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?
FreeRunner (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But does it make phonecalls? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
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.