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Plasma Mobile – Turns your phone into a fully open hacking device
- jrochkind1 10y ago> Plasma Mobile is developed by one of the most reputable and longest-standing software development organisations in the world. But you don't want to clearly tell us who it is?
- bvrlt 10y agoKDE
- dom0 10y agoThe KDE logo is literally in the hero image several centimeters tall. The footer directly says "KDE Developers" and the copyright notice is "© 2015-16 KDE e.V.". Plasma has been a major KDE brand for a few years.
- Sylos 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_e.V https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_e.V. Their main-project is the KDE Plasma desktop environment, which is a GUI with accompanying applications for desktop Linux. Probably the most famous thing outside of the Linux-world that they are responsible for is KHTML, which is what WebKit (and therefore also Blink) is based on.
- deadcast 10y agoWhoa very cool! Happy to see a new, free phone OS. I'm currently switching to Replicant and moving away from the Apple/Google controlled phone world.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 10y agoWhy did you choose Replicant over CopperheadOS? I've been looking at different ROMs like these and Replicant seems to only maintain pretty old devices which steered me away, plus the fact that it's still on KitKat.
- k__ 10y agoThis seems to be the main problem with android alternatives. I have a Huawei Honor, but can't find any Android alternatives for it.
- st3v3r 10y agoIn order to get the android alternative on there, someone has to do the work to get it on there in the first place. If no one has done it for your device, then that job falls to you. Which is why most of these target Nexus devices, because those are the easiest to do the work for (or it's already done).
- k__ 10y agoWhat has to be done for this? Is this hardcore hacking action stuff or can this be done by the average CS-major/Developer?
- deadcast 10y agoI actually haven't heard of CopperheadOS before but I chose Replicant because it's a project backed by the Free Software Foundation. I thought I'd give it a try since I'm slowly moving over to the FOSS world for everything and I wanted to support them. :) I actually bought a phone from Tehnoetic with Replicant already installed. Should be here any day!
- prplhaz4 10y agoI'm surprised LuneOS never comes up on these threads...it's slow moving, but the team has always been focused on quality and had steady monthly releases for 2yrs now... https://github.com/webOS-ports https://github.com/webOS-ports http://www.webos-ports.org/wiki/Main_Page http://www.webos-ports.org/wiki/Main_Page
- deft 10y agohttps://plasma-mobile.org/nexus-5/ https://plasma-mobile.org/nexus-5/ kind of hard to find but here's how one can actually use it. Any info on the network side of things?
- peller 10y agoWas just researching that myself. In America at least, looks like everybody except Verizon. But what I could find looks to be 2-3 years old: http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/nexus-5-coming-to-every-major-us-carrier-but-verizon-1195521 http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobil... hardware specs: http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_nexus_5-5705.php http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_nexus_5-5705.php
- legulere 10y agoHow does the sandboxing work?
- moosingin3space 10y agoFrom what libraries/infrastructure they claim they're using, it seems like Flatpak would be the obvious choice for sandboxing.
- oldgun 10y agoMarvelous. Kudos to all who contributed to this project! I'm now very expecting the KDE tablet.
- chriswarbo 10y agoLast I heard it got cancelled: https://lwn.net/Articles/606100/ https://lwn.net/Articles/606100/
- bachmeier 10y agoIt feels like we've seen this before. Is there any reason to expect this to be something I'll actually be able to use? I'm not able to use Firefox OS or Ubuntu on my phone now.
- forvelin 10y agolooks fancy,I hope it will do better than sailfish os. any luck with android sandboxing, maybe dalvik ?
- sockopen 10y agoVideo was fun with time being 13:37, Linus giving the finger, etc... but the actual UX seems gross and over-sized (albeit not quite as bad as FireFox OS). I'm sure they will have at least a couple dozen of installs.
- mixedCase 10y agoUX is very obviously on super early stages. However Plasma 5 still has its fair share of UX issues here and there so I'm crossing fingers the KDE design community gets its hands on this.
- INTPnerd 10y agoThe intro video is very...interesting. They have this fast paced, upbeat music while they very slowly do things on the phone, like make phone calls. It felt like they thought we should be impressed it can make phone calls.
- nowayyeah 10y agoBecause it's what you use a phone for?
- Daniel_Marcos 10y agoYeah, and that's why we shouldn't be impressed that it can make a phone call. That's expected. But on the intro video for a new phone OS they're 'unveiling' I want to see what's new / different about it. I assume it can make calls.
