OpenMoko's FreeRunner Rises From the Ashes 133
ChristW writes "Remember OpenMoko's first free and open source phones, the GTA-01 and GTA-02 (also called FreeRunner)? There is a new project called Phoenux. The German company Golden Delicous is building a new main board (called GTA-04) for the GTA01/02 case. The new hardware features a DM3730 (800 MHz) processor, a GTM601W UMTS (HSPA) module, and lots more." Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
Nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone's already moved on to A9 based SoC's for things. If they'd consider an A9 based SoC (Something like the OMAP4 in the currently MIA Samsung Galaxy Nexus, for example...) for the OpenMoko platform, it might be a gem.
Re:Nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to move on to A9 based platforms when you can go to the SoC vendor and say "we're gonna ship a couple million." They'll be all over supplying you with the chips you need.
When you're someone small like this, you get stuck at the back of the pack. A9 based chips they can get will probably be available in a year and a half or so...
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Pandaboard manages it nicely enough...
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Both boards are "backed" by TI after a fashion. It should be noted that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to get the same sort of backing here for a reference phone platform for them- TI uses BeagleBoards and PandaBoards as inexpensive reference/dev platforms.
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Yeah, but the licensing will likely kill them. So many licensing hurdles to jump when building a cellular device.
Of course, as I look at my GTA02 Freerunner sitting on my desk, if the drivers don't work and runs only 3G, this effort will be another wasted effort.
Re:Nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as they're designing it to fit in that god-awful "stretched hockey-puck" case that the original openmoko was built for... no, it won't be a gem.
I was incredibly excited about the openmoko, until I saw it. Such a wasteful use of physical space.
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Okay, how about less of a turd? :-D
No. (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry not really.
Get an HTC HD2. It runs linux with a little hacking as well as Android, WM6.5, WP7, and probably AmigaOS..
Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Would I pay some money for a device to hack up that had some really cool features... sure. But still not sure this is the one.
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The HD2 is no longer available new as far as I know.
Just Google HD2 and Linux, HD2 Android, HD2 WP7 and so on. You will see it is about the most hackable phone around and has a big community.
I make nothing but if you want a hackable phone today with good if not great specs this is about the only choice.
AmigaOS is the future for smartphone, I own one (Score:1)
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I had an N900. Never again. I'm quite fed up with open source software that just doesn't work right, and the lack of choice, and I could go on for quite a while. I've had it with open source software.
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Curious, for me it's the opposite.
I got an N900 when it first came out and I've essentially been in love with it from the start. It's starting to show signs of age now and I'm kind of looking for another, but there's just nothing on the market that could replace it right now.
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nothing on the market that could replace it right now.
Not even a N9?
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The N9 isn't available in the markets that would embrace it. This is widely perceived to be totally on purpose ; it's suspected that the device has only been produced to satisfy contractual obligations. Releasing it in a few markets where it's destined to totally bomb [nokiainnovation.com] [1] means that the new Microsoft contingent at Nokia can point the finger and say "look - Linux phones don't sell, we won't be doing *that* again".
[1] The Middle East and Africa? Not the first place I'd think of to release a high-cost mass mar
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I would buy another N900 NOW.
Maybe not the best PHONE, sure the best small sized computer I had.
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FreeRunner (Score:5, Informative)
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Want more dissapointment? try using it as a phone.
The hardware is an epic fail. I have two of them. both 100% useless as a phone.
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Want more disappointment? try using it as a phone.
While this may have been true in the past it's not as bad now. I use mine as a phone.
The hardware is an epic fail. I have two of them. both 100% useless as a phone.
I've been using QtMoko v31 on NAND and QtMoko v36 on SD with good results. SHR was also pretty decent but I haven't used it in over a year. There are also SD only installs of AoF for both Cupcake and Froyo of which I haven't formed an opinion yet (BT audio doesn't work as expected on AoF).
If you're not planning on using the phones would you be willing to sell/donate them? Please consider posting to the mailing list:
List for
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This might start a flamewar... but in my experience X support for lesser-known chipsets is pretty terrible and a simple framebuffer is always faster. The issue could just be a simple choice of driver.
