FreeMaemo/NeoMaemo/Fremantle - New phone

[kingoddball]

This is something that has been mentioned a million>billion times already; but now we (??) have some ground work done on Open/Free/Neo Maemo done.

So... Why could we not find a suitable device - Maybe something like a medium end (or high end!) Android phone, open bootloader and see if we can get Maemo running on there: Droid phones are so cheap now.

Droid = Android
BUT! On that note; the old Moto Droids are cool: http://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_droid_4_xt894-4418.php -- Moto Droid 4; Looks beasty!


https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/bootloader/unlock-your-device-a ---- Unlock Bootloader

Only mentioned the Moto-Droid due to HWKB.

I'm 100% sure its much harder than it looks, but maybe we should communally find a suitable spec'd phone with hwkb and good OMAP (my pref if omap) chipset.

This thread was sparked due to a comment by endsormeans

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1427027&postcount=91

[taixzo]

What about the N950?

[kingoddball]

Rare, never officially released and over priced for what they are. (my opinion; but I want one!).
N950 is a single core at 1ghz; nothing special.

Edit: I don't see this idea working very well; many of the Maemo packages are optimised for the N900 hardware, so it will be a massive job - doubt it's worth the effort.

[taixzo]

Rare, never officially released and over priced for what they are. (my opinion; but I want one!).
N950 is a single core at 1ghz; nothing special.

True; I bring it up for two reasons:
1) similar hardware to N900 might make porting easier and
2) most things that run on N950 run on N9 and I think it would be neat to run Fremantle on my N9. :p

[misiak]

If you are looking for one, here are some tips:
- hw keyboard
- open source drivers or at least linux-compatible blobs (binary android ones are useless)

When the DragonBox Pyra comes out, its variant with modem might be a nice device to use Maemo on. But, according to Wikipedia, it will ship with Debian... So maybe porting whole Maemo won't make so much sense - porting Hildon, maybe few libs and recompiling apps will be the way to go.

[endsormeans]

+ to kingoddball :D
Considering that the gt04 could (possibly) run freemantle
and considering the beaglebone black has had successes with standard fremantle...and (naturally extrapolated) it may work on the pyra...(possibly even the pandora).
I do not consider anything a setback.
If it can be done on the beagle...on the gta04
there must be other devices.
Attacking the issue by only going down one road with a single device is not as sure fire as multiple options.
Building devices...salvaging parts from others to build them even ...is an option...making freemantle function on other devices and not just the neo900 ...is even better. If it is possible. It means that maemo becomes future proof.
This (being common knowledge) Maemo is essentially debian it's just the touch sensitivity and the look.
I'm not much to look at in the devel category...:D
And I'm not even going to guess at the nightmare involved.
But even tweaking a debian distro to feel like freemantle...like maemo...would be an accomplishment.
I admit I'm not as savvy on the n900 side as n800/810 side...slooowly changing that. :D
Recently I've been goofing around with x11vnc ...It's been done up the ying-yang I know...with desktops and laptops...but I was curious what functionality it would have to a convertible touchscreen laptop...(I know the big difference tween vnc and the distro on device....even still....(having a huge touchscreen and keyboard alternative enviroment is reallll nice...even if it is only pseudo-maemo :D) on my n800 and tightvnc on toshiba portege touchscreen convertible pc's (m200/m700/m780) just to see what works...touchscreen wise... more than pretty interesting...I haven't been able to stop playing with it. :D ..shy of a couple things so far..like drawing apps it works wonderfully on the toshibas..
Well...nuff of my droning on....you get my idea there anyway
Wrapping it up..there must be more than one option ALWAYS.
....
and that's that ..I think it's great this kinda discussion is happening...ok...done :D

[kingoddball]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuIrRoRPufc

[endsormeans]

Don't know how I missed that... :D.
Hmmm gotta read readread read now.

[kingoddball]

Same dude using a touch screen device.
This would make a brilliant GUI on Pandora, not a fan of Angstrom though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySRZGjEs5y0

[endsormeans]

Hmm yup ....watched all the vids he did. Saw one by qwazix too.
By the time Moises Martinez was doing those vids it appears ...from what I've dug up thus far...the lag and sluggishness was gone from earlier attempts and many of the bugs as well...I wrote him to find out if he has gone any further and to get specifics on recreating his results...
I wouldn't mind messing with this..

