Debian On the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner Phone

BrianWCarver writes "It was inevitable. One can now run the entire Debian distribution (ARM port) on the Openmoko Neo Freerunner. We previously discussed the July 4th launch of this GNU/Linux-based smartphone, which is open down to its core, with the company providing CAD files and schematics for the phone. Openmoko released an update to their software stack earlier this month, called Om2008.8, which is still a work in progress. But now one can use these instructions on the Debian wiki to open up the possibility of using apt-get to access Debian's more than 20,000 applications on your phone, which, due to integration with freesmartphone.org efforts, can also actually be used as a phone. There were previous efforts to run Debian on the predecessor product to the Neo FreeRunner, the Neo 1973, but with the wider adoption of the Neo FreeRunner and the hard work of many Debian developers at the ongoing DebConf 8, carrying Debian in your pocket has just gotten a lot easier."

Comments

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian's more than 20,000 applications on your phone, which, due to integration with freesmartphone.org efforts, can also actually be used as a phone...

You're saying that I can install debian on my computer and use it as a phone? The computer weighs about 15kg already. I just need to add a truck battery (another 20kg I guess) and a small array of solar cells (another 180kg). I will then have an utra-portable cell phone! And, it weighs in at only 215kg!

Re:Great

[MrNaz]

There we hae it ladies and gentleman. After years, I think we can say we have found the person with the least understanding of the article and summary.

RTFA? This guy obviously didn't even read the TITLE fully. In fact, given his laughably silly comment, it very well may be that he only read the first word of the title and had some objection with "Debian" and portability.

May I present the new standard setter for Slashdot cluelessness, the man who didn't even RTFT!

Re:Great

[wellingj]

While we are at it, you deserve a whoosh! award.

Re:Great

[MichaelSmith]

It didn't even finish! My ASUS eeePC boots in about 30 seconds. I don't see why Linux should go to so much trouble on a phone.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard the distinctive "whoosh" of a joke sailing far above someone's head and came as fast as I could.

Re:Great

[cp.tar]

I lagged behind, thought it was just another deadline.

Re:Great

[pdusen]

This is by far the loudest "whoosh!" I have ever seen.

Re:Great

[phillips321]

you sir are a doofus! please follow this link http://rtfa.co.uk/

Re:Great

[karnal]

I agree, it's so loud you can SEE it!!!

Re:Great

[Simon Brooke]

While we are at it, you deserve a whoosh! award.

Someone got whooshed, certainly. Not, however, the person whom you thought.

Re:Great

[dattaway]

I have an Embeddedarm ts7260 running at 200mhz that boots into busybox/debian bash shell in 1.3 seconds. From power on to telnet or a serial port terminal, that's 1.3 seoncs to a bash prompt. I can chroot into a full debian glibc in a second. It all depends on the optimized code.

Re:Great

[Hurricane78]

Wrong again.

GP and GPP got wooshed, Only GPP is funny. Oh, and who said, that GP is not funny? In that case you got wooshed.

But what if.. oh god... if you're funny too? Then i will be wooshed too.

Thank god, that I'm funny too. :D

P.S.: Does someone know a replacement for "thank god", that does not include imaginary beings?

Re:Great

[miksuh]

You're saying that I can install debian on my computer and use it as a phone? The computer weighs about 15kg already. I just need to add a truck battery (another 20kg I guess) and a small array of solar cells (another 180kg). I will then have an utra-portable cell phone! And, it weighs in at only 215kg!

Did you even read the article? This is not about desktop computer. It's all about Debian running on mobile phone.

Neo 1973?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't realize this technology was THAT old.

Re:Neo 1973?

[mbeans]

well we are talking about Debian here.

Re:Neo 1973?

[squidinkcalligraphy]

(I think you're being funny here, but for the record) 1973 was the year of the first call on a mobile phone.

Re:Neo 1973?

[Vectronic]

No it wasn't... the first (cellular) call of a mobile phone would have been somewhere in the mid-60's...

The first "mobile" phone call, was probably in the early 1900's, using radio, however it was limited to a few channels, but could be linked into an actual phone network, albeit cumbersome and annoying, with middle-men.

Re:Neo 1973?

[Registered Coward v2]

No it wasn't... the first (cellular) call of a mobile phone would have been somewhere in the mid-60's...

The first "mobile" phone call, was probably in the early 1900's, using radio, however it was limited to a few channels, but could be linked into an actual phone network, albeit cumbersome and annoying, with middle-men.

Well, ship to shore phones were used in cars in at least in the 70's; a friend's 928 had one. It was pretty cool to see the looks on people's faces when you made a call from the car. It used an operator to do the connect.

Re:Neo 1973?

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation Needed

Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

[mrchaotica]

Last I checked, the dialer and address book applications weren't done yet. While it's great that it can do shit like compiling code and whatnot, it's not gonna do me -- as a person who, although a fan of Free Software, doesn't plan on doing OpenMoko development -- any good until it can make phone calls!

Re:Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

[yanyan]

I like your sig.

Re:Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

[lindi]

I use the "zhone" package to make and receive calls (the same app has also a primitive address book). However, you are correct in that there is probably not much point in using the phone if you have already decided that you don't plan to do any development.

Re:Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

[mrchaotica]

Thanks.

Re:Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Openmoko phone a nice toy, but it is not yet usable as a day to day phone.You can make calls but the phone has issues with background noise and the battery life time is too short for normal use. It will be interesting to see if these problems can be fixed with software or whether they require hardware fixes.

but

[squidinkcalligraphy]

but does it run.. oh, wait, yes it does.

Re:but

[junner518]

No it doesn't run vista!!!

Re:but

[alx5000]

Well, maybe if we imagine a beowulf core of those...

If anyone asks, I'll be in my corner.

Re:but

[alx5000]

Ok, now I mistook cluster for core... I need coffee stat...

Great

[TheModelEskimo]

Now you too can have a phone with the most hilarious startup sequence ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c0eVdj4E7w

...and run Debian on it too! "Hold on honey, just one more minute...or so...and we'll be running XTerm. It'll be cool!"

On a more serious note, I do happen to love this. You can't expect a geek to know how to do a debian install *and* grasp things like interface design or usability, but nothing's stopping somebody with the skills from building on that foundation.

Great learning tool. But what else?

[schnell]

Somebody help me out here. I get that the OpenMoko has great potential as a learning tool - that's unquestionable, and I applaud their efforts. But I'm really struggling to understand whether there is any use for this outside of the learning context.

In terms of platform, Symbian is on its way to being open-sourced, and Android is supposed to be F/OSS as well. I don't think LiMo is going anywhere, but it has the same virtues of openness. And if you care more about open development environments than license types, Windows Mobile already has a huge and growing smartphone applications ecosystem. On top of that, there are also easy ways into developing for the RIM, Palm and iPhone platforms.

In terms of hardware, this device seems to be lacking even a workable data connection - GPRS is tunneled packet data over channelized voice so you're looking at best case speeds of a 1994 modem (9.6 kbps or so). So broadband apps are out, as is useful e-mail/calendar syncing - at least over the GSM networks. It's also more expensive than the carrier-subsidized devices that everyone likes to complain about how overpriced they are with subsidies ...