Although with the FreeRunner I think the main deficiency is the non-capacitive touchscreen.
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Don't forget that this was in the docs that were available _after_ the NDA had been signed and the choice for the chip had been made! So, OpenMoko was 'duped' into buying that chip...
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I reviewed this a while back on geardiary.com:
http://www.geardiary.com/2009/02/22/review-openmoko-neo-freerunner-from-sdg-systems/ [geardiary.com]
It was....a unique design but the Android port didn't work well at all. The Openmoko code was even more of a mess. It was also SLOW.
I like the idea of a completely libre device, but the G1 was WAY better than this....and that's saying something.
Pay more? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No CarrierIQ? (Score:5, Funny)
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Or just load CyanogenMod on any of the numerous devices they support. No more CIQ.
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Yes but the will still support the usage of CarrierIQ.
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If you go to a Ford dealership and buy a Fiesta, do you think Ford care if you strip the seats out and replace them with a bench? Nope, you still love Ford, and all the stuff Ford gave you.
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Despite the "funny" mod, I'm totally serious. If openmoko isn't an option I'll be buying a non-subsidized android phone from a manufacturer that doesn't install carrierIQ. I'm happy that my iPhone seems to be okay, but I know Apple will abuse it eventually.
Agreed, although I do take issue with the concept of having to pay more to not have a keylogger on my phone.
If privacy is contingent on paying a premium, than only the wealthy will have any privacy.
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I do take issue with the concept of having to pay more to not have a keylogger on my phone.
It makes sense to me that company might offer a cheaper-but-spyware-riddled version of a phone. It's not much different from adware, which is often free or cheaper than other software of its type. Whether you cast it as "paying a premium for privacy" or "getting a discount for giving up privacy", it's the same idea as long as the company is upfront about the spyware (if they aren't, then they're just crooks).
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It makes sense to me that company might offer a cheaper-but-spyware-riddled version of a phone.
So, using that same reasoning, you believe it's perfectly acceptable for a landlord to install cameras and microphones in apartments, as long as their upfront about it when you sign the rental agreement? Really? Of course, this can be avoided by owning your own home... oh, wait - most "homeowners" are actually indebted to banks, so again using your 'logic' the banks should be allowed to monitor you inside your home until you pay the loan off.
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It's called reality TV
So, using that same reasoning, you believe it's perfectly acceptable for a landlord to install cameras and microphones in apartments, as long as their upfront about it when you sign the rental agreement? Really?
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Pick up one of the pure-google phones. My Nexus S doesn't have it on there.
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"Golden Delicious" phones? (Score:2)
open radio? (Score:2)
is the radio firmware still open?
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So, no reason to buy this one, either, then.
If the radio firmware isn't open then you still can't trust the device. Totally. Fucking. Worthless.
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I can also trust that it won't be able to record samples from the microphone when I am not making a call.
You can, but that doesn't mean you should. If there is a vulnerability in the phone side, the radio may be used against you.
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It's not about being that paranoid, it's about it not being an open phone. You can already run your own programs on any smartphone, and some of them already run Linux, so these phones would only have a reason to exist if they were actually open. Since they aren't (they're only half-open) they have no reason to exist, as I previously said.
I don't want to resolder my microphone (Score:2)
The problem is that it has to be something that I can let other people use, I had a hard time communicating with my friends who used FreeRunner before things got as stable as they are now.
maybe (Score:1)
But does it make phonecalls? (Score:1)
>Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
Yes. If I had the extra money, I'd get one even if it couldn't make phone calls or hold a charge for half a day. Just for the potential of it being able to actually reasonably be used as a phone. If it couldn't reach that, I'd find some other use for it, as it still would be a pocket sized debian box with a built-in screen.
When the first(or second?) one came, I wanted one, but also needed a working phone, so I got the less cool and free n900
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Re:But does it make phonecalls? (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
I really liked the Maemo OS. It was very open, and worked like a normal Linux system. Android looks very unappealing in the way it replaces pretty much all of the base system and requires coding specifically for it.
So I'd be quite willing to support a project along these lines, so long a few minimum requirements are fulfilled:
1. It's usable. Not necessarily 100% polished, but at a minimum boots up, charges, and makes and receives phone calls, with acceptable performance and no random crashes.
