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OpenMoko's FreeRunner Rises From the Ashes
ChristW writes "Remember OpenMoko's first free and open source phones, the GTA-01 and GTA-02 (also called FreeRunner)? There is a new project called Phoenux. The German company Golden Delicous is building a new main board (called GTA-04) for the GTA01/02 case. The new hardware features a DM3730 (800 MHz) processor, a GTM601W UMTS (HSPA) module, and lots more." Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
Everyone's already moved on to A9 based SoC's for things. If they'd consider an A9 based SoC (Something like the OMAP4 in the currently MIA Samsung Galaxy Nexus, for example...) for the OpenMoko platform, it might be a gem.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Sorry not really.
Get an HTC HD2. It runs linux with a little hacking as well as Android, WM6.5, WP7, and probably AmigaOS..
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
A friend gave me the Neo FreeRunner a long time ago. The graphics chip in combination with the display really killed the device. It's insanely slow, which I assume scared a lot of potential developers away. I hope this new version will be more balanced.
c++;
Yes, if it doesn't have CarrierIQ
As I remember was specially pricy compared to mainstream, subsidized phones. Last time I got away with a Pre, but since there are no substitutes for it, I thought I would be stuck with Android and crossing fingers I could root it.
Debian in my phone would be oh so awesome.
I'd pay more for a phone without CarrierIQ
Queue the Apple law suites in 3-2-1...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
is the radio firmware still open?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem is that it has to be something that I can let other people use, I had a hard time communicating with my friends who used FreeRunner before things got as stable as they are now.
maybe with a better processor, and at least a Gentoo build, maybe an OpenBSD build.
>Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
Yes. If I had the extra money, I'd get one even if it couldn't make phone calls or hold a charge for half a day. Just for the potential of it being able to actually reasonably be used as a phone. If it couldn't reach that, I'd find some other use for it, as it still would be a pocket sized debian box with a built-in screen.
When the first(or second?) one came, I wanted one, but also needed a working phone, so I got the less cool and free n900 was more of a sweet-spot of usability and gnu/linuxiness.
Has the freerunner become reasonably usable as a phone yet?
I really liked the Maemo OS. It was very open, and worked like a normal Linux system. Android looks very unappealing in the way it replaces pretty much all of the base system and requires coding specifically for it.
So I'd be quite willing to support a project along these lines, so long a few minimum requirements are fulfilled:
1. It's usable. Not necessarily 100% polished, but at a minimum boots up, charges, and makes and receives phone calls, with acceptable performance and no random crashes.
I considered getting a Freerunner back when it was new, but it I needed it to work as a phone, and the state at the time seemed to involve things like the inability to charge the battery if it was ever fully discharged.
2. It works like a normal Linux system. I want something like the N900, where I can compile, debug and run programs just like on my own box.
I'm surprised that anyone honestly believes a substantial number of people want this product. Are there a few hobbyist geeks out there who would die for it? Sure. Are there very many of them? No. Will most people EVER be interested in something like this? No freakin' way. If they're doing this as a hobby, well, live it up. If they're under the delusion that it matters, they're out of touch with reality.
Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
Good question! Say, I've got a right jolly good idea! Why don't we ask a proud N900 user* this question? Seeing as how this is a Slashdot post about phones in some capacity, I'm certain at least one of them (of the ten or so) will stop by to tell us allllllllll about how much more value a Debian build on a phone is and how much they're willing to overpay for it!
*: Yes, "proud" and "N900 user" are redundant, I know.
Sweet now I can hit pedestrians in a car on my phone, while hitting pedestrians in a car because I'm on my phone! Oh... motherboard... darn.
~nostrum
Android with root and a custom ROM is linux enough for me. And it has a modern cpu & gpu, a nice display, a good UI, and developers actually writing software for it. I wouldn't pay extra for an unsupported, oddball device with ancient hardware just because it happens to run Debian and run apps designed for a PC.
At 666 Euros they can keep it too.
I personally heard about this a month ago. Besides, there is nothing innovative here. Reworking the same exiting technology?
Nothing to see here, move along.
If they are not replacing the screen, just the board, then I think they are wasting their time. Based on how awkward the FreeRunner is with regards to the shape and size of the screen (480x640), they will never be able to compete with any recent Android or iPhone model.
Since they stated it will be using the same case, they are really limiting how much they can do for the FreeRunner.
Johnkoerner.com
Why are all the free/open hardware devices so underspeced? The reason I never bought a neo during round 1 was because it was GPRS only, no 3G even when plenty of other phones were coming out with 3G. The n900 looked fantastic, but for the lousy processor (800Mhz vs 1Ghz as standard for other smart phones). Seriously, if you're expected to pay $400, which was roughly what the neo 1773 cost when it first went on sale (not 100% sure, but I remember thinking "Fuck! That's expensive") then provide up to date hardware.
On top of running debian and being fully open source (well, maybe not the hardware and all the firmware) it seemed fully functional and had great hardware. I still preferred Android because in spite of being less open, it allowed for easier development and I found it more exciting.
It's a shame maemo (or whatever they call it these days) is not going to take off, because it actually looked pretty good, had very good performance, and was very hacker-friendly. Really sad :(
OpenMoko has the flaw (and benefit) of being fully open source to the hardware. Thing is, if they are not going to produce millions, cost is going to be very high. Maybe if they focused on porting maemo and did sell millions.. but I'm not sure millions of people would see the benefit of running open source hardware, for the same reason most don't care if the software is free or proprietary. I think nokia with the n900 and Android with the nexus phones have done a great job of providing a nice trade-off between openness, usability, and popularity (who would have thought the year of the linux smartphone was so nigh! ;) )
Have you checked out the N9? The top-selling, currently highest rated smartphone? It fixes all of the N9 slowness and has awesome specs.
