Debian On the Openmoko Neo FreeRunner Phone

BrianWCarver writes "It was inevitable. One can now run the entire Debian distribution (ARM port) on the Openmoko Neo Freerunner. We previously discussed the July 4th launch of this GNU/Linux-based smartphone, which is open down to its core, with the company providing CAD files and schematics for the phone. Openmoko released an update to their software stack earlier this month, called Om2008.8, which is still a work in progress. But now one can use these instructions on the Debian wiki to open up the possibility of using apt-get to access Debian's more than 20,000 applications on your phone, which, due to integration with freesmartphone.org efforts, can also actually be used as a phone. There were previous efforts to run Debian on the predecessor product to the Neo FreeRunner, the Neo 1973, but with the wider adoption of the Neo FreeRunner and the hard work of many Debian developers at the ongoing DebConf 8, carrying Debian in your pocket has just gotten a lot easier."

Great

Debian's more than 20,000 applications on your phone, which, due to integration with freesmartphone.org efforts, can also actually be used as a phone...

You're saying that I can install debian on my computer and use it as a phone? The computer weighs about 15kg already. I just need to add a truck battery (another 20kg I guess) and a small array of solar cells (another 180kg). I will then have an utra-portable cell phone! And, it weighs in at only 215kg!

Re:Great

There we hae it ladies and gentleman. After years, I think we can say we have found the person with the least understanding of the article and summary.

RTFA? This guy obviously didn't even read the TITLE fully. In fact, given his laughably silly comment, it very well may be that he only read the first word of the title and had some objection with "Debian" and portability.

May I present the new standard setter for Slashdot cluelessness, the man who didn't even RTFT!

Re:Great

While we are at it, you deserve a whoosh! award.

Re:Great

I lagged behind, thought it was just another deadline.

Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

Last I checked, the dialer and address book applications weren't done yet. While it's great that it can do shit like compiling code and whatnot, it's not gonna do me -- as a person who, although a fan of Free Software, doesn't plan on doing OpenMoko development -- any good until it can make phone calls!

Re:Can it reliably make phone calls yet?

I use the "zhone" package to make and receive calls (the same app has also a primitive address book). However, you are correct in that there is probably not much point in using the phone if you have already decided that you don't plan to do any development.

Great

Now you too can have a phone with the most hilarious startup sequence ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c0eVdj4E7w [youtube.com]

...and run Debian on it too! "Hold on honey, just one more minute...or so...and we'll be running XTerm. It'll be cool!"

On a more serious note, I do happen to love this. You can't expect a geek to know how to do a debian install *and* grasp things like interface design or usability, but nothing's stopping somebody with the skills from building on that foundation.

Great learning tool. But what else?

Somebody help me out here. I get that the OpenMoko has great potential as a learning tool - that's unquestionable, and I applaud their efforts. But I'm really struggling to understand whether there is any use for this outside of the learning context.

In terms of platform, Symbian is on its way to being open-sourced, and Android is supposed to be F/OSS as well. I don't think LiMo is going anywhere, but it has the same virtues of openness. And if you care more about open development environments than license types, Windows Mobile already has a huge and growing smartphone applications ecosystem. On top of that, there are also easy ways into developing for the RIM, Palm and iPhone platforms.

In terms of hardware, this device seems to be lacking even a workable data connection - GPRS is tunneled packet data over channelized voice so you're looking at best case speeds of a 1994 modem (9.6 kbps or so). So broadband apps are out, as is useful e-mail/calendar syncing - at least over the GSM networks. It's also more expensive than the carrier-subsidized devices that everyone likes to complain about how overpriced they are with subsidies ...

So this isn't a rhetorical question, it's a serious one. Other than for folks who just want to learn about the guts of GSM and mobile devices, who would get a practical benefit from buying this phone vs. a Nokia/Symbian, HTC/Android or any other devices from the WinMo, Palm or iPhone families?

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

I'm really struggling to understand whether there is any use for this outside of the learning context.

In terms of platform, Symbian is on its way to being open-sourced, and Android is supposed to be F/OSS as well. I don't think LiMo is going anywhere, but it has the same virtues of openness.

The answer is that OpenMoko predates all those things.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

Android actually has backing and is usable out of the box.

Devices that run Android don't even exist yet. How can you possibly claim it will be usable out of the box?