I considered getting a Freerunner back when it was new, but it I needed it to work as a phone, and the state at the time seemed to involve things like the inability to charge the battery if it was ever fully discharged.
2. It works like a normal Linux system. I want something like the N900, where I can compile, debug and run programs just like on my own box.
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
N900 is weak as a phone but outstanding as a micro-laptop. You need to bash some parts into sanity (like, keybindings that work with shift-Fn [angband.pl] without a pull-down list of symbols), but you get an actual usable Unix system, rather than just a phone with fart apps like iPhone or Android are.
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why not just contribute to Meego / Mer / Tizen / whatever the hell it's called today? Yes it's niche and probably doomed, but then hey, so is Openmoko. And Meego/Mer/Tizen/MaryPoppins is somewhat more developed.
Or, heck, keep using your N900. It appears to be about as powerful as this 'new' Freerunner hardware...
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I'm considering that, yes. I've been actually trying to figure out if there's anything to contribute to, as in my understanding Meego was a corporate driven project, and I'm not sure if I have it in me to fork an entire distribution.
Sure, I still have the N900. I'd say the largest problem with it is RAM, it's really got the bare minimum for what it does. I got a N9 recently and things are much smoother. And also a lot more locked down, which is providing some motivation for trying to find something else N90
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That's what Mer is for. It is a fork of MeeGo that intends to retain compatibility with MeeGo and eventually Tizen. As for something truly usable, Nemo and Cordia HD are based upon Mer and provide UIs of their own (as Mer does not supply one.) Beyond that, making changes to the base packages and getting them pushed upstream is one of the benefits of truly being FOSS based.
If you want to talk to people about it, there are mailing lists and IRC ch
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Awesome, thanks a lot. You just saved me some time :-)
Now that my N900 isn't my main phone anymore I can experiment with it a lot more, s
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N9 sucks. Gorgeous hardware for an iPhone-like concept (except the AMOLED is pentile), but no keyboard, and it comes with Aegis, a bloody steward as it were, left behind to enforce the true owner's (i.e. Nokia's) wishes in their absence. No chroot for you!
N950 has keyboard, and as a "developer's device" permits you to disable Aegis completely, but they won't sell the damned thing...
I'd recommend an N900 over N9 for any N810 fan at this point, even if it were the same price.
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N950 has keyboard, and as a "developer's device" permits you to disable Aegis completely
The *exact* method that worked on N950, reportedly worked (by design) on N9.
Aegis does have some value. I don't think N900 was ready for a mainstream audience, there would have been rootkit apps all over. Aegis goes some way to protecting users from malicious apps.
Re:Maybe (Score:5, Informative)
You don't know what you are talking about. :) You can't go more open than that...
I have been a very happy N900 user for 2 years now, I have always wanted to have a linux machine always with me, especially with a free phone!
However, the "phone" experience was not that great. The resistive screen did not help in that respect, while I did prefer it over capacitive screens for other uses (browsing, editing etc), but in general the problem was that the device felt generally unpolished. Under command line everything works great (although they should have put a pipe by default on the hardware keyboard), but give it to a UI user and you can see some frustration. Even Nokia Maps came in an antiquated version.
So, I waited for the N950. Well, tough luck, they won't sell it to me.
Plan B, a month ago I bought the N9.
Well, I was very excited when I first got my N900. With the N9 I was ecstatic and my wife was too! The UI experience is amazing, definately better than android and even iOS! I had never seen my wife be amazed by a phone before - she says that next to the iphone the N9 looks like it came from 2050. Hard to explain but the curved shape of the device makes it very satisfying to swipe from the edge of the screen, which are the simple gestures to control apps (minimize, close). Also, a linux machine with 1G RAM proves really fast and helps the whole experience.
Now, on the actual reply to the parent, even with firmware 1.0 (my Denmark N9 still does not have the update) you simply go to settings and enable developer mode. Voila, the terminal appears, you launch it and type "devel-su". Password "rootme"
I do miss my hardware keyboard, I will have to do something about that, but for the first time in 2 years I have a device that is great as a phone and as a gps navigator (offline turn by turn). The first week I got it, I went out of the country for the first time without a laptop. I had my emails, access to my servers, could skype-call my contacts back home, plus with a $3 cable I hooked it up to the hotel room's 50-inch and watched the H264 encoded movies I brought with me.