N9 has no hardware keyboard. automatic fail.
Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
No... I wouldn't, and nor would most normal sane people.
They want a device that works as its supposed do, doesn't lockup and need to be rebooted constantly. They want software features that are easy for them to use and gives the 'fancy' features that are important to them (For some thats calls and text, for others it may be embedded twitter/stalkbook)
It's only the near relious zealots who insinst it must run debian, or android (2.2, 2.3, 4.0 ooohh... must be the latest greatest)
I for one couldn't give a proveribal sh1t whether its debian, android, IOS, BBX, PalmOS, Windows5/6/7 - I just want the damn thing to work.... at a price I'm willing to pay (which is to say on par with, or perhaps cheaper than the rest of the competition)
I amazed at the marketing folks putting out catalogues for the various carriers and phone/network resellers with little android logos for those phones - does Joe Consumer really know the difference and what it means to them? or are the marketers merely jumping on the latest buzzword (ooh - imagine that!)
It's the same OS centric bigotry that leads to the OS flamewars for PC's. Who gives a flying frogs fat ass if its MacOS, BEOS, GEM, DOS, Windoes, *nix, *BSD etc. Its feature/form/functionality that is important - not the fanboism of supporting the vendor it came from.
OpenMoko was a nice idea when the alternatives were Symbian, Blackberry, and iOS. Unfortunately, the devs dropped the ball in several areas and mature, inexpensive hardware was nonexistent for this kind of project back then. A year after OpenMoko's release, Android 1.0 hit store shelves along with the source code on the net. Nowadays you can pick up an 800 MHz pre-paid Android phone for $80 and install Cyanogen on it - you now have an open, Linux-based platform with mature development tools and a nice JIT compiler designed for smartphones (dalvik). I *do* wish there was an open-source hardware alternative phone for Android, but FOSS hardware is hard enough to come by for even the simplest project, let alone something that requires a certain degree of cooperation from major cell companies and patent holders. Although well-intentioned, OpenMoko has been left in the dust by the break-neck pace of embedded CPU/APU design and software competition. Whether you want a phone that "just works" or a hackable, open-source nerdgasm, there are a wide variety of platforms available now for every need - heck there's even a Windows Phone these days. Sorry OpenMoko, you tried...
As somebody who has used freerunner since 2008 daily I can say that for me the largest problem is the lack of stable touchscreen friendly FOSS applications. For example I'm currently using the debian "dates" package as my calendar but that is going to be removed since upstream has abandoned it ages ago. I can't take the calendar from meego since it does not come with source code. I could take the android calendar but unfortunately after that it'd be difficult to run non-android applications. Perhaps Tizen will write me an HTML5 calendar application that I can then use with chromium? Unfortunately chromium is not very touchscreen friendly either. There is the chromeTouch extension but it does not come with a free license (I mailed the author in 2010 but got no reply).
"The German company Golden Delicous is building a new main board (called GTA-04)"
The next thing you know, an Indian company named Granny Smith will be building a new main board called AngryBirds-Cupertino....
I'd pay extra for an open phone, provided it did two things reliably - make calls and receive calls.
I was excited by the OpenMoko project, and I am still grateful for what they have provided to the community (among other things, the Computer Aided Design models for their phone case are still the best open source CAD models I know of). I even got my hands on a Neo1973 as a physical example of (some of) those CAD files, for reference. I have never seriously considered trying to use it as my primary phone, however.
Personally, I'm less concerned with "smart phone" features - my main phone is still the "old school" style without a touch screen, internet, or all of the features we commonly associate with things like the IPhone. That makes me a fairly good candidate for an open phone, so long as it can do phone calls well - the stability/in-development status of the rest of the "smartphone pacakge" wouldn't bother me so much. But it *does* need to do phone calls. Decent charging behavior would also be a plus.
If they can focus on and deliver those key things for the "next" version of the OpenMoko, I'm definitely going to be interested. Fingers crossed...
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Thanks to the FSF they have decided that somehow the device will be more Free if they add extra hardware to remove the ability load your own firmware for the wifi. I'd rather they threw the wifi chip away and use a worse chip which requires no non-free code or just accepted you need the non-free firmware, don't up the cost to embed the non-free firmware into the board itself and then pretend it doesn't exist, it's just dumb.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
So, I thought OpenMoko effectively died because the hardware didn't include a modern radio with UMTS, due to the inability to acquire or make an open source driver. Has this been fixed, or is this one a closed driver still?
I think the site has gone under :D
Do you remember those time ? pple use to make demos instead of webpages and the h2h (hand2hand) was the internet ...
--
http://rzr.online.fr/q/amiga# #Amiga #SmartPhone is real ! #video of me playing battle #chess on #harmattan #N950Club #AmigaWillNeverDie
-- http://rzr.online.fr/
The freeRunner comes with a closed source baseband because of legal/licensing issues. In other words: It's /not/ a free phone.
The Nokia N9 runs debian already and it's a damn fine piece of hardware :)
Plus, getting SSH root is as simple as checking "developer mode" in the settings pane... (The password is 'rootme'.)
because I'd spend more time trying to get it to work and trying to fix it after updates broke it than I would spend actually using it.
Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
I would pay extra for any phone that allows to run wireshark on the GSM or 3G stack.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Is the N9 an open hardware platform?