- benmcnelly 10y agoI think I will remix it with the Google Pixel ad music and style and see if it helps. like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBM5W12JYmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBM5W12JYmQ
- benmcnelly 10y agoI started making it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxqXUxt9ah8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxqXUxt9ah8
- anoother 10y ago> they thought we should be impressed it can make phone calls. Oh, but you should be impressed. For how long could OpenMoko not make phone calls? Open-source phone OSs have a habit of neglecting actual phone functionality. So I think it's great that they highlight it.
- seba_dos1 10y agoI preordered my Neo Freerunner and it was able to make phone calls since day zero. Of course, Neo1973 was a different story, as it pretty much wasn't supposed to be fully working on day zero ;)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- brianzelip 10y agoYour landing page's first call-to-action has gotten caught up in the cascade! If the anchor text ("VIDEO INTRO") isn't hovered while its parent `div` is, the result is black text on black bg.
- owaislone 10y agoJust like desktop KDE, the UI doesn't appeal to me. I find it too flashy and kind of "in your face". My favorite mobile OS so far has been Meego that ran on N9. That device was mind blowing and that OS. Amazing. It had such a simple, yet useful UI. Multi-tasking was better than what even Android has now. I hope Jolla doesn't die like that and we see a lot more devices come out running Sailfish.
- swiley 10y agoIt looks like it's running wayland, so you can probably just run X11 (with fvwm or whatever).
- oever 10y agoI'm still using my N950 with Meego. Very nice device and OS. My other phone runs Ubuntu Mobile which is also very nice. Judging from the video, the state of Plasma Mobile is very impressive.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoI never had a Meego phone, or a Nokia at all. But I still want an N900: Physical keyboard, a hackable Linux base, and a system that's not very powerful, but usually powerful enough. And that was in '09. It may be underpowered now, but that physical keyboard still makes my envious: I could almost maybe write code on something like that.
- Jedd 10y ago> It may be underpowered now, but that physical > keyboard still makes my envious: I could almost > maybe write code on something like that. I had one. That's what I thought. I was wrong. It was slower than swype & variants for normal (mail, sms, etc) writing. The physical keyboard had the benefit of providing relatively easy access to 'dev' keys - esc, ctrl, special characters. But it was so teeny that even as a proficient user (it was my primary phone for 3-4 years) the experience was arduous. Years later I bought a tablet + BT keyboard (a Logitech one with the hard clam shell that became the stand) and that experience is much preferred. Would work well with a phone too, if you're happy with a small screen. Not pocket sized, certainly, but the keyboard is actually usable.
- darklajid 10y agoI like this announcement and still root for any alternative phone platform. The thing is - which device would I buy? Plasma Mobile supports the Nexus 5 and (maybe) the OnePlus One right now. CopperheadOS doesn't support either of those. I was unable to get a reliable source for supported devices for Ubuntu Phone (best I found was [1], not even sure if that's related) and so far I don't believe that the supported devices for THAT platform intersect with the other two. Searching for sailfishOS device support only comes up with Jolla phones. It seems as if not only is the market lacking alternative systems, it's also near impossible to try out the ones that do exist. Buying a device for some experimental OS is something I have done (Flame for FxOs - still sad that it died, owned a Palm Pre), but cumbersome and expensive. 1: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
- zanny 10y agoPlasma Mobile is more meant to be a standardization platform to make phone OSes than the be all end all one in and of itself. Copperhead is just a liberated Android for the most part, it just replaces Replicant. Since Jolla develops sailfishOS, and the OS itself is mostly proprietary, it should be no surprise there isn't a hobbyist community supporting it on Android phones. Plasma Mobile and Firefox OS were both in a class that could feasibly eventually sell phones with it stock. Its the same problem as the desktop Linux ecosystem - as long as you have to actually install the OS yourself, the market is nonexistent compared to the preinstalled market. You need units in stores in peoples faces before you can start making meaningful inroads into market adoption.
- darklajid 10y agoI understand that, and I certainly understand that these (any?) projects shouldn't cater to me (I'm not representative of the market at large). What I'm hoping for is some sort of 'reference device' (i.e. the Flame for FxOs) that is supported across platforms. It doesn't matter if it's ~older~ (Nexus 4?), just a way to compare platforms against each other: Run Ubuntu Phone, Plasma Mobile and CM on the same device (not at the same time ofc), check out if your use cases are supported/the platform can do what you need. Keep whatever is best, retry in 6 month. That'd be awesome.