Apart from the keyboard (can't currently play Civilization I under dosbox like on the N900) I also miss the browser of the N900, it was much closer to a desktop browser (complete with flash), but I hope fennec or opera will cover that void.
Sorry for the long post, when a simple "you can switch to developer mode in settings" would suffice, but after a month of ownership I am still a very excited N9 owner.
And sad at the same time. They are burying the device, since its success would mean the new Nokia CEO's windows-only strategy is BS (which it is), so they are selling it in very limited markets at a quite high price. When the N900 was the phone for the Geeks, the N9/N950 could be the phone for everyone including Geeks and Maemo/MeeGo would give us so much more than the walled garden of iOS or the java on steroids mess that is android.
Re:Maybe (Score:4, Informative)
As a phone, it's very good. The performance is perfect, everything is smooth and works well. There are a few things lacking in a few places, like the lack of ability to create a Jabber account from the GUI, though it can be done from the commandline. Things like that seem to be because the release was somewhat rushed.
For commandline stuff, the on-screen keyboard isn't very good. If you're going to type a lot, get a N900. The N9 currently seems to lack bluetooth keyboard support for some reason, though it seems trivial to add if you flash the kernel (see below on that)
The N900 is rather slow in comparison to the N9, but if you want a pocket sized Linux box, it's exactly the thing to get. It also has more applications available. For instance OpenVPN isn't yet on the N9. Also, there's none of the aegis stuff I describe below on it, so you're quite free to do whatever you want.
Regarding root access: the anon misses a few things. Yes, it's easy to get root (enable develper mode, ssh in as developer@, devel-su, "rootme"). However, you don't really get root access that way.
There's this thing called "aegis", which is a combination of an permissions system, integrity checker, and encryption.
The permissions system means that even as root, you can't do some things like loading modules.
The integrity checker means that if you manage to bypass the security and change one of the protected binaries, the phone will notice and brick itself. It's fixable by reflashing, though.
The encryption part means that some applications have encrypted data stores. You can flash the phone with a custom kernel where aegis is disabled, however the bootloader will notice it's not official. As a result the keys it uses will change (or are not available at all, I'm not sure about the specifics yet), and the encrypted data stores become unreadable. This gets you real root on the device, with loading modules and all, but it seems you will lose a good part of the official applications. In my understanding this is not all that critical, and if one was determined enough, the missing functionality could be replaced.
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as in my understanding Meego was a corporate driven project, and I'm not sure if I have it in me to fork an entire distribution.
Then don't fork the entire distribution, but just port some of the useful apps to Debian (like something useful to actually make phone calls for example...). That would be very valuable work!
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why not just contribute to Meego / Mer / Tizen / whatever the hell it's called today?
Because it makes no sense to contribute to such project, when we got a solid base in Debian. Contributing nice phone apps in Debian will for sure make it to the device sooner or later. Contributing to Tizen, then you might see the full of the OS simply die for whatever reason not under your control.
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Indeed. You would think that by now people wanting to work on these things would learn the lesson and tie yourself closer to a parent distro like Debian which has some kind of longevity. ...it's why I'm not really interested in the "new" Mer. Throws away far too much of Debian when IMHO I think it should be working to tie itself closer to it and undoing some of the unnecessary changes that Nokia made in Maemo. ...but it all got tainted by the pointless Meego fiasco, which is a shame. Divide and conquer is t
Most people will NEVER want this... (Score:2)
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Great, thank you for stating the obvious. Do you have some overreaching point, or are you just here to beat people over the head with your wisdom?
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So THAT'S why I didn't feel anything... At all.
Re:Most people will NEVER want this... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are guilty of preptuating one of the more annoyingly persistent memes on slashdot that one must have an insanely huge market to be a success. Plenty of people make a good living shipping modest volumes of a niche product.
If they're under the delusion that it matters, they're out of touch with reality.
