4 ms·

I wonder are there similar devices with 3-4” displays instead of 6”? I don’t even need purposely-built Linux phone, I am OK getting one with Android and instal

I wonder are there similar devices with 3-4” displays instead of 6”? I don’t even need purposely-built Linux phone, I am OK getting one with Android and installing Linux myself. I want modern hardware (LTE, GLES 3.1, ideally optical camera stabilization), reasonably new Linux kernel, and good software support for basic functions (touch screen, phone, SMS, camera, web browser).

ncmncm 6y ago
It is effectively impossible to install an upstream kernel on random phone hardware. It is very hard to field a phone that can take a kernel without proprietary blobs tied to a particular ancient kernel. So, there are two live efforts in that direction, PinePhone and Librem 5.
- Const-me 6y ago
  There're devices out there which started as proprietary hardware, then community implemented the support. RTL-SDR was initially a TV tuner, Raspberry Pi SoC was designed for a set top box, people made XBMC (now Kodi) re-purposing game console into a Linux media player. Why that never happens to cell phones, what's so special about them?
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Cellphones have a lot of peculiar, absolutely undocumented and very buggy peripherals, and tricky system-level power management demands. Pi's SOC was meant to be designed in to a variety of products, so needed to be documented and understood. Cell phone chips are dumpster fires, as a rule, and are forgotten by their manufacturer within months of first delivery.
    - Const-me 6y ago
      Good points, but on the other hand the market penetration is enormous, e.g. Samsung probably shipped hundreds of millions of their galaxies. There’re thousands of exceptionally good software developers worldwide. It’s surprising no one so far found a good way to re-purpose the hardware. The OS kernel is open source already (wasn’t the case for the original xbox), and all these proprietary firmware blobs are shipped with the devices.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        The blobs are compatible only with a particular, ancient and very heavily patched kernel version. Most of the important code is entirely inaccessible in the "baseband processor" that actually operates the radio hardware, and really owns the whole phone. And solving one phone model would barely help with the next one, if at all.

ncmncm 6y ago

It is effectively impossible to install an upstream kernel on random phone hardware. It is very hard to field a phone that can take a kernel without proprietary blobs tied to a particular ancient kernel. So, there are two live efforts in that direction, PinePhone and Librem 5.

Const-me 6y ago
There're devices out there which started as proprietary hardware, then community implemented the support. RTL-SDR was initially a TV tuner, Raspberry Pi SoC was designed for a set top box, people made XBMC (now Kodi) re-purposing game console into a Linux media player. Why that never happens to cell phones, what's so special about them?
- ncmncm 6y ago
  Cellphones have a lot of peculiar, absolutely undocumented and very buggy peripherals, and tricky system-level power management demands. Pi's SOC was meant to be designed in to a variety of products, so needed to be documented and understood. Cell phone chips are dumpster fires, as a rule, and are forgotten by their manufacturer within months of first delivery.
  - Const-me 6y ago
    Good points, but on the other hand the market penetration is enormous, e.g. Samsung probably shipped hundreds of millions of their galaxies. There’re thousands of exceptionally good software developers worldwide. It’s surprising no one so far found a good way to re-purpose the hardware. The OS kernel is open source already (wasn’t the case for the original xbox), and all these proprietary firmware blobs are shipped with the devices.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      The blobs are compatible only with a particular, ancient and very heavily patched kernel version. Most of the important code is entirely inaccessible in the "baseband processor" that actually operates the radio hardware, and really owns the whole phone. And solving one phone model would barely help with the next one, if at all.