Re:

He installed it on the OpenMoko

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

Pretty simple: The Openmoko is the closest thing to a "PC" of the phone world that you can get. Nothing else is as open as it is. Symbian isn't OSS yet, and there is no assurance the most of the handsets running it will ever be freed of carrier or manufacturer lockdown. Android doesn't yet exist in the wild, and carries the same risk. LiMo may be open as a stack(save for the DRM bits and bobs); but LiMo handsets in the wild are the usual lockdown stuff. The iPhone is markedly more competent than usual; but nothing happens on that platform without Steve's approval. WinCE might actually be the best of the heap. Closed base; but fairly encouraging for 3rd party work on top of that. Only the OpenMoko is a free implementation of a free stack.

If that doesn't matter to you, it probably isn't the phone for you. Others are more mature, and offer greater economies of scale. If you do want Freedom on the handset, the OpenMoko is it.

Re:

even with jailbreak the iphone is still more locked down than windows mobile.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

My laptop is a pretty poor stereo system but that is one of the things I use it for. Yes, the moko is not a great phone if all you want is a phone (I have a motorola C139). But as a multipurpose computing device it may turn out to be quite good.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

Then you're missing his point.

The great thing about PCs is that they're open, you have full control over what software you run on it and you can do whatever you like with it.

Traditionally, phones have been excessively locked down.

Re:Great learning tool. But what else?

EDGE is not 2.5G, it's 2.75G. OpenMoko has 2.5G (GPRS), which is painfully slow - I got an average of around 2.5Kb/s with 2 second latencies back when I used to use GPRS (four years ago, before UMTS phones became cheap).

I have high hopes for OpenMoko - if they can release a HSPDA phone in a year or two with a bigger screen then I'll definitely buy one.

Re: Great learning tool. But what else?

Everything starts this way.

> Symbian is on its way to being open-sourced

So is Java. Has been for ten years now. Wake me when it happens.
(To be fair, Java *has* made real progress in this area, but it was not as smooth or fast as anyone thought it would be - to the point that it got to the very brink or obsolescence a couple of times)

> Android is supposed to be F/OSS as well

Except, compiled against non-standard libraries. Which, in practice, is the only thing that stops it being used, as a software platform, by the OpenMoko itself, right now (and in principal, even this could be overcome, depending on exactly what form the Android codebase ultimately takes)

> Windows Mobile already has a huge and growing smartphone applications ecosystem. On top of that, there are also easy ways into developing for the RIM, Palm and iPhone platforms.

Yeah, if you want apps specifically for a phone. If you want to compile a current desktop application and use it on your phone, or even the other way around (maybe you really like your calendar/contacts application), well, none of those platforms really allow for that. It's not an Achillie's Heel (yet), but it is a weakness (from the point of view of a developer, mostly, but still).

> In terms of hardware, this device seems to be lacking even a workable data connection - GPRS is tunneled packet data over channelized voice so you're looking at best case speeds of a 1994 modem (9.6 kbps or so). So broadband apps are out, as is useful e-mail/calendar syncing - at least over the GSM networks.

You have WiFi and Bluetooth if you can use it, GPRS as an emergency fallback. It's a phone, not a mobile contact manager. The distinction has been blurred, but primarily, it's a mini computer that can also make phone calls. It also has USB, so there's the possibility of a HSDPA adapter working if you want. If you *must have* built-in world-wide location-independent high-bandwidth wireless data communication... then yeah, this might not be for you. The next revision might be, but this is version 1.0. Don't you know what they say about 1.0 software? It's never as good, in quality terms, as the idea behind it. But it will be, if it makes it to a few versions beyond that.

> It's also more expensive than the carrier-subsidized devices that everyone likes to complain about how overpriced they are with subsidies ...

Carriers will never subsidize a truly open phone. They lose the ability to lock the phone to their network, to extract premiums from DRM'd software/music sales, etc. Any truly open phone will have to succeed on its own merits, because people will have to want to buy the phone at whatever price. One great way to do that is make it do non-phone things as well, so the phone portion of your purchase price is smaller (except, this only works if you *want* the non-phone portion of the phone - think cameras or mp3 players). Think of it more as a micro-form-factor sub-notebook, with a GSM module, making it a practical phone. Common folks don't want their phone to be a computer (heck, they often explicitly refuse to accept it), but that's okay - it's not for them. If, and only if, it is successful enough, then either economies of scale will bring it to the masses at a price they will accept, or clones/imitators will persuade them to embrace this kind of phone.