- zerr 10y agoFinally, the platform with the sane API - C++/Qt.
- pjmlp 10y agoUbuntu Phone, Sailfish and Blackberry also had it. It didn't help them that much. Plus as far as I am aware, none of them contributed anything from their forks back to the Qt community.
- mhagemeister 10y agoThis is really awesome! Minor nitpick: Please remove scrolljacking from the site. Scrolling on a Touchpad on Mac feels off, because of smoothscroll.js
- lytedev 10y agoInterface seems gratuitously large except the status bar and clock and whatnot. In all the shots of the home screen (?) the on-screen navigation buttons seem to cover the labels of the app icons... sometimes. The "Muon" app has a smaller icon so the label sits higher... looks not so great. However, it seems they're trying to appeal to the more Libre folks - anti-all-current-smartphone-OS-vendors and their watchful eyes - who are generally developer types -- at least as far as I know. And those types of people are usually willing to give in the UX department. I'd love to see this (and any alternative smartphone OS) project succeed, but it's got a fair amount of growing to do before that happens in my opinion. I would love to someday have Linux running on my phone and just be able to do whatever the heck I want with it with simple APIs for interacting with sensors and cellular voice/sms/data just working. Like Arch Linux for your smartphone. That would be so fun to hack on I think.
- benmcnelly 10y agoI hope that you are right and this turns into that, but its also an opportunity for someone to branch it off into a commercial product. Some people don't want a pocket computer, they want a groomed and simple to use OS with user experience in mind, that "just works".
- rotten 10y agoI like the larger feel. As my eyes find it harder and harder to read small things as I age, having an interface that defaults to objects I can comfortably see and manipulate is a good thing.
- dom0 10y agoThey'd have to try really hard to have a worse UX than Android. (Semi-)Seriously.
- castratikron 10y agoLet me guess. "Everything" works, except for the camera, GPS, 3D acceleration and the microphone?
- benmcnelly 10y agoThe power of things like this taking off is not what they are now, but what they can be. There are lots of real people with their own good reasons to not be tied to Google/Apple, and whats really impressive here is that unlike firefox OS, they are (in my opinion) doing this in a much better way. As this catches on, it only helps improve linux hardware (ARM) support, telephony applications for linux, and the like. As well as being able to have (or make for others) a truly remarkable user interface and apps. This is a mobile computer, running linux, running a desktop environment (not webkit, or Java VM, or closed source code) that only limits what you can make by your skill and imagination. Yes it looks pretty mediocre now, but that's because its waiting on you to get involved.
- lytedev 10y agoThis seems like a perfect response to my comment. The question is: how? The website doesn't make it very clear to developers (after a fairly quick skim on my part, at least) as to how they can help with the initiative. I have a Nexus 6p, and it seems like my device isn't supported, but how can I maybe help with porting to a new device?
- benmcnelly 10y agoYes, this is the pain point of things like this. It really will (most likely) take someone branching it off into a paid product to advance it faster (or) a very large amount of people getting involved. Traditionally these things grow slowly, but I am impressed at what they have so far.
- paxcoder 10y agoWhat is FirefoxOS' way of doing things, and why is it (in your opinion) wrong?
- throwaway2048 10y agoFirefox OS used the android closed source driver vendor centric model and a html/js frontend. It had most of the downsides of android (closed drivers, no updates after 6 months, buy a new device or get exploited, beholden to vendors, OEMs and telcos which invariably suck, central control over software distribution), and zero of the upsides (abysmal performance [even the dialer was a laggy mess], lack of software) Except for the fact you might trust Mozilla more than google, it wasn't anymore meaningfully open than android, and suffered crippling drawbacks in comparison. Nobody except a few developers cared that you can write apps in html/js.
- overcast 10y agoIt's good to see some new projects. But I guess I'm just in the camp where my phone is something I don't want to mess around with. Love tinkering with things, been piecing together computers since I was a kid. But when it comes to phone, I want it to just work without my intervention. I don't care if there is zero control.
- Etheryte 10y agoWhat is it with using scroll hijacking on flashy product pages? If I can't use the page normally, I won't use it.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoThe cool thing about this is that unlike so many phone projects, it works right now. This and Sailfish seem to be the only real viable iOS/Android competitors.
- geuis 10y agoAck, please kill/remove the scroll jacking. Not good.
- gue5t 10y agoHow do they justify calling it "fully open" when it uses libHybris to support binary blobs for Android just to get graphics and other essentials working?