So this isn't a rhetorical question, it's a serious one. Other than for folks who just want to learn about the guts of GSM and mobile devices, who would get a practical benefit from buying this phone vs. a Nokia/Symbian, HTC/Android or any other devices from the WinMo, Palm or iPhone families?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[mrchaotica]

I'm really struggling to understand whether there is any use for this outside of the learning context.

In terms of platform, Symbian is on its way to being open-sourced, and Android is supposed to be F/OSS as well. I don't think LiMo is going anywhere, but it has the same virtues of openness.

The answer is that OpenMoko predates all those things.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[dns_server]

openmoko is the only one that is not currently vaporware.
There is a sdk called android, and a promise to open source symbian (anyone know the licence?).
The only phone and software stack where you can actually make any changes is openmoko, we need to wait till the first devices come out and for google to decide before android is open source and who knows how many months/years till simbian is open.

It does have 2.5g (edge) so it should be fast enough for some internet even if it isn't as fast as 3g.
The extra speed is also only usefull if your network has good coverage and edge is more available at the moment.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is that OpenMoko predates all those things.

So? Just because it's first doesn't mean it's any good.

I guess maybe that Openmoko is great for leading the whole Open Source Smartphone movement, but Android actually has backing and is usable out of the box. Once you unleash Android, there's no turning back and Openmoko will be a useless anachronism, that is, unless they have a plan to compete with Android (step 1: Make it so that you can actually use it as a phone without a bunch of complex incantations and rituals).

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[mrchaotica]

Android actually has backing and is usable out of the box.

Devices that run Android don't even exist yet. How can you possibly claim it will be usable out of the box?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Pretty simple: The Openmoko is the closest thing to a "PC" of the phone world that you can get. Nothing else is as open as it is. Symbian isn't OSS yet, and there is no assurance the most of the handsets running it will ever be freed of carrier or manufacturer lockdown. Android doesn't yet exist in the wild, and carries the same risk. LiMo may be open as a stack(save for the DRM bits and bobs); but LiMo handsets in the wild are the usual lockdown stuff. The iPhone is markedly more competent than usual; but nothing happens on that platform without Steve's approval. WinCE might actually be the best of the heap. Closed base; but fairly encouraging for 3rd party work on top of that. Only the OpenMoko is a free implementation of a free stack.

If that doesn't matter to you, it probably isn't the phone for you. Others are more mature, and offer greater economies of scale. If you do want Freedom on the handset, the OpenMoko is it.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[ajlitt]

Symbian goes back to the late nineties.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[TheSeer2]

Jailbroken iPhones on the other hand are remarkably open and capable.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Tubal-Cain]

He installed it on the OpenMoko

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[schnell]

If that doesn't matter to you, it probably isn't the phone for you. Others are more mature, and offer greater economies of scale. If you do want Freedom on the handset, the OpenMoko is it.

Fair enough, that is a reasonable rationale.

The reason that I asked the GGP question is that I don't see what the value is to "Joe Mobile Phone User." My personal belief is that mobile devices are one area where simplicity trumps openness/configurability for the everyday user.

My personal $.02 is that mobile devices (potentially excluding the iPhone) have been Exhibit A in the case against software developers understanding the value of usability. Nearly everyone - from RIM and Palm to WinMo and LiMo - developing smartphone platforms has gotten wrapped around the "smart" and forgotten the "phone." This isn't meant to say that added functionality is a negative ... but to over-analogize, it's like all these developers have built software for toasters where "toasting" is an option three layers down in the GUI. And unfortunately, F/OSS GUIs have thus far been among the worst offenders when it comes to sacrificing usability at the expense of rich functionality. Again my personal belief is that this is a fine thing when it comes to PCs for geeks, but is an absolutely TERRIBLE thing when it comes to consumer purpose-built devices.

If a really "open" environment (a la OpenMoko) has some benefits for end users, I'd like to figure that out - as it is, I just can't see it. I'm a gadget geek and would love to see a reason to pick up one of these devices, but as someone who is not a developer "for the fun of it" I just don't get it yet.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

even with jailbreak the iphone is still more locked down than windows mobile.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[MichaelSmith]

My laptop is a pretty poor stereo system but that is one of the things I use it for. Yes, the moko is not a great phone if all you want is a phone (I have a motorola C139). But as a multipurpose computing device it may turn out to be quite good.

Re: Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything starts this way.

> Symbian is on its way to being open-sourced

So is Java. Has been for ten years now. Wake me when it happens.
(To be fair, Java *has* made real progress in this area, but it was not as smooth or fast as anyone thought it would be - to the point that it got to the very brink or obsolescence a couple of times)

> Android is supposed to be F/OSS as well

Except, compiled against non-standard libraries. Which, in practice, is the only thing that stops it being used, as a software platform, by the OpenMoko itself, right now (and in principal, even this could be overcome, depending on exactly what form the Android codebase ultimately takes)

> Windows Mobile already has a huge and growing smartphone applications ecosystem. On top of that, there are also easy ways into developing for the RIM, Palm and iPhone platforms.

Yeah, if you want apps specifically for a phone. If you want to compile a current desktop application and use it on your phone, or even the other way around (maybe you really like your calendar/contacts application), well, none of those platforms really allow for that. It's not an Achillie's Heel (yet), but it is a weakness (from the point of view of a developer, mostly, but still).

> In terms of hardware, this device seems to be lacking even a workable data connection - GPRS is tunneled packet data over channelized voice so you're looking at best case speeds of a 1994 modem (9.6 kbps or so). So broadband apps are out, as is useful e-mail/calendar syncing - at least over the GSM networks.

You have WiFi and Bluetooth if you can use it, GPRS as an emergency fallback. It's a phone, not a mobile contact manager. The distinction has been blurred, but primarily, it's a mini computer that can also make phone calls. It also has USB, so there's the possibility of a HSDPA adapter working if you want. If you *must have* built-in world-wide location-independent high-bandwidth wireless data communication... then yeah, this might not be for you. The next revision might be, but this is version 1.0. Don't you know what they say about 1.0 software? It's never as good, in quality terms, as the idea behind it. But it will be, if it makes it to a few versions beyond that.

> It's also more expensive than the carrier-subsidized devices that everyone likes to complain about how overpriced they are with subsidies ...

Carriers will never subsidize a truly open phone. They lose the ability to lock the phone to their network, to extract premiums from DRM'd software/music sales, etc. Any truly open phone will have to succeed on its own merits, because people will have to want to buy the phone at whatever price. One great way to do that is make it do non-phone things as well, so the phone portion of your purchase price is smaller (except, this only works if you *want* the non-phone portion of the phone - think cameras or mp3 players). Think of it more as a micro-form-factor sub-notebook, with a GSM module, making it a practical phone. Common folks don't want their phone to be a computer (heck, they often explicitly refuse to accept it), but that's okay - it's not for them. If, and only if, it is successful enough, then either economies of scale will bring it to the masses at a price they will accept, or clones/imitators will persuade them to embrace this kind of phone.

> So this isn't a rhetorical question, it's a serious one. Other than for folks who just want to learn about the guts of GSM and mobile devices, who would get a practical benefit from buying this phone vs. a Nokia/Symbian, HTC/Android or any other devices from the WinMo, Palm or iPhone families?

I want Open, no matter the cost. I want to be able to open it, dismantle it, reconfigure it, alter it, change it (not necessarily *do* and of those things; just be able to). That's why I got one.

