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I give up on free software phones (2019)

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Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#71

Post by awiesenhofer »

jancsika wrote: post #33

Someone should do a Linux phone that scales way back: 1. you can dial phone numbers somehow 2. you can talk on the phone 3. you can hear the person on the other line 4. the cell reception on the phone is decent quality 5. antenna is properly placed for very good reception 6. basic SMS works, all the time 7. has been extensively tested to work with a single carrier, any other carrier is no warranty 8. boot time and sh…

So basically KaiOS/FirefoxOS? Seems like every Nokia/HMD feature phone should fit all your points nowadays.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#72

Post by user_7832 »

gigel82 wrote: post #46
user_7832 wrote: post #18

On a similar note I've been wanting to buy and use a fully "free" phone - one where I have complete control over most if not all things. But it appears to me that unless you use a regular "phone", there is no way you can DIY your way into building a "modern" phone bit by bit like how a desktop could be made.* Calling/4g/5g require specific hardware that seems difficult to integrate at a hobbyist level (unlike say ins…

Are you saying you can build a modern desktop without any binary blobs? Full control of all firmware (including the CPU microcode and things like Intel ME)? What about WiFi cards? I'd say that hasn't been true for at least 20 years.

> Are you saying you can build a modern desktop without any binary blobs? Full control of all firmware (including the CPU microcode and things like Intel ME)? What about WiFi cards? I'd say that hasn't been true for at least 20 years.

Not exactly.

What I mean is the average x64 Intel/AMD device is relatively much more "controllable" than an equivalent smartphone, assuming decent BIOS/UEFI options are provided. If I want to customize the looks with rainmeter, or even system-level tweaks (eg mactype), it's relatively trivial on desktop OSes (possibly excluding recent locked-down MacOs versions). I can even jump between Windows and Linux and Hackintosh/MacOs and BSD as I have a "pretty decent" level of control.

A rooted android phone is also quite decent, however issues start creeping in the further you stray from what your manufacturer provided. It starts of with things like Widevine/DRM not playing nice (unless you have a Titan M chip or something similar), and the further you go (stock rom -> custom rom with gapps/microG -> deGoogled rom), the more painful it becomes to even use ""basics" like whatsapp.

I guess all this is a very roundabout way of saying that desktop OS is a first class citizen (mostly), while mobile OSes (which are necessary for booking an Uber/paying at the checkout POS/navigating with Google Maps with turn-by-turn nav) do not have other freedoms. And while the hardware absolutely exists for an arm board to do it all with the right daughterboards, doing mobile stuff on a desktop is impossible, and doing desktop stuff on mobile is limiting thanks to software.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#73

Post by pacifika »

reddisbad wrote: post #49

The hardware and software stacks of all of the components of a smartphone are at the pinnacle of modern engineering, requiring an uncountable number of engineers and consumers to maintain a mind-boggling supply chain. Of course there's a price for this. I gave up and got a Nokia 105.

Thanks for mentioning a device

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#74

Post by reddisbad »

pacifika wrote: post #73
reddisbad wrote: post #49

The hardware and software stacks of all of the components of a smartphone are at the pinnacle of modern engineering, requiring an uncountable number of engineers and consumers to maintain a mind-boggling supply chain. Of course there's a price for this. I gave up and got a Nokia 105.

Thanks for mentioning a device

I'm lucky (?) to live somewhere where 2G isn't going to be turned off any time soon, due to legacy support requirements. Otherwise, I'd have to get one of Nokia's newer "dumb smartphone" devices.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#75

Post by AndyKelley »

I got my librem in the mail last week after waiting several years(!!) for shipping. It's complete trash. The software is shit, the battery is shit, it's expensive, low specs, completely unusable.

I'm willing to compromise a lot in order to go with the free software approach, but my god, just do better. There's no excuse for how un-functional this thing is. Try harder.

