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A Truly Open Linux Phone
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Nov 07, 2006 07:49 PM
from the apt-get-phone-software dept.
from the apt-get-phone-software dept.
skelator2821 writes to tell us about the debut of the OpenMoko, a Linux phone with GPS that is open from top to bottom. The device is set to debut to developers this month for $350, according to the article, but there is no detail on how to get your hands on one, and no link to the manufacturer (FIC). From the article: "This is the first phone in a long time to get us really interested in what it is, what it isn't, and the philosophy behind it. The philosophy is the thing that makes Linux great... it is really open. It runs the latest kernel, 2.6.18 as of a few weeks ago, and you can get software from a repository with apt-get."
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OpenMoko Schedule Announced 165 comments
levell writes "The schedule for the OpenMoko, an open source, Linux-based Neo1973 smart phone was posted to the community mailing list by Sean Moss-Pultz this morning. On Feb 11, free phones will be sent to key community developers and the community websites/wiki/bug tracker will be available. Then on March 11 (the official developer launch) we'll be able to buy an OpenMoko for $350. After allowing some time for innovative, slick software to be created there will be a mass market launch at which point Sean hopes that 'your mom and dad will want one too.'"
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Zaurus vs. This (Score:2)
Of course, I will buy.
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No vendor lock-in? I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No vendor lock-in? I don't think so (Score:4, Informative)
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It's nice to know other vendors aren't quite so barbaric...
Re:No vendor lock-in? I don't think so (Score:4, Informative)
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Otherwise the 2 local cell phone vendors (Blue wireless & CellOne) as well as Verizon (& Sprint if you feel like tracking down their one store in my area
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Verizon, Cellular One, Blue Wireless, and Sprint have the only networks locally and all require more expensive plans I just don't need... Even prepaid phones are limited to a few providers due to what networks exist here and Virgin Mobile offered the best price vs Service area. Not that they even have service in all Sprint areas either...
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The GSM code is locked down (Score:2)
Absolutely so! Here's the state of the art (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all, the Carriers have little choice here. Fully functional Reference kits are available in the under $1000 range. For GSM, you can get them for about $200-300. These are the kits that companies who build cell-phones use to jumpstart their designs. So what's a Carrier going to do? Outlaw these? And kill development for cell-phones? I don't think so.
The most they might do is to tighten down on the registration. But that involves overhead and hassle. Unless these kits prove to be an issue, it's not going to happen; at least not with the GSM market. And not worldwide.
You are also wrong about the "time wasters" who supply low volume and low profit phones. What the Carriers want (at least some of them) is to sell the airtime. Some of these Carriers really don't care where it goes, as long as they get paid for it.
There's a whole resale market here which underscores the point. You want to to become your own cell-phone company? You can, if you have the money. And if you don't think *those* resellers are hungry, you're kidding yourself.
I admit that as far as the standard view about "time wasters" goes (for the big companies) you are correct. And it's explicitly been this attitude which has severely hindered innovation in the cell-phone market. There are a plethora of uses for small markets. Some of the hungrier carriers fully realize this, and are supportive of anything which will make them money.
Finally, the lockdown on GSM transceivers is a bit silly. The interface is extremely simple; it's a variation of the old Hayes Modem interface. I kid you not. "ATDT....". There's even an Open Source Project for this. Here's the link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/libgsmc [sourceforge.net]
Finally, there's even a group dedicated to a fully Open Source phone. Namely, the Silicon Valley Homebrew Mobile Phone Club. They are having a meeting tomorrow night in San Francisco. Here's a link to their mailing list archives:
http://telefono.revejo.org/pipermail/svhmpc_telefo no.revejo.org/ [revejo.org]
Check out the list, and the information on various associated websites. There's really a groundswell building in this area. And those Carriers which close things off are going to miss an opportunity that their competitors are actively interested in.
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Feeling like the codger I am (Score:2)
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Buy a tracfone. $29.xx at Walmart, 250 minutes for fifty bucks (or better if you want to spend more). Unless you need something that'll let you talk to your girlfriend for fourteen hours at a time, they are a pretty good deal. I recently carried mine on a trip across NW South Dakota and had a tower for just about the whole trip. No credit check, they pretty much just work, although adding minutes can be a pain sometimes, their tech support has been pretty good in m
New Linux Phones - Great! (Score:2, Informative)
Yahoo shows 2 results for OpenMoko.
The $350 price tag is looking a lot better than the $600 tag attached to a similar Linux phone from D-Link.
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Who would of thunk it??
And, http://openmoko.com/files/OpenMoko_Amsterdam.pdf [openmoko.com] for the initial presentation of this device.
two points (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a joke, right? The drivers are probably the most important part of any piece of hardware, so calling this thing "open" but keeping drivers proprietary is ridiculous.
Yeah, and I am to buy a Linux product from you? Dream on...
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What makes you think I own any hardware produced by any of them?
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Could you do GPS silliness? (Score:5, Funny)
FILE* mail = openMailStream(girlfriend@house.com, "Hi honey!");
fprintf(mail, "I'm home!\n");
closeMailStream(mail);
at_home = true;
}
Well, I gave it a shot... (Score:2, Funny)
From: Postmaster
To:
Reply-To:
Sender: Postmaster
Your message to home.com was rejected.