What other phone do you know of where you can buy a debug board for it from the same store that sells the phone - the same board that the phones' engineers used to develop it?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[jmcnaught]

I have a Freerunner with the hope that I'll be able to use it as a learning device. Right now I've got the Om2008.8 installed and it's barely usable.

I'm hoping Openmoko will be able to keep up a quick development pace. Since switching away from GTK and moving to Qtopia over X11 and Englightenment they've really come a long way. I have doubts that the Openmoko software will be stable and reliable any time soon, but hopefully a developer community will grow out of all the new Freerunner customers.

Another poster mentioned above that this phone is the closest you can get to a PC in a cell phone. Everybody's heard all the freedom related reasons behind Openmoko, but a big part of it for me is fun nerd stuff. There's actually a handful of Linux distributions that run on it, and I'm sure there's more to come. I really like how they're calling them distros and not firmwares. You can dual boot, or boot from the microSD card. The official 2008.8 distro is standard Linux+X11. You can install Debian into a chroot environment and then run any of your Debian apps right along side your Openmoko apps. My phone has Python on it, how cool is that?

It's these things that set Openmoko apart from other Linux mobile initiatives. Openmoko selling Linux computers with integrated cell phones. From what I understand about Android and LiMo the Linux kernel is used but the rest of the stack is nothing like a familiar Linux system.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[mrchaotica]

I meant that OpenMoko predates the freeing of Symbian.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[i.of.the.storm]

The even nicer thing is that the N800 is even cheaper than an EeePC. I was thinking of getting an N800 since the N810 is somewhat expensive, but I don't know whether I'd use it much and I have a smallish tablet PC so I feel like it might be redundant. How's the battery life on that? And would it fit in a (somewhat large) pocket?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[dangitman]

Pretty simple: The Openmoko is the closest thing to a "PC" of the phone world that you can get.

That doesn't actually sound like a good thing. It sounds like something to avoid.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[aj50]

Then you're missing his point.

The great thing about PCs is that they're open, you have full control over what software you run on it and you can do whatever you like with it.

Traditionally, phones have been excessively locked down.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[dangitman]

But they're also well known for being a pain in the ass to use, and overcomplicated. Being able to do whatever you want is great, but not if it comes at the expense of usability.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[toxygen01]

I can't agree. I would like to have absolute control over what my mobile phone is doing. E.g. whether it is connecting to any bluetooth device or not. I would love to be able to log in to it over ssh to send sms to my friends. I would love to run nginx on it to be able to share my data with my friends over webdav even if there is no internet available. And many more things. For me, I'ts good thing. Btw.: have you ever seen an PC with ARM processor in it?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[tolan-b]

Android is Linux based too. I'm sure it'll be possible to use it on the OpenMoko if you want.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[tolan-b]

Are you sure it has EDGE? I can't see any reference to it on their wiki:

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner_GTA02_Hardware

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

In terms of hardware, this device seems to be lacking even a workable data connection - GPRS is tunneled packet data over channelized voice so you're looking at best case speeds of a 1994 modem (9.6 kbps or so). So broadband apps are out, as is useful e-mail/calendar syncing - at least over the GSM networks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gprs

"General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented Mobile Data Service available to users of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) and IS-136 mobile phones. It provides data rates from 56 up to 114 kbit/s."

I think this speed is sufficient for sync/mail/IM/web. Maybe not "web 2.0" but who cares?

Don't forget that it has also got wifi.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[dangitman]

But what if it was full of bugs, and caused dropped phone calls and whatnot? People expect a lot more reliability from phones than they do from computers.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[lindi]

Does wifi in N810 still require a proprietary driver to operate (something with "HAL" in its name if I recall correctly)?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[toxygen01]

Right, how comes I have new sony-ericcson and it keeps turning off anytime it wants. My friend experience the same problem, so it's not a bad luck. Another friend of mine bought pricey new nokia N90. And it crashes just similarly like my s-e. If they cannot provide stable softwar, they should let community try. Rather try and fail than not try at all.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[dangitman]

Sounds like you have a shit phone. I'm don't see how that makes the Openmoko any good. From what it looks like, it barely works at all. Most people wouldn't accept the experience you are having with your Sony-Ericcson, let alone something worse.

Why the hell are you putting up with a dud phone, anyway?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[TheRaven64]

EDGE is not 2.5G, it's 2.75G. OpenMoko has 2.5G (GPRS), which is painfully slow - I got an average of around 2.5Kb/s with 2 second latencies back when I used to use GPRS (four years ago, before UMTS phones became cheap).

I have high hopes for OpenMoko - if they can release a HSPDA phone in a year or two with a bigger screen then I'll definitely buy one.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[toxygen01]

Well, it's not about my phone. It's about many phones which are mid-high level. They contain bugs, unstable software. As I said, is N90 shitty phone? nope, but software can be crap sometimes. Right now, I'm going for iphone because that gives me the highes freedom/price ratio. It runs unix kernel, I can ssh into the phone, i can install sw there - sounds ok.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[ketilwaa]

My phone has Python on it, how cool is that?

As cool as my off-the-rack Nokia that also has Python. I had high hopes for OpenMoko, but it seems that it will remain a developer toy.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[mikiN]

Well, with the OpenMoko, you can download, compile (leave it on for a week, I guess) and run Emacs, then show your friends that you can do a quadruple bucky cokebottle on your phone with pride!

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[RegularFry]

Btw.: have you ever seen an PC with ARM processor in it?

I have. They were called RISC-PCs, and they were great.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

you have full control over what software

and hardware. Which is just as important.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[OriginalArlen]

My Linux-using colleagues at work looked at me like I was mad when I expressed stubborn antipathy towards the iPhone, iPods and other vileness vomited forth by Apple, the new evil empire (I make that three, after the Soviet Union and Microsoft) but you've summed it up in single line. Nice, thanks.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[corerunner]

Android actually has backing and is usable out of the box.

Devices that run Android don't even exist yet. How can you possibly claim it will be usable out of the box?

I've held the T-Mobile HTC in my hand, and I assure you that it's very real.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[mrchaotica]

It's not real until normal people can buy it.

(Besides, it's T-Mobile -- Android's not gonna do me any good until I can get one for AT&T.)

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I think you are, largely, correct is saying that the Openmoko is a dubious phone choice for Joe User. Niche device, so somewhat expensive, and the software isn't all there yet.

However, I would argue that Joe(and everybody else) benefits from the availability of an open phone, and would benefit from having one themselves, once an adequate interface is finished. On the PC side, most people aren't devs, or even geeks, and need their software nice and simple. The fact that devs and geeks can build whatever they want(or think they can sell) without asking anybody for approval, though, has made the PC platform extraordinarily rich, powerful, cheap, and(if you want) Free.

I don't expect that Joe User will pick up the Openmoko in any quantity, nor do I think that he would be happy if he did; but I do think that the existence of the Openmoko is good for everybody(Not good for carriers but screw them).

