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.

Comments

The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola has.

[Alphager]

http://openmoko.com/
- Touchscreen
- WLAN
- completely open
- A-GPS

4 choices

[BadAnalogyGuy]

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.

Re:4 choices

[BadAnalogyGuy]

It matters if you're the one developing the phone.

Re:4 choices

[smilindog2000]

The real benefit of open-systems on a cell phone are far beyond the typically quoted "time-to-market" and "cost-of-ownership" stuff. My Motorola Razr is a fine phone, but nothing more. For anything other than making phone calls, it completely sucks. I can't even take and share pictures freely, and the charge for simple text messages is just stupid. I personally never intend to own another stupid Symbian based phone again.

In comparison, now that hackers have dissected it, the iPhone is a tiny laptop in my pocket, from which I can ssh into work to control servers, log into AIM, browse the full web, read e-books downloaded from gutenberg.org, or develop high-end applications such as P2P voice. A VNC viewer is also in development. Once again, it's taken Apple to show big-company-marketing where the market actually lies. It's all about the software, and the stupid cell-industry has always thought that they were smart enough to deliver it... wrong wrong wrong.

I think Apple and the new crop of Linux based phone vendors should deliver 8-16 gig high-end phones with dev-tools pre-installed. I should be able to open the box, log into wi-fi, and ssh into a bash shell. From there, I should be able to develop apps for the phone directly on the phone. The GPS and other devices should come with open-source drivers. From a hardware point of view, the iPhone is interesting, but not revolutionary. From a software point of view, it's a whole new game.

Re:4 choices

[david.given]

Or there's Nucleus, VxWorks, QNX, one of the several proprietary phone OSs (you'll probably only pick one of these if you're part of the same group that owns the OS)... there are lots of RTOSs out there that are suitable for phones, especially the low-end phones that you wouldn't want to run a heavyweight OS on.

The thing I'm surprised about is that nobody (we hear about) seems to be using BSD. The BSDs are traditionally easier to port than Linux, and have a much friendlier license to commercial use; so why aren't the phone manufacturers using that?

Re:4 choices

[Propaganda13]

You do know that Apple is entirely against everything you just said. Apple is part of the problem. Your post is like thanking Microsoft because the XBox was hacked to run Linux.

Now, the FIC NEO1973 will hopefully show the industry how it's done.

Re:4 choices

[Molt]

I've been doing all of those things, with the exception of the P2P voice development, on my HTC Universal (Orange M5000) for nearly two years now- and that was by no means the first device which offered this kind of functionality.

Please, if you're going to credit anyone with opening up the true power of Smartphones don't make it Apple.. any openness of their device is purely accidental, not unlike the Sony PSP, and is likely to be reduced more and more as they patch. With regards to actually promoting external developers to get things done on their phones they're leagues behind their competition, which includes the Windows Mobile based phones, Symbian, Linux phones, and the Palm offerings. At least we can get specs, APIs, and documentation from these, even if the phones aren't viewed in the same 'manna from heaven' light as Apple's product.

Re:4 choices

[Andy Dodd]

It's sad to say, but with respect to "openness" to developers, Windows Mobile is actually in the lead right now. (Except for possibly Symbian which I have ZERO experience with, but other posts indicate it is less free.)

iPhone - well, that is clearly a closed system. Any "openness" is a lucky hack.

BREW - ugh...

Linux-on-phone - You would expect it to be free, but with the exception of OpenMoko, it seems like Linux-on-phone tends to be "Tivoized". The quotes in the article summary imply that manufacturers love it because it makes it easier for them to lock down the phone. Their definition of "secure" is not the same as ours, theirs is in terms of DRM and locking down what the owner is allowed to do.

PalmOS is pretty open to developers but is basically dead at this point. (I'm a former Treo owner, now I have a WM5-based AT&T 8525 aka HTC Hermes/TyTn and love it)

Re:4 choices

[GooberToo]

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.

I'm not sure if you're including this in your ,"large pool of developers", comment but, these days making the phone developer accessible after sale is starting to garner a fair bit of interest. In this regard, Linux can't be touched.

The major tradeoff that I've seen is the enormous latency in normal usage. A keypress takes a sigificantly longer time to process on a Linux phone than on, say, a BREW phone or an MS Smartphone.

This has every indication of a poor implementation rather than than any OS specific issues. Seems many people coming from the Unix/Linux world don't seem to understand you have a new set of design challenges to address; rather they design Unix philosophy-style which is not a good match for something like a cellphone. As a result, people are building processes which abstract an API, which in turn has another process talking to the API process which in turn, may or may not talk directly to the hardware. On such low resource units like cellphones, this means a high latency design. So I argue this is a developer design issue and has nothing to do with Linux on cell phones.

As more developers understand the new platform requires a new design approach, things will continue to improve. I believe for now you're simply seeing the growing pains of a new found, widely available platform among a young developer base who don't know better.

Re:4 choices

[GooberToo]

A keypress takes a significantly longer time to process on a Linux phone than on, say, a BREW phone or an MS Smartphone.

Sorry, I forgot to add this to my previous post. My Razor has one of the slowest interfaces I've ever seen on a phone, including phones I had five plus years ago. Button presses are often dropped. The user interface is horrible, kludgie, and beyond snail-slow. IIRC, my Razor is running Symbian. My point being, crappy user interfaces which create high latency key presses (or worst of all, dropped key presses which are common on my phone) is certainly not a Linux platform exclusive.