I said:
RCPT To:
And home.com responded with
550 5.1.1
missing lines (Score:2)
set_Destination(couch);
start_navigation();
}
Little did you know that.. (Score:3, Funny)
More details (Score:5, Informative)
WTF (Score:2, Interesting)
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Throwback... it had to be done (Score:2, Funny)
No 3G/EDGE? (Score:2)
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Your analogy sucks. You are an idiot.
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OK, no camera, but that's what my DSLR [slashdot.org] is for.
Headphones: use bluetooth, perhaps?
Memory slot: What's that MicroSD thingy?
Sounds good to me...except maybe the touch screen---tactile controls are really hard to beat.
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what?
Let's step back and look at what the phone itself is before we get into the software that runs on it. The hardware itself is a Samsung 2410 266MHz ARM9 with a 2.8-inch VGA touch screen. There are only two buttons on the phone, the rest is handled by the touch screen, a microSD slot, Bluetooth 2.0, and USB for connectivity and charging. It also has two 1W stereo speakers so you can repurpose it to an MP3 player or anything else you would like.
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your wrong about the lack of memory. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it's convient, but so what?
And your absolutely wrong about not having enough memory. It takes miniSD cards and has 128 megs of RAM. Right now I have 2 1gig miniSD cards and a 128 meg SD card. Also you can buy up to 4gig MiniSD cards.
So frankly with miniSD slot your disk space is practically UNLIMITED.
For instance many possibilities:
* Go the 'Slax' route. Slax is a customizable Live Linux cdrom. It has various modules that you can use that you can add-on applications and other things to a already existing live cdrom. You can do this because the modules are compressed read-only file systems and you use UnionFS to mount them over the existing file system transparently. You can mix and match applications in that manner.
You can do the same thing with this. No problem.
So other possibilities.
* Remote X11 applications. Need I say more? (and yes NX compression will make them perfectly usable)
* Simple games.
* VoIP.
* remote access of systems through a veriaty of means such as voice command, terminal, tones.
* 266mhz CPU is fast enough for video.
* GPS kicks-ass. Interact with other GPS systems and keep track of things via GPSD and such.
* secure encrypted file systems for passwords and other sensitive information.
* stream audio
What this thing is is a Linux PC that fits in your pocket. Pretty much anything you can do with a PC linux box you can do with this thing.
This thing literally kicks the shit out of any sort of propriatory hardware phone you can think of. Even with out the camera. The possiblities are endless.
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Re:your wrong about the lack of memory. (Score:4, Informative)
MiniSD:
|-----------|
MicroSD:
|----|
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Some hardware details... (Score:2)
Neo1973 Handset Hardware
The Neo1973 is based on a Samsung S3C2410 SoC (system-on-chip) application processor, powered by an ARM9 core. It will have 128MB of RAM, and 64MB of flash, along with an upgradable 64MB MicroSD card.
Typical of Chinese phone designs, the Neo1973 sports a touchscreen, rather than a keypad -- in this case, an ultra-high resolution 2.8-inch VGA (640 x 480) touchscreen. "Maps look stunning on this screen," Moss-Pultz said.
The phone features an A-GPS (assisted GPS)
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Proper quality headphones are bigger than the entire size of the cell phone. Having a headphone jack is therefore somewhat irrelevant. If I wanted an iPod, I'd buy that, and throw it in the duffel bag with my regular size headphones. What's
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Re:No Camera... (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically, the post contains 75% misinformation, and the information it does contain is painfully obvious.
And it's still +5 insightful.
Parent
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I would rather just get a cheap candy bar nokia.
What the hell are you talking about? (Score:5, Interesting)
What else are you looking for? What can your "cheap candy bar Nokia" do that this can't?
The reason this will be outlawed by cell phone carriers is precisely because it can do anything... because it runs Linux. Anything that loosens their ironclad control over handsets is verboten.
Parent
Re:No Camera... (Score:4, Informative)
Pretty much any 'phone made in the last five years is a good 'phone. There are some exceptions, but not many. Once you've got the 'good 'phone' part solved, the question is 'what can we do with all the spare CPU power we have on this machine?'
An address book is obvious; you need to store 'phone numbers anyway, so it's not much of a stretch to store the rest of the contact information. Add in IrDA or Bluetooth so you can trivially send vCards to other people and it's a useful feature. If someone asks for a friend or colleague's contact details you can hand them a virtual business card.
Since you need to sync the address book with a computer, you may as well sync calendar information as well. I have my 'phone with me more often than my computer and so being able to have calendar alarms on the 'phone instead of the computer is great.
A camera? I wasn't convinced by this one until I got a camera-phone. I hadn't owned a camera for quite a while and didn't see the point in getting one. But then I found out that having a camera that took reasonable (2 megapixel - not fantastic, but not bad) quality pictures in my pocket all the time meant I actually used it.
A media player would be useful for the times I don't want to carry my iPod, except that the included headphone have sharp corners which hurt my ears and Nokia insist on a proprietary headphone socket.
I can't remember what other features my 'phone has, but if they don't take up any UI space (and they don't, since I have a set of shortcuts to the features I actually use) then they don't bother me. Mass production brings the price down.
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