6 ms·

OURphone Is a Fully Open-Source Smartphone Based on Linux

57 points by danboarder 3y ago

mdp2021 3y ago
Also after the news at Hackaday, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35835260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35835260 -- Aside: Hackster.io has an RSS feed, even though it is not made evident. Always check the page source, or try the typical RSS URL forms.
ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Another one? Remember OpenMoko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko
- mdp2021 3y ago
  Quite different efforts: an attempt 15 years ago to create specifications vs "make some hardware a mobile phone". There also exist projects for Arduino.
  - ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
    Ha, busted! I didn't look at the pics of this one. Quite different indeed. But the old one did have physical phones made, apparently.
    - seba_dos1 3y ago
      OpenMoko was a company that created, manufactured and sold a mobile phone and developed a complete FLOSS software stack based on GNU/Linux for it. From comparable modern projects there's Purism making both hardware (Librem 5) and software (PureOS, Phosh), or perhaps Pine64's hardware (PinePhone) combined with community-based software projects (like Mobian, postmarketOS, UBports, Plasma Mobile etc.) This one is a cute DIY hobbyist project that puts a SBC together with an off-the-shelf modem module. Fun stuff, but from an entirely different category of things.
- riedel 3y ago
  I well remember it. We bought a few for our research project, I think I have it still lying in my office shelf. My colleague build a crosscompiling tool chain based on arch as far as I remember. The only thing I cannot rember is using this actually as a phone...
  - pabs3 3y ago
    I used it as a phone, the QtMoko distro was the most performant option it had at the time, but was a bit of a dumbphone style interface. I also ran the Enlightenment desktop using distros like SHR and Debian on it, which let you do a lot more but were a bit slower. The hardware was terrible in various ways.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    I successfully used it as my main and only phone for a few years about 15 years ago before eventually switching to Nokia N900. It worked well as a phone, I'd probably have used it for a bit longer if it supported EDGE and didn't have a QVGA GPU attached to a high DPI screen.
CrampusDestrus 3y ago
It's always the same old raspberry pi glued to a battery, a screen and an lte module. Please, come back when the software is half decent. First generation of iphone level of smoothness and intuitiveness should be the bar. Hell, even an old fashioned blackberry experience would be good enough
- jwmcq 3y ago
  Hey, I'd even settle for dodgy software if the hardware was open source. Calling this a "Fully Open-Source Smartphone" is just incredibly misleading.
- nivenkos 3y ago
  Ubuntu Touch and Mobian don't seem so bad. But good support is still far away. Especially since I'd really need Whatsapp and banking authentication on the phone, which both only support Android/iOS atm.
  - cristiioan 3y ago
    After using a Linux phone (specifically, the PinePhone) as my daily driver for the past 19 months, I must say that the overall experience has been quite poor. While basic functions like calling and texting are functional, the device falls short in many other areas. For instance, web browsing can be challenging - although most websites do load properly, opening the keyboard has made multiple website completely unusable or behaving strange. Additionally, while I have experimented with apps for different platforms like Matrix and Mastodon, many of these are still works in progress, and compiling them can be a time-consuming process.It's worth mentioning that even the most optimized apps for Linux phones can still crash from time to time. Additionally, many apps that might work perfectly fine on a Linux desktop are simply not designed to be used on a phone, making them unusable in practice. While there is a solution for running Android apps on the phone (Waydroid), it too can be unreliable at times and has been known to cause the phone to hang. Furthermore, there are numerous software-related issues, such as crashes after updates, voice-related problems (e.g. microphone or speaker not working), modem connectivity issues requiring a reboot, and the device failing to turn on the screen until a hard reboot is performed (it thinks it's being held up to the ear like during a call). Lastly, battery life is a real issue. It's worth noting that I'm running the Phosh interface on Arch Linux.
molticrystal 3y ago
Has the "Waveshare SIM7600" and the raspberry pi bootloader/gpu have open source firmware? I didn't think there were any open source baseband modems that did 4g, I know there were some software defined radio projects but they seemed of limited utility. I know in the past there were some attempts to make rpi firmware open source but some of components would not activate or had reduced functionality, so I wonder if that is no longer a problem.
- anonzzzies 3y ago
  Yes; does anyone here know this? I was told baseband software cannot be open source as it would never pass licensing?
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    It wouldn't, but even if it would, we don't even have any actual open baseband software aside of 2G OsmocomBB.
- pabs3 3y ago
  There is FOSS boot firmware for the RPi: https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay/ https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay/ The PinePhone modem is from Quectel, the ARM processor in the modem is by default a proprietary Linux distro, but you can replace it with an open source Linux distro. Unfortunately the Hexagon DSP in the modem runs a proprietary OS. https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/ https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/ https://osmocom.org/projects/quectel-modems/ https://osmocom.org/projects/quectel-modems/
  - squarefoot 3y ago
    I'd not complain even about a 100% closed modem, if my data would be en/decrypted before entering and after exiting from it, so that all it sees is noise, and it has no way of interfering with the hosting main OS. If they document it enough to make it fully usable from a FOSS environment, that is, no traps like "...but it works better with our new shiny (and 100% closed) OS...", then I'd be ok with that.
solarkraft 3y ago
I have no problem with this particular project, but the optics make for a good joke about the usability of proprietary vs. free software (a bit like Top Gear's DIY car https://youtu.be/PCSNCs7bwCw https://youtu.be/PCSNCs7bwCw).