I think you're under the delusion that you are able to offer sound business advice.
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When one of these delusional "open source hardware" projects finally turns a profit
Is turning a profit their goal now? I thought it was to produce a community-developed open source phone that placed the owners in complete control of their device. Maybe I missed the announcement.
and matters, then we'll talk.
Matters to whom? To its contributors and users? I think it matters to them already. To everyone in the world? I don't think any phone does that.
GTA4 on phone! (Score:2)
How much???? (Score:1)
At 666 Euros they can keep it too.
New Screen (Score:4, Interesting)
If they are not replacing the screen, just the board, then I think they are wasting their time. Based on how awkward the FreeRunner [amazon.com] is with regards to the shape and size of the screen (480x640), they will never be able to compete with any recent Android or iPhone model.
Since they stated it will be using the same case, they are really limiting how much they can do for the FreeRunner.
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we need more touchscreen friendly FOSS apps (Score:2)
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Lous hardware specs (Score:2)
Re:Lousy hardware specs (Score:2)
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I don't think 200MHz make that much of a difference. The main downside to the N900 in my experience is that it only has 256MB RAM, and needs every drop of it. It also uses a swap partition.
If it had say, 512MB it'd probably work much better. That can be seen on the N9, which is silky smooth and has 1GB RAM, most of which seems to go on simply keeping the base system preloaded to make the basic apps start faster.
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I don't think 200MHz make that much of a difference. The main downside to the N900 in my experience is that it only has 256MB RAM, and needs every drop of it. It also uses a swap partition.
That too
it's called the n900 (Score:5, Interesting)
On top of running debian and being fully open source (well, maybe not the hardware and all the firmware) it seemed fully functional and had great hardware. I still preferred Android because in spite of being less open, it allowed for easier development and I found it more exciting.
It's a shame maemo (or whatever they call it these days) is not going to take off, because it actually looked pretty good, had very good performance, and was very hacker-friendly. Really sad :(
OpenMoko has the flaw (and benefit) of being fully open source to the hardware. Thing is, if they are not going to produce millions, cost is going to be very high. Maybe if they focused on porting maemo and did sell millions.. but I'm not sure millions of people would see the benefit of running open source hardware, for the same reason most don't care if the software is free or proprietary. I think nokia with the n900 and Android with the nexus phones have done a great job of providing a nice trade-off between openness, usability, and popularity (who would have thought the year of the linux smartphone was so nigh! ;) )
You've got to be kidding? (Score:1)
"The German company Golden Delicous is building a new main board (called GTA-04)"
The next thing you know, an Indian company named Granny Smith will be building a new main board called AngryBirds-Cupertino....
Yes... (Score:2)
I'd pay extra for an open phone, provided it did two things reliably - make calls and receive calls.
I was excited by the OpenMoko project, and I am still grateful for what they have provided to the community (among other things, the Computer Aided Design models for their phone case are still the best open source CAD models I know of). I even got my hands on a Neo1973 as a physical example of (some of) those CAD files, for reference. I have never seriously considered trying to use it as my primary phone, h
Defective by Design (Score:3)
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The way I understand it, the idea is that since they're unable to obtain or write open firmware, they'll isolate it from the main CPU instead. So if the firmware has something in it that for instance monitors the user, or does something that interfers with the kernel, it's not able to do anything of the sort because it has no way to.
Free Software Baseband Please. (Score:1)
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I suspect any phone with a "free" baseband would likely be illegal in the US due to the FCC rules that govern the use of the cellular frequency bands.
Already exists... (Score:1)
The Nokia N9 runs debian already and it's a damn fine piece of hardware :)
Plus, getting SSH root is as simple as checking "developer mode" in the settings pane... (The password is 'rootme'.)
No, (Score:1)
I would pay extra (Score:2)
Would you pay extra for a phone that comes with a Debian build?
I would pay extra for any phone that allows to run wireshark on the GSM or 3G stack.
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Re:They already paid extra for that sort of phone (Score:4, Interesting)
So I wouldn't pay more for a phone that comes with Debian (since I already own one), unless it is ALSO a decent phone, which might be the issue here with the FreeRunner too.
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