In other words, poor software design is a much larger issue for low latency than is the target platform. No matter what, you must have good developers for the platform or you'll wind up with a Razor.

Re:4 choices

[GooberToo]

Notice that I didn't compare Linux's latency to Symbian.

I hate to burst your bubble but Linux typically has lower latency than most other commercial RT OSs. Linux in no way, shape, or form, is considered a high latency beast, save only on the desktop, and that's because it is geared toward throughput, not low latency; which in turn explains why Linux typically stomps on Windows for throughput.

I've not done any phone development but I do RT development. If are experiencing latency issues, I suggest it may be platform specific issues with the kernel port or framework/application level issues which are causing your issues. Linux, in of it self, should not be the cause of any user perceptible latency issues. Which is why I pointed you toward much more likely causes than the kernel.

Apple's Offering?

[flydpnkrtn]

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.

Re:Apple's Offering?

[smilindog2000]

Jobs may be an a-hole, but he's damned smart. OS-X (on Macs and iPhones) is just open enough to allow hackers freedom to innovate, while just closed enough for Jobs to charge whatever he wants for the OS, while controlling the QA for average users ("It just works - TM" to quote another /.-er). Jobs absolutely wants to be Gates, and he's using open-source as leverage against Microsoft, for his own benefit rather than for open-source developers. It's never been said that Jobs is just trying to make the world a better place. Fortunately, that's just a side effect.

Re:Apple's Offering?

[0100010001010011]

It was a hash not encryption. Get over it. It's more than likely for data integrity than "ZOMG WE R GONIN TO BREAK LINUX".

Re:Apple's Offering?

[phooka.de]

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.

Darwin is Open Source. WebKit has been a great contribution. But they never give back. Get your facts straight first, then think, then post.

Don't forget about Qtopia

[rumith]

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!

Other Linux Mobile Phone Manufacturers

[wehe]

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.

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola ha

[KiloByte]

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.

Just make your own, if you're nerd enough

[DrSkwid]

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/categories.php?cPath=66_68

I have a NEO1973 (OpenMoko) ..

[torpor]

.. 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.

Re:I have a NEO1973 (OpenMoko) ..

[MichaelSmith]

I will definitely upgrade to GTA02 when its available, too.

Yes that is the phone I want to get. But because I can't try it in the shop I have a question which you may be able to answer: can you carry the OpenMoko around in your pocket, or is it a belt pouch phone? I have seen the dimensions on the web site but it is not the same as holding one in your hand.

Re:I have a NEO1973 (OpenMoko) ..

[torpor]

Yes that is the phone I want to get. But because I can't try it in the shop I have a question which you may be able to answer: can you carry the OpenMoko around in your pocket, or is it a belt pouch phone? I have seen the dimensions on the web site but it is not the same as holding one in your hand.

Admittedly it is a bit bulky and quite a bit like a large bar of oversized soap .. with not so much to endear you to the plastic form, to be honest, until you turn it on and start using it - the most immediate design appeal comes from the high resolution screen, which is a lot denser and brighter than you might imagine from the screenshots.

I carry it around in its pouch (provided) with a lanyard attached through the loop on the case .. so its not really so much 'pocketable' as it is luggable. Its akin to having a serious bit of industrial-strength equipment with you, though, keep in mind it has a lot of onboard peripherals inside the somewhat bloated case ..

I look forward to future refined iterations of the case design, though. Definitely a fairly bloaty bit of kit. Reminds me a lot of an American car, in some ways .. and I'm really not so big a fan of the 'bar of soap' mentality of industrial design that seems to be standard with such kit. Would be very nice if it had a more of a harder edge to it, but I suppose after a while you get used to it.

It sure is fun to be using autotools to hack code that can run both on my Linux machine and my cell phone, I gotta say! Long live Linux portability and the suite of tools it provides!

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola ha

[CRCulver]

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.

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer but has no wlan

[MichaelSmith]

The version to be released in October is supposed to have wireless networking.

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola ha

[st0nes]

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.

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer but has no wlan

[Down_in_the_Park]

thanks, so lets wait for the next version. Using a mobile phone for accessing the internet via UMTS is way too expensive.

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola ha

[Gizmhail]

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

*SMACKS FOREHEAD*

[sharkey]

Motorola's US launch of the RAZR2 V8

I could have had a V8!

Wake me up when openmoko supports CDMA networks.

[melstav]

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.

BUT....

[OneSmartFellow]

Will it blend ?

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola ha

[Creepy]

bah - if it doesn't have a CLI I can text in, it ain't Linux. ;)

Re:The Neo 1973 is freer than anything motorola ha

[Workaphobia]

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

Re: The Rise of the Linux-Based Cellphone

[xanalogical]

Sure, the Neo1973 running OpenMoko. It runs X and this past weekend I gave a presentation where programs running on it were displayed on the overhead projector, using my laptop as an X display. It doesn't even need ethernet, just a USB cable between the phone and the laptop.

Re:Geeks don't drive the market, consumers do...

[xanalogical]

Those who do not control their technology will be controlled by it.