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[TRS-80]

It's better these days - I have a friend who roams onto GPRS occasionally and gets 10-15 kB/s. Not sure about the latency. And yes, I have a FreeRunner, but GPRS setup isn't automated yet (you have to turn off the phone/sms daemon) so I haven't tested it yet.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[musicalwoods]

If they ever compile it for ARMv4 instead of ARMv5.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[musicalwoods]

Yes, because we all expect reliability with a product in its alpha stages.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[/.Rooster]

You know I think people are missing the point. With the Freerunner you can plug IN a 3G modem and surf all you want. Or you can connect a bluetooth bridge to another access point, or you can set up a gateway in your car hook it up to a cable modem , use a portable satellite dish etc etc.

Point is, you can do WHAT YOU WANT with it to get whatever results you want too. I already have a n95 with 3G on it and to be honest I am less than impressed with the piss poor optimised browsing experience and broken apps like YouTube and media player. Likewise for the shiney shiney iphone. It takes more then glam to impress me. I want function and a phone that can act as a usb host as well as run any program I care to compile for it is massively better than anything anyone else has to offer me.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[jmcnaught]

I didn't realize that any Nokia phones came with Python. Maybe you mean Python for S60, which sure you can download and put on a Nokia phone. That is pretty cool, but it's more a testament to the portability of Python than anything.

The Openmoko on the other hand comes with Python preinstalled (well.. at least 2008.8 does). One of the apps in the default install is actually written in Python. So what if it's just Sudoku. I guess what's cool about it for me is that having Python on my phone is a lot more similar to having it on any Linux computer. Not to mention that I can install PyGTK--or probably any GUI toolkit for X with Python bindings--and it'll work.

Now if only they can get it to the point where things Just Work.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[TheRaven64]

If I need to carry a phone around as well, why would I get the FreeRunner instead of just using my Nokia 770, which has a nicer screen, runs Linux / X11, and has a more stable and better maintained software stack? The point of the FreeRunner is that it is a phone. If you're saying 'it's really just an overpriced, under-featured palmtop which you use with your phone' then why would anyone want one? In this space, it's competing with the Zaurus, the N800/N810 and a large number of other devices. The only differentiator is the fact that it also has phone hardware.

Re: Great learning tool. But what else?

[DrgnDancer]

I want Open, no matter the cost. I want to be able to open it, dismantle it, reconfigure it, alter it, change it (not necessarily *do* and of those things; just be able to). That's why I got one.

You know, I can understand and respect his attitude. I can also tell you that 99.9% of the population doesn't care. I realize that you don't care what the rest of the population thinks, but sadly what they think impacts the bottom line. The FOSS model works (where it does work, which is certainly not everywhere) because the cost of entry into software creation is essentially zero. It costs nothing but time, and hobbyist have time. It's what makes them hobbyists.

This is a real physical device with real costing money components in it. If these guy don't get something that can reliably make a phone call first or second time, every time, without the user having to recompile the phone app, install Debian, or stand on one foot in the bathroom of the Denny's on I-10, it's not going to survive. "It'll improve" works for Free Software to some extent. It's not like you NEED to have people using your software to improve it. If it takes you 5 years to get the thing working well enough that anybody wants to download it, well, it did. No biggie. You're a hobbyist, you were gonna fiddle with it anyway. This is different. Unless these guys have found some serious generous donors, they need people to buy the phone in order to continue development of the phone. If the people don't buy it, eventually they'll run out of money and there goes the support for your phone.

Software development might continue past this, but the phone itself will be a dead project that you paid $400 for. Most people are going to be pretty unwilling to spend much time of software ports for a device that almost no one owns either.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is that OpenMoko predates all those things.

So? They will predate on it.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[dangitman]

But the FSF are pushing it as an alternative to the iPhone. Which it clearly isn't yet. basically they are promoting vaporware. "Just trust us, one day it will be really cool." Sorry, I'm not buying promises. Show us a working product, or STFU about how it's a viable alternative.

Re: Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I stopped at your Java comment. I'm pretty sure Sun's implementation of the JDK was NOT in the process of opening up until very recently. Sure, you could obtain the code under onerous NDA, but that does NOT count.

I am impressed with the speed Sun have release GPL clean code for the JDK once they decided to go for it. That is not just some guy's personal project. It is a rich tool set of multiple applications on multiple platforms with contributions from multiple companies.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[debian_dadaist]

bla, bla learning tool...hey, may i tell you something? i bought a nokia music express for 300 quid one year ago and it's more or less stable but it's also stupid and slow. and the worst thing: it cannot play *.ogg! so it's clear for me what my next mobile will be. symbian can me! and stupid iphone can me too, mate! there is a market out there for Linux-driven handhelds and it seems all these industry bitches got no other choice than follow the "trend" and make hardware and drivers which are not total scrap. DEBIAN-MOKO (with bash prompt!) EVERYBODY!

Re: Great learning tool. But what else?

[debian_dadaist]

let's hear Heraclitus of Ephesos on Debain and OpenMoko: "The best of men choose one thing in preference to all else, immortal glory in preference to mortal good; whereas the masses simply glut themselves like cattle." "What sort of mind or intelligence have they? They believe popular folk-tales and follow the crowd as their teachers, ignoring the adage that the many are bad, the good are few." "Fire in its advance will catch all things by surprise and judge them." "Dogs bark at a person whom they do not know." "Donkeys would prefer hay to gold." (cited according to Diels/Kranz's edition of the fragments)

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

Android actually has backing and is usable out of the box.

WTF are you talking about? What box?! There is no box. Sheesh.

Symbian is on it's way to being yadda yadda, Android is going to be yadda yadda, Palm is gone, Windows and iPhone aren't open yet, blah blah. Every single one of OpenMoko's so-called competitors is crippled in some way, which is probably why not a single person on this earth has a phone yet which doesn't suck.

OpenMoko sucks too, but it and Android are the only platforms that have a chance of some day not sucking. And since Android is vapor, it's not all that crazy to be optimisitic about OpenMoko.

Re: Great learning tool. But what else?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree totally about openess. When you have been bilked of $$ trying to get *your* data off a phone with a special cable. Or some other "special" piece of software.

I have a Motorola A780, which I *still* cannot get to sync, and this is LINUX! Even using Motorola phone tools! Just shows than any closedness, is a bad thing, since the internal information is a mutated Berkeley DB....

I digress a little bit, but I can "rsync" the phone. If this were not linux, I would be stuffed there as well. But even this phone has all sorts of proprietary junk that does not quite work.

example. Realplay does not play ogg
CoPilot , NO USA MAPS!!! clearly a protected market!

When I get the dough I'll freerunner for sure, as I love having Wifi and a debug board, and no random lock down software getting in the way.

If more of us demand open, the cost will come down....;-)

my $0.02

P.

20,000 applications my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

open up the possibility of using apt-get to access Debian's more than 20,000 applications on your phone, which, due to tiny size of the screen or the complete lack of a keyboard make them completely unusable on a phone

There fixed that for you....

Re:20,000 applications my ass

[musicalwoods]

The screen is VGA (640x480) and you can actually plug in a keyboard as the USB connection can be used in host mode.

Dawn of an era?

[UnixUnix]

I'm impressed... and hope this will usher in (yeah, yeah... in the long run) an age of openness that will relegate current smartphones, if not computers as well, to museum curiosities -- of an era akin to early Industrial Revolution.

Incidentally, We Are Not Amused by does-it-make-an-effing-phone-call witticisms. Of course it will! Not to mention that phone calls currently account for maybe 1% of my overall BlackBerry usage. Don't sweat the small stuff :)

OpenMoko vs. Android

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference?

