grench]

You must have missed what I posted right after that, where I agreed with you. Still, the ugly mess it makes is easier to follow as a link than trying to highlight the whole url and nothing else with touchscreen devices. Maybe put the link in text, like this?

I wish we could opt to turn that thing off globally. It is directly deleting user input content (a link) and replacing that with something else that is less functional and less informative.

Even embedding the link in text, though, -hides it- and adds a layer of abstraction. I prefer raw, unadulterated, unabstracted, unmodified, unaltered links. Why?
A raw link is clearly a connection.
A raw link clearly states whether that connection is on this forum/system or another.
A raw link clearly states the name of the destination of that system - and allows you to not connect to that system if you choose not to.
A raw link does not pop up an image, auto launch a video or other.

Basically it comes down to the basic fact that I want to be given a chance to tell the computer/system/platform/board what I want it to do and not have it second guess my intentions, override them, and do -other- things without asking me first. This auto-conversion of links to 'media' is this boards equivalent of the Android phone's spellwrecker. If I put a text-written unresolved link in my text, it is because I wanted a text-written unresolved link, in text.

Consider this - by translating the link above into a linked media/image, the forum software has -forced- a no-ping untrackable link event into an image download onto every one of our computers from the linked-to article/item/event. Effectively, the forum software is enabling, forcing really, a form of add tracking based on references/links. It can't do that on text that isn't clicked, but it sure can on images or media pinged and or downloaded. The media tag refers your computer/device/ip to download an article from the destination site - which is a trackable event complete with being able to capture whatever cookies you have available. The media tag effectively auto-connects your web actions.

@EvilDragon, can we please turn off whatever is on the forum software that eats text based URL links and spits out media tags?

*steps off of soapbox*

So - back on the Gemini. I still intend to, at least initially, leave the 64GB eMMC to Android and install Linux on a partition on the microSDXC card. The only stop I'm seeing is if it can't boot from microSDXC - which I see as unlikely. In one of the CES demos they showed a Planet Computers team member booting to Linux by holding the assistant button while turning it on. That strikes me as very similar to the 'hold button while turning on' of other android devices to force boot from microSDXC.

 

[rygD]

I have a response, but it doesn't translate to words easily, so I will skip that, the most important part. For the most part I agree with you. If I want to post a link to Amazon, it should be an obvious link to Amazon, not some garbled picture of Amazon and such. Still, the way the software does links still has problems (stuff I can't easily put in words skipped).

 

[vcoleiro1]

The Register got a Gemini PDA and did a hands on review of it


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/21/planet_gemini_pda_production_hands_on/?page=1

 

[Grench]

The Register got a Gemini PDA and did a hands on review of it


https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/21/planet_gemini_pda_production_hands_on/?page=1

Good realistic review. It is pretty much exactly as I had expected.

My fear is that many of the recipients are going to be expecting Samsung/Apple out of the box software quality and be loud in their disappointment. Several others are expecting 100% everything working Linux to ship on their device and be loud in their disappointment. Those of us who come from the perspective that we are going to essentially be beta testers - we'll all be happy.

 

[NetBLOKS]

Good realistic review. It is pretty much exactly as I had expected.

My fear is that many of the recipients are going to be expecting Samsung/Apple out of the box software quality and be loud in their disappointment. Several others are expecting 100% everything working Linux to ship on their device and be loud in their disappointment. Those of us who come from the perspective that we are going to essentially be beta testers - we'll all be happy.

Exactly my thoughts!

 

[PowerGod]

LOL what an "out of this world " bunch of people we are !!

 

[levi]

Several others are expecting 100% everything working Linux to ship on their device and be loud in their disappointment. Those of us who come from the perspective that we are going to essentially be beta testers - we'll all be happy.

I don't know any linux users who actually expect new hardware to work out of the box. I certainly don't, although that's generally why I buy old hardware and install linux on it after a couple of years.

