4 ms·

All the more reason to require open boot loaders and the like. If the community is that small, it will minimally affect the ability of manufacturers to move ne

All the more reason to require open boot loaders and the like. If the community is that small, it will minimally affect the ability of manufacturers to move new product. At least at first, until people find out they can do more with an old phone than throw it in a drawer.

jeroenhd 4y ago
You need more than bootloaders. You need drivers compatible with somewhat maintained kernels too. My phone's bootloader is unlocked and if I fix my broken USB port I could flash any Linux system onto it, but Linux has no drivers for most of the phone's hardware. The WiFi and Bluetooth probably won't work and the GPU probably won't be doing anything useful and the camera or fingerprint scanner will never in a million years perform like they do on Android. You can't really continuously operate a smartphone without disconnecting the battery or it will swell up and die. Doing so with this phone will require careful removal of both the screen and the back plate with heated pads, suction cups, spudgers, and lots of tiny screws. I may one day get around to replacing the battery and bad USB board, but if I do so it'll take at least a day of YouTube-guided work, maybe more. Then I'm still stuck with an outdated version of Android or an unofficial LineageOS fork by Some Guy because projects like postmarketOS have so far given up on my device (one maintainer broke their phone, the other gave up "for their sanity"). Until parties like Qualcom start working with the Linux kernel instead of against it, and Apple opens up their bootloaders, I don't expect these devices to be usable for anyone for the next couple of years. It sounds quite enticing to have an ARM cluster of relatively quick trashed phones, but the work you need to put into each phone separately to get it to work just isn't worth it.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  WiFi and Bluetooth not working would be a feature for me. I travel a lot and all my phones inevitably get hacked, usually via bluetooth and surreptious network updates.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    In that case, give postmarketOS a go on your device. You get the benefits of packages that actually receive security updates and an up-to-date mainline kernel at the cost of hardware support being very unlikely.

jeroenhd 4y ago

You need more than bootloaders. You need drivers compatible with somewhat maintained kernels too. My phone's bootloader is unlocked and if I fix my broken USB port I could flash any Linux system onto it, but Linux has no drivers for most of the phone's hardware. The WiFi and Bluetooth probably won't work and the GPU probably won't be doing anything useful and the camera or fingerprint scanner will never in a million years perform like they do on Android. You can't really continuously operate a smartphone without disconnecting the battery or it will swell up and die. Doing so with this phone will require careful removal of both the screen and the back plate with heated pads, suction cups, spudgers, and lots of tiny screws. I may one day get around to replacing the battery and bad USB board, but if I do so it'll take at least a day of YouTube-guided work, maybe more. Then I'm still stuck with an outdated version of Android or an unofficial LineageOS fork by Some Guy because projects like postmarketOS have so far given up on my device (one maintainer broke their phone, the other gave up "for their sanity"). Until parties like Qualcom start working with the Linux kernel instead of against it, and Apple opens up their bootloaders, I don't expect these devices to be usable for anyone for the next couple of years. It sounds quite enticing to have an ARM cluster of relatively quick trashed phones, but the work you need to put into each phone separately to get it to work just isn't worth it.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
WiFi and Bluetooth not working would be a feature for me. I travel a lot and all my phones inevitably get hacked, usually via bluetooth and surreptious network updates.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  In that case, give postmarketOS a go on your device. You get the benefits of packages that actually receive security updates and an up-to-date mainline kernel at the cost of hardware support being very unlikely.