Overview of the Sailfish OS operating system. Why no one needs Firefox OS, Sailfish OS, Tizen and Ubuntu Touch
Jolla unusual smartphone from the Finnish manufacturer of the same name, running on Sailfish OS, an open-source operating system source code and support for Android applications. The founders are former Nokia employees who left the company after the arrival of Stephen Elop and Windows Phone.
It cannot be categorized budget devices, official cost in Russia is 19,990 rubles. Jolla will have to surprise us with at least good performance and characteristics that are not inferior to the flagships of early 2014.
Design and equipment
Contents of delivery:
No headphones. Jolla saves space in our trash can and does not include plugs for 50 rubles just for show. Thank you.
Perhaps what sets Jolla apart from its competitors is its very unusual sandwich-shaped body. When I took the phone out of the box, I wanted to separate it top part from the bottom. This desire remains to this day, my hands are itching.
In fact, it is a removable cover. Smart removable cover. For example, if you install a panel of a different color, Jolla will automatically suggest changing color scheme interface. Cool? Undoubtedly. Another plus in favor of its unusualness.
SIM card slots are located under the cover Micro SIM and maps MicroSD memory, and removable battery capacity 2100 mAh. The device can work up to 10 hours in talk mode and up to 21 days in standby mode.
Here we will also find necessary information about the phone: IMEI, serial number, model and production date. The device is assembled in China.
There are no buttons on the front panel, only an indicator light. On the side there is a power/unlock button and a volume rocker. The tactile sensations are pleasant: the clicks are clear and precise. On top there is a standard 3.5 mm audio output and an equally standard MicroUSB connector.
The body is made of good plastic, it does not blur and does not collect dirt. The construction is solid, but the phone is not tightly assembled: in some places it backlash. If you turn it in your hands and press it with your fingers (and we love to do this), you can clearly hear crackling sounds. Perhaps the removable cover is to blame. Jolla weighs 141 grams and measures 131 x 68 x 9.9 mm.
As for ease of use, the well-established “apple never falls far from the tree” suggests itself. Let me give you an analogy with telephones. Nokia Lumia. The sharp edges dig into your palm and this feeling is especially intensified when you try to reach the top of the screen.
Display
Jolla equipped their smartphone with a bright 4.5-inch multi-touch display with IPS matrix. The screen behaves well in the sun. Colors juicy, in comparison - something between the iPhone 5/5S and the new sixes.
The positive impressions end with color rendering. Resolution – qHD, 540×960, 245 ppi. And this few. For example, the one presented in 2010 year iPhone 4 with a screen diagonal of 3.5 inches, the resolution is 640x960 with a density of 326 ppi. When watching videos, working with photos and the smartphone interface, pixels will not be noticeable, but once you go to the browser, all the beauty of grainy and smeared fonts will begin to get on your nerves. For clarity, I tried to take a screenshot with a DSLR camera, even in horizontal orientation The text display quality is not impressive:
As for viewing angles, there is no praise or scolding here. Quite comfortable for work, but nothing more.
Overall impressions of the display are positive. Yes, low resolution. But good brightness, rich colors, absence of serious glare in the sun and acceptable viewing angles smooth out this shortcoming.
Durable glass - Gorilla Glass 2. There should be no scratches or abrasions. Unless, of course, you decide to hit it with a key or something else.
Camera
Before moving on to the main camera, let's quickly look at the front one. Its resolution is 2 megapixels. I'm not a fan of selfies, so I gave my girlfriend the opportunity to test and make a verdict. She took two photos: on Jolla and on her iPhone. The photos are not processed, the lighting in the room is good.
Jolla:
You can see from the pictures that you won’t be able to take a high-quality selfie on Jolla. The color rendering is unnatural, the complexion is distorted (the effect of a red skin tone), the image is very noisy.
Let's move on to the main 8 megapixel camera. Fixed aperture value – f/2.4.
To convey its capabilities in detail, let's consider a couple of pictures outdoors (during the day), indoors with insufficient lighting, and again outdoors, but at night.