Re:OpenMoko vs. Android

[byolinux]

One you can buy today, one is a possible future offering from Google, T-Mobile and HTC.

One you can buy, and use on any GSM network, one is tied to a particular network, just like the iPhone.

Re:OpenMoko vs. Android

[zachtib]

One you can buy today, one is a possible future offering from Google, T-Mobile and HTC.

One you can buy, and use on any GSM network, one is tied to a particular network, just like the iPhone.

Where was it ever stated that Android would be tied to T-Mobile? T-Mobile is offering the first Android phone, but from what I've read, the other carriers will follow suit.

Re:OpenMoko vs. Android

[byolinux]

Right. I don't see offerings of any other Android phones on the way.

Right, but...?

[JohnnyBigodes]

So, OpenMoko is a great tool for learning, that much is proven. However... what is it really good for? A phone? Because it really looks like the typical "you can run Linux on it" thingie: you spend 95% of your time tinkering with it and the remaining 5% using it... if you're lucky.

Re:Right, but...?

[Hal_Porter]

http://www.joachim-breitner.de/blog/archives/297-guid.html

The hardware

It was smaller than I thought, and is quite light. My girlfriend says it's ugly, but I'm fine with the look of it. Besides being a GSM-phone, it comes with some nice gimmics: GPS, accelerometer, WLAN. The touchscreen works fine, although I don't have anything to compare it with.

The software

The system it comes with, even after upgrading, is still very rough. It mostly works for doing phone calls and SMSs, but there are a number of unsolved quirks that prevent me from using the Freerunner as my sole phone for now. The suspend mode is left too often, resulting in a battery life of about eight hours, and there are issues with the audio for the conversation partners, who will hear static and echoes. But, as this is free software, there is hope that this will be fixed eventually

It's ok if you bring a Lauterbach and a laptop with you when you carry it. And TALK LOUDLY to make sure people can here you over the static and echoes. Echoes. echoes. ec...

Re:Right, but...?

[Anonymous Coward]

THis made me laugh and belongs in the "funny cos it's true" category.... ;o)

Re:Right, but...?

[aristos_achaion]

With the FSO stack (the one that's been packaged for Debian), the echo's pretty much gone, and the static's a lot better. There's still a lot of work left, but there's definitely been a lot of progress.

Re:Right, but...?

[aristos_achaion]

With the FSO stack (the one that's packaged for Debian) the echo's pretty much gone, and the static's much better. There's still work to be done, but there's been a lot of progress.

Re:Right, but...?

[RAMMS EIN]

``However... what is it really good for? A phone? Because it really looks like the typical "you can run Linux on it" thingie: you spend 95% of your time tinkering with it and the remaining 5% using it... if you're lucky.''

Not the way I see it. To be completely honest, that used to be the way I used Linux on my PC. Perhaps it used to be the way anyone used Linux on their PC. But it's not like that anymore. Nowadays, I use Debian, because:

1. It costs me less time in maintenance than any other operating system I have experienced.

2. If something doesn't work the way I want it to, or some functionality I want isn't there, I can change that.

3. I spend less time waiting for my system to complete a task then on certain other systems.

All of these improve my user experience and productivity compared to various alternatives. All this has been accomplished thanks to years of hard work by numerous people, who were allowed to perform that work, thanks to Debian being open source.

When a device runs open source software, that is a great plus to me.

Re:Right, but...?

[Melkman]

Hmmm, it seems the echo's are still there...

Re:Right, but...?

[eaman]

you spend 95% of your time tinkering with it and the remaining 5% using it... if you're lucky.

That would make my day :)

Re:Right, but...?

[Anonymous Coward]

The hardware

It was smaller than I thought, and is quite light. My girlfriend says it's ugly, but I'm fine with the look of it.

Subliminal criticism of your other device perhaps?

Interesting design

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, a talking maxi pad !!!

Can you still buy it direct?

[MichaelSmith]

I just checked openmoko.com and I can't find the option to buy directly from the web site. Previously you were able to get a list of dealers and also choose to order a phone on line. Has this gone? Or am I seeing things?

Re:Can you still buy it direct?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://openmoko.com/distributors-northamerica-usa.html seems to work for me

Re:Can you still buy it direct?

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah I am in Australia. We don't have any distributors and I would prefer to buy directly from the source. The only distributor in Asia is in India.

Re:Can you still buy it direct?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just checked openmoko.com and I can't find the option to buy directly from the web site. Previously you were able to get a list of dealers and also choose to order a phone on line. Has this gone? Or am I seeing things?

Try http://us.direct.openmoko.com/ just a bad site redesign

Re:Can you still buy it direct?

[TRS-80]

There is a group purchase just made in Australia that has a few spare - see http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Group_Sales_Australia and subscribe to the mailing list.

Re:Can you still buy it direct?

[musicalwoods]

Well, OpenMoko itself is sold out currently. Other distributors are the only way to purchase the FreeRunner currently.

Re:Can you still buy it direct?

[MichaelSmith]

Thanks for the info. I hope they are making a profit on the units they are selling.

MS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Microsoft make a $10 port of windows xp for it?

No camera.

[gumpish]

No camera.

Re:No camera.

[sarathmenon]

Isn't that a good thing? I don't know about you, but I have rarely seen the need to take the spur of the moment photo.

Plus, lighter the mobile stack is, the more reliable it gets. I can give examples of my current phone where turning on the camera almost always causes the phone to crash.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

But is it a phone worth having?

[Sentry21]

I've been saying this about my laptop for years, but I guess now it's time to say it about my phone as well.

The phone I use is small, sleek, looks and works great, and does everythin I need it to. It makes phone calls, does SMS messaging great, and I can sync it with my laptop so all my contacts are updated, always. It also has the nice benefit of having a unix core, dpkg, apt, and a slew of unix utilities. It has a terminal with SSH and telnet, I can mount it as a volume over the network, and it plays music too. Even making ringtones for it is as simple as encoding them as AAC.

So they have Debian on a phone. Great. But just like Debian on desktops, I have to ask myself why anyone but RF geeks would ever care.

My phone, like my computers, are for getting things done. Call me when this thing is useful and usable.

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to mention what phone it is that you have...

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[Anonymous Coward]

With an attitude like that, why anyone would want call you about it is beyond me....

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[longbot]

It's pretty obvious he has an iPhone, especially since he mentions AAC ringtones.

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[lurch_mojoff]

Way to mention what phone it is that you have...

Does it really matter? If the grandparent have said he has, say, an iPhone it would not have made his point any better, but rather it would have turned the thread into a iPhone sucks - iPhone rocks flamewar.

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[Anonymous Coward]

And that lovely phone is...? :)

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[OriginalArlen]

My phone, like my computers, are for getting things done. Call me when this thing is useful and usable.

...and you're posting on Slashdot why, exactly? DroolingAppleFaboyboi.com is thataway --->

Re:But is it a phone worth having?

[Walter Carver]

Tell us the model of your phone!

More links

[k33l0r]

Could you have put any more links in the summary?

Open down to its core??

[dangitman]

We previously discussed the July 4th launch of this GNU/Linux-based smartphone, which is open down to its core, with the company providing CAD files and schematics for the phone.

