this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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Linux Phones
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Community about running GNU/Linux on phones. Projects like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, PostmarketOS, Mobian etc. Either on former Android phones or hardware like the PinePhone.
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Opinion Disclaimer.
PinePhone (at least v1) is no longer maintained in Mobian due to changes in tech. It was a great Dev device for it's time. The camera was terrible and it was awfly slow which isn't a surprise at its humble $200-400 price.
The device is a SBC Single Board Computer meaning the modem is soldered on the same silicon as the CPU, RAM, Storage, etc...
All Cellular modems are made by 2 international companies last I checked who all have blobs in their modems -- this is bad because it means open source can't have a fair shot at competing when you need their "blessing" to use the Cellular Internet.
Librem 5 is better in some areas worse in others. The modem is a m.2. This allows the Mainboard to cut power to the modem as desired. The modem can't be entirely turned off in other phones and as they are on the same SBC there is speculation secret commands could be used for data extraction or to activate spyware in cellphones as was recently discovered with Android and iOS. Separating the m.2 isolates the abilities of the modem module as a "firewall" being the closest comparison.
Librem 5 is also slow. The camera is better than PP. It can do phone and SMS okay but loading a webpage on it is not fun. Both devices have hotswap batteries so to speak so the charge is a nominal issue for me.
PPP is supposedly more battery intensive but manufactured in Hong Kong, which has been absorbed into China. For this reason the tech world is not as fond of their PPP as their initial PP before China absorbed them. Considering the last 4 years people are no longer "fond".
Something newer than PP or L5 is needed. Something that can do basic tasks without binary blobs wrecking The FOSS Dream.
Framework is a little big but if you see what modders have done it is a good candidate.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/handheld-gaming-pc-created-using-framework-laptop-components
Having the ability to add mics with physical kill switches and cameras with kill switches or being omitted entirely in my opinion would be optimal.
Not just having a " mute" button in the same way that when you press mute on zoom or "camera off" if the application has access to audio and video it can still capture all that audio and video when users think they are not being watched.
MNT uses RISCV and ARM SBC IIRC and modularizes a small form factor SFF device and maybe someday will rise to the occasion, or what I mean is modders have a better shot with that kind of thing.
Moving out of the Cellular space away from Phone numbers and to Element, or SIP or VOIP just makes sense for communications. It "cuts the cord" of the ATT / Bell monopoly that has plagued humans for decades.
Eventually we will see "phones" move away from cellular to satellite. This may be the jump we need to break free of all this blob nonsense cock blocking Linux.
There isn't a optimal answer just yet, like do I build a phone out of a RPI5? when RPI5 and ARMs in general have blobs.
I think major headway has been made in the software front thanks to KDE, Gnome, Purism, Mobian, PostmarketOS and others.
I think the death grip is nearly over as more SFF production capabilities are commonplace now.
A winner hasn't really been declared, hell a Steam Deck could even be modded (x86 too) to run off the shelf Linux tech and the OS could be on MicroSD and the modem could theoretically be in the m.2 slot. Purism does sell the modems for $50 on their store.
Anyways, there are more questions than answers, at least in the present tense -- Who Will Deliver? Could this be the year of the Linux Phone? Maybe for some.
The original PinePhone is still maintained. I don't know for how long, though.
I'm not sure what you mean, since PinePhone's and Librem 5's modem is not integrated into the SoC. It's a separate chip connected through USB.
PinePhone also has a killswitch to power off the modem. I think the only difference between them is that Librem 5's modem is removable and PinePhone's modem is soldered onto the board.
Android phones have some modem isolation too, but I don't know much about it.
I haven't heard of that, but I'm pretty sure Librem 5 is manufactured in China too, just like most phones.
Binary blobs are fine as long as they are not present in the operating system or executed by the main CPU. At least that's the Free Software Foundation's opinion until we can do something about it. This is where Librem 5 does better than PinePhone.
It has a x86 CPU, so it probably requires proprietary BIOS. I assume you will also need to install proprietary firmware in your OS to get working WiFi. So I don't know if it's an improvement over GNU/Linux phones. It's probably not very energy efficient either.
PinePhone and Librem 5 have killswitches for the cameras and the microphone.
Phone calls are not end-to-end encrypted, so they suck. But to use Matrix you will need to use the internet. So you still need a modem probably. If not, you can just disable it with a killswitch.
I think the main problem is lack of SoCs that have good mainline Linux kernel support. Removing the modem won't solve it and you will still need proprietary firmware for WiFi and Bluetooth, which sucks.
Yeah, it has the same problem.
Oh, that's interesting. It probably still has blobs, though. And if you want to use WiFi, it probably requires proprietary firmware installed in your OS.
Librem 5 is probably the best in terms of software freedom. I think it doesn't require any proprietary firmware in the operating system, because it was moved to separate chips. But I think binary blobs are still executed during boot, which is why they didn't manage to get the RYF certificate from the FSF.
Yeah man, I think the article I initially read about PP Mobian situation was this one here just for reference if I am even remembering right -- https://blog.mobian-project.org/posts/2023/09/30/paperweight-dilemma/
I forgot about the toggles under the PP cover, I didn't know they acted as hardware kill switches like L5? Interesting for sure
Yes most SFF tech is still China, maybe someday we'll have more diversification. It'll have to do for now.
x86 is a power suck but I still think it's a interesting use case as it delivers on webpage rendering and demanding tasks. Ideally I would imagine RISCV would be the golden standard.
I guess if I wanted to be puritan maybe starting with a Librem Mini with Secure boot might make a good frankenstein phone.
I won't let the perfect be the enemy of the good until we are in a position to be choosers, until then its pretty much a community effort to get the whole thing off the ground.
BeepBerry was a really interesting concept but lacked the sophistication needed to take off.
I could see a new iteration gaining ground
https://beepy.sqfmi.com/
Yeah, they have the same purpose. They are just a little less convenient to use.
I think the power efficiency of x86 is getting better lately, but still not good enough.
It would probably be pretty big and power hungry. It seems that it uses Coreboot, which contains proprietary blobs. Most x86 devices need those.
I hope some next phone will get a RYF certificate from the Free Software Foundation. That's already a pretty high standard.
I haven't heard of it before, but I doubt that Raspberry PI can be the solution. Does it even run a mainline Linux kernel?
Regarding Beepy: I really tried, but ... compared to that, PinePhone was easy to get to a somewhat works state in mid 2020. See https://linmob.net/enter-beepy-esc/#flaws
Someone stepped up (see https://blog.mobian.org/posts/2024/01/08/highlights-of-2023/ and afaik a-wai also mentioned this at fosdem (https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3290-towards-a-bright-future-with-mobian-/), also long standing issues like the out-of-tree-WiFi/BT driver are being worked on currently.
Great news, thank you for the links