Outdoors (daytime):
Room with insufficient lighting:
At night:
For everyday shooting, the quality is quite acceptable. The pictures were taken in automatic mode, because I’m used to taking photos on an iPhone, which perfectly adapts the settings to any conditions. The Jolla camera app algorithms cope with this task satisfactorily, but for best result without manual settings can't get by here. The following parameters are available to the user:
Jolla can record video with resolution 1080p with a frequency of 30 frames per second and copes with this task well. Colors are moderately saturated, noise is smoothed out. The digital stabilization doesn't work as well as we would like (the picture is not very smooth), but overall it will do.
Sailfish OS
The entire uniqueness of the Jolla device lies in its operating system. I’ll say right away: it’s not like iOS, Android, or Windows Phone. This is something new, interesting, quite simple and intuitive, aimed at controlling gestures. I will not consider it in detail; what is important here is the impressions that everyone should get for themselves by holding a smartphone in their hands and testing it before purchasing. The official website has a visual video demonstrating the interface and capabilities of Sailfish OS.
Jolla's start screen is unique. The clock is displayed at the bottom, the day of the week and date at the top. Scroll down - we get to the multitasking screen and the first 4 applications. Another scroll – the rest of the applications. Interesting concept.
Examples of some standard applications:
If you want to install an Android application, you need to download the support for the respective stores. Available by default Anzhi Market, Aptoide Appstore And Yandex.Store. They are complementary; if you wish, you can find the most necessary things, for example, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Yandex.Maps, Shazam and others. About Google play“out of the box” you can forget, although I have no doubt that enthusiasts have already found a way to access it.
Eat alternative way installing applications for Android: connect the device to the computer and download the APK file to it and then install it. Programs that use file system smartphone (players, file managers), may crash and become unstable. For example, Yandex.Store periodically closes with an error and does not display images.
Performance
Jolla is equipped with very weak hardware by today's standards: a processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, 2 cores 1.4 GHz, 1GB random access memory. Its performance is comparable to Samsung Galaxy S2. Sad tests in AnTuTu Benchmark:
It looks like the market mobile technologies is finally breaking out of stagnation. It no longer consists of 90% of 2 giant companies, which are looked down on obsequiously by small players. Manufacturers stopped churning out outwardly identical monoblocks and began to think about how to really surprise customers.
In software matters, the beginnings of competition are also revealed. The triumvirate of Android, iOS and Windows Mobile It’s about to collapse under the pressure of lesser-known “operating systems” - Firefox OS, Tizen OS, and, of course, Jolla Sailfish OS. The latest OS has the greatest chance of climbing to the pedestal, because two major powers are interested in it at once - Russia and China. Where did Sailfish Mobile OS come from and why is it better than popular operating systems, you will learn from this article.
In 2011, two tech giants Nokia and Intel in partnership decided to create an operating system distinctive feature which had the ability to adapt to any user requirements. This is how it appeared MeeGo is an extremely interesting “OS” that was used on only one smartphone model, Nokia N9.
Russian users had few opportunities to get acquainted with MeeGo, because Nokia N9 was not sold in domestic retail. MeeGo received a lot abroad positive feedback both from ordinary users and from experts - but still quickly “sank into oblivion.” Nokia refused to develop this OS and decided to focus on Windows Mobile, which seemed to it a more promising project.
However, a group of enthusiasts broke away from Nokia and formed new company Jolla and began developing MeeGo, on the basis of which Sailfish Mobile OS grew. The beta version of Sailfish OS 1.0 appeared in November 2013. 2 years later, Jolla released the second version of the operating system, which is still relevant today.
In 2015, another significant event occurred with Jolla: Russian entrepreneur G. Berezkin, a representative of the top 200 most successful businessmen in Russia, appeared in the company as the main shareholder. Berezkin launched the OMP (Open Mobile Platform) company in the Russian Federation, the purpose of which was to create Sailfish Mobile OS RUS - the Russian “people's” operating system, based on the software components of the original Sailfish.
In the fall of 2016, Sailfish Mobile OS RUS was completed and added to the register of domestic software under the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. In other words, a native Russian version of the Finnish “OS” Sailfish has appeared.
