Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

How should it change? What difference in a negative way do you perceive compared to previous Sailfish versions?

Edit: of course apps being killed while in the foreground should never happen, but this in itself has nothing to do with the covers.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I (we) understand what you mean, so you should spare multiple posts.

This is what I think: When OOM kills an app on a phone with 1GB RAM (when no such things would happen years ago on a phone with 256 RAM), then it is a big problem. I would rather have this problem solved with optimization, than hiding the problem by keeping its cover.

So yes, I would like to see this functionality reverted before final Sailfish UI 2.0 comes out - if an app crashes, then I want to see it and deal with the problem, not have it hidden like on Android and other non-multitasking operating systems.

EDIT: I understand that keeping its cover helps keeping other covers in their positions, but I think that this functionality can be easily misused as a mean to have Android-like "single-tasking".

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

While great, this doesn't take into consideration code bloat. From my understanding, Jolla/Sailfish is highly optimized, but people just rarely code tightly now.

So from my understanding, this is a dislike on how multi-tasking apps act once either: RAM runs out or upon error, how that app is handled by the OS. The way Android does it, isn't liked, I get that. Until we get to see how Sailfish handles two apps on the screen at once, I'd say that you're still stuck with serial tasking in most apps that are sent to the background anyway since you're not truly interfacing them at the same time.

That's my take, probably inaccurate but as far as it stands, this is not really a big issue unless this affects native audio & video apps that are in the background.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Well, if an app crashes a crash handler (such as ABRT used in Fedora/RHEL/CentOS) should show up and ask the user if he wants to report the crash (user writes what caused the crash and confirms what logs to send), so that the application developers know about the crash and can do something about it. :)

Much better for all parties than having to report all crashes manually.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Software grows larger as time goes on. You cannot honestly compare things from years ago that ran well on a low amount of resources with things now. Sure, you can program it all in assembly and you'll have an entire OS + all applications running on 4MB RAM, but there's a reason this doesn't happen. If an application takes up a lot of memory, there are two reasons, either it is not optimised enough or it is optimised but simply has lots of functions. The only solution to apps being killed by OOM (again, this has been the case before 2.0 as well, I fail to understand why it's suddenly an issue again, and why it has to be 'solved' [what would that even entail?] before 2.0 is released to the general public) is to optimise them.

Edit: also, this has nothing to do with apps crashing. If that happens, the cover disappears!

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

On the plus side the browser is accelerated and lightning fast :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

The expectation that what you left is still there. ;)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Indeed there is a reason. It can be described in just two words:
1) lazy
2) programmers

And yes, I am speaking from experience. I am a programmer myself and the way I see my fellow programmers waste resources pains me to no end. The algorithm runs too slowly or runs out of memory? Why bother investigating the cause, just give it a higher priority or allocate a bigger buffer!

Unfortunately I see this kind of attitude everywhere, its application in programming is that, one application out of many. Other examples: driving in the middle lane of an empty three-lane motorway... a group of three taking a table for 6 when smaller tables are available... buying a bigger pack of yoghurt in the full knowledge that you will never finish it and end up throwing it away - but it's only 10% dearer than the small pack, so what?... keeping the fridge door open while pouring the milk in your tea, because who cares, right?

It is this attitude that means that 1GB is not enough for a task that just a few years ago ran happily on 4MB, nothing else.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

"If an application crashes" and "if the OS decides to kill a well behaving application just because" are two different things. Just thought I'd point that out ;)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I like SailfishOS 2.0 MUCH! Looks and feels so smooth and way easier. Now you can open apps very fast, because you can always swipe from bottom and it stays on top. Now it feels multitasking phone... Browser lags littlebit still there 3tab max, but now it is fast again!!!

One thing i can't understand.. Why landscape is not ready? It works, but at home screen it will always turn portrail, with nice turn efect :)

Way that pulldown menu looks... It's not that sweet, but i actualy like that 2time flicks, when you select something :)

But thats me. Me like!

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

um... you sure about that? your account counters a lot of others I've seen, so what sites are you comparing it to, what not?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Probably because I messed up the first time and had to reset ;) However now for me it runs much faster than before.

Also I don't have some issues other people have reported like the slow wake up for instance. I like most of the changes too :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Well, I actually don't mind the looks that much, but I didn't like the new delay and 2 blinks (it really slows things down), so that's why I present a new patch:

Faster Pulley Menus

It feels much smoother now, but that's just my opinion ;)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

...Aaaan installed within first 10 seconds

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

While you are mostly correct (at least to about ~95% of cases - many people really do write horrendously inefficient code), its not true in all cases. There are valid cases why software might be more resource intensive now then before:

