Oh, wow, announcing an initiative to develop a fully free and open source smartphone. That’s a great idea! No one has announced such a thing before. Because if they had obviously it would have come to fruition by now.
Here’s the split.
Either Linux on mobile needs to specialize to vertical screens, smooth out controls and usability, grow an app ecosystem for mobile and not just desktop apps squeezed, harden the network stack so 4G and 5G don’t shit the bed, or…
There’s also the concept of a fully FOSS Android, which personally, I believe is the lesser of two hills to climb, but I believe both could be used in tandem using Waydroid if both succeed in the end. If you have Android apps, made for Android, they can run on Linux mobile OSes right now through a compatibility layer.
Used in tandem, both could be more than the sum of either-or, at least on the short-term while Linux mobile development gets a bit more gas under its ass.
Talk is cheap. Contribute to postmarketOS. You can translate, code, test-drive or donate. The more people realise this the quicker we’ll have a properly FLOSS mobile landscape and an alternative upon which to build apps and other things.
Why PostmarketOS and not Mobian, Sailfish, or Ubuntu Touch?
Why not fork Android?
What hardware deals are being made between Postmarket and phone manufacturers? Do they have a development timeline? How far are you guys from 1.0? Come on, action speaks.
Given googles latest updates might need to be a hard fork. The issue is who will build the phone if android based they can’t make any other “authorized” android devices, since that is part of the play services ToS. (This actually has had me annoyed with Google+android for a 5-8 years now…)
& battery life
If they take a complete free/libre purist approach, is it possible for them to build phones that work with current generation cellular networks?
I was wondering the same thing. I thought the reason this thing has never taken off is because it’s ridiculously hard to make firmware that operates these radios.
Exactly. It took Apple with their infinite resources and top engineers many years to build their own baseband.
And that’s still very new. Who knows how it’ll hold up.
Last I checked, no. However, you can move actual radio chip off to a separate chip that is isolated by the MMU or connects through the USB bus.
The most important thing fo me is not to fix a new Linux phone or linux compatible phone. It is to pressure the banks and digital ID providers here in Sweden and EU to support Linux.
I wanted a Linux phone, I was open and prepared to have a worse camera, battery, stability, user experience. You name it. Just to break free from the duopoly. But then I wouldn’t be able to use my bank, healthcare services, insurance, file my taxes, etc. Cause there is no support for Linux only Android and iOS, windows, Mac OS.
Services needed to exist in a modern society locked to platforms owned by private corporations. Even if ASOP gets a fork that continues without Google’s version of ASOP for future version’s, there is a good chance none of the bank apps would function without integration of google services.
I’m running /e/OS on a fairphone, that was the best option out there for my requirements. But with the latest developments around ASOP I’m not sure about how long this will be an option.
The solution is to get a phone that does two things.
- Connect to a mobile network
- Share the link via hotspot to device of choice
Now you can do whatever you want with a mobile Linux device or anything your heart desires with your hotspot.
Set the bar low. Put out a product. Get traction.
But I still won’t be able to use it to access those mentioned services, due to the Digital ID not working on Linux.
Can you elaborate?
In Sweden we have something called “Bank-ID” its a digital ID. Most services such as logging in to renew medical receipts, access your tax information, and file your taxes, pay your bills, access your bank. Buy insurance, cancel insurance. Think anytime it would be unreasonable to not verify your identity, you need bank-id. It is basically a certificate you generate together with your bank, that can only be accessed through the bank-id app/application depending on if you have it installed on your desktop or phone. Everytime a website has Bank-id integrated as a login method. You will need to scan a QR-code with the app or initiate the app from the website. Then type in your code to authenticate. Voila you have verified yourself. This requires their proprietary application, and the certification that lives in the app is issued by Bank-id. So you are locked in
Edit: basically in Sweden any linux phone without working bank-ID would be dead in the water from the start.
This is why I prefer websites, and try to avoid apps. I can use them across any device.
Sure, there are some things I may not be able to do, like pay by phone, but I have a little card to do that.
The problem isn’t really the app, it’s that a private organisation is controlling the default digital identification system, and how it is accessed. Until 2014 they had a Linux client for it, but it was discontinued. BankID has been around for a long time, so it’s absolutely engrained in so many aspects of society here.
Past few weeks, these are instances I’ve used BankID, off the top of my head
- Had to pick up a DHL parcel in person, authenticated with BankID
- Picked up a parcel from a PostNord locker, BankID required
- Called my mobile phone provider many times (fuck telenor), authenticated with BankID
- Paid my bills, BankID to log in, as well as authenticate payment
- Bought a game expansion, BankID required to use my debit card
- Bought groceries (online, I struggle going out to groups of people), BankID at checkout
- Updated my dog’s food subscription, BankID at checkout
- Checked in at dentist office, BankID to authenticate that I was present
- Digital mailbox to get a bill, BankID
Honestly I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch. In general though, doing something digitally and authenticating with BankID is the primary way of getting things done here. The “old fashioned way” is unconventional, and tends to be woefully slow. When my previous roomie didn’t have a social security number (and subsequently not access to BankID) every single administrative thing they needed doing took forever, registering for school, doing tests, updating licenses, registering your address, even just plain buying things can be tricky.