I don't think so. Provide all the CAD drawings you like, but companies still own the designs and patents for the processors and other chips used to assemble the phone. Providing a CAD drawing of the assembly doesn't give you the ability or legal right to reproduce those chips. So how can the hardware be considered open or "free" to the core? That's marketing bullshit, not truth.

One would think the "core" of phone hardware would be you know, the actual units that do the work, not their arrangement on a circuit board, or the design of the case.

Re:Open down to its core??

[bacchus612]

I agree, this is my big gripe with the project - they highly misrepresent how "open" the hardware is.

I was all jazzed up to borrow some aspects of their circuit design for a little pet project of mine...until I figured out that the "open hardware" stuff was BS. They are only providing like 20% of the design.

That said, it's still more info than anyone else provides about their hardware. I wish other companies would look at what is provided with OpenMoko - and realize that they won't lose any competitive advantage by providing similar details, which are still quite useful for hacking.

I do wish the openmoko project wouldn't dilute the term "open hardware" like that.

Re:Open down to its core??

[Anonymous Coward]

We previously discussed the July 4th launch of this GNU/Linux-based smartphone, which is open down to its core, with the company providing CAD files and schematics for the phone.

I don't think so. Provide all the CAD drawings you like, but companies still own the designs and patents for the processors and other chips used to assemble the phone. Providing a CAD drawing of the assembly doesn't give you the ability or legal right to reproduce those chips. So how can the hardware be considered open or "free" to the core? That's marketing bullshit, not truth.

One would think the "core" of phone hardware would be you know, the actual units that do the work, not their arrangement on a circuit board, or the design of the case.

thinking like this...
chip designer and manufacturer should "free" the chips, mining company should "free" the ore... don't forget to "free" the train, railroad or other vehicles/roads involved in carrying all these materials.. "free" the people/machines manufacturing the chips.. "free" the air/water/earth/space generating these materials.. God should "free" the universe and you may have a chance to have a %100 "free" product.

making a "free" phone call is another issue..

Re:Open down to its core??

[dangitman]

Indeed. What I can't wrap my head around is how the FSF crowd has such a strong religious belief that software should be Free and not be subject to patents, etc, but they seem to be perfectly fine with patents and lack of freedom in so many other areas. It's hypocritical. If they care so much about freedom, shouldn't all the hardware they run also be made by the community under open licenses?

You can see how irrational and religious they get, when simply pointing out that the hardware isn't totally free results in my original post being modded "flamebait."

Re:Open down to its core??

[TheRaven64]

Totally Free hardware is an ideal, but it's not feasible at the moment. If you want to go over to OpenCores and start designing a HSPDA chip, then that would be really great. I'm sure the OpenMoko people would love to use it in the next generation, assuming that they can find someone who will fab it cheaply and pay for getting it certified.

The reason people care more about software being free than hardware is twofold:

1. If the software is free then you are not locked in to one hardware platform. If you don't like the hardware you can replace it easily and still access the same applications and data.
2. Non-Free hardware restricts what you can do a lot less than non-Free software. If you don't have total control over the hardware, you can't do some thing in the most efficient way. If you don't have total control over the software then you can't do some things at all.

Re:Open down to its core??

[dangitman]

Totally Free hardware is an ideal, but it's not feasible at the moment.

Neither is totally Free software. But that doesn't stop the FSF bitching about people who choose to use proprietary software. Also, what's infeasible about totally Free hardware? Sure, you might not get a Free Intel Core Duo - but you could make something more limited. Exactly the same as it is with Free Software. but for some reason, the FSF proponents aren't willing to put up with inferior hardware, even as they evangelize inferior software.

If the software is free then you are not locked in to one hardware platform. If you don't like the hardware you can replace it easily and still access the same applications and data.

Easily? I guess that depends on how much money one has. And what hardware is available (not many choices there, even if one has the money).

If you don't have total control over the hardware, you can't do some thing in the most efficient way. If you don't have total control over the software then you can't do some things at all.

I'm not seeing it. Software is also limited by hardware. There are plenty of things one can't do because one doesn't have control over hardware. Software and hardware work together. They are inter-dependent. So why so much emphasis on the software side?

Re:Open down to its core??

[mrchaotica]

Also, what's infeasible about totally Free hardware?

What are you, stupid? Do you not understand that chip fabs are slightly less accessible to normal individuals than compilers are?

but you could make something more limited.

Yeah, more limited like an abacus! Even a fucking four-function calculator requires millions of dollars worth of equipment to manufacture the integrated circuits, LCD screen, etc.

Re:Open down to its core??

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

which is open down to its core

So how can the hardware be considered open or "free" to the core?

It's open, not necessarily free (both as in beer and speech) Which means you can look at it.

I think the phone design itself is open and free...

Re:Open down to its core??

[dangitman]

What are you, stupid? Do you not understand that chip fabs are slightly less accessible to normal individuals than compilers are?

So, use transistors then. This just shows the hypocrisy of saying free software should be used, even if it less functional or advanced - and then making excuses when it comes to the hardware side of things, because what the community can build is less functional than what's available off-the-shelf. If they were really committed to this freedom, they'd insist upon rejecting the modern corporate-made chips.

Re:Open down to its core??

[dangitman]

How can the phone design be open and free, if it is comprised of proprietary, patent-encumbered parts that one isn't allowed to reproduce? How are the chips used not a part of the phone design? Those parts are actually the majority of the design.

Re:Open down to its core??

[mrchaotica]

So, use transistors then.

If you used individual transistors, you'd barely be able to fit a single ALU in the space occupied by the entire case of a modern mini-tower PC. Your "computer" would fill up a large room, consume megawatts of electricity, cost millions of dollars, have a clock frequency measured in the tens or hundreds of hertz, and have the same capabilities as that same four-function calculator that I mentioned before.

This just shows the hypocrisy of saying free software should be used, even if it less functional or advanced - and then making excuses when it comes to the hardware side of things, because what the community can build is less functional than what's available off-the-shelf.

On the contrary, that's not hypocritical at all. The difference is that it is possible to make Free software equally functional as proprietary stuff, while it is not possible to make even slightly comparable hardware without spending millions of dollars.

In other words, they advocate "dog-fooding" somewhat less capable Free software because they're working to improve it. For hardware, that would be entirely futile.

Re:Open down to its core??

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

Patents are not necessarily bad. Software patents, trivial patents, business model patents, submarine patents with open standards are the main issues that stifle innovation...

Patents are there to protect the inventors AND the common interests. It's about balance. And here, the ones that designed the phone did their best to publish as much as they could. Commendable.

Perhaps designing your own 'core' and produce it would constitute a more formidable obstacle on your path to cell phone tycoonship than the patent-encumbered part of the deal?

Re:Open down to its core??

[dangitman]

So, why are software patents automatically bad, but hardware ones OK? That smells like more of that hypocrisy there. Why are patents that protect hardware inventors OK, but not patents that protect innovative programmers?

Re:Open down to its core??

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

I must say, it's amazing that Free Software people all seem to be focused on developing on x86, which comes from the least likely to be Free hardware company.

At the least, IBM will license PowerPC cores, ARM will license ARM cores, and Sun has the OSI-approved UltraSparc T1 which anybody with access to a fab can make.

