Top all-time · #7030
Amos B. Batto
Personal blog · amosbbatto.wordpress.comhardwaresystems
Amos B. Batto writes Random thoughts, conocimiento no conocido, yachay mana yachasqachu, a personal blog at amosbbatto.wordpress.com about hardware and systems. Since 2017, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 27 times, most often “The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-19, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link these posts to explain why Phosh is the preferred mobile desktop environment, to argue for phone-desktop convergence, and for PinePhone and Librem 5 context. No comment judges the writing itself.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
From the eclectic brain of Amos B. Batto
Most-linked posts?
- The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux5 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-08-05
- Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-10-08
- Comparing the Librem 5 USA and PinePhone Beta2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-12-19
- Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market share?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-11-24
What Hacker News says?
> What if you don't want the same applications with the same interface modalities on different devices? In an ideal world, you'd be able to choose from a variety of programs, to optimize for your usecase, all while maintaining data portability/sync. Convergence is a practical choice to allow contributions to be shared by desktop and phone users. https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph... discuss…
Comment linking /2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/
on “A new wave of Linux applications”Submitted Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly? as a story · 274 points
HN discussionHere is why they chose this path: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph... . See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... .
Comment linking /2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/
on “Librem 5 Mass Production Phone Has Begun Shipping”Submitted Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market share? as a story · 207 points
HN discussionGiven the OP's reply, I don't think that's what he meant so I would be careful about making statements on behalf of others. Apparently Firefox is sitting at 6.1% market share right now[0]. Far behind Chrome and Safari but still quite significant. [0] https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2017/11/21/mozilla-market-s...
Comment linking /2017/11/21/mozilla-market-share/
on “Firefox 57 delays requests to tracking domains”Submitted Comparing the Librem 5 USA and PinePhone Beta as a story · 60 points
HN discussion> Looking up the Librem 5 devicetree in the upstream kernel, it seems it was submitted on Aug 21 2020. Aspen shipped in September 2019, so it took them about a year from shipping to upstreaming bring-up, and that's not considering internal prototypes and that the SoC was announced in mid 2018, so they had plenty of time to work on things internally. I submitted upstream bring-up for the M1 Mac Mini with the device t…
Comment linking /2021/12/15/amount-code-librem5/
on “Intel completely disables AVX-512 on Alder Lake after all”Submitted The Advantages of Mobile Linux over AOSP (LineageOS, CrDroid, GrapheneOS, etc.) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe RYF certification program is based on Richard Stallman's outdated idea that hardware shouldn't be changed and software is anything that can be changed or updated after the device is produced. Anyone who looks at how x86 processors use microcode updates and the security threats with Meltdown and Spectre knows that a modern x86 PC needs to get microcode updates. Even worse is the fact that building a device to com…
Comment linking /2021/12/10/comparing-l5-and-pp/
on “Intel completely disables AVX-512 on Alder Lake after all”Submitted Am I willing to pay the price to support ethical hardware? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI wonder if it will be powered by Purism's Phosh (by default) like many other distros already. "Phosh is current available on 8 different mobile distros that have been ported to the PinePhone, and Phosh is the preferred DE on 7 of those 8." https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph... The list of those distros is in the link.
Comment linking /2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/
on “PinePhone Manjaro Community Edition”Submitted The advantages of mobile Linux over AOSP as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> Linux doesn't mean systemd, polkit, glibc, GCC, binutils, GNOME, pulseaudio/pipewire, Wayland/X11, etc. It makes no sense to claim these are Linux phones when the vast majority of smartphones run Linux. It's marketing spin. If you want to call it a GNU/Linux phone, go ahead, but what you're doing is a deliberate attempt at misleading people on their part. I was simply following the standard convention of saying "L…
Comment linking /2021/12/15/amount-code-librem5/
on “Librem 5: First Impressions”Submitted Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionXiaomi is the number one brand in Europe and India, and was the number 3 brand worldwide by unit sales in the year 2021. Xiaomi actually does the worst in its home market. It was the 4th largest brand inside China in Q3 2021, and it fell to 5th place in Q4 2021. See: https://www.gsmarena.com/strategy_analytics_xiaomi_is_the_to... https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-03-0... As for Xiaomi being com…
Comment linking /2021/12/10/comparing-l5-and-pp/
on “Librem 5: First Impressions”Submitted We don’t own our mobile phones (2019) as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"Phosh is current available on 8 different mobile distros that have been ported to the PinePhone, and Phosh is the preferred DE on 7 of those 8." https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph... The list of those distros is in the link.
Comment linking /2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/
on “Linux PinePhone has physical kill switches for its cameras, mic, data, BT, Wi-Fi”Submitted The questions that mobile phone reviewers never ask as a story · 2 points
HN discussion"There were several pinephone HW revisions that fixed HW issues based on direct developer feedback... So communication to get HW changes was possible, and was usually via TL Lim, not via HW devs." That's great, but that wasn't my experience as an ordinary buyer of the PinePhone who wasn't on the special developers list and had no way to communicate with TL Lim. PINE64 provides no way for an ordinary user to register…
Comment linking /2021/12/10/comparing-l5-and-pp/
on “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?”Submitted The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI think there will never be mass-market “Linux phones” in the sense of “runs a Linux kernel and you can tinker with all their parts”. Demand simply is too low. FTA: ( https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2026/10/05/linux-phones-alt... ): “Jolla has sold 15,000 units of its phone as of August 2026 just by taking pre-orders for production batches from its web site” In comparison, Apple easily sells 15,000 phones each hour…
Comment linking /2026/10/05/linux-phones-alternative/
on “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?”Submitted The Strategic Advantages of Phosh for Mobile Linux as a story · 1 points
HN discussion> it makes more sense to take advantage of all the work Google has put into Android No, it doesn't: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2020/08/05/advantages-of-ph... .
Comment linking /2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/
on “PinePhone – Open Source Smart Phone Supported by Major Linux Phone Projects”Submitted The strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe "Strategic advantages of Phosh for mobile Linux" article[1] mentions that Plasma Mobile roadmap "in September 2017 showed [Plasma Mobile] as having finished the prototyping phase, but not yet ready for feature phones and basic smartphones". It's 2021, four years later, and the Plasma Mobile roadmap[2] seems to be in pretty much the same place (or perhaps it's just an outdated page?). Does that mean that the Plas…
Comment linking /2020/08/05/advantages-of-phosh/
on “KDE Plasma Mobile 21.07”Submitted Trying to decide between the PinePhone and the Librem 5 as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
