Slashdot Mirror
The Rise of the Linux-Based Cellphone
mrscotty99 writes with a link to a Linux.com article about the rising star that is the Linux-based cellphone. Author Murry Shohat argues that the transformation of the cell into a mini-PC this summer is a landmark opportunity for Linux. Apple's offering and Motorola's US launch of the RAZR2 V8 (a linux-based device) may be heralds of great things to come for a new OS frontier: "In the cell phone market, consumers will pay for content, and corporations need to deliver secure content to applications in the palm of employees' hands. These trends suggest products that are simultaneously more functional and less expensive than a Treo or BlackBerry and more secure than an iPhone. MontaVista Software claims to have deployed Mobilinux on more than 35 million mobile devices worldwide. CEO Tom Kelley says, 'Linux is growing rapidly on mobile devices because of its solid reliability, its great flexibility, and because it accelerates the development cycle.' Vendors using or contemplating the use of Linux for mobile devices unanimously point to the operating system's footprint, memory usage, and fast growing ecosystem of developers producing software for graphics, multimedia, connectivity, and security." Linux.com and Slashdot are both owned by SourceForge.
http://openmoko.com/
- Touchscreen
- WLAN
- completely open
- A-GPS
You don't have that many OS choices when developing a cellphone.
Obviously, you can go with a market leader like Symbian and Nokia's S60 software stack to get something out the door in a hurry.
Alternatively, you can pay a bunch up front to get the hardware working with Linux, but the benefits are a royalty-free OS license.
You could always ask Microsoft for some help, but your fast time to market and full-featureset come at the price of outrageously powerful hardware requirements.
Finally, you can go with BREW, Qualcomm's stripped-down, barebones OS.
Each OS has its benefits and tradeoffs. Linux's benefits are code "ownership" and full source access, not to mention a well-known API and a large pool of developers. The major tradeoff that I've seen is the enormous latency in normal usage. A keypress takes a significantly longer time to process on a Linux phone than on, say, a BREW phone or an MS Smartphone.
There's a lot of growth to come in the cellphone market, so Symbian has a long fight against these up and comers. And there really isn't anywhere for anyone (excluding Symbian) to go but up.
Time for P2P phones as well as all forms of bandwidth
Now that the iPhone has flopped in the marketplace and become a source of ridicule for people actually brave enough to walk around in public with one the cellphone biz really needs something new to look forward to. Just was watching Bill Maher making fun of the pathetic Apple fans crying over being made suckers for falling for Jobs' iPhone hype.
Linux becoming the defacto cellphone OS would be awesome. I deal with a lot of embedded media hardware vendors and Linux has become the default choice for everyone now. Just grab the latest source, strip out everything you don't need, add in whatever else you want and you are good to go. Everyone is on the same page. Tools and employee skill sets become a commodity. Less waste, more productivity.
I find the hardware extremly expensive today, however this will hopefully change in a few years.
Apple's offering AFAIK is a mobile version of OSX... what does that have to do with Linux?
By my accounts, Apple has been hostile to the open source community. They take and don't give back. Look at their track record with OSX and not setting up a source repository.
Making iPods intentionally not work with anything but iTunes (which was cracked only days later)? Creating iWork instead of helping the OS X version OpenOffice.org?
Apple would BE Microsoft, and Charman Jobs would be Gates, if they had the option.
Here's to the crazy ones
When I look at that phone I understand how Apple fanboys must have felt when the iPhone came out. It's drool-worthy, I *want* one!
Personally I find this announcement much more interesting and relevant to the goal of getting Linux on the mobiles. In short: Trolltech has made available the telephony service, DRM and SaX available under GPLv2, thus making Qtopia Phone edition completely free. Besides, they have ported Qtopia to Neo 1973. This is most certainly very good news!
Motorola is no the only manufacturer offering mobile phones with Linux operating system. Here is an overview of mobile phones with Linux pre-installed. The entries marked with an asterisk *) show around twenty manufacturers which offer Linux on mobile cellular phones.