 

[Grench]

I don't know any linux users who actually expect new hardware to work out of the box. I certainly don't, although that's generally why I buy old hardware and install linux on it after a couple of years.

Apparently there are several on the Indiegogo comments page that are disappointed in not getting full-on-all-drivers-complete dual boot to Debian Linux at eight o' clock day one.

Evil Genius: Slugs! He created slugs. They can't hear! They can't speak! They can't operate machinery! I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic?... If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, day one! [zaps one of his minions accidentally, minion screams] Sorry.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Time_Bandits

 

[WizardStan]

I don't know any linux users who actually expect new hardware to work out of the box.

I'm a little miffed that my office laptop's wifi driver is "in staging". Have to use a wired connection like a pleb until it's considered stable.

 

[PowerGod]

I'm a little miffed that my office laptop's wifi driver is "in staging". Have to use a wired connection like a pleb until it's considered stable.

Does NDISWrapper still works ? I remember it saved my ass with my first portable PC, there were absolutely no Linux driver for its network card

 

[levi]

Miffed is fine though, provided you expected to be disappointed. I'm frankly surprised this machine works as well as it does, and it came with linux when it was released.

 

[WizardStan]

Miffed is fine though, provided you expected to be disappointed

I actually did expect the wifi to work out of the box. Webcam, fingerprint scanner, audio, any special motherboard features I didn't, but wifi has been so stable for years that I literally couldn't believe that there's a chipset that isn't supported, yet here we are.

 

[Grench]

I actually did expect the wifi to work out of the box. Webcam, fingerprint scanner, audio, any special motherboard features I didn't, but wifi has been so stable for years that I literally couldn't believe that there's a chipset that isn't supported, yet here we are.

I keep one of these at work and one at home. I started doing it because my WiFi on my Pandora was never great.

https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Network-802-11-Adapter-Antenna/dp/B008Z9IZSW

I've kept them ready-at-hand because they work.

Note - there are newer versions of the same thing that might be faster - but the newer they are the less likely they are to work with everything. So - this slightly older version 802.11 N/g/b is just the ticket for ubiquity. Plus they're dirt cheap. I think I paid $20 for 4 of them form Ebay a few years back. One was bad. I shrugged then used the others.

 

[rygD]

/me flips table

I didn't want to see it anyway!

 

[vcoleiro1]

On Engadget

https://www.engadget.com/2018/02/26/gemini-sailfish-os-jolla-hands-on/

 

[levi]

That's the second review saying the keyboard could be better. That's a shame, given they started off with a S5 keyboard which was pretty much bulletproof, but that didn't have the magnetic collapse mechansim, so I guess they needed to redo quite a lot of it.

 

[NetBLOKS]

That's the second review saying the keyboard could be better. That's a shame, given they started off with a S5 keyboard which was pretty much bulletproof, but that didn't have the magnetic collapse mechansim, so I guess they needed to redo quite a lot of it.

In this review, they blame the Sailfish Version for the bad keystroke recognition, not the hardware keyboard itself.

 

[Grench]

In this review, they blame the Sailfish Version for the bad keystroke recognition, not the hardware keyboard itself.

Reviewers - get handed a beta/development version of a device/software and told it is still in development. They then proceed to trash the device based on things that haven't been completed yet. Then we wonder why companies are so secretive about their development process.

 

[CommanderB]

@Grench: Would you review the device for our community when it arrives? (With the Pyra and Pandora in mind?)

Gesendet von meinem SM-N9005 mit Tapatalk

 

[Grench]

@Grench: Would you review the device for our community when it arrives? (With the Pyra and Pandora in mind?)

Gesendet von meinem SM-N9005 mit Tapatalk

Of course. My order number is between 2300 and 2400 though, so the odds are that there will already be lots of reviews here there and everywhere by the time I get mine.

Setting expectations - I'm more prone to long written form than video or pictures.

My initial review/reactions/frustrations/successes with the Kobo Aura One as an example: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/kobo-aura-one.82573/#post-1432086