57 points by danboarder 3y ago

mdp2021 3y ago

Also after the news at Hackaday, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35835260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35835260 -- Aside: Hackster.io has an RSS feed, even though it is not made evident. Always check the page source, or try the typical RSS URL forms.

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Another one? Remember OpenMoko: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko

mdp2021 3y ago
Quite different efforts: an attempt 15 years ago to create specifications vs "make some hardware a mobile phone". There also exist projects for Arduino.
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  Ha, busted! I didn't look at the pics of this one. Quite different indeed. But the old one did have physical phones made, apparently.
  - seba_dos1 3y ago
    OpenMoko was a company that created, manufactured and sold a mobile phone and developed a complete FLOSS software stack based on GNU/Linux for it. From comparable modern projects there's Purism making both hardware (Librem 5) and software (PureOS, Phosh), or perhaps Pine64's hardware (PinePhone) combined with community-based software projects (like Mobian, postmarketOS, UBports, Plasma Mobile etc.) This one is a cute DIY hobbyist project that puts a SBC together with an off-the-shelf modem module. Fun stuff, but from an entirely different category of things.
riedel 3y ago
I well remember it. We bought a few for our research project, I think I have it still lying in my office shelf. My colleague build a crosscompiling tool chain based on arch as far as I remember. The only thing I cannot rember is using this actually as a phone...
- pabs3 3y ago
  I used it as a phone, the QtMoko distro was the most performant option it had at the time, but was a bit of a dumbphone style interface. I also ran the Enlightenment desktop using distros like SHR and Debian on it, which let you do a lot more but were a bit slower. The hardware was terrible in various ways.
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  I successfully used it as my main and only phone for a few years about 15 years ago before eventually switching to Nokia N900. It worked well as a phone, I'd probably have used it for a bit longer if it supported EDGE and didn't have a QVGA GPU attached to a high DPI screen.

CrampusDestrus 3y ago

It's always the same old raspberry pi glued to a battery, a screen and an lte module. Please, come back when the software is half decent. First generation of iphone level of smoothness and intuitiveness should be the bar. Hell, even an old fashioned blackberry experience would be good enough

jwmcq 3y ago
Hey, I'd even settle for dodgy software if the hardware was open source. Calling this a "Fully Open-Source Smartphone" is just incredibly misleading.
nivenkos 3y ago
Ubuntu Touch and Mobian don't seem so bad. But good support is still far away. Especially since I'd really need Whatsapp and banking authentication on the phone, which both only support Android/iOS atm.
- cristiioan 3y ago
  After using a Linux phone (specifically, the PinePhone) as my daily driver for the past 19 months, I must say that the overall experience has been quite poor. While basic functions like calling and texting are functional, the device falls short in many other areas. For instance, web browsing can be challenging - although most websites do load properly, opening the keyboard has made multiple website completely unusable or behaving strange. Additionally, while I have experimented with apps for different platforms like Matrix and Mastodon, many of these are still works in progress, and compiling them can be a time-consuming process.It's worth mentioning that even the most optimized apps for Linux phones can still crash from time to time. Additionally, many apps that might work perfectly fine on a Linux desktop are simply not designed to be used on a phone, making them unusable in practice. While there is a solution for running Android apps on the phone (Waydroid), it too can be unreliable at times and has been known to cause the phone to hang. Furthermore, there are numerous software-related issues, such as crashes after updates, voice-related problems (e.g. microphone or speaker not working), modem connectivity issues requiring a reboot, and the device failing to turn on the screen until a hard reboot is performed (it thinks it's being held up to the ear like during a call). Lastly, battery life is a real issue. It's worth noting that I'm running the Phosh interface on Arch Linux.

molticrystal 3y ago

Has the "Waveshare SIM7600" and the raspberry pi bootloader/gpu have open source firmware? I didn't think there were any open source baseband modems that did 4g, I know there were some software defined radio projects but they seemed of limited utility. I know in the past there were some attempts to make rpi firmware open source but some of components would not activate or had reduced functionality, so I wonder if that is no longer a problem.

anonzzzies 3y ago
Yes; does anyone here know this? I was told baseband software cannot be open source as it would never pass licensing?
- seba_dos1 3y ago
  It wouldn't, but even if it would, we don't even have any actual open baseband software aside of 2G OsmocomBB.
pabs3 3y ago
There is FOSS boot firmware for the RPi: https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay/ https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay/ The PinePhone modem is from Quectel, the ARM processor in the modem is by default a proprietary Linux distro, but you can replace it with an open source Linux distro. Unfortunately the Hexagon DSP in the modem runs a proprietary OS. https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/ https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/ https://osmocom.org/projects/quectel-modems/ https://osmocom.org/projects/quectel-modems/
- squarefoot 3y ago
  I'd not complain even about a 100% closed modem, if my data would be en/decrypted before entering and after exiting from it, so that all it sees is noise, and it has no way of interfering with the hosting main OS. If they document it enough to make it fully usable from a FOSS environment, that is, no traps like "...but it works better with our new shiny (and 100% closed) OS...", then I'd be ok with that.

solarkraft 3y ago

I have no problem with this particular project, but the optics make for a good joke about the usability of proprietary vs. free software (a bit like Top Gear's DIY car https://youtu.be/PCSNCs7bwCw https://youtu.be/PCSNCs7bwCw).