4 ms·

Other than the physical switches (which sounds not all that interesting, since if I'll be in control of the software/OS, I can trust the GPIOs controlling some

by megous 8y ago

Other than the physical switches (which sounds not all that interesting, since if I'll be in control of the software/OS, I can trust the GPIOs controlling some MOSFETs switches pretty much the same), this phone can only really differentiate itself by being very friendly to the FOSS developers/enthusiasts crowd. A phone where you could get creative and manipulate every aspect of it without the artificial [security/functionality/SDK] limitations imposed on apps you can write for Android or that other comapny's phone OS I don't like even more. A phone that will not get planned obsolescence. A phone with OS that can be managed just like any other linux distro, where you can write apps in any of the readily available languages, etc. Failing this, it's just overpriced wannabe Android clone.

onefish 8y ago
I'm with you there in not really buying into the whole security, trust, and ethics story line which mostly seems to be appealing to a bandwagon of sentiments around corporate and government spying. Unfortunately, these sentiments are probably the only reason otherwise-average people - the kind of people who don't care about recompiling the kernel for their phone, on their phone, or jiggling GPIOs to remove power from subsystems - would probably buy anything other than an Android or Apple phone. Without this both comparatively large in one respect (with respect to the set of all reasonably tech-savvy people) but comparatively minuscule in another (with respect to the set of all smartphone consumers) set of people, you're going to end up with another OpenMoko Freerunner type situation where the only people using it are the frankly ultra-fringe types like us who care more about having a pocket computer that behaves like, well, an actual computer should and are frustrated with the creative limitations of SDK-based lock-in. I sometimes wonder how much Purism actually cares about all this security, trust, ethics rhetoric and how much of it is a bunch of geeks who just want to finally have a smartphone which can run an actual Linux distribution and figured "hey, consumers are pretty riled-up about this whole government spying thing - and it's pretty easy to audit open source software for that sort of stuff - maybe we can work an angle..."
- megous 8y ago
  > Unfortunately, these sentiments are probably the only reason otherwise-average people - the kind of people who don't care about recompiling the kernel for their phone, on their phone, I guess that's true, but these people probably will not be the driving force of the community around the phone. They'll be helping sustain the vendor financially, which is also valuable though. I already have a mobile device to play with with a similar design to this phone, that has a separate 3G modem and can also be made to make calls. It's a bulkier 7" tablet. It will never get an opensource GPU driver, and suspend to ram is also out of the question for now. But it's fun to play with and explore. Recently, I had fun with adding touch UI support for u-boot, to implement a boot menu and some battery indicator: https://megous.com/dl/u-boot.mp4 https://megous.com/dl/u-boot.mp4 Also if you drop the typical Linux userspace, and replace systemd with a custom init binary, create a DRI based UI app it's possible to get cold boot times to useable GUI in 1-2 seconds from pressing a button. So I'm excited for what will be possible to do if the hardware of that phone ever materializes.
oelmekki 8y ago
Something I'm also really interested in is the perspective that I may do advanced routing with my phone (although, I guess it could fit in the "manipulate every aspect of it" category). 4g has gotten really good those latest years, I've stopped using landline connection and just use my phone as wifi hotspot for everything. But this also means I don't have NAT and thus don't have a local network, which is super annoying when I want to transfer big files from one computer to the other (not that I don't have enough options between usb keys, bluetooth send or cloud sharing, but it's just not as convenient as scp). Can't wait to finally be able to properly configure my phone as a router.
- voxadam 8y ago
  You could use a regular COTS wifi router running OpenWrt and tether your phone to it, instead of tethering directly to your computer. This would give you a network functionally indistinguishable from one that uses DSL, cable, or fiber as an upstream connection.
  - oelmekki 8y ago
    Good idea, thanks, I didn't think about OpenWrt. I initially checked if there was any possibility for my spare router (a d-link dsl-3782) to connect to my phone's wifi and then allow other devices to connect to the router, but it had no such feature (plus, if I got that correctly, you would need two wifi cards for that, one which would be in access point mode and one that will connect to other access point). My router has an usb port, so it may just be that I could use it to flash the software, install OpenWrt, and then share phone connection with router through usb. Worth the try. (and sounds like a lot of fun :P ) EDIT : sadly, that model is not supported by openwrt.