• various security & hardening related features might make stuff more resource intensive while making applications more secure and harder to exploit/attack
• more robust range checking - more or less directly related to the point above, you can prevent undefined or directly exploitable application behavior by stricter range memory usage checking at cost of some processing & memory usage - an ideal program of course does not need this and would run faster and with less memory usage without it, but humans hardly write ideal programs on a regular basis
• localization and accessibility - a hardcoded-to-English app without accessibility would be of course be a bit faster, but harder to use for people that are not native English speakers and/or have various disabilities
• bigger screens and advanced graphical/usability operations - modern computer screens are much larger than before, meaning larger bitmaps, larger framebuffers, etc.; applications might also opt to use transitions or other visual cues to make the UI more fluent (eq. stuff animates to place vs just blink in place without any transition) which can again cost some performance
• optimizations - programs can opt to actually make use of all that available RAM/CPU power to do CPU/memory usage trade-offs that actually make the application faster at the cost of bigger resource consumption - of course there should be a way to dial down or outright disable these optimizations when running in a resource constrained environment
• introspection and debugging information - you can make your data structures slightly bigger by adding additional information that is not strictly needed for your application, but which can be used by other tools to either make better use or your code (if you are a library an example can be the GObject Introspection, which can generate language bindings automatically, as an example) or might aid with application debugging (GTK inspector can be seen as an example, or improved crash tracebacks, etc.)
• portability - an application written for a single combined software and hardware platform can make a lot of assumptions that improve performance - at the cost of making the application very hard to port to other platforms; a multi-platform application needs to make much less assumptions, needs to do many checks at runtime and often uses slightly less efficient techniques/APIs that are platform independent in place of faster but platform specific ones to aid long term maintenance

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Exactly. A very slippery road if this is already being done. Over Android and iOS behavior (which is basically the same these days) I would very much prefer copying the behavior from actual "multi tasking first" UIs, like webOS or Maemo, which basically prevent me from opening "too many cards". But that is even more complicated and I don't think it is necessary.

IMO, I would just do dynamic swapspace and let things sort out by themselves. Sadly, I believe the version of Jolla's btrfs seems to have problems with swap files.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Aaand no one cares about the 5%, when there's that "problematic 95%" (Amdahl 's law).;)

I don't hink the numbers are correct either way, just pointing out that it's a "several orders of magnitude" thing.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

256MB? Luxury! I've a Mac SE30 in the office and with 4MB it runs email, SSH, ftp and even a web browser (slowly) and switches between them. :D

If it crashes then it should tell you it has crashed. That's what Android does. It pops up a dialogue telling you it has ended.

If Android has killed the task because it is no longer needed or because of OOM then it leaves a card in the task list. Sailfish 2.0 seems to be doing exactly the same thing as Android here except you can tell which tasks are live and which are closed.

I think you're grossly misunderstanding how Android multitasks. Try reading http://www.extremetech.com/computing...ndroid-and-ios

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Not sure about that. There is no clear indicator that a task is dead. It does show you a screenshot from the time when it was live and the blurriness probably comes from that it isn't done very well. :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I hope you're wrong and the bluriness is done on purpose!

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

All versions of btrfs have problem with swap files:
It's more or less an extension of btrfs not handling files with a lot of random access (such as database files) very well & not being able to provide block devices. So if you want to add more swap you would have to place it somewhere outside of the bloc devices btrfs lives on.

On the other hand if the LVM2 + thin pool + EXT4/XFS combo was used instead of btrfs,
you would get much of the benefits of btrfs (COW snapshots, space allocation from a pool, etc.)
and you could just easily create a new logical volume in the volume group and use that for swap. :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Patchidea:
The Pulldown menu with our 3 (or 7) apps is only visible if we are in locked screen.... why not in app cards view?

another one:
if we stay in app card view, swipe from left to right we landing to events view.... why not swipe from right to left and we get the settings page with our fav toggles, brightness and more :)

and one more:
if we are in locked screen, there is only a pulldown menu... here we can put a pullup menu and open the settings page too.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Awesome to have 2.0 ui in action now :D
I really love the progression made.

- double tap to wake up recognized faster taps and works better, fade in is beautifull.
- recognition of "top down swipe" to bring the ambiance switcher/locker has improved to me.
- browser is sped up by ~50%
- The fading notifications on top look gorgeous!
- Multitasking use advanced through app-switcher always being available but regressed by not being able to have notificationw with one swipe. (configurable via settings thou :D)
- I do reallize that i missed a taskbar/signal icons all the time. Fine to have it now.
- Appdrawer and ambiance switcher available from Lockscreen is a bliss!
- Pushing the appdrawer away like an app is improving the flow to me.
- Android apps start a little slower sometimes but seem more responsive when started up

But what i really missconcepted was the function of the ambiance switcher / locker. To me it screams to be a giant pulley menu that locks or switches ambiance instantly when released at corresponding scroll position, not waiting for an extra button press please!

EDIT, Just found the gesture settings and activated both.
Now it is perfect to me... Close app from top swipe, switch to home from right, notifcations from left, apps from bottom. consistantly, always. i love it, thanks Jolla.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

hmm, I upgraded and I like the new UX compared to the previous version, I find it more harmattan/swipe-ui like (:

However, there are certain things I would like it to be changed/configurable.