I had the same reaction with the pine phone a couple years ago. At least that one shipped sooner though.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#76

Post by BSEdlMMldESB »

AndyKelley wrote: post #75

I got my librem in the mail last week after waiting several years(!!) for shipping. It's complete trash. The software is shit, the battery is shit, it's expensive, low specs, completely unusable. I'm willing to compromise a lot in order to go with the free software approach, but my god, just do better. There's no excuse for how un-functional this thing is. Try harder. I had the same reaction with the pine phone a cou…

no excuse, merely a conspiracy explanation:

it simply cannot be permitted. somebody realized PC market/platform made a huge "mistake", letting anybody make software for them and permitting random hardware. this 'mistake' was avoided on smartphones for very pointed, clear, intentions of social control.

there exists NO homebrew smartphone hardware like for PCs.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#77

Post by BSEdlMMldESB »

jancsika wrote: post #33

Someone should do a Linux phone that scales way back: 1. you can dial phone numbers somehow 2. you can talk on the phone 3. you can hear the person on the other line 4. the cell reception on the phone is decent quality 5. antenna is properly placed for very good reception 6. basic SMS works, all the time 7. has been extensively tested to work with a single carrier, any other carrier is no warranty 8. boot time and sh…

0. it must be able to use the internet; with this, the rest of the software should be able to be ported/emulated somehow.

number 7 points at why this won't really work. providers can just say it's a security vulnerability and shut this kind of cellphone down.

8. would be awesome, it's even a good idea for typical locked down smartphones because the battery life!

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#78

Post by chongli »

jancsika wrote: post #33

Someone should do a Linux phone that scales way back: 1. you can dial phone numbers somehow 2. you can talk on the phone 3. you can hear the person on the other line 4. the cell reception on the phone is decent quality 5. antenna is properly placed for very good reception 6. basic SMS works, all the time 7. has been extensively tested to work with a single carrier, any other carrier is no warranty 8. boot time and sh…

What do #1-#8 have to do with Linux? As far as I can tell, nothing. A flip phone will cover your use case nicely.

Personally, I have no interest in making phone calls. 99% of the time when my phone rings it’s a spam call. The other 1% of the time it’s one of my uncles or aunts, all of whom are in their 80’s or thereabouts. After they pass on, I will have no reason at all to make a phone call, except perhaps to book a doctor’s appointment with some doctor who hasn’t switched over to online booking.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#79

Post by user_7832 »

oneplane wrote: post #64
user_7832 wrote: post #18

On a similar note I've been wanting to buy and use a fully "free" phone - one where I have complete control over most if not all things. But it appears to me that unless you use a regular "phone", there is no way you can DIY your way into building a "modern" phone bit by bit like how a desktop could be made.* Calling/4g/5g require specific hardware that seems difficult to integrate at a hobbyist level (unlike say ins…

I strongly depends on what you mean by 'control' and 'made'. In a sense it all depends on the depth of control and making your own; nearly all modern silicon requires proprietary software to initialise it to a usable state, and almost all hardware can't really run on its own and needs supporting devices which can cause an otherwise open design to end up closed anyway (even if it is something tangentially adjacent lik…

Good points, ideally I'd say the software should at least be non-proprietary or at least source-available, but in reality I would settle for anything where I can control at least the software (OS level) side of things.

Re: I give up on free software phones (2019)

#80

Post by chongli »

BSEdlMMldESB wrote: post #76
AndyKelley wrote: post #75

I got my librem in the mail last week after waiting several years(!!) for shipping. It's complete trash. The software is shit, the battery is shit, it's expensive, low specs, completely unusable. I'm willing to compromise a lot in order to go with the free software approach, but my god, just do better. There's no excuse for how un-functional this thing is. Try harder. I had the same reaction with the pine phone a cou…

no excuse, merely a conspiracy explanation: it simply cannot be permitted. somebody realized PC market/platform made a huge "mistake", letting anybody make software for them and permitting random hardware. this 'mistake' was avoided on smartphones for very pointed, clear, intentions of social control. there exists NO homebrew smartphone hardware like for PCs.

Your conspiracy explanation doesn’t pass the sniff test. There’s a much much simpler explanation: lack of demand.

Heck, you’d think people on hacker news would be all over open source alternatives to proprietary hardware, software, and services. Yet take a brief wander over to one of the many (many) recent Reddit crisis threads and you’ll find countless naysayers talking about how lemmy and the like will never succeed, despite gaining hundreds of thousands of users in a week and a half.

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