Subject says it all.
..
I wonder how long it will take until Amiga Inc. revives the never released Amiga DE and decide that it's the shit for 2008s mobile phones!
And maybe this will not all be obsolete once it comes out. There has been great advance in openmoko development recently, but it is still far from being a finished product.
Now imagine this:
1. use VoIP from the cellphone (duh!)
2. GPG-encrypt the data stream, without relying on AT&T's proprietary "encryption" which goes directly to whichever government asks for it
3. use the existing GPG web of trust for keys; generate a new key for the phone and sign it with your main key so if the phone is stolen you lose only the phone's secret key
The above makes you imprevious to plain main-in-the-middle snooping. What is left is information whom you talk to.
4. get an account at a company/group of volunteers who provide a number of servers; the more such independent group of this kind the better
5. have the phone connect only to the nearest server of your group; this is all the phone company can find out about you
6. once there, the server will peel the outer onion layer, connecting to the next hop
7. these servers will be usually already connected as conversations can be aggregated into a single connection; if not, random data can be sent through idle links to thwart traffic analysis
8. unless you're paranoid, the next hop will be your interlocutor's privacy company/group. 2 hops should be enough for most cases, but if you value privacy more than latency, toss in full onion routing.
While Tor is WAAAY too slow to allow for usable VoIP, having a network of servers connected with opaque noise-filled pipes should give you decent enough privacy with just two geographically close hops.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=66_68
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I stopped reading the article when I got to the words 'perfect storm'.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
> In the cell phone market, consumers will pay for content
Yeah, where's my Linux Phone, I got spare $ to burn on ringtones and wallpapers.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
or did I miss something on there website?
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
.. and its a really, really great device even though the developer version is missing a few things (accelerometers, WLAN) .. there is really nothing quite so fun as being able to write software for your own cell phone, and do things that just wouldn't be possible elsewhere.
..
I'm looking forward, for example, to having my own answering service onboard with a user-selectable set of recordings to playback (IVR-style application), and some music-making apps are on the horizon as well
Lovely bit of gear; I will definitely upgrade to GTA02 when its available, too.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
About ten years ago encryption was much more in vogue than it is now. The geeks who were the elite of the Internet even so late widely had PGP keys and sometimes went to key-signing events. Publishing on public applications of cryptography was vast: O'Reilly had a PGP guide and Bruce Schneier's great Applied Cryptography appeared. PGPfone and Speakeasy promised to give us secure voice communication.
Now look at what has happened. Today's geeks rarely show interest in GPG, even when they rave about other free software achievements. Figures like Bruce Schneier chose to focus on other aspects of computer security, and O'Reilly doesn't publish anything to show your average computer-literate fellow how to secure his communications. PGPfone was never maintained, and nothing appears to have come to replace it, even in bold new apps like Ekiga. And the web of trust has stagnated because (reliable) key signings are rare.
Your idea of a GPG-capable phone is something I find cool, but sadly encryption no longer captivates people like it once did.
Probably talking about Bluetooth
"GPRS-capable quad-band GSM modem and local connectivity through Bluetooth and USB"
The version to be released in October is supposed to have wireless networking.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
here it is
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Is a way overblown assumption of Apple's view on the open source community.
Apple's Open Source Page
Very nice, but no camera, 2.5G. Surely they should launch with a 3G version since 3G has been standard for so long? Also price: $300 is a bit steep.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
...who arguably invented the smartphone, and announced they were moving to a Linux-based OS in 2005 (from memory) are now saying they won't get there for another 12-18 months - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/sep/13/guardianweeklytechnologysection.it. A bit sad really. I blame Foleo.
thanks, so lets wait for the next version. Using a mobile phone for accessing the internet via UMTS is way too expensive.