- awinter-py 10y agoyeah. anything that interacts with the radio hardware is going to interact with a crappy vendor RTOS, aka 'radio OS'. Running linux on my phone is cool, but getting away from binary blobs would be priceless. More here: http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_syste...
- sangnoir 10y agoWhat is the current state of the art for driving monitors via mini-USB? Are there generic HDMI/DVI dongles? It would be awesome I'd I could just boot into Linux and plugin a monitor, Bluetooth KB & mouse and start coding. I'm not confident enough to use Plasma as my daily driver, but fortunately it supports multirom (for my phone) so I will be able to dual-boot into Android for day-to-day usage.
- azurelogic 10y agoI was really hoping for a mobile equivalent to Kali Linux here based on the term "hacking device" in the title. :sadparrot:
- colinbartlett 10y agoI have to admit I was thinking this was the more classic "penetrate networks" use of the term "hacking" as opposed to the modern "creatively overcoming limitations" usage. Took a moments of browsing to offset the confusion.
- cryptrash 10y agoWell, this thing can run Ubuntu Touch apps, and it may even be able to run Sailfish and Nemo apps later on... Ubuntu Touch is the big one though, I'd love to see more devices compatible with it. Some industrious fellow out there is probably willing to port most of the python crap in Kali to something more useful, agile, portable, and compatible with Ubuntu Touch, if something like that isn't already going on.
- ZenoArrow 10y agoKali is just a Linux distro. Most/all tools in Kali are available in other distros, and not just the 'hacking' distros. In other words, you can still run Metasploit and suchlike on something like Plasma Mobile.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- filz33 10y agoWhat is the best way to install kali or wifite on android galaxy note 3 ?
- hackuser 10y agoIf I understand correctly, this is a user environment. What OS does it run on? A Linux distro? Android? I don't see that detail mentioned on the site. Perhaps people familiar with KDE and Plasma know, but I don't. Or perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious ... EDIT: Wikipedia says that Plasma is a desktop environment, not an OS, and that "Plasma Mobile is a Plasma variant for smartphones". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_5
- swiley 10y agoIt's gnu/linux with wayland/KDE for the GUI.
- jbob2000 10y agoNo, I'm lost as well. What the hell is this thing? What the hell is a hacking device?
- wierdaaron 10y agoI assume you use it to hack streetlights and steam pipes like in Watch Dogs.
- pzone 10y agoBasically, Ubuntu Touch with Plasma instead of Unity.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- auganov 10y agoTotally need to change that phrasing. I swear I thought it's a Kali Linux on Android sort of thing!
- djsumdog 10y agoI think it's a full OS. Look at the forums and they talk about porting. I don't think it runs on Android, but has a Linux base that has to be ported to different arm platforms.
- shmerl 10y agoWell, there weren't any major updates from them lately (the intro video is from Jul 25, 2015). I'm waiting for some handset device which can run it properly with Wayland on native GPU drivers and Mesa, without any libhybris and Android graphics blobs. Freedreno[1] kind of was progressing to enable that, but I'm not sure if there is any handset around which would be usable in native form given there some other drivers involved besides the GPU. Did anyone try that with Google Pixels? [1]. https://github.com/freedreno/freedreno/wiki https://github.com/freedreno/freedreno/wiki
- iUsedToCode 10y agoI've been using Linux on desktop for years and love how flexible and open it is. I use maybe 1% of its capabilities and it's amazing. I'd love to be able to have a working, stable and open mobile system. I don't want to be locked in into Google because i don't trust them (or anybody else) enough. Android is great but i miss linux-like feeling of possibilities. But it can be due to my lack of technical skills. Maybe if i rooted the phone it'd be good enough now? Anyway, i hope they succeed.
- nathcd 10y ago> Android is great but i miss linux-like feeling of possibilities. One way to take a step in this direction without root is with Termux and its addons (android 5+ only). It's made me much more content on android, although it'll only be truly comfortable if you plug in a keyboard or your phone has a physical keyboard. https://termux.com/ https://termux.com/ https://github.com/termux https://github.com/termux
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoSadly, my recurring problem is that as a Verizon customer, I have exactly zero options outside the big two and an obsolete version of the third. (I'm carrying a Lumia 929, presently.) Nobody bothers developing third party OS offerings that work on Verizon networks.
