The project, developed in partnership with veteran free software developer Rob Savoye, aims to create a fully free and open mobile platform, from the firmware to the operating system.
Oooh, I wonder if they’re going to pursue a free phone based on Risc-V. It’s a longshot but if they pull that off, it’d be like feeding two birds with one scone.
I really hope this is super based
Why would anyone think that FSF is capable of releasing a unique and good device? It’s gonna be a bog-standard Android device with some software modified/removed.
Might be ok for some people still though. Also I’ll be happy to be wrong about my cynicism.
Just because it’s a libre phone, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a linux phone. Or at least any more so than Android is a linux phone because it uses a heavily modified (almost unrecognizable) linux kernel.
There’s nothing in the article that says they’re just going to use a mainline linux kernel and throw a touch optimized version of some existing desktop on it (ubuntu touch, etc…)
Heck, they could be meaning that they’re planning on making their own heavily modified kernel for their very own OS so as to skip all of the trouble that trying to make mainline linux into a handheld device has been so far. (similar to I believe how SailfishOS is doing it)
My hopes and my expectations could not be more at odds with each other, and the only thing I know for sure is that one of them will be smashed.
As they would say: keep your hopes up and your expectation low to the ground
Linux mobile phones are the fusion power of the FOSS world, always right around the corner.
All the pieces are there, but none of them work together smoothly enough to be functional for anybody except the most hardcore FOSS enthusiasts.
When Proton started, it was kind of a joke, killed the Steam Machine idea in large part because the game compatibility was so limited. A decade later, we have a multi billion dollar handheld PC market lead by the Steam Deck, a Linux handheld that can play tens of thousands of Windows games without issue, in some cases with better performance than their native platform.
So it’s certainly possible for things to completely change, but we need a big player or consortium of players to unite with a shared goal of getting a Linux Phone to the state where it’s genuinely able to replace a traditional Android or Apple phone.
I’m very cautiously optimistic, I think it would come together much faster than Proton did for Linux gaming, but again, there needs to be a really heavy push into a singular device to start off. Like how the Steam Deck was, it allowed devs to have a singular platform to target for compatibility. Then, as the platform matures, competitors & innovators can enter the market and expand options, like how now there are multiple distros with builds for handhelds, like Bazzite, Nobara, and CachyOS.
At this point I would not be surprised if steam built on top of the deck idea and the support it already provides for fairly responsive and configurable inputs, touch screen included, to launch a steam phone or something.
I mean deck isn’t all that far from having such a device. For the actual phone network stack they would likely just partner up with someone already in the space.
They’ve already had to tackle powering a lightweight portable device with a touch screen and adapting the UX for a small screen and non-kbd input. They’ve already established they can source parts and mass produce a competively priced device.
But realistically I can’t see it being that much better than the recent Linux phone offerings.
I want a Linux phone so bad that I refuse to think about what it would be like because i’d be upset afterwards.
Please god, help me find my keys! Tell St. Anthony I need my keys!
Also could you make this Foss phone be real and reasonably priced below the cost of a gaming PC?
You may choose 1
Found them! Where’s my Linux phone?
I won’t hold my breath, but it’s sorely needed, so, we can hope.
That’s funny. I can’t hold my width.
Sometimes I can’t hold my
heigdthdepth.You are all out of line
Some people can hold their length, but only in private.
Just ask your mom
You can hold my girth
As long as y’all maintain your altitude.
And avoid getting raptured. Otherwise we’ll hear no end of your Arch installs.
I can’t find any links to the project itself, only to announcements about the project. Anybody have anything more concrete? How far along is this project?
I’ll use my de-Googled and update-blocked S23 until it’s physically unable to boot up, and hopefully by then I’ll find something that can run this OS, assuming it’s ready
I’d rather see a stable OS and ecosystem for good, Free apps that we can flash onto existing devices. I’m quite happy with my Fairphone (repairable! modular! ethical!) and we know that building and marketing a device is painfully expensive.
Let’s make Debian or Arch just work on most phones instead of trying to compete in a saturated market.
Let’s make Debian or Arch just work
Wonder why that’s extremely rare on ARM devices, especially those with modems, and rarely works beyond proof of concepts on some very specific devices? Its not like you’re the first to have this idea.
How old is your oldest working fairphone? I’ve heard too many bad things about software atrophy to declare it a success yet.
I’m using a Fairphone 4, which is 4 years old at this point (October 2021) and I’m still quite happy with it, but I owned the Fairphone 1 and 2 as well.
In terms of software atrophy, they do offer support for your device for 5 years, which is better than most, and because of its open nature, it’s generally well supported by alternatives like Lineage or Calyx, but yeah, I’m still on Android 13. While I still get regular security patches and haven’t really had a need for an upgrade, there’s no denying that the FP4 is behind.
Of course, it’s also easily repairable, supports an SD card and replaceable battery, so that’s a tradeoff I’m happy with.
Do phone calls and RCS work 100% of the time? (I really hope the answer is “yes” because I really want to get out of the closed source ecosystem.)
Let’s make Debian or Arch just work on most phones
You have no idea how any of it works, do you?
Fighting closed source drivers, blobs, configurations, entitled users who want everything to work perfectly is not a child’s play. Having control over the whole device like this project is huge.
My fear with a Linux phone is debugging and troubleshooting. Reading logs and editing text files with a phone keyboard does NOT seem fun.
Hmmm. How about an app for editing configs specifically?
Like, an entire protocol/standard thing for specifying the exact values accepted, too.
No more text-only configs, right?! And apps made specifically to give you a GUI to configure a specific service can still exist on top of this!
That would be a good idea to start this off… right?
RTFM!!!
gimme gimme