by megous 8y ago

onefish 8y ago

I'm with you there in not really buying into the whole security, trust, and ethics story line which mostly seems to be appealing to a bandwagon of sentiments around corporate and government spying. Unfortunately, these sentiments are probably the only reason otherwise-average people - the kind of people who don't care about recompiling the kernel for their phone, on their phone, or jiggling GPIOs to remove power from subsystems - would probably buy anything other than an Android or Apple phone. Without this both comparatively large in one respect (with respect to the set of all reasonably tech-savvy people) but comparatively minuscule in another (with respect to the set of all smartphone consumers) set of people, you're going to end up with another OpenMoko Freerunner type situation where the only people using it are the frankly ultra-fringe types like us who care more about having a pocket computer that behaves like, well, an actual computer should and are frustrated with the creative limitations of SDK-based lock-in. I sometimes wonder how much Purism actually cares about all this security, trust, ethics rhetoric and how much of it is a bunch of geeks who just want to finally have a smartphone which can run an actual Linux distribution and figured "hey, consumers are pretty riled-up about this whole government spying thing - and it's pretty easy to audit open source software for that sort of stuff - maybe we can work an angle..."

megous 8y ago
> Unfortunately, these sentiments are probably the only reason otherwise-average people - the kind of people who don't care about recompiling the kernel for their phone, on their phone, I guess that's true, but these people probably will not be the driving force of the community around the phone. They'll be helping sustain the vendor financially, which is also valuable though. I already have a mobile device to play with with a similar design to this phone, that has a separate 3G modem and can also be made to make calls. It's a bulkier 7" tablet. It will never get an opensource GPU driver, and suspend to ram is also out of the question for now. But it's fun to play with and explore. Recently, I had fun with adding touch UI support for u-boot, to implement a boot menu and some battery indicator: https://megous.com/dl/u-boot.mp4 https://megous.com/dl/u-boot.mp4 Also if you drop the typical Linux userspace, and replace systemd with a custom init binary, create a DRI based UI app it's possible to get cold boot times to useable GUI in 1-2 seconds from pressing a button. So I'm excited for what will be possible to do if the hardware of that phone ever materializes.

oelmekki 8y ago

Something I'm also really interested in is the perspective that I may do advanced routing with my phone (although, I guess it could fit in the "manipulate every aspect of it" category). 4g has gotten really good those latest years, I've stopped using landline connection and just use my phone as wifi hotspot for everything. But this also means I don't have NAT and thus don't have a local network, which is super annoying when I want to transfer big files from one computer to the other (not that I don't have enough options between usb keys, bluetooth send or cloud sharing, but it's just not as convenient as scp). Can't wait to finally be able to properly configure my phone as a router.

voxadam 8y ago
You could use a regular COTS wifi router running OpenWrt and tether your phone to it, instead of tethering directly to your computer. This would give you a network functionally indistinguishable from one that uses DSL, cable, or fiber as an upstream connection.
- oelmekki 8y ago
  Good idea, thanks, I didn't think about OpenWrt. I initially checked if there was any possibility for my spare router (a d-link dsl-3782) to connect to my phone's wifi and then allow other devices to connect to the router, but it had no such feature (plus, if I got that correctly, you would need two wifi cards for that, one which would be in access point mode and one that will connect to other access point). My router has an usb port, so it may just be that I could use it to flash the software, install OpenWrt, and then share phone connection with router through usb. Worth the try. (and sounds like a lot of fun :P ) EDIT : sadly, that model is not supported by openwrt.