If anybody truly believes in a Free platform, while certainly not free (as in cost), they shouldn't be on Intel. They should be on a UltraSparc T1.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What is your phone?

[mofag]

I think a lot of us would like to know the name of this amazing phone. Personally, I've been looking for a phone like that (albeit not putting that much energy into it) for several years. If you have one already, why not share so we can stop reading about things like openmoko?

Re:What is your phone?

[Pbook]

Please yes, I like to have one! I have my Openmoko now for 1 week and use it as my daily phone. ASU is not stable yet, I am using Qtopia. Looking, at the iPhone of my daughter am am glad I did not get one. It's 10 times locked and everything cost $$. This phone has potential. I can log in and do a networkscan with kismet or ftp my scripts I made at home to a server. Great, I hope that in a few months wifi,gprs and gps will work good enough to use it as well. That is with ASU or Qtopia 4.

Yeah, iPhones are cool - *if* they are jailbroken

[bacchus612]

...I've got one too. And until I jailbroke it, it couldn't ssh, it didn't sync very well, I couldn't install any unix apps...

If you keep the iphone firmware intact, it is just frustrating to know that there is this awesome bsd-based smartphone that stores basically everything in little sqlite databases - THAT YOU CAN'T USE!

I love the functionality of my hacked iPhone, but Apple's attitude with the appstore has really underscored the need for free software to me.
I have decided to no longer purchase apple products or services as a result of my experience with the iPhone (been a Mac user ever since they rolled out OS X).

An openmoko freerunner is definitely on "to buy" list - not because I expect it to be super-functional out of the box, but because I want to (financially) support the concept.

I'm sick of being unreasonably prevented from using the full capability of products I purchase.

If you're happy with one company being in charge of what software you can run on your phone, what network ports you can connect to, what access you have to backup your own personal information...then by all means, stick with the iphone. Good luck with that. I've been burned one too many times by vendor lock-in I guess.
Just my $.02

Wow, just what I need

[Anonymous Coward]

... an even SMALLER onscreen keyboard for the openjokeo.

My rant

[LingNoi]

I use my phone a lot. It's a Motorola A1200 Linux (locked with DRM) smart phone and it is generations ahead of the OpenMoko.

I take pictures and videos a lot, listen to music on the radio, web browse with the opera client, make calls over a bluetooth headset, use the voice recognition software to phone people in my address book using only the bluetooth headset, check my gmail account and I have even telnet'd into the nethack server and watched people play (because I can).

I use almost all the features of my phone but I am disatisfied with some things which I was hoping that the OpenMoko would be an answer for me.

My videos are stored in a propitiatory format and the quality sucks, I don't like the fact that my phone makes a noise when I am taking a photo or video. I want to have more access to my phone and customise the software to my needs. My phone has a weird bug which sometimes says I have a new voice mail which I have no way to fix.

That's all I can think of right now and after many years of lurking on the OpenMoko project and reading about this phone here on Slashdot all I can say is that the hardware is poorly designed and the software is not quite there yet at all.

Lets start with the hardware.

There's nothing wrong with the current specs, I am excited by the inclusion of the accelerometer and gps devices, what I have a problem with is that there is no camera.

Now before someone replies with "but some places won't let you take a phone into work with a camera" I think you should realise you're in the minority and I believe that not including a camera in this phone turned into a really bad decision which has effected it's sales and popularity.

Also: I don't care if you don't use the camera or your carry around a 50" telescopic lens wherever you go. I and a lot of other people do care about this, very much. I could justify buying this phone at the ripping me off price, the fact that it doesn't really work yet and all the other problems but not including a camera just put me off completely.

The other big mistake was not including a holder for the stylus in the phone. It makes me feel like no thought was put into the design of this phone at all, although that's probably not true how could you miss such an obvious error?

That's my beef with the hardware, now on to software.

Why does it take so long to cold boot? Like I said at the beginning I have a Linux smart phone. A cold start takes around 14 seconds at which point you can phone someone. The moko takes over 2 minutes and that's still accurate to this day. Don't believe me? Download an image and try for yourself. What is Motorola doing so right that can't be copied?

I can excuse that for the moment as booting the phone doesn't matter that much, but the whole UI including the vanilla QT release just damn sucks. Download a version of the latest image and you'll see what I mean. There's a picture of a boot when the thing starts, yes it's a funny joke but it's mostly highlights how little time has been spent on making the software look good.

I wanted to help out with the art and researched the wiki for ages, there's no information I could find on how to contribute artwork, I couldn't even figure out how to change the background image on the OS which is a horribly pixilated plant. (If someone knows how I can contribute to the artwork please write it in the wiki and reply here).

I'm saying this not to troll. I'm saying this because I care so damn much about this project succeeding and right now it's full of fail, from the hardware and software to the fact that my phone released in 2005 is magnitudes better then this device.

If you want the OpenMoko to succeed, if you want more open source phones to exist then you need to have a baseline of quality. You need to be able to use the device in the first place and it needs to be

Re:My rant

[TheRaven64]

PS: Please don't respond with one liners and/or comments about how "free" this phone is, you're missing the point. It's a phone.

Actually, I think you are missing the point. I don't see the Freerunner as a product, I see it as a proof-of-concept. The best outcome for the OpenMoko project is similar to that for OLPC - have other manufacturers take their designs and build improved versions. Right now, Apple, Nokia, and all of their competitors spend a lot of money developing their hardware and software. This is exactly the situation that the personal computer market was in in the early '80s. Then systems like CP/M and DOS started to commoditise the market by allowing you to run your software on any PC that ran this OS. Suddenly, a hardware company could spring up, build a cheap 8088 or 8086 machine, license the operating system cheaply and undercut companies doing everything in-house.

My hope is that OpenMoko (and maybe the new, open source, Symbian releases) will start to do this for mobile phones. Manufacturers will start to appear who build nice hardware and just grab the OpenMoko (or Symbian, or Android) stack and pop it on top.

Open hardware isn't really important at this stage. Anyone can run a compiler, but it takes a lot more investment to create the components required for a phone. As home fabrication becomes cheaper and more capable, this will change, but for now it is more important to have open interface to hardware than open hardware, and this is something OpenMoko and related projects stand a good chance of achieving.

Re:My rant

[Anonymous Coward]

I could give or take the camera, but not being Quad band (And the hotly commented on lack of EDGE) kills it.

Re:My rant

[OriginalArlen]

The other thing you're missing is that no-one's claiming this thing is ready for any market beyond the highly technically skilled early adopter phone development geeks.

Re:My rant

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeming as the OLPC is a failure I don't get the point you're making. The OLPC failed as a laptop for education because everyone was too busy masturbating over the open source software rather then providing a product...

..and surprise, surprse! The same thing is happening with the open moko. Wow you can install Debian! Can you make a fucking phone call yet?!

Re:My rant

[PipsqueakOnAP133]

"The best outcome for the OpenMoko project is similar to that for OLPC - have other manufacturers take their designs and build improved versions."

The problem is, OpenMoko is so far behind usable that most manufacturers might as well just start from scratch.

While it sounds nice that OpenMoko has hardware designs already available, most fans of it don't seem to know that chipsets from vendors like Qualcomm include all this as well. Schematics, a reference design, a premade board with plenty of testpoints, and a software stack that boots faster than 2 minutes.

