Security, Privacy Focused Librem 5 Linux Smartphone Successfully Crowdfunded (softpedia.com)

prisoninmate shares a report from Softpedia: Believe it or not, Purism's Librem 5 security and privacy-focused smartphone has been successfully crowdfunded a few hours ago when it reached and even passed its goal of $1.5 million, with 13 days left. Librem 5 wants to be an open source and truly free mobile phone designed with security and privacy in mind, powered by a GNU/Linux operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux and running only Open Source software apps on top of a popular desktop environment like KDE Plasma Mobile or GNOME Shell. Featuring a 5-inch screen, Librem 5 is compatible with 2G, 3G, 4G, GSM, UMTS, and LTE mobile networks. Under the hood, it uses an i.MX 6 or i.MX 8 processor with separate baseband modem to offer you the protection you need in today's communication challenges, where you're being monitored by lots of government agencies.

Comments

Re:And the App Store?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. The Apt Store.

Target: Fully opensource

[DrYak]

Their target is to make a phone that can run 100% on exclusively free/libre opensource code.

That severly limits which SoC they can choose :
- they need a chipset WITHOUT built-in modem, so the modem and its mandatory blob can be pushed out of the main system into an isolated box that only talks a standard protocol (so it doesn't have direct access to RAM. Unlike Qualcomm's chipset, where sometime the modem serves as the northbridge)
- they need a chipset with opensource drivers supported by upstream linux kernel.

Currently, only Freescale i.MX6 fits the bill (Vivante GPU supported by Etnaviv driver), and the Freescale i.MX 8 is their best hope of next chip to be similarly supported.

Yes, it's an old SoC, with low to mid perf, but it's about the only one that fits the bill.

(It might have also been possible with some of the Nvidia Tegra chipsets that are supported by nouveau, but they don't fit the power envelope.
Intel's is fully opensourced officially, but doesn't produce anything currently targeting the tablet/smartphone form factor.
Qualcomm is completely out of question : even if some are supported by Freedreno, the integrated modem running untrusted proprietary binary firmware, while having full access to RAM is problematic)