[shawnjefferson]

It's the combination of the hardware (n900) and the software (fremantle) for me.

Running android on the n900 doesn't do it, and I think running fremantle on anything else will be a let down as well (why not just run debian?)

[kingoddball]

Mate. Agree: If we can get a decent phone with Debian onboard, get a hildon GUI then thats perfect.
It's not maemo exactly, it's a combination of Linux, brilliant GUI and community.

[nokiabot]

Hildon dextop should be the answer

[endsormeans]

+1 to that.

I do admit that farting around with the convertible tablet pc with keyboard and touchscreen and x11vnc'd to a NIT...it may not be palm sized and uber portable but ...it ain't too shabby either.
I have a whack of convertible tablet pc's to experiment with ...
Having it as a full pc distro would be interesting.
1- When I'm out in the studio one of my NIT's is there playing whatever while I work.
2- In the kitchen for recipes..music etc (if I don't have mah xbmc running on the 55" sony )
3- Shopping...ESP with my lady :D ...when she wants to go into a store.
4- Hiking, camping...road trips...list goes on
The only time I'm not using maemo would be when I turn on my pc...for doing illustration work, more business,,,,or coming here.
I wouldn't mind working on and staring at my computer more if it looked and felt more "maemo" and less "BLAH"

[freemangordon]

Please, point me to one OMAP device that has open bootloader, upstream kernel support (at least partial), uSD card slot and FMTX and I promise you, I'll port Fremantle on it in some 3-6 months :D

[Estel]

^This. Actually, the part about omap may be a key here... If I would be given a penny every time someone comes with "awesome, fresh and funky" idea of porting fremantle to another device (android one, most likely), I would be writing this flying to some hot midterra'nean island in my private jet.

Actually, one might mix all characters from talks like this one and use it like big garbage (salt) hash table. It would be a 100% improvement in usable results we're getting from such threads.

/Estel

[Stskeeps]

Now imagine Fremantle on this thing: https://developer.qualcomm.com/mobile-development/development-devices/snapdragon-mobile-development-platform-mdp/snapdragon-805-mdp-tablet

Now that's something I'd use.

[nokiabot]

Omg thats one heck of a slate :eek:

[Android_808]

I'm probably going to face a backlash here, but how about looking at a zte open c. 1.2ghz dual core snapdragon. yes, I know its not an omap and it doesn't have a hw keyboard. Adreno gpu so we could use freedreno drivers if necessary. screen res is iirc the same as n900. ram is higher. if we got it working it would pave the way to support other snapdragon devices or using a snapdragon soc in a neo900 like project.

other reason is they're only £70 new direct from zte's ebay page.

[jake42]

Please, point me to one OMAP device that has open bootloader, upstream kernel support (at least partial), uSD card slot and FMTX and I promise you, I'll port Fremantle on it in some 3-6 months :D

I guess you know about gta04. Just to be sure.
gta04-Features (http://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-main/page/FeatureList/)

[pichlo]

@jake42,
I guess you know about Neo900 (http://neo900.org/). Just to be sure.

"The Neo900 project aims to provide a Fremantle (Maemo™ 5 (http://maemo.org/intro/)) compatible successor to the N900, with a faster CPU, more RAM and an LTE modem. This is all based on a free, mature and stable platform - the GTA04 (http://gta04.org/)."

[jake42]

@jake42,
I guess you know about Neo900 (http://neo900.org/). Just to be sure.

"The Neo900 project aims to provide a Fremantle (Maemo™ 5 (http://maemo.org/intro/)) compatible successor to the N900, with a faster CPU, more RAM and an LTE modem. This is all based on a free, mature and stable platform - the GTA04 (http://gta04.org/)."


Yes I do, but neo900 devices still need to come to existance. gta04 devices already exist. I got one lying around here.
freemangordan seems to be looking for a device which just fits to the features of gta04.