"People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
B F
I've been watching this for a while, and I almost bought a dev phone. But the extra features on the full retail one are much more interesting to me. I thought the target for the retail phone was October, but I see things like:
"We're almost for sure going to use their AR6K
chipset in our next product."
I hope that just means they haven't updated that portion of the site in a while, and not that they still have no clue what the hardware design is.
I see elsewhere that Oct and Nov are set for testing, and late December for shipping the final product.
What I truly hope to see, and I may have to do some coding myself to see it... Is Skype integrated into it well enough that if the wireless and the skype get a call at the same time, I can choose which one to answer. That sounds unlikely until you remember Grand Central, which I currently have calling both my Skype (on my n800) and my cell phone at the same time. This would truly make it the phone I want. The other features are all just icing.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I can read all of the above posts as a geek and be pleased. While I like the idea of Neo1973, I will never own one, I personally don't have the time to write my own apps for a phone; but I do appreciate a device that is open enough to allow it. When I read all of the above posts as a consumer, I ask myself, "wtf do these geeks think? I just want to turn it on, go through my contacts and use the phone" The Neo has/will changed how 1M geeks view the cell phone, the iPhone has changed how tens of millions of people view the cell phone(obviously I'm guessing at the number of affected phone users). In 5 years, which will still be around and actually produced on a regular basis? The one that makes money, and it won't be the Neo. From the openmoko site "We will sell this device through multiple channels.Direct from openmoko.com, the price will be $450 for the Neo Base and $600 for Neo Advanced." This is in reference to the 2nd gen. A lot of people here tote openness like a badge, most don't write software, most will never recompile a kernel, most won't take the time to load linux on ipod, but most will take the time to try to tell us AAC is Apple's proprietary format(jeez, even wikipedia can get this one right), that DRM will someday cause the downfall of the modern world, and that trying to make money of something you created is way to the devil. I've got a novel idea, one of you with some connections get Mark Shuttlesworth to invest heavily in the openmoko/neo1973 projects. Convince him that he should take a massive loss and sell the phone for 50 USD. Then you would actually be doing something...soemthing that might actaully change things, until then, curl up with your blankie at night, think about little Suzie, that Tri-Delt that you eyeball in econ 101, and realize that no actually cares if they can program for their phone except you.
I hope linux makes significant inroads, but I fear it will make as big of an impact in the cellular arena as it did in the PDA market.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
"While Tor is WAAAY too slow to allow for usable VoIP, having a network of servers connected with opaque noise-filled pipes should give you decent enough privacy with just two geographically close hops."
Especially if some of those hops are routed via bluetooth or WiFi rather than GPRS... (the call might just disappear into a mesh network, well away from telephone wiretaps)
It's surely the year of Linux on the Cellphone!!!
matar a un hombre no es defender una idea es matar a un hombre
..a txtspk version for the CLI?
The only thing missing from my Nokia N800 is the cell phone circuitry. So I browse the Internet through Bluetooth when I'm out of WiFi range.
You might find useful information (concerning the first OpenMoko compatible phone) on this page : http://wiki.openmoko.org/index.php?title=Neo1973
The end user version is the one named "Phase 2" (GTA02, "Mass Market").
Allong with hardware specs, you'll find there an estimated timeline :
* Sep 20 - GTA02v3 design finalised.
* Oct 20 - GTA02v3 design produced, and shipped to qualified developers.
* Nov 20 - GTA02v3 design verified through testing by developers.
* Dec 10 - GTA02v3 produced in moderate volume
* Dec 20 - GTA02v3 goes on sale
* Dec 25 - GTA02v3 arrives
Yeah, I condensed that to "I see elsewhere that Oct and Nov are set for testing, and late December for shipping the final product."
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Motorola's US launch of the RAZR2 V8
I could have had a V8!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Are people excited about a Linux Cell phone or a Unix cell phone. If the latter why not a BSD based cell phone. Like say the Iphone.
Unofficially there are rumblings of a December/January release.