What's good about Sailfish OS?
Sailfish has many advantages - here are just a few:
- Availability of 2 application stores at once. Google Play not on Sailfish, but in the menu you can find Yandex.Store and own store Jolla. Android applications (which are compatible with Sailfish) are available in Yandex.Store, and the Jolla store offers only those programs that are written specifically for the Finnish operating system. Of course, there are not many of them yet - so integration with Android applications looks like a reasonable solution.
- Complete freedom when working with files. Sailfish is a kind of antipode to iOS: this OS completely open. The user can upload files of any type into the smartphone’s memory without any media processors and open them using Jolla applications. If necessary, you can even activate developer mode or launch a fully functional Terminal.
- Original interface. The Sailfish interface may seem strange to a user accustomed to iOS or Android. Many operations are performed differently than on Android and iOS - for example, to change the keyboard language, you have to press and hold the spacebar button. However, if the user gives Sailfish a chance and uses it for at least a week, he will find that operating a smartphone with this OS is even more convenient - if only because it recognizes a lot of gestures.
- Minimum default programs. Unlike Android and iOS Sailfish does not oblige the user to use pre-installed navigation or mail and does not impose anything. By default, the menu contains only the essentials - “Contacts”, “Gallery”, “Messages”, “Browser” and so on.
- Integration with many cloud services. There are at least a dozen services to which Sailfish is capable of uploading data. The user can choose which one to use - there are popular options, like Google Drive, and more exotic (Flickr).
- Increased security. Sailfish supports OS-level encryption and boasts strong MDM algorithms. It is for this reason that the Russian public sector, as well as some large corporations, are looking at the Finnish OS.
Sailfish 2 now has a call recording feature. This can also be attributed to the advantages of the “OS”, because, for example, on iOS, recording telephone conversations It is impossible to do this using built-in tools - Apple believes that call recording violates a person’s right to confidentiality of personal data.
Does Sailfish have any disadvantages?
Sailfish OS is also not without its shortcomings. Among the main ones, users name the following:
- No Swipe keyboard.
- Mediocre integration of applications with each other. On Android, for example, a picture from the gallery can be sent anywhere - be it to a messenger or to the cloud. Sailfish cannot boast of anything like this.
- No voice control.
All the described shortcomings are eliminated. So it is quite possible that Jolla will get rid of them from Sailfish OS with the next updates.
What phones can you buy on Sailfish?
There are still very few gadgets running Sailfish - all of them can be found on the official website of the Jolla company.
The first smartphone with the Sailfish operating system was released in 2013 and was named the same as the manufacturing company - Jolla. Here is a short video introducing the device:
Another gadget for Sailfish Jolla presented in a duet with the young Indian company Intex at the MWC 2016 exhibition. The smartphone was called Aqua Fish and a design almost completely copied from the first Jolla.
Perhaps the Aqua Fish gadget would achieve success in Russia - for its low price (about $80) it has very decent characteristics. However, it is not officially sold in the Russian Federation. You can order a device from Intex only at eBay.
In 2016, another extremely interesting device received the Sailfish operating system - Turing Phone, named after the famous British mathematician. Turing Phone is interesting because it consists of the so-called liquidmorphium– a material that is stronger than titanium and steel.
However, Turing would hardly approve of his name appearing in such a dubious project. The Turing Phone company has disgraced itself on all fronts: not only did it start sending out gadgets for pre-orders later whole year(!), and she also sent something that was not at all what she promised. Turing Phone was originally supposed to have Android; when and why the manufacturer decided to resort to Sailfish is a mystery.
In the same 2016, the Open Mobile Platform company announced the first device on Sailfish OS RUS “Ermak” with a phenomenal cost of 2 thousand dollars. "Ermak" is distinguished by its outstanding reliability - in particular, it is capable of transmitting information via closed channels communications.
Everyone “disowned” the sales of “Ermak” large networks, reasonably considering that with such a price tag a smartphone has nothing to do on the mass market.
