I want a Debian phone
 

My more and more persistent thought after the Elopocalypse, and with the experience of the other minor apocalypses I've seen in the last 12 years as a fond Nokia user is:

I want a Debian phone.

I want a phone with an absolutely free and libre operating system that can't be ditched by a single CEO the day he's got a real bad belly ache; that has no DRM whatsoever; that has no ad-engine; that is going to be updated when updates are ready, not for marketing's sake; that makes me feel good.
Nothing less.

Hardware may vary: no corporation is going to do the thing I want just straight out of the box - it wouldn't bring them control, and money.

Though, Qole's efforts (but also several other contributors here, and Penguinbait with his Kde, and in other forums - Android, Pandora, even iOS) have shown that it's possible indeed, even maybe not at 100%. Though I'm sure that it may be possible to go very close to that 100% when many people really want it and are going to cooperate.

Might be the Galaxy Tab or the Galaxy S, for example: quite a complete hardware with already well-known nasty "features" - but also other hardwares could be chosen, preferring the most common and best known.

Then on top of Debian, a number of gui hacks to make the thing amenable to phone use, mainly the use of a touch-friendly ui. I think that this can be accomplished too.

What do you think of such a dream? Naif? Silly? Doable? :)

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Definately a good dream. BUT aren't you underestimating the fact that hardware developers (like the mentioned galaxy s developer samsung) will not support you with drivers for ther HW or even open up specification so you can write your own ones?
IMHO that is the reason why there has been no really mainstream true linux phone. I remember this barebone phone where a linux was running, but whiche other phone HW is there to use? Nevertheless it has to be on top of the shelve if you really want to attract smartphone enthusiasts like us

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Me too :).

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Yes, Debian phone would be my ultimate dream

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Yeah, me too. I will keep looking for Kubuntu Mobile development, as it might get interesting.
You see, the problem as stated before would be closed drivers. I could take that, if there ara well supported drivers (in the form of Kernel Modules, just like ATI and Nvidia ones (somewhat)). Then, it would need one of these: 1) OpenGLES ported apps and games, as many of them are plain OpenGL and that simply lacks HW acceleraton on mobile plattforms OR 2) OpenGL capable chipset.
So, I see something somewhat near to this precisely Kubuntu Mobile, with KDE Plasma Mobile and all of that stufff...
The drawback is Kubuntu is not so free as Debian, and It also depends somewhat on a CEO that sometimes has dumb ideas, but at least it gives you some far feeling of having a possibility of brand support.

Still it needs to be tested and wait for it to have an acceptable usability, but I think it's not so weird...

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Debian Phone? I guess you mean a phone that's 2 years old by the time it's released. Might as well stick with nokia they're good at that.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Nope, I mean I want my Debian distro on a modern hardware with all the bells and whistles. Something like the double core phones and tablets that everyone is announcing; and I want also accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, 3d, whatever. I want to be able to buy the hardware and put my distro of choice on top.
I don't mind it's Apple or Samsung or Nokia or whatever.

See, I don't mind either if Debian is in a chroot: the important thing is I can use my application and interact with the hardware. This is "step 1 of 5" (TM) and has been already accomplished.
Step 2 is boot in Debian directly, and has been accomplished though partially on several devices.
Step 3 is boot in Debian and have FLOSS drivers for the majority of the hardware. Still in future, but - hey! - not impossible given enough time and devs. Mainly done for several desktop and notebooks.
Step 4 is still top secret.
Step 5 is conquering the universe and getting RMS as imperator.

http://eris.discordians.net/%7Eeleto...an20041008.jpg

Indeed, once Android has a viable X server, I could stay content with that and get the best of two worlds.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

debernardis, it may be a while before fully libre and open mobile phone hardware is released and OSS drivers are written. But it will happen despite kneecapping efforts by established proprietary market forces. Atheros showed how it's done with their integrated radio chipsets.