The version to be released in October is supposed to have wireless networking.
Unfortunately it looks like the schedule has slipped and general availability will be Christmas.
Personally, I'm holding out for a UMTS version, although they've given no indication when this is likely to happen. (I've had enough of the crappness of GPRS to last me a life time).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
The Linux RAZR2 seems a bit overhyped, since the only major US carrier that will carry the Linux (V8) version will be T-mobile...and as of today that's still vaporware. It drives me crazy when all the Linux magazines talk about 5 years of Linux cell phone, since none of these have been available from a major US carrier. Yes, you could have ordered one from another country, got a sim card from AT&T or T-Mobile and gotten it to work, but that's quite different from being able to get it all set up, directly from the carrier.
Don't get me wrong, I'm the first one to be likely to drop my current carrier (Sprint) and go with T-Mobile just to run the RAZR2 V8, but it's painful to see the release date slip and slip. I called T-Mobile and the person I talked to wasn't sure if they were going to release it at all.
I would also be very interested in the OpenMoko phone, but it has to at least make basic phone calls reliably before I'm going to jump in. They say October...add some margin and I'm hoping to be able to get one (that will actually make phone calls) by early next year.
The combination of a big player like Motorola and completely open platform like OpenMoko is just great for Linux on cellphones, but neither is quite here....yet.
The Neo 1973 is GSM-only. OpenMoko doesn't have a phone that supports CDMA network providers, like Sprint. Nor do they have plans to in the foreseeable future.
By contrast, I am confident that Motorola WILL release a variant of their phone that works on Sprint's network.
Open source ideals are great and all, but if it doesn't meet my requirements (I'm not going to buy it.
And for the foreseeable future, "Does it work on Sprint's network?" is one of my requirements.
Darwin is open source. And you are a troll.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The downfall of PGP/GPG was when someone masquerading as Mickey Mouse got their key signed by one of the Linux kernel developers. This put Mickey 2 degrees of separation away from Linus, and a lot of other trusted members of the community (Zimmerman himself was not far removed), and cast doubt on the whole web of trust model vs the centralised certification authority of S/MIME and SSL. Perhaps if PGP had a way to revoke key signatures, it could have kept its reputation, but now it is mostly only useful within a closed community, or where specific keys are listed as trusted for a specific purpose (such as signing code releases).
Will it blend ?
Oops! We meant Valentine's Day. I mean St. Patr...
bah - if it doesn't have a CLI I can text in, it ain't Linux. ;)
Anyone want to buy a doorstop from me? Low price of $450
somewhere, on a Big Red Sign:
if(color==blue){speed--;}
Personally, I'm holding out for whenever it can reliably make phone calls with a GUI (AFAIK, at the moment it can make one phone call per reboot cycle, from the command-line, because the software isn't finished yet).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Teh problem with Teh Lunix is that, one the whole, Teh Lunix community can't figure out what it wants or where it is going. It's like... but in many ways worse, than the situation Palm was in.
Back in the day, Palm could have ruled the world had they continued their expansion into the small device market. But instead, they continued to ignore a broad section of the market which consumers were constantly demanding (having a PDA with an integrated phone)... and the only way Palm eventaully accomplished it wasn't through THEIR efforts... but by acquiring a competitor who had done all the heavy lifting for them.
Much like Teh Lunix. Teh problem is that, instead of moving into the small device space where they could EASILY dominate (entirely through a lack of viable competition), Teh Lunix community is instead tied up in Microsoft jealousy and wannabe-ism, and continuously banging their heads against a wall trying to hammer Teh Lunix into something which can compete with Windows... which it cannot.
Teh Lunix of today can't even accomplish things Windows was doing back in 1995! If they can't even compete with an operating system which is over ten years old... what makes anyone think they are going to magically get it together with another ten years? If they would stop chasing Microsoft's tail lights, they would instead see an entire world which could be theirs. And perhaps, by moving into that mobile devices space, they might even be positioned to be the OS of the future: now the death of the PC keeps being predicted, and proven wrong, but you never know. Perhaps one day, when computers are inside of everything, there will no longer be a need for a desktop computer.