This is the worst part. They all have functional websites, but to login you need digital ID(bankID) so one app is acting as the gate keeper
I hate BankID with a fiery passion. I complain to all my Swedish colleagues how messed up it is that government services are locked behind a private company that only supports American big-tech operating systems. They are finally coming around to my way of thinking now.
I’m one of the only people I know in Sweden without a smartphone, just a dumbphone.
I couldn’t get BankID to work with Wine or Waydroid so I just use an old Windows laptop when I need to access government services with the physical dongle. But I hate going back to Windows so it’s always a pain.
BankID is so ass, the one we have here in Finland is a bit better, but the one we have in Estonia is the best.
The Estonian one is by far the most comfortable to use of the three, with even a working and maintained Linux version. It is also tied to the PCKS#11 certificate stored in your ID card, instead of a corporate bank account.
Back when BankID was young, in the wee 00s, it was actually just a certificate on your computer. The management software for this is still around I believe, it’s called BankID Säkerhetsprogram. The Linux support for it was dropped in 2014.
The reason it took off the way it did is because it was in early, and the banks backed it. The government has been really slow implementing their own solution. They had DIGG work on it for a while, but then transferred the assignment to Polismyndigheten.
It’s annoying to have to have a card reader though, so everyone just uses Smart-ID or Mobiil-ID anyway. But at least we have the option not to.
I’m pretty sure that you can use something like a YubiKey as a PKCS#11 certificate store, if the issue is just the card reader form factor.
kagis
Yeah:
https://developers.yubico.com/yubico-piv-tool/YKCS11/
This is a PKCS#11 module that allows external applications to communicate with the PIV application running on a YubiKey.
That solves one issue, the other being how buggy it can be to use in the browser. The file signing feature is separate software (which has an official Linux port!), but to log into your bank, etc, browsers often pre-decide for you which certificate you want to use and then complain that it’s not present. Perhaps it’s changed now, I haven’t used it much in quite a few years now because Mobiil-ID and Smart-ID have just worked 99% of time.
I know some people on the internet is against the whole idea behind digital identification. But if its only used for things that would normally require identification in the physical world. Like banks and government interactions. I don’t have anything against it per say. It can even be administered and handed out by a company (although that is against my personal ideology) but they have to then be forced to either release the source code or support at least one distro of Linux, or flatpack works too. Let’s not get in to snap packages, it opens a whole other can of worms.
We have that but it’s just a website we go to login to. And every 3 or 6 months forget which it asks for your drivers license. So we can login to governmment sites on any platform since it is another website used for verification.
Yeah we have that in BC Canada, your digital ID gives you access to BC services and as a login credential partner to federal tax account.
Isn’t it just a webiste though?
If you mean the federal tax access, yes. However their security has increased after breaches so to login you need username, and a pass code they mail to you to setup a login and password. Then they send you a printable cyptic gridded square. So you login with a user name and password , they send a challenge code and you cross reference it on your chart to send back the codes to get access. If your paper is expired or you lose your password you have to through snail mail again. OR you use your BCID key tied to your personal device, website waits for code generated from phone. It simplifies access, and ensures only the person holding the device can login and not a brute force from a random person
Exactly.
Through Handelsbanken I have two physical card readers.
- One is wireless and I can use to authenticate online purchases and login to Handelsbanken. That one works on any browser so it works no problem on Linux. It even has a camera on the back of it to scan QR codes.
- The second one connects through USB and requires you to download a program that only works on Windows and MacOS. This is the one that is required for all government services, other banks and everything else.
My hope was that I would be able to use the first physical card reader to scan the QR codes that come up for mobile bankID for other sites, but the QR code scanning functionality only works with Handelsbanken’s website.
If I could login to everything with the wireless card reader then they wouldn’t even need to make a version that specifically works for Linux, just a version that works for all browsers. It doesn’t seem like it would need to be that big of a change from perspective.
This
I would have been in Linux for my phone years ago if it wasn’t that so many companies are
conspiringworking together to lock down every service just to make sure that spyware phones are the only option to citizens.Fuck. That. Shit.
I want to be able to make payments with my phone. THROUGH LINUX. MY PHONE, MY RULES.
Look FSF. If you want this to work you cannot just copy fairphones design and pricing. I’ll be honest IDK how anyone can justify spending more than 200$ on a phone especially in this economy but the privacy nerds seem to always be in good enough financial conditions no matter what they’ll happily pay 800$ for a 5 year old phone with hard kill switches and modular parts.
I just can’t do it. I don’t have 800$ in play money to spend on a nerd phone. If you really want to help people you need to make some deals and mass produce this shit on the cheap. IDC if its got the build quality of a tracphone from walmart, find a way to bring those priced down to something the average person can actually consider.