In 2017, the OMP company nevertheless released a publicly available smartphone running on the Russian version of Sailfish - INOI R7. This gadget is different high degree protection of personal data, and therefore is positioned as a smartphone for the corporate sector.
You can purchase INOI R7 in the Buyon online store - the cost of the device is about 12 thousand rubles.
Is it possible to install Sailfish OS on a smartphone yourself?
On many of modern smartphones can be installed unofficial firmware Sailfish - a complete list of gadgets. However, this task is not an easy one: you will have to use utilities Android SDK, unlock the current bootloader and install a new one. A person who does not consider himself an advanced user is better off not going down this “rabbit hole.”
There is an opinion that soon manufacturers will make it possible to switch from one “OS” to another official. In the meantime, the official “relocation” is available only to owners Sony Xperia X - and then on a paid basis. According to the current agreement between Jolla and Sony, an Xperia X user will have to pay almost 50 euros to replace Android with Sailfish.
Is Sailfish the future?
Sailfish OS looks promising - there are a number of reasons to believe that this “OS” has a good future:
- Sailfish actively cooperates with the Japanese giant Sony. At MWC 2017 the companies presented together Sony Xperia X running on Finnish OS. In August, news appeared about Xperia X, which runs on 2 operating systems at once. Having a strong partner was very important for Jolla.
- At the same exhibition, Jolla entered into a collaboration with Sailfish China, a firm that develops software for smartphones, smart watch and other gadgets. According to the agreement between the companies, the Chinese must invest $250 million in the development of Sailfish.
Sailfish's data security capabilities have attracted not only the Chinese, but also Russia and India. If these two states continue to invest money in the development of the Finnish operating system, then you certainly won’t have to worry about its future.
Org has already carried out the porting and created a wiki page with a detailed manual. This is what I took as a basis for installation. Everything was done under Ubuntu 64 bit, but any debian-based distribution will do. You will also need some free time and patience.
1) Do full system backup, documents, contacts and everything that seems necessary. Disable the pin code request on the SIM card and security code security on the phone itself. Make sure the battery is at least 90% charged. We are aware that in case of erroneous actions or disconnecting the USB cable during the firmware, you can get completely faulty phone, which will be problematic to restore at home.
6) Install OpenMode kernel. This time we launch the flasher with the parameters flasher –a main.bin –k zImage_2.6.32.54–openmode_l2fix ––flash–only=kernel –f –R
7) Launch Meego again and make sure that the disclaimer does not appear during loading. I also recommend installing N9/50 QuickTweak right away. This is completely optional, but the tweak will allow you to activate ssh root access and install bash, wget and other small conveniences. Also, after installing OpenMode kernel, Meego stops remembering account passwords. Let's cure this by typing in the smartphone terminal:
rm –rf /home/user/.accounts
rm –rf /home/user/.aegis
mkdir –p /root/ssl
cp –Rf /etc/ssl/certs/* /root/ssl
rm –rf /etc/aegisfs.d
sync
/sbin/reboot
And after loading:
cp –Rf /root/ssl/* /etc/ssl/certs
8) Install MOSLO kernel from nemomobile.org. Unzip the rpm package and, as usual, flasher –k zImage–moslo –n initrd–moslo –l –b Now the new section Alt_OS, which should be mounted in /media/Alt_OS on the PC.
9) Install Ubiboot. The option is optional, but it is a convenient bootloader with a GUI that will allow you to switch between SailfishOS and Meego Harmattan during boot. For these purposes, there is a pre-configured version, which I used. But if you plan to run FirefoxOS and/or Nitroid, then install clean version. Download the archive to the folder with the flasher and unpack tar –xvf ubiboot–02_0.3.5_131213_SFOS.tar Connect the phone in Storage Mode and copy the extracted ubiboot_035_sailfishos.tar to the MyDocs directory. Now go to the Meego terminal, we get root rights, unpack.
devel–su cd /home/user/MyDocs/ tar –xvf ubiboot_035_sailfishos.tar –C /
Turn off the smartphone, run the flasher from the desktop terminal again with the parameters sudo flasher –a main.bin –k zImage_2.6.32.54–ubiboot–02_301013 ––flash–only=kernel –f –R Bootloader installed.