So Teh Problem with Teh Lunix is that, ultimately and tragically, they keep doing what they are terrible at, and constantly ignore what they are good at.
actually, it is not completely open.
there is no source for the driver of the gprs module.
there is no source code for *any* gprs module...
I wanted to use GPG for signing everything, including Slashdot posts (my GPG key is in my journal), but I can't because the formatting will screw with the signature. In other words, my GPG signature would be for a certain line length, and if my text is reformatted with different spacing and line breaks, then the signature would be invalid.
What I'd love is a standard that strips all but alphanumeric characters (including no line breaks or whitespace) and then does a GPG signature on that. The signature would be preserved despite variations in formatting. It would be fairly simple to do, something along the lines of:
sed -e 's/[^A-Za-z0-9]//g' < plaintext.txt | gpg --clearsign to sign, and
sed -e 's/[^A-Za-z0-9]//g' < plaintext.txt | gpg --verify to verify.
(Not exactly, since this still preserves line breaks, but you get the idea.)
The problem is, everyone has to know to do that, so that it becomes a standard. I think this would make GPG more versatile and usable under more circumstances. Granted, it would not be perfectly unambiguous, as the following two lines have the same alphanum-only GPG signature:
"Bob," said Sue, "me and you are going to the greenhouse."
Bob said: "Sue me, and you are going to the 'green' house!"
Anyway, at the risk of being off-topic, I thought I'd offer my thoughts on one reason why encryption is not as ubiquitous as we hoped.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
https://direct.openmoko.com/ ?
Openmoko looks interesting but it's still GSM.
;-)
Isn't GSM the standard that bursts occasionally at 2 watts (!!!) and is enough to interfere with phones and erase car keys? Who knows what it's doing to your nads if it can do all that?
Whatever happened to 3G and EVDO? My friend's pocket PC is a phone with EVDO, a QWERTY keyboard, and has been out for years. But it runs windows and I'd rather have Linux.
Shouldn't the story title be "The Year of Linux(Based Cellphones)." Just sayin
Freedom isn't always free... I'm considering getting one of these puppies. I just don't have a lot of time to devote to seriously developing for it, I'd just want to tinker with it more than anything.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
"Personally, I'm holding out for whenever it can reliably make phone calls with a GUI"
So install QTopia on it...
Example review
There's little chance of the product being obsolete when it comes out because most components are upgradeable relatively easily. It's adding in new functionality that is challenging. For example, to get wifi in for the official release, they had to remove one of the speakers (it still supports stereo, but you'll have to use a headset for that). Space is at a premium in tiny devices like this. But there's nothing inherently problematic about substituting, say, a processor with a faster one.
Anyways, as someone who is eagerly awaiting the OpenMoko's release (I need a GPS; I need a replacement cell phone; why not get both at once, with a neat, open platform to boot?), I have been disappointed by the pushing back of the schedule, but I'm still optimistic that I'll at least be able to get one by Xmas.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
Er... the Neo1973's release :) Bleh. I shuold porff raed mroe.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
In my opinion, the One True Phone has two versions: one with a camera and one without. Cell phone cameras are usually pretty much garbage, but they can come in useful at times. On the other hand, they also prevent you from bringing your phone into some places.
The reason the Neo1973 doesn't have a camera is space constraints. You have to pick and choose what you put in when your space is that limited.
$450 is the mass-market version. I'd say that feature-for-feature, the Neo1973 is about on par with the IPhone (some more, some less), and the iPhone is $600 plus is locked into a ripoff contract.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
Any smartphones out there that support an auxiliary display with higher resolution?