> So this isn't a rhetorical question, it's a serious one. Other than for folks who just want to learn about the guts of GSM and mobile devices, who would get a practical benefit from buying this phone vs. a Nokia/Symbian, HTC/Android or any other devices from the WinMo, Palm or iPhone families?

I want Open, no matter the cost. I want to be able to open it, dismantle it, reconfigure it, alter it, change it (not necessarily *do* and of those things; just be able to). That's why I got one.

What other phone do you know of where you can buy a debug board for it from the same store that sells the phone - the same board that the phones' engineers used to develop it?

But is it a phone worth having?

I've been saying this about my laptop for years, but I guess now it's time to say it about my phone as well.

The phone I use is small, sleek, looks and works great, and does everythin I need it to. It makes phone calls, does SMS messaging great, and I can sync it with my laptop so all my contacts are updated, always. It also has the nice benefit of having a unix core, dpkg, apt, and a slew of unix utilities. It has a terminal with SSH and telnet, I can mount it as a volume over the network, and it plays music too. Even making ringtones for it is as simple as encoding them as AAC.

So they have Debian on a phone. Great. But just like Debian on desktops, I have to ask myself why anyone but RF geeks would ever care.

My phone, like my computers, are for getting things done. Call me when this thing is useful and usable.

Yeah, iPhones are cool - *if* they are jailbroken

...I've got one too. And until I jailbroke it, it couldn't ssh, it didn't sync very well, I couldn't install any unix apps...

If you keep the iphone firmware intact, it is just frustrating to know that there is this awesome bsd-based smartphone that stores basically everything in little sqlite databases - THAT YOU CAN'T USE!

I love the functionality of my hacked iPhone, but Apple's attitude with the appstore has really underscored the need for free software to me.
I have decided to no longer purchase apple products or services as a result of my experience with the iPhone (been a Mac user ever since they rolled out OS X).

An openmoko freerunner is definitely on "to buy" list - not because I expect it to be super-functional out of the box, but because I want to (financially) support the concept.

I'm sick of being unreasonably prevented from using the full capability of products I purchase.

If you're happy with one company being in charge of what software you can run on your phone, what network ports you can connect to, what access you have to backup your own personal information...then by all means, stick with the iphone. Good luck with that. I've been burned one too many times by vendor lock-in I guess.
Just my $.02

Re:

well we are talking about Debian here.

Re:Neo 1973?

(I think you're being funny here, but for the record) 1973 was the year of the first call on a mobile phone.

Re:Neo 1973?

No it wasn't... the first (cellular) call of a mobile phone would have been somewhere in the mid-60's...

The first "mobile" phone call, was probably in the early 1900's, using radio, however it was limited to a few channels, but could be linked into an actual phone network, albeit cumbersome and annoying, with middle-men.

Re:Right, but...?

http://www.joachim-breitner.de/blog/archives/297-guid.html [joachim-breitner.de]

The hardware

It was smaller than I thought, and is quite light. My girlfriend says it's ugly, but I'm fine with the look of it. Besides being a GSM-phone, it comes with some nice gimmics: GPS, accelerometer, WLAN. The touchscreen works fine, although I don't have anything to compare it with.

The software

The system it comes with, even after upgrading, is still very rough. It mostly works for doing phone calls and SMSs, but there are a number of unsolved quirks that prevent me from using the Freerunner as my sole phone for now. The suspend mode is left too often, resulting in a battery life of about eight hours, and there are issues with the audio for the conversation partners, who will hear static and echoes. But, as this is free software, there is hope that this will be fixed eventually

It's ok if you bring a Lauterbach and a laptop with you when you carry it. And TALK LOUDLY to make sure people can here you over the static and echoes. Echoes. echoes. ec...

Re:Right, but...?

Hmmm, it seems the echo's are still there...

Re:Open down to its core??

Totally Free hardware is an ideal, but it's not feasible at the moment. If you want to go over to OpenCores and start designing a HSPDA chip, then that would be really great. I'm sure the OpenMoko people would love to use it in the next generation, assuming that they can find someone who will fab it cheaply and pay for getting it certified.

The reason people care more about software being free than hardware is twofold:

1. If the software is free then you are not locked in to one hardware platform. If you don't like the hardware you can replace it easily and still access the same applications and data.
2. Non-Free hardware restricts what you can do a lot less than non-Free software. If you don't have total control over the hardware, you can't do some thing in the most efficient way. If you don't have total control over the software then you can't do some things at all.