this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Imagine a full Linux desktop experience while plugged into a monitor and then a mobile experience on the go. That's the dream.
I think Canonical pitched this about 10 years ago.
10 years ago was the time to start, too.
Imagine a Linux-like OS for mobile as a reasonable 3rd mobile operating system. People would run it and seem weird like when people run Linux on their laptop nowadays. 1-2% market share. Basically nothing is native to it but a handful of open source apps, but waydroid would be more complete. That would be beautiful.
Shoot. Imagine a reasonably new phone running something Linux with a shell laptop that lets you properly converge. Linux has the best ARM support because basically anything can be complied.
That's what Samsung tried with Dex. You could even run an honest to god (emulated) Linux on it. Unfortunately, it didn't work out and no one knows about it today.
Just a small community of 33.7k people on reddit.
I stand corrected.
Dex could have been the dream. That wm, it's soo bad. Then the apps have too much control over their resize and only one instance of an app running.
I could have daily driven it if it was just a little more consistent
Shame that it's closed source and by Samsung. :/
Yeah, but to be fair it seems more feasible now. Maybe one day!
I have a sd8 gen 2 phone and with this amount of power i wouldnt even need a laptop. I mainly use mine for programming and school work but the most i see on it is 30% and i think this phone could handle it. Maybe compiling is a different story...
Samsung offered this for a short while with Linux on Dex. You could easily run a lightweight Ubuntu Desktop container when plugged in. Sadly they removed it after a few months.
What are you saying they removed here? I'm using Dex with a Z Fold4 as I type this. Don't even have a laptop or desktop anymore. All I ever need is my phone nowadays.
I think you can run a proot distro on dex
But it won't integrate that much. You won't get exactly the same app on mobile and desktop in environment mixed like that.
You can get this with a Pinephone and a USB-C dock. Both experiences leave a lot to be desired, but it's there.
As someone who owns a PinePhone I can tell you that a lot more work needs to be done first. postmarketOS is ok but being Alpine based means you have to forever deal with all the issues that come with it including its primitive package manager. And mobian also kept breaking ever other half a year or so requiring manual config changes etc.
What we need IMO, is a more reliable spin like Fedora, maybe even something immutable like Silverblue to ensure the stability required for a daily driver device while also being quick to deploy the latest versions of releases.
There's also the whole app ecosystem aspect but between advances in Waydroid and convergent GTK apps, I'm more concerned about the underlying base OS than the app ecosystem ^^
Biggest limit for me is the battery life still.
The NexDock is a laptop dock for Dex with a 44Wh battery built in and a 13.3” screen. They’re only $269. They’re launching an XL model next year for only $299 with a 57Wh battery and a 15.6” screen. They both have a touch screen and a 360° hinge.
Yah, that's one of the drawbacks yet.