I agree with you, I think there is a huge market for cheap functional smartphones that just gets the day-to-day things done.
Mass production comes after you can make a low volume high end niche product.
please make something affordable. I want to be able to make mobile apps without being forced to the Java/swift shit duo.
The app ecosystem will be wild, if this succeeds.
I hate Java so much, and so deeply, that I do not develop quick handy little Android apps.
But if I can use a less obnoxious language, the world is going to see some mobile apps for tracking all the push-ups I’m not doing, and all the salads I intend to eat.
Edit: Android is already a huge success, by any meaure, of course. But it can get better without Java.
Edit 2: I do know that cross compilers exist. They still smell like Java, though.
Isn’t the default for Android nowadays Kotlin? Which, yes, still runs on the JVM, but the language itself is much nicer designed.
Yes. I have heard it is much nicer since last time I tried it.
I might give it another try sometime, if AOSP survives what Google is doing to it, and my dream Linux phone still isn’t ready yet.
I’ve used it for backend development not Android so I wouldn’t know how that’s improved (presumably you still have to deal with any Android idiosyncrasies), but I definitely loved it. Just knowing if something can be null or not is already awesome. Same thing I like about Swift, the language iOS uses.
What is annoying about Android, is that whatever language you use, YOU NEED SOME JAVA GLUE to make your app, and the signature thing. When I tried making the “hello world” apk I was astonished to see how hard it is compared to Linux dev. There has to be something wrong that led to the disgrace that is Android Studio (+10GB or something, I just recall it being ultra bloat) to start up with android dev.
When I tried making the “hello world” apk I was astonished to see how hard it is compared to Linux dev.
I mean, to be fair, if you’re doing the APK, you’re also doing the packaging. If you compare that to building and packaging for all the Linux distros out there, especially considering all the different packaging systems, doing up a single APK is probably a lot easier.
There has to be something wrong that led to the disgrace that is Android Studio (+10GB or something, I just recall it being ultra bloat) to start up with android dev.
I agree. There’s something just a bit off about the whole ecosystem.
I think it may reflect Google wanting to appear FOSS while not actually giving up control.
God please yes.
I’ve been seeing this kind of stuff three times a year for 15 years.
Perpetual inertia.It’s slowly moving forward. Remember how long it took to actually be able to use Linux easily as a daily OS? A smartphone is a significant challenge due to how hostile the hardware companies are
I would say being able to use Linux daily was achieved a few years after Ubuntu came out, so almost 20 years ago or by now.
Linux on Phones has already peaked in 2009. The Nokia N900 running Maemo in 2009 was amazing. The Palm Pre running webOS was the other good Linux based phone. Both of these had their fan base, keeping them running and active for a couple of years before fading. Since then Linux on phones has been lingering on in obscurity across various projects. Firefox phone was the most promising for a while. Jolla is still holding on, continuing Nokia‘s legacy.
I’m not sure I agree that 2005 was the proverbial “Year or the Linux Desktop”: I remember all the WiFi driver hell in the late 2000s, but let’s say that was when Linux became a valid competitor because it’s close enough. That’s 10 years after Windows 95! That only furthers my point, but it does show that the phone progress seems to be slower by comparison. All of this is assuming we leave out Android of course.
In my personal experience I dual booted until around 2010
Yes, Wifi drivers were a bit of a hassle. However there was this wrapper which allowed windows drivers to be used and it was integrated into the Ubuntu GUI.
It was the age of the live CD. You could run Linux from a CD easily. Trying out Linux was as easy as downloading an ISO, burning it, and booting from it. Print computer magazines included Linux live CDs like Knoppix and DVDs regularly. Installing was easy as well with a nice wizard guiding you through.
OpenOffice, VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP all existed. Hell, Skype had an official Linux version.
So you’re saying if we keep declaring [current year] as the “Year of the Linux Mobile Phone”, eventually it will become true!
I’m saying free work in a hostile environment isn’t going to be able to keep up with trillion dollar companies… I’m happy to still see progress happening
I felt bad for the younger generations buying steam decks and watching the Linux usage for increases.
and if it goes as well as the other projects, in 5 years they’ll announce the Librephone One, a phone with 2016 specs that costs 2000$
Shut up and take my money!
So like, in the interest of our whole ideology, is there anything folks can do, other than money, to help? I can solder.
I can solder.
Great - you can build all the phones then. I can program, so I think we’re most of the way there. We need one more person to write the manual.
You cheeky cunt, I love it. Strong responses too. I think we got ourselves a cottage industry.
I’ve done a lot of technical writing and knowledge articles in my career. I’m in!
I can drive a manual, does that help?
Oh so now they get this bright idea. Better late than never I guess.
They’re not the first.
Was talking about FSF specifically
I know. Sadly. I’ve joined them. I have a Puri.sm Librem 5 I bought when it was in design.
I saw a custom smartphone used by the military - no idea what’s inside but it looked like a regular one with giant battery and with some different OS. It also had a kill switch button (or so I was told).
Signal comes preinstalled.
With random journalists in the contacts.