[B.] Bob said: "Sue me, and you are going to the 'green' house!" The phrase "me and you" is not a valid subject in standard English because the pronoun "me" is in object case, not nominative case. A valid subject is "I and you", but "you and I" is more idiomatic. Substituting these words into B produces the invalid sentences "Bob said: 'Sue I, and you are going to the {green} house!'" and "Bob said: 'Sue you, and I are going to the {green} house!'"
Amen, brother. I will be purchasing that phone as soon as the consumer version is available. Openness is worth much more than discounted down payments.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
Obsolete? Obsolete? My current phone is a Nokia that's at least 5 years old. It's been dropped many times and thrown in a pool. It still makes calls and does very little else (that I know of, although I never cared to look). I have never owned any other phone, and I have never used wifi or gps on a phone.
That's what I like about living in the Stone Age - it makes the Bronze Age look nice and gilded.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
I know you were trying to be funny, but what on Earth makes you think it doesn't have a CLI? It *IS* Linux after all.
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Manually_using_GSM
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
You're behind the times. The iPhone's price was dropped to $399 for the 8 gig version, and they're no longer selling the 4 gig version.
I doubt they did it because of the Neo 1973, but it certainly makes the latter less interesting. If GRPS wasn't enough to kill it for me, the fact that a fantastic UI is available for cheaper will.
Better tell the people on Ebay. They're paying over $500 for 8gb, and over $300 for 4gb.
Either way, it still has the ridiculously overpriced contract, no? Where most of the money is made anyways? In May, Technojunkie reported that the no-contract versions were $900-$1000.
Then the winter came, and the Grasshopper died. And the Octopus ate all his acorns. Also, he got a racecar.
As for the plan, featurewise, it's much better than most plans that you get from AT&T when you sign a contract. The biggest advantage you'll get with the Neo is that you aren't locked into a contract, however you'll still probably want phone service, which means you'll still be paying the rates.
At AT&T, this is the cheapest plan I can find:
Anytime Minutes 450
Night & Weekend minutes 5000
Mobile to Mobile minutes Unlimited
Long Distance $0.00
Roaming Charges $0.00
Additional minutes $.45/minute
Monthly cost: $39.99/mo
They also mention it as being a 2 year contract, but I assume that if you don't buy a phone, it won't require a contract.
The iPhone plan looks to have the same features, but includes 200 SMS, unlimited data, and costs $20 more. Just adding the data to the above Cingular plan bumps the price up $39.99. 200 SMS messages is another $4.99. Assuming you'll want these things (and if you're buying the iPhone, you probably at least want the data), it's a very good deal.
I don't think that's ridiculously overpriced, but of course, to each her/his own. In May, Technojunkie reported that the no-contract versions were $900-$1000. What happens is that you buy the iPhone, but to use it, you must activate it. You activate it by selecting a plan, giving them your credit card, and agreeing to the contract. Instead of using a contract, you can elect to use a prepaid plan. The phone doesn't cost any more, but the minutes themselves cost a bit more. Any other unlocked or no-contract version of the phone is very grey market, with the common price increases that go along with it.
The iPhone has been unlocked so this isn't a valid argument.
I'm sorry, what's not a valid argument. You provided no context, and the general tone of my post was that the iPhone isn't really all that bad.
Any one of these things would be a lot to ask from a vendor trying to survive in a very fickle market.
Yes, but a different distribution and development team from the Linux they're looking to put on the phones. So the synergy is limited at best.
Yes, I noticed that the openmoko web site is suspiciously quiet about the 02 version.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I know that this article is old, and no one will read this, but I have a # thoughts:
1) What sensitive information are you sending over a land-line or a cell-phone??
2) Why would you send sensitive information over either choice as part of 1) ??
3) What is so important, that you cannot coordinate over a means of communication that is 99.99% secure?
4) You can be very vague and still establish your conversation without actually implying anything at all over means of 1)
5) If a 3rd party is able to attain the data and use it for their own means, what will happen exactly??