Bit of extra HW is going to not remedy it, if with open HW we can get working open SW in debian or whatever I would be willing to pay 1000 and will eat ramen for the next 6 motnhs, no prob.
Debian GNU/Linux already works on GTA04. It should work on Neo900 since day one, maybe even with working telephony (using freesmartphone.org stack). Feel free to port Fremantle apps on top of it.
Debian GNU/Linux already works on GTA04. It should work on Neo900 since day one, maybe even with working telephony (using freesmartphone.org stack). Feel free to port Fremantle apps on top of it.
Play a bit with the device you get, you can download debian debs and just install and it works 99%, for me Fremantle -> Debian compatibility is well known. This is the real flavour of Fremantle, not some hildon
EDIT: better yet, get qemu and run all your console debian apps on phone, as long as you don't use graphics works every time
I'm not arguing about that. It's simply that it doesn't change what I or GolDeliCo will do either way. We are aware of the errors in polls, and we are not basing anything on this poll alone, except maybe another few wasted days of unpaid work. If community doesn't sustain fremantle porting project then... it won't happen. Doesn't change what GolDeliCo will do. When other "communities" discover the Neo900 for a great tool for whatever... will not change what GolDeliCo will do. We're going to offer an opportunity to make something happen. Next step will be to find funding for prototypes. If we succeed, we will build prototypes and offer to order "mass produced" devices (on whatever ordering scheme, be it kickstarter or simply collecting preorders or whatever).
Anyway I don't see how to change "our" plans based on anything you told me so far. And I sense a certain negativism that maybe isn't meant that way but nevertheless annoys me.
Play a bit with the device you get, you can download debian debs and just install and it works 99%, for me Fremantle -> Debian compatibility is well known. This is the real flavour of Fremantle, not some hildon
EDIT: better yet, get qemu and run all your console debian apps on phone, as long as you don't use graphics works every time
What I meant is that you can already run pure Debian on it, exactly like you can do on your PC. No emulation, no chroots, no outdated libs and toolchain. With ability to install every application from repository. Heck, it even works on Neo Freerunner - few years ago I was playing with The GIMP and desktop Firefox on it, with XFCE4 as DE. Fun stuff.
Either you're missing the point, or I don't understand what you mean :P
Sorry, it must be me annoyed being unable to put my vote 200 euro lower after initial rush, but you're right, you're the one counting so you're prob. When it comes to show we'll see, count me in though bit lower. Good luck
What I meant is that you can already run pure Debian on it, exactly like you can do on your PC. No emulation, no chroots, no outdated libs and toolchain. With ability to install every application from repository. Heck, it even works on Neo Freerunner - few years ago I was playing with The GIMP and desktop Firefox on it, with XFCE4 as DE. Fun stuff.
Either you're missing the point, or I don't understand what you mean :P
That sounds like a dream. Debian/Ubuntu repos work out of the box???
That sounds like a dream. Debian/Ubuntu repos work out of the box???
I don't know which CPUs does Ubuntu target, so I can't say anything about it, but Debian's armel suite works for sure, even on Freerunner. I think armhf should work on GTA04/Neo900 too.
Of course it means that you have to install and configure all phone apps by youself, but there already are some FSO/SHR packages in Debian, so it shouldn't be that hard.
It's free platform. On Freerunner people were running even Arch, Gentoo and OpenWrt. Nothing stops you to do the same with Neo900 - it should be even easier, as Freerunner's armv4t is rarely supported by modern distros.
My idea is to make it possible to run fremantle apps on the Neo900, dialer and all other stock apps as well as everything straight from maemo-extras repo. We'll see how that pans out. Ideally the new platform will be so much identical to N900 that you simply can flash PR1.3 to it and it just works. There are a few minor obstacles that forbid this ideal: Nolo and modem. I think both is manageable.
Glad. And even if the platform will not be exactly identical, connecting it to the auto-builder (so that there would be chinook, diablo, fremantle, cssu, Neo900, whatever platform you wish to compile for) would make it easier to have the same apps on both platforms.
Really, If this takes off then the prices of those Broken USB n900s or are going to sky rocket! I have one waiting already for this project.
My one and only N900 has broken micro-USB port. Recently broken. I am not sure exactly which accident had caused the wall-charger micro-USB end to be bent. However, loose micro-USB port problem soon appeared, and death of micro-USB port coincided with zero battery charge. After receiving the new battery (which had taken several weeks), I 'attempted to charge' the N900 again - the micro-USB port promptly fell out. I neatly put it back in, and put a piece of black duct tape so that the port wouldn't be lost. Now, I would like to find out the repair-men who can solder it back, without melting anything around it. The battery-charger will arrive soon, of course, but mass storage mode is too neat a feature to give up on the micro-USB port without a fight.
