"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 a bug report about the hardware in the PinePhone.
When I added the "PinePhone component list" page to the PINE64 wiki (https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_component_list), I noticed several errors in the schematics. See: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2021/12/10/comparing-l5-and...
Since PINE64 didn't provide a way for me to register a bug report about it, I listed those errors on the wiki page. Instead of fixing the schematics, every mention of errors in the schematics was deleted from the wiki by user "Kx" on 2023-12-24. My questions on the PINE64 forum about how to get the schematics fixed were never answered. I don't blame PINE64 for the wiki edits, since I assume "Kx" was just someone in the community who didn't like seeing that there were errors in the schematics. However, the fact that PINE64 doesn't have a public bug tracker for its hardware issues is frankly an indication of problems with the way the company was run in my opinion.
"Accurate statement is that some perhaps critical work stayed out-of-tree, partly by choice and partly due to upstream rejections or dependencies, and not that "the volunteers generally didn't upstream." The claim is overstated to the point of being misleading."
I did some web searches and see that there were more commits to mainline Linux than I thought. I will edit that part. However, there was a marked difference between Purism and PINE64 in this respect.
"The article says PPP "still had major software problems when its sales were cancelled in August 2025.". Yeah, no. Pinephone Pro has almost full kernel support, multiple bootloaders, even graphics/touch support for U-Boot, etc. There are no SW kernel issues that I'm aware off that were not solved years ago."
I don't own a PPP, so I was going off what is listed on the PPP PINE64 wiki, which lists:
Bootloader (critical bugs), Stability (WIP), Suspend (Experimental), Updates (WIP), Phone (WIP), MMS (WIP), LCD (WIP), Rear camera (WIP), front camera (WIP), camera flash (critical issues), Bluetooth (WIP), GNSS (WIP), Sensors (WIP), Keyboard add-on (WIP), Qi Wireless (WIP), LoRa (not implemented), Fingerprint reader (not implemented).
Is the wiki wrong? I held off on buying the PPP for years waiting for those issues to be resolved, and I saw little progress on getting those problems solved since many of the high profile volunteers left in 2022.
"As for the company: Pine64 promissed 10 years of original Pinephone."
The PP FAQ says: "he PinePhone (and parts for them) will be produced and sold for at least 5 years."
https://pine64.org/documentation/PinePhone/FAQ/
"Sooo. what HW support is lacking on Pinephone, Pinephone Pro or PineTab2 or Pinebook Pro, or other consumer products, if you take some downstream maintained kernel and use it? You'll find that very little of consequence is missing."
The PineTab2 wiki says that Bluetooth doesn't work, WiFi can't be reset, so device needs to be power cycled. The camera drivers need to be ported, The Rockchip CSI/ISP driver needs to be extended to handle 2 lanes. Suspend does not currently work reliably, so suspend has been disabled.
"Performance is not really relevant to "level of SW support"."
In the case of the A64 in the PinePhone, its GPU for hardware acceleration is pretty weak, and there is no ISP and aDSP, and the VPU's hardware encoder only includes H.264 video, so I don't think SW support was really holding back the performance of the cameras and the speed of the interface. There are other SoC's where proper SW support is a more relevant issue holding back performance.
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 a bug report about the hardware in the PinePhone.
When I added the "PinePhone component list" page to the PINE64 wiki (https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_component_list), I noticed several errors in the schematics. See: https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2021/12/10/comparing-l5-and...
Since PINE64 didn't provide a way for me to register a bug report about it, I listed those errors on the wiki page. Instead of fixing the schematics, every mention of errors in the schematics was deleted from the wiki by user "Kx" on 2023-12-24. My questions on the PINE64 forum about how to get the schematics fixed were never answered. I don't blame PINE64 for the wiki edits, since I assume "Kx" was just someone in the community who didn't like seeing that there were errors in the schematics. However, the fact that PINE64 doesn't have a public bug tracker for its hardware issues is frankly an indication of problems with the way the company was run in my opinion.
"Accurate statement is that some perhaps critical work stayed out-of-tree, partly by choice and partly due to upstream rejections or dependencies, and not that "the volunteers generally didn't upstream." The claim is overstated to the point of being misleading."
I did some web searches and see that there were more commits to mainline Linux than I thought. I will edit that part. However, there was a marked difference between Purism and PINE64 in this respect.
"The article says PPP "still had major software problems when its sales were cancelled in August 2025.". Yeah, no. Pinephone Pro has almost full kernel support, multiple bootloaders, even graphics/touch support for U-Boot, etc. There are no SW kernel issues that I'm aware off that were not solved years ago."
I don't own a PPP, so I was going off what is listed on the PPP PINE64 wiki, which lists: Bootloader (critical bugs), Stability (WIP), Suspend (Experimental), Updates (WIP), Phone (WIP), MMS (WIP), LCD (WIP), Rear camera (WIP), front camera (WIP), camera flash (critical issues), Bluetooth (WIP), GNSS (WIP), Sensors (WIP), Keyboard add-on (WIP), Qi Wireless (WIP), LoRa (not implemented), Fingerprint reader (not implemented).
Is the wiki wrong? I held off on buying the PPP for years waiting for those issues to be resolved, and I saw little progress on getting those problems solved since many of the high profile volunteers left in 2022.
"As for the company: Pine64 promissed 10 years of original Pinephone."
The PP FAQ says: "he PinePhone (and parts for them) will be produced and sold for at least 5 years." https://pine64.org/documentation/PinePhone/FAQ/
"Sooo. what HW support is lacking on Pinephone, Pinephone Pro or PineTab2 or Pinebook Pro, or other consumer products, if you take some downstream maintained kernel and use it? You'll find that very little of consequence is missing."
The PineTab2 wiki says that Bluetooth doesn't work, WiFi can't be reset, so device needs to be power cycled. The camera drivers need to be ported, The Rockchip CSI/ISP driver needs to be extended to handle 2 lanes. Suspend does not currently work reliably, so suspend has been disabled.
"Performance is not really relevant to "level of SW support"."
In the case of the A64 in the PinePhone, its GPU for hardware acceleration is pretty weak, and there is no ISP and aDSP, and the VPU's hardware encoder only includes H.264 video, so I don't think SW support was really holding back the performance of the cameras and the speed of the interface. There are other SoC's where proper SW support is a more relevant issue holding back performance.