- zanny 10y agoWhats stopping you from not being a Verizon customer? Their rates (and AT&T) are awful compared to Sprint / T-Mobile, which are then awful compared to specialized MVNOs that target your use case.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoDrastically superior service, and the fact that we have... ten... or so lines on it, and I'm the only one bothered by the phone selection. Sprint and T-Mobile are _terrible_, and no amount of savings is worth suffering through their networks. Oh, and there's the little matter of T-Mobile leading the charge against net neutrality.
- shmerl 10y agoT-Mobile is flexible and allows using any compatible LTE handset. They don't care what OS you use on it.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoT-Mobile works nowhere, and is the only carrier which is actively countering net neutrality. Verizon is also required to allow using any compatible LTE handset, and they aren't allowed to care what OS you use on it. The problem is that nobody is developing them.
- shmerl 10y ago> T-Mobile works nowhere, and is the only carrier which is actively countering net neutrality. It works way better than a few years ago, and for the reference, almost all mobile providers, including Verizon[1] and AT&T[2] (not sure about Sprint) are violating Net Neutrality by giving preferential treatment to their own services. [1]. https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Begins-Zero-Rating-Sports-to-Salvage-Go90-Service-138199 https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-Begins-Zero-Rati... [2]. https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Not-Worried-About-Regulatory-Backlash-to-Zero-Rating-Plan-137850 https://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Not-Worried-About-Re...
- pavanky 10y agoI hope they support the Nexus 6. I am lining up to buy a new phone and this would be a great use for my old faithful.
- erikb 10y agoOkay, let's summarize: There is a need, but this may not be its satisfaction. A pity that it made it to front page entry 1 already before really working on user needs. E.g. if you make a video, don't make it 6 minutes long, don't use such kind of annoying background music, don't advertise that you can call someone. It's like advertising a computer by showing that it can connect with a USB mouse. Show us the dev environment for apps, and how far your API can look into the system. Show us the operating system and its features, e.g. by showing that someone manipulates the list of processes in screenlock widgets or something. Show us the people who do cool stuff with it that they couldn't do in a walled garden environment.
- majewsky 10y ago> A pity that it made it to front page entry 1 already before really working on user needs. The old free software dilemma: Do you wait until your product is polished, thus cutting yourself off all possible publicity? Or will you be vocal about your development efforts, and stand the complaints about rough edges, in order to attract helping hands?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- erikb 10y agoThis is not a question of an unfair world and you must decide either one of the choices you give. You can do both, if you can communicate well. Communication is a skill, like programming, that can be learned. And especially if you communicate with the masses it is less about understanding people and more about understanding patterns. Totally possible for developers to learn. E.g. both your messages target different people. Why inform users about your work in progress product instead of developers who may help you? And is this page really the best way to generate helping hands or is this more a user ad?
- skywhopper 10y agoDoes it double the speed of my scrolling on my phone like the website does to my browser?
- miguelrochefort 10y agoIsn't this the ugliest UI.
- dvcrn 10y ago"Fully open hacking device" - I expected something like a Backtrack / Kali Linux ROM for Anddroid
- prophesi 10y agoAlternative phone OS's like this and Kali Nethunter really make me wish there was a physical keyboard peripheral for the Nexus 5. A bulky case with a slide-out keyboard that connected via bluetooth would work wonders, even if it's still too small to use anything more than just your thumbs.
- swang 10y agoi'm looking at this but for tablets. wonder if it'll run on older tablets. i have the nexus 7 original. i've tried running custom roms of the latest android os and it's just too laggy. would love something that is custom.
- droopybuns 10y agoShow me baseband source and then I'll believe the claim that this is a "open hacking device." Language abusers.
