Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Trying to find more powerful n900 successor I got used Motorola DROID 4 and spent some time with it. Found that hardware is almost perfect for my needs and have many common things with (or is inspired by) n900 - same sliding mechanism, same multicolor led on the same place etc. Keyboard is even better then E7 or N950 and has 5 (!) rows. There is TI OMAP 4430 2x1.2 CPU, 1G RAM (full specs on http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_droid_4_xt894-4418.php). But Android OS is a nightmare.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

my girlfriend has one!! I think the same everytime i see it!
But it doesn't have the fm/ir tx nor 32g stylus etc etc..
But very big keyboard.... Bigger screen too.
Shame its got android... Very slow!!

I gues its impossible because of the closed chips.


.

The real successor of Nokia N900 - Droid 4 with Sailfish
 

EDIT: Finally this is real :):

• SailfishOS on Motorola Droid 4 XT894 (alpha port)

This is so obvious! Why isn't this happened already? :eek:

Device: N900 --> N950 --> Droid 4
OS: Maemo --> MeeGo --> Sailfish
CPU (TI OMAP): 3430 --> 3630 --> 4430
Keyboard: 3 row --> 4 row --> 5 row

Yes, there is (still) things going on with Neo900. There is Jolla Phone with TOHKB. But why struggle with complicated solutions when we have cheap and hasslefree answer just around the corner?

Motorola Droid 4 is the real successor of Nokia N900 in every viewpoint. It even has Texas Instruments CPU like almost every Nokia phone before Windows Phone Era. The only missing piece is operating system (OS). But we already have the answer: Sailfish OS. Droid 4 has steady CyanogenMod builds so porting Sailfish shouldn't be problem (or is it :confused:)?

I know there is already pretty good Sailfish port for another "modern" qwerty phone, also made by Motorola, Photon Q. However it is lacking a SIM card slot and 3G band for Europe. And when you really think about it Photon Q is not the real N900 successor. It doesn't have great story behind it like Droid 4 does. One of the reasons why MeeGo died out was the lack of 4G support on OMAP 3 chips (The story of Nokia MeeGo). Nokia was losing the market on US and they thought that 4G was necessary. Nokia ended up to ditch TI which eventually led to end of both Nokia and TI (sort of). Ironically Droid 4 was released only in the US market with 4G (LTE) support.

So why to port Sailfish OS to Droid 4?

• The Story behind it
• Updated "modern" hardware (it even has Qi wireless charging and HDMI port)
• Droid 4 already exist and you can buy it cheap from ebay right now!
• Only software development needed
• The real successor of Nokia N900

PS: There was some development going on couple years ago ([Q] Sailfish OS port for Droid 4). But I believe it should be easier this time as there is more devices with Sailfish now.

So let's make this real:
https://s15.postimg.org/f5b9djjcp/n9...ilfish_img.jpg

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Some time ago I was looking for some newer Android smartphone with hardware keyboard (with SailfishOS porting in mind).

After few weeks of thoughts and analysis I decided finally to Motorola Droid 4 due to:
* SIM slot by default (unlike Photon Q)
* better 3G support in Europe (UMTS900 is not available in Photon Q)
* quite good support of CyanogenMod
* FM radio
* easier available in Poland than Photon Q
* Safestrap allows to have more than one ROM installed at once so the device might be used as a daily driver and to development/porting at the same time

I am also interested in porting (or at least some testing) Sailfish OS for Droid 4.
Unfortunately, I suppose I haven't got enough knowledge/skills to do it on my own. But I've got a plan to try.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Good News! The guys in #sailfishos-porters on irc.freenode.net are quite active and really helpful, so even if you're the only one with this specific device you certainly aren't alone in your porting quest.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Well that makes two of us. I have Droid 4 with CM13 and it is running just fine. However I think that Sailfish OS has to be ported to Droid 4. This story deserves it.

I'm an industrial engineering and management student and I have lot's of studying this year. I have completed only one programming course (python) so I'm not talented at all on developing. Even so I'm going to set up linux PC (once again) next week and start reading Hardware Adaptation Development Kit. Because the lack of skills and time don't expect anything from me. Even if I'm able to build something I think that it is impossible to me narrow down bugs and fix them.

But here is something to dream about. (It is just a theme):
https://s17.postimg.org/zd8wuab9p/DSC04475.jpg
EDIT: No more just a theme ;)
http://i.imgur.com/pgtp1EK.jpg

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Not only two of us. ;)
There was at least one more person who at least tried to port SailfishOS to Droid4 (nick: klopsi-sdk): http://www.merproject.org/logs/%23sa...01-19.log.html

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Seems that Klopsi managed to build something (2015-02-05):

• klopsi-u3: so far i managed to build sailfish OS and boot into it on the device
• klopsi-u3: and telnet and ssh to it
• klopsi-u3: no screen working, no keyboard working, no gui
• klopsi-u3: no camera, gps, wlan

But he was not able to build working build (2015-06-03):

• klopsi-u3: i just want sailfish on my droid 4
• zhxt: try to build one :)
• klopsi-u3: i did
• klopsi-u3: i tried porting to droid 4 but failed
• klopsi-u3: nothing worked
• klopsi-u3: except for the vibration driver
• klopsi-u3: i could make the phone vibrate
• klopsi-u3: if anybody wants to try porting to the droid 4 i will send you a phone

There was also antranigv considering porting but I guess he never actually started (2015-02-05):

• antranigv: well, now I hope I'll buy droid 4, then port Jolla
• antranigv: Sailfish I mean
• antranigv: I ordered a Droid 4 :) is that good news?

I'm starting to despair since those guys were not able to succeed. However there is hope since Galaxy Nexus (maguro) has Salfish build (alpha) and similar hardware than Droid 4.

Anyway I'm going to set up Linux tomorrow and check what I can do. But we are going to need help!

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

atm cm13 has issues with sfos.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

I would opt for using CM11 as the base for porting, like in the HADK documentation.
Or CM10.x as in the mentioned previous attempts.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

cm12 would be best, its the one thats been used on the N5 and thats been very stable,

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

you might be better off with CM12 actually, thats what the majority of ports are based off these days and so the CM tree has had a lot of patches to it for common issues.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Ninja edit:
So is the best option CM12.1 or CM12? I was thinking that CM11 would be best. But I guess you guys know better than me. (I don't see why to try with CM10.x since Klopsi already tried with it).

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

CM12.1 sorry, I don't think we have a hybris branch for CM12 anyway. It's not that hard to try both and see what works best, ideally you should use the most bug free version.

Don't worry so much about what was tried before, the HADK has progressed so things that were broken might be ok now.

Be aware that you will likely need to spend a fair bit of time getting all the different bits working, its not a case of just running through the HADK and having everything magically just work.

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

its an interesting device tbh, if i can find one cheap i may get it

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

I know that and that is why we need help!

Excellent! :)

Update: Ubuntu is up! Next to set up SDK :cool:

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Anyone tried to install Debian Chroot on this phone? Or something similar?

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

No, I haven't. Have you tried?

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

This might be interesting: [Porting] Wayland, libhybris. Devs needed! (Plasma Mobile, Mer, Sailfish OS..)

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Hi all it's been a while :) I just posted some droid 4 WIP patches against current Linux next:
http://muru.com/linux/d4/

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

Amazing work :eek:! I really hope that someone talented person can help you :).

Re: Motorola droid 4 XT894 keyboard device
 

There is also an interesting development related to Motorola Droid 4 and Linux kernel here:
http://elektranox.org/droid4/

I've found it linked on http://muru.com/linux/d4/.