1. I wish I could do a pinch-to-zoom in task view so it is possible to have bigger cards when there are more than 4 tasks (since we can now scroll through the cards so having it is nice.
2. tasks are not sorted in last-recently-used order, which is quite troublesome IMHO :S
3. why move ambiance to settings?!
4. speaking of ambiance, erm, can we have the switcher (edge scroll from top) have behaviour similar to pulley menu? so I don't have to do an extra click to the lock icon/entry

I know there are patches for 1 and 4, but I still hope it is revised when 1.2.x is finally released (2 months from now?).

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

but new version isnt released for early adopters yet...or i miss somethg? how to update?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

- make sure your device got btrfs balanced recently
- disable all openrepos
- disable all patches

Then you might concider to ssh into your jolla, become root and set your ssu release to 1.1.9.28. Than do a version --dup to update and reboot afterwards

Totally at your own risc of cause ;)

Exactly what i also want :D
Took the time and filed a request @ TJC

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I think it's terrible as you can't immediately check time and have to wait LONG for the clock to appear... Usability over visual fidelity any day of the year. I absolutely hate this change and hope they speed it up or give an option to remove the fade in...

Even worse, when I'm working, the wait time looks so long as if I was reading a message rather than just checking time. Gives the impression I'm slacking on work.

Pulley menu for lock/ambiences wouldn't work if you have more than 4 and they stack in the bottom.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

You mean, they made it even worse than it is now? I find faffing around with the peek gesture just to check the time so cumbersome (compared to having a tiny status bar N900 or N9 style) that I found TOHOLED an absolutely invaluable piece of kit. I thought that I would put it in the drawer as soon as I receive my TOHKBD but after a week of trying, I ended up the other way around. I can live without a hardware keyboard if I try hard enough but not having a constant and immediate access to the vital information such as the current time, battery level and signal strength would be a show-stopper.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

@parasemic
I ment the double click ratio being recognized has increased. I can double tap much faster now and still unlock where i had problems on previous releases and needed to tap again slower. thats gone and totally reliable now.

The clock fades in too late occasionally, you are right.
But most of the time the clock is presented first, then the rest of the lockscreen fades in underneath it, matching your wanted behaviour.

As i wrote in the TJC feature request, it does not matter how many ambiances are in the drawer. Only the first 5 items (including lock-device) that completely fill the screen anyway should be pulley items.
Everything else stays the same. If you do not want to use the pulley, just do not hold the thumb while expanding the shutter drawer but let it go or even flick in motion. Also, if you go over the fifth selectable item, e.g. leave the screen on the bottom (You anyway need to do this to select other ambiances than the first four), the pulley will also disapear. It is no change in existing functions, only pulley select for the first five items on top of that IF you keep pressed and aim slowly.
The feature is so obvious to me, it totally feels awkward to use the current drawer and not hear the pulley click sound and just let go to select...

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

What happened to the 'LPM'/Glance Screen on Sailfish OS 2.0? Is this feature still working if you activate(d) it via terminal?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

I wonder *how bad* loop mount performance is for swap?

Haven't read much of this thread (sorry, busy :) ) but the impression I got was that most of the people complaining about app-killing accept that massive slowdowns / 'thrashing' is the only alternative.

As long as it's still moving fast enough to take remedial action and free up some RAM...

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Seems to be working fine - shows time, date, day of the week and notifications. btw, seems also TOHKBD is working in Android :)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

it does work already in current official release...

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Forget about swap on flash media, whether it be on raw disk partition or on top of filesystem...
Swap on flash is a BAD IDEA and it WILL kill your flash.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Glance screen is there!
And i grasped how the unlock fade works.

If the glance screen is activated and you doubletap while the clock is shown, the clock just changes color and the lockscren comes faded in its background.

If you unlock without the glance screen shown, from blank screen, the clock fades in last after the lockscreen has already completely faded in.
That is rather inconvenient and needs to be adjusted to have consistant behaviour and clock shown fast.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

And so will recording HD video, downloading files/cache from the Internet, logging... and a shitton other stuff that I do daily with the phone.

It's not clear to me why swapping would be a more dangerous activity, since it's mostly sequential, low persistence requirements, and most importantly... it happens rarely, less frequently than all the above combined.

And besides, Jolla already has a swap partition. I'm just considering removing any hardcoded limits to it.

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

Set swappiness to a very low value, and it'll only use it when it has to. Besides which flash is generally nowhere near as fragile as it used to be. I don't know how much that extends to the chips in phones, but I'd be surprised if you could kill it appreciably faster by just having that in place when RAM runs out - the user's likely to avoid that situation because of the system slowing to a crawl more than anything else I'd have thought.

ETA - screw it, put it on an SD card. Yes, it'll be eye-wateringly slow, but it'll (presumably) stop the automatic program closures, and if you manage to fry it you can put a new one in...

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

And, pray tell, what alternative do you suggest?

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

More memory and no swap? ;)

Re: First thoughts about the (pre) Sailfish OS 2.0
 

My single biggest issue is the size of the clock when peeking. "1.0" used to show lockscreen clock which was huge and could be seen easily, now the text is really small and hard to read with a layer on top of it