Besides, if I have to change batteries regularly, the back-cover will be broken soon, too, one way or another. Or something else similar, like battery pins.
We don't need 100% fremantle copy - it have it own flaws. We need 100% fremantle features, preferably without those flaws, and with more room to expand. So, the more FOSS in it, the better.
/Estel
Agree. Just, don't forget these features. Hildon-banner is awesome. Unlike those Alerts which are common in Windows software - they don't let you do anything unless you click this annoying OK button.
By the way, I have seen and used a niche closed-source desktop software - its icons look like good old 2000, and its user interface behaves like it was designed for smartphones. Seamlessly switching between portrait and landscape, ruthlessly fighting to remain on top of the screen, point-and-click with underexploited keyboard... And its algorithms are not described in documentation at all. Seriously thinking about reverse-engineering it. Or, even better, finding the open-source alternative to it, to port it to smart-phone to my heart's content. Yes, I am insane to think of running such software on smartphone when it can take a day or a month for a cluster to perform one task with this software. Yet, I have XPaint on Nokia N900, and trying to find a way to make it more touchscreen-friendly. Yes, I have no screen protector, currently. Yet, I will replace the screen only when it becomes completely unusable. And then, put a screen protector on the new screen, immediately.
So it wll look like a N900, feel like a N900 and work like a N900, just way faster, thanks to the DM3730 CPU @1GHz and at least 512MB RAM plus maybe some more GB fast RAM-based "storage" as swap.
And it will have all the functionality you're used to from N900 **) plus sturdy USB with full OTG support, all sorts of new nice sensors like gyro and altimeter and compass, and a GSM/UMTS(/LTE?) modem that doesn't break (or when it ever would then you can fix it).
Maybe we add a general purpose expansion interface under that battery lid.
Plus the whole device is 100% open, you get all the schematics, datasheets and everything *), we don't work behind walls.
A dream. It will remain in category of myths for me, like Jolla is, like Robotyrannus was before I saw it being sold on a book fair.
The project is about the hardware, we can't run a software development department to port maemo to the device. It's up to a community effort to establish this. 2. volunteers already hollered: freemangordon whom you all know from CSSU, and FatPhil, an ex_Nokia kernel maintainer :-) Many thanks to both! And I mustn't miss to mention that a lot of other community members also offered to help wherever they can in our newly formed fremantle porting task force. Many thanks to all of you too.
Stay tuned for more to come :-) Please note Dos1's excellent post#5 below!
**) camera though still under evaluation, we might not be able to find a camera as nice as the N900's
What about camera as nice as N950 or N9? Whatever. It doesn't matter exactly which camera you put inside, as long as it isn't too bad. There is a lot of yet-unimplemented functionality in camera software, especially when you add gyro-accelerometer-compass-OCR-related features. Besides, 3Mpx camera with optical zoom can perform better than 5Mpx camera with digital zoom. It all depends on conditions and software, not only on hardware. Though, some kind of changing-focus is a must.
*)what we won't hand out are the gerber files to feed the fab with, since we don't like to split production into several smaller batches that would inevitably get more expensive per device than one huge batch
cheers
jOERG
PS: I added a public poll, to allow for evaluating if we might reach the minimum of 200 preorders with a target of 700EUR per complete device
I voted for 650 - before reading the first post. However, when you really get a website set up with pre-orders, I would likely be ready to pay up to 700 for the device. Yes, Jolla's device seems cheaper, but your device promises gyro and compass and accelerometer and altimeter and GPS. Ideal for stargazer
Best wishes.
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Per aspera ad astra...
if this was to be a freedom phone, why not we include linux iconic figures in the game, which they can support more? i mean, there hasn't been much true open mobile linux, they would totally be pleased by this.
Once I owned a Freerunner. Buggy as hell and not possible to use as a daily phone and sold it after a year of struggling and hoping improvements would solve the issues. That said, I always liked the idea of an as open as possible phone with physical keyboard and will not have a problem paying 700 Euro for it.
I recently bought a N900 and I love the hardware. Nice keyboard and the screen is even readable in direct sunlight.
The bad experience I have had with the Freerunner does make me a bit more careful though. How solid will this phone be as a daily phone, can this already be determined?
How about after sales support and especially hardware repairs? How will that be handled?
How will battery life be?