- bshah 10y agoHello, Main plasma mobile developer here, I wanted to reply some questions that surfaced in comments and give a bit of overview on current state and where we need help. We initially based it on Ubuntu Touch, and later on started using our own stack based on Cyanogenmod, more information on it at : http://blog.bshah.in/2016/05/02/plasma-mobile-new-base-system/ http://blog.bshah.in/2016/05/02/plasma-mobile-new-base-syste... So basically currently Plasma Mobile is made of, - KDE Frameworks - kwin_wayland - Plasma workspace - Plasma phone shell - Various Applications And to run Plasma Mobile stack on mobile devices, we have - Minimal Cyanongenmod base - LXC userspace tools for android - Neon rootfs with Plasma Mobile Q: Why not use Mer and/or Ubuntu Touch A: This question is mostly answered in the blog post I linked above, Mer is using RPM .spec based packaging and we don't have resources and as well people who have expertise in RPM packaging, about Ubuntu Touch, we initially based our stack on top of Ubuntu Touch, however later we ended up diverging on various levels, for example libhybris, Qt etc. and it was impossible to keep using Ubuntu Touch stack Q: Why we are using libhybris and not freedreno? A: Short answer: In theory, we can use freedreno. Long answer: kwin_wayland supports DRM backend, and freedreno provides the DRM on android devices, however we don't have access to device which supports freedreno easily. For instance I attempted to get mainline kernel working on Nexus 5 device and also submitted some device tree source files to Linux kernel tree, and will be available in kernel 4.9 release.. But sadly I was not able to finish this project Q: Why not other devices? A: Currently we don't have access to multiple devices, however we will be happy to help the community members to "port" or in other words, make Plasma mobile run on their devices. Q: Where we need help? A: You can help on pretty much everything.. Some things that come to mind, are - Porting to other devices - Various Plasma on Wayland todo items - More applications for Plasma mobile - Work on base system That said, if you have any questions feel free to reach me at bshah@kde.org, or to Plasma team at plasma-devel@kde.org mailing list. Edit: edited for line breaks
- kbart 10y agoYou should really add this info in one (preferably starting) page within your website, because it's not very informative now. Anyway, it's always nice to see some alternatives in mobile OS world, thank you and keep it up.
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- TheAceOfHearts 10y agoThis looks interesting. Flashing it on my old Nexus 5 to try it out. Hopefully I don't send up swallowing these words, but I've gotta say that they appear to have made it extremely easy to install this. Running two fastboot commands, cloning a repo, and running a shell script is pretty easy, and making it easy goes a long way towards making it approachable. EDIT: Install script is broken on macOS. I fixed it and got it flashed. It's dreadfully slow. :( I'd consider stability and performance my top two priorities. I already largely hate mobile devices, so the poor performance is really frustrating. I still need to play around with it to see what the other capabilities are like.
- nathcd 10y agoOn desktop my preferred environments are Xfce and i3, but I wonder why GNOME isn't pushing in this same direction as Plasma Mobile and Unity. (Unless they are and I'm not aware?) It seems like out of all the main DEs, GNOME3 is the nearest to being suited for mobile and touch screens, perhaps more so than Unity (IMO). A google search turns up a few initiatives/blog posts throughout the years that speak of bringing GNOME to mobile, but nothing seems to have come of any of them as far as I can tell.
- codedokode 10y agoI think the title is misleading. This project is about installing KDE on a smartphone over Cyanogenmod (which is a modified build of Android). I am totally against Google and its restrictions and tracking proprietary code in Android but this project looks more like an attempt to get user base to sell them some paid services later. Do you really need KDE to make your phone "hackable"? Google did a lot to polish Android code and released it under an open license. I doubt that project is able to invest a comparable amount of work. Having the same interface on desktop and mobile devices is not going to work well. UPD: their installer installs a firmware (like twrp) that makes your phone unprotected from reflashing and stealing your data or installing a backdoor if someone gets physical access to the phone. They do not warn about it.
- bshah 10y agoWe do require device to be unlocked, how different is it from installing twrp? At this point installer is not finalized and that wouldn't be part of released product.
- Sylos 10y ago> I am totally against Google and its restrictions and tracking proprietary code in Android but this project looks more like an attempt to get user base to sell them some paid services later. KDE e.V. is a non-profit, so I don't think they could legally even do that...
- ForFreedom 10y agoIs that another OS?
- bskdjx 10y agoThis is how I found hacker news and combinatorial back in 2011. I'd just gotten my first smartphone and I went and searched for a "hacking app". An app for hacker news came up instead. Several usr names and smartphones (and two dumb phones) later, I check check this site daily.
- eumoria 10y agoOff topic but I've used every touch interface that exists in the consumer market and I'd give my soul for a real keyboard. I'd pay 1200 for a real keyboard with a modern mobile OS. Touch keyboards suck... we've all gotten used to them and better with them but they still suck.
- eddieh 10y agoYou could pay $299: http://shop.blackberry.com/store/bbrryus/en_US/pd/productID.322154700/categoryID.68121100/parentCategoryID.66826200 http://shop.blackberry.com/store/bbrryus/en_US/pd/productID.... Or $425: http://store.shopblackberry.com/store/bbrryus/en_US/pd/productID.330709100/categoryID.66826200 http://store.shopblackberry.com/store/bbrryus/en_US/pd/produ... Any particular reason those don't work for you?