Wrt. Debian, it is an absolutely majestic ecosystem but the packages really aren't suitable for mainstream use as they are. (though for us it's still great to have the ocean of apps there if and when we might need them)

A libre phone therefore needs not only open hardware/chipsets with drivers and an open core OS (optimized for mobile use) but also a purpose-built UI and a garden of apps that comply with the UI guidelines.

A lot of effort has gone into making Qt the toolkit of choice for building both the UI and apps that easily fit various devices and user-cases. However Qt is not Debian's choice of preferred toolkits so native apps would - initially - need to be built or ported (and maintained) to "phone-Debian's" garden/repo by an interested group of developers and maintainers.

Now that Nokia has been co-opted to a third party proprietary platform there's no obvious leader pushing an open mobile (communications) OS forward and it will be interesting times ahead.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

What about that?:

http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/201...linux-slp.html
http://www.limofoundation.org/

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

imvo our best chance is to ask this guys to add debian support http://synapse-phones.com/order.php

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

It would be really nice to also select the OS.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

I run CentOS at home and generally prefer rpm. But I couldn't care less if my next phone is based on Debian, RedHat or whatever. All distros have their strengths and weaknesses. Just gimme a real, full-stack, truly open mobile Linux distro!

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Just need good open drivers and it would happen.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Give that a hardware keyboard and Debian... That'd be amazing!
You could pick ram, space etc. Nice!

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

And then he will remove Debian from the phones and install gNewSense instead... And then make us start waiting for a miraculous new kernel that will never come.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

This _really is_ the biggest problem.

I spent little time deciding to buy my N800. But then when I started to hack it for real, and started finding all the limitations, I was very disappointed to find out how difficult it is to build new kernel versions for it. And just because of the proprietary bits on its design...

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

I didn't know of this very interesting project:

Debian of N900
http://elektranox.org/n900/index.html

This guy wants to implement exactly what I described in my rant. Thanks to Qwazik for referencing that in a recent post. I am going to try the thing - might be a step forward in the direction of liberty :)

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

sorry fr breaking in but i would suggest you take a look at this phone... and Multiboot it to Redhat or Debian or Ubuntu....
its running an Uncut version of Windows 7 Home premium : 1Gb Ram : Atom 1.6Ghz Cpu : n of course its a phone 2...

http://www.gsmarena.com/magic_w3_is_...-news-2373.php
http://st.gsmarena.com/vv/newsimg/11...marena_003.jpg

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

An i386 phone with a full desktop OS sounds good, but made in a way that gave phone related tasks full priority even when some app goes for 100% cpu.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

If I remind well, old Nokia Communicators (9000, 9110, maybe also the following ones) were said having two microprocessors, one for telephony one for pda. This wouldn't be bad in a modern gizmo, to be sure telephony functions don't get slowed by other activites, and also to be able to turn them on and off independently.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Then let's join our forces and see you at :
http://wiki.debian.org/Mobile

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

After about 8 hours of trying to make this work, I think it is not possible with multiboot and pr1.3. I have crossposted this in the other thread you saw, but I wanted to save you the hassle.
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Re: I want a Debian phone
 

It works, I tried it, boots into tty console.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

It's been done at least once, and you can still get new Freerunners without looking too hard.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

Wow! This looks well nifty......the only thing that puts me off is this ugly son of a gun holding it

http://st.gsmarena.com/vv/newsimg/11...marena_001.jpg

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

We already have that - The whole modem is it's own module, has it's own processor, and we're only interacting with it with a driver etc. :P

That being said, I assume it's not what you actually meant. I'm thinking, however, we ought to be able to solve the problem a lot more simply, with just a bit of extra ram and some prioritizing(keep the entire phone app locked in ram). It'd solve the problem completely, without having to worry about a second (mostly useless) processor.

Re: I want a Debian phone
 

aaargh! what am I doing wrong, it always crashes on multiboot here... (guru meditation)

see this http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=961100
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