10) Finally, let’s proceed directly to installing Sailfish. There are several already ready-made images, one of which I used. If you have the desire and time to experiment, then by studying the documentation of the MerSDK project, you can prepare your own. Rename the downloaded image to sailfish.tar.bz2, unpack it into the mounted directory /media/Alt_OS on the desktop. tar ––numeric–owner –xvjf sailfish.tar.bz2 –C /media/Alt_OS/ This is already enough to run SailfishOS, but there are a couple more things that it is advisable to do right away, this is enabling root access via ssh nano /media/Alt_OS /etc/ssh/sshd_config uncomment PermitRootLogin yes and the procedure that allows you to change the root password after booting, edit the file nano /media/Alt_OS/etc/shadow There will be a line like root:$1$00Z6Bfjc$vlIKUOMHIavIABL1gNuy6/:16049:0:99999: 7::: Reduce to root::16049:0:99999:7::: Don’t forget to set the root password in the SailfishOS terminal after launch.
Hello everyone, I haven’t been here for a long time :) I’ll say right away that the article is not mine, just copyright for general development :) Do not install Google Play if you don’t trust Google services. Do not attempt the procedure if you are not sure that you can do it. You do all the actions given in the article at your own peril and risk, bearing full responsibility for the further operation of the device. The text is written for informational purposes.
Preparation
Before installation you must have:
- Access to Jolla Store;
- Internet connection (WLAN/WiFi or mobile network);
- "File manager" application, which you can install in the Jolla Store;
- Starting from version Sailfish OS 1.0.4.20, the ability to install third party programs: settings - system - unverified programs - allow installation of third-party programs.
Installation
2. Go to the section: Settings - system - developer mode. And select a mode. If you have access to the Jolla Store, the Terminal application will appear in the list of applications;
3. Activate "Developer Mode";
4. Activate " Remote connection" and set a password or generate one;
5. Using Jolla Phone, download this archive: http://bit.ly/1IjsdF9. The file will be downloaded to the /home/nemo/Downloads directory;
6. Open the terminal application that was installed in the second step. If you are registered as a developer, then the input line will contain a $ sign;
7. Go to the downloads directory: to do this, enter cd ~/Downloads ;
8. Unzip the file: enter unzip gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip ;
9. Get root access: enter devel-su 10) You will need to enter the password that was set in step 4. Enter it and click Tip: The "$" sign will change to "#". So you have received root access! Be careful!
10. Navigate to the target directory: enter cd /opt/alien/system/app ;
11. Copy the files one by one (you won’t need the rest unzipped: Enter one by one:
cp /home/nemo/Downloads/system/app/Phonesky.apk .
cp /home/nemo/Downloads/system/app/GoogleLoginService.apk .
cp /home/nemo/Downloads/system/app/GoogleServicesFramework.apk .
12. After all the steps, your terminal window will look like this:
bash-3.2$ cd ~/Downloads bash-3.2$ unzip gapps-jb-20121011-signed.zip inflating: (… many, many lines …) Inflating: system/usr/srec/en-US/symbols
bash-3.2$ devel-su Password:
bash-3.2# cd /opt/alien/system/app
bash-3.2# cp /home/nemo/Downloads/system/app/Phonesky.apk .
bash-3.2# cp /home/nemo/Downloads/system/app/GoogleLoginService.apk .
bash-3.2# cp /home/nemo/Downloads/system/app/GoogleServicesFramework.apk .
13. Reboot your device;
14. Open the application " File Manager";
15. Go to the /opt/alien/system/app directory. The directory always opens in /home/nemo/, so tap the dot in the top left twice. There you can go to the desired directory with the application;
16. Tap the Phonesky.apk file. A window with file data will open;
17. Swipe down to open the menu at the top and select Install. Will begin Google installation Play;
18. Using the File Manager application, delete unnecessary files.
You can read the original version of the article here: http://bit.ly/1ojJXue