If a manufacturer wanted to make a phone, using OpenMoko as a baseline is worse than a dev kit from a chipset manufacturer.

Imagine the buildd farm

[Anonymous Coward]

... it'll fit into a standard handbag !

CE development without Visual Studio?

[tepples]

And if you care more about open development environments than license types, Windows Mobile already has a huge and growing smartphone applications ecosystem.

But can I develop apps for PDAs and phones running Windows Mobile without having to buy a copy of Visual Studio? Microsoft leaves the Windows Mobile SDK out of the Express version.

Re:CE development without Visual Studio?

[andersbergh]

There's a GCC based cross compiler that compiles for Windows CE targets, see http://cegcc.sourceforge.net/. I've never used it, but I would assume that it could be used for Windows Mobile development without having to pay for VS.

Can't carry a camera onto the premises

[tepples]

No camera.

This means you're allowed to carry it at work, in the lobby of a movie theater, or in other places that may forbid cameras.

Re:Can't carry a camera onto the premises

[Joe Tie.]

I've been forbidden to carry a camera somewhere once in my life. They also had a policy of forbidding cellphones of people who claimed it had no camera, under the assumption that all phones have cameras.

Symbian Foundation is supposed to be EPL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Make of that what you will, there are good arguments either way that GPL is more or less suitable for the real world in this marketplace. And it's slightly more than a promise on Nokia's part - however they have to receive regulatory approval before they can actually do anything. So in fact, legally they cannot do anything other than promise for now.

Umm, Debian on the Neo1973 is working just fine

[knewter]

I currently run Debian on my Openmoko Neo1973. The summary implies that it doesn't work, but it absolutely does. I run xfce, with compositing turned on, and it works fine. The pkg-fso is the bit that gets the whole freesmartphone.org stack integrated with debian, so you can use it as a phone.

FSO is the stack that I ran on my phone pre-debian, and it was plenty stable as a phone. The only issues the phone /really/ has are that the other party gets echo sometimes, and yeah GPRS is less great than 3G/EDGE.

But I'll take a phone that's open source any day. Seriously, this is the wearable computer I've always wanted. Couple it with a bluetooth keyboard and just get happy already. I've run at least four different distributions on the phone so far, and it just feels like computers used to.

-Josh

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Getting a Carrier Account?

[Doc Ruby]

How do I get an account with a mobile carrier in the US, so this device can actually connect to a wireless phone network and actually make calls?

Is every carrier going to charge me some ripoff fee for an account because I didn't buy my phone from them? Or maybe this unlocked phone will finally let me buy an account with multiple carriers, so I don't get ripped off when "roaming" that does the exact same thing.

When will the US let me choose my mobile phone carrier the way I choose my PC's ISP?

Re:Getting a Carrier Account?

[oddtodd]

I went to the AT&T store and told them I had an unlocked 3G phone and needed a SIM. The only SIM they had that worked was a 2G Cingular one that was left laying around.
So I got the GoPhone pay as you go plan and put US$50 on it, which gets me on the network for $1/day on days I use it. Mobile to mobile is unlimited and all others are
$.1/minute. Credit expires in 90 days, and rolls over if you re-up some $, otherwise it expires after a grace period and you lose the number.

This is my first cell phone and the only reason I got it is the open source aspect of it, I may or may not do any development on it, prolly just futz around a bit, at least
until the base system is stable. I've not tried the debian thing yet, I'll prolly do that next.

Re:Getting a Carrier Account?

[chip rosenthal]

I am using a prepaid T-Mobile account. I just walked into one of their retail stores, opened an account, and got a SIM. For some reason I was unable to activate the SIM card in the FreeRunner, but once I did in another phone it worked fine. I am able to use voice and SMS, but not data. For my purposes that's ok. I'm happy with wi-fi for data.

Can you hand dial it?

[reiisi]

For the trouble, I'm willing to hand dial to get debian in my pocket.

Besides, the phone functions will come, even if you insist on being a drag.

Re:Can you hand dial it?

[mrchaotica]

Besides, the phone functions will come

Yes, and I'm eagerly awaiting that day so that I can finally buy the damn thing.

So plug a headset into your ASUS eeePC.

[reiisi]

Simple, huh?

Okay, you'll also need a USB phone modem, and that may be hard to find drivers for. Or maybe you can be satisfied with finding WIFI hotspots to call from.

Have to have a phone anyway?

[reiisi]

That's not what _I_ thought he meant by plugging in a 3G modem, etc.

Re:Have to have a phone anyway?

[TheRaven64]

I've not seen a 3G USB modem that's smaller than a phone. I've not seen a Bluetooth 3G modem that isn't a phone. My existing phone can already act as a Bluetooth 3G modem (I get around 50KB/s with 200ms ping times, which isn't horrendous), and I use it with my 770 when I'm mobile. He's either suggesting I should use my phone and a Freerunner, or throw away my phone, get something that does the same thing (or less), and use that along with a Freerunner.

I really hope the next generation skips straight to HSPDA, because I'll be wanting to move away from UMTS by the time they bring it to market and they're likely to lose out again if they keep releasing things over a generation out of date.

LiMo

[reiisi]

Supposedly, my phone is LiMo. But I have yet to find out how to confirm it.

Supposedly, some people can develop new apps for it. (Like a decent calculator or stopwatch?) But I haven't even been able to find a place to download apps someone else built. And if I could, would I trust the apps, when I can't compile the code?

I can't even use the stupid phone as a modem. It can be plugged into a MSWindows PC through USB, but the USB doesn't, from what all the sales crew tell me, even pass the expansion flash card across to be mounted on a Linux or Mac PC. (Best bet is to pull the card and use a flash card reader, the salesman said.)

LiMo is open?

Re:LiMo

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Ouch. Sounds like you fell headfirst into exhibit A for the value of anti-tivoization clauses. That really sucks.

LiMo is "open" in the sense that whoever made the phone saved some money on OS licensing. Doesn't it just make you feel warm and fuzzy?

Fell headfirst into LiMo

[reiisi]

Yeah, sort of.

My wife has an NTT Docomo because her little brother has one and we can therefore all talk together free on the family plan. Except that her phone is too old, so, while I can call her free, and her little brother, with his new phone can call her free, she only gets a 30% discount calling us now. (She has MOVA and we have FOMA.)

And I had to get a phone, any phone, for work. I probably should have got a pre-paid. But, in Japan, I really didn't/don't yet have any decent options besides the pre-paid. Well, the iPhone in Japan was about three months away at the time. And look how that turns out: Not really open. Really expensive, although, for double what I'm paying, if it were really open, I might have been willing to move to it when NTT picks it up "real soon now".

Japan has adopted opensource only for the freeride.

Which is better when you don't have time to lobby and wait? Chained-down opensource or MSwhatever smartphones? There are Symbian smartphones, I think, but not with Docomo.

Open down to its core?

[Hamoohead]

I think not. The top of page 14 of the schematic reads "SHEET18-20 deleted for NDA" I wanna build my own GSM_MEMORY and transceiver modules, dammit! Seriously as a CET, I've had to deal with these "black box" schematics for years. Makes it much more difficult for troubleshooting when you don't know the internals. Perhaps the OP should have read "Open down to the point that it doesn't reveal the chip manufacturers IP."