Librem 5 dev kits are shipping
puri.smEvery time Purism is mentioned on HN there are always people chiming in with negativity around how it's not open or secure or free enough, based on some unachievable metric of those things and with an side dose of utopian fantasizing.
Buy one of these phones because you
- Want a 'free' phone to exist in the future
- Want an open source phone to exist in the future
- Want a secure phone to exist in the future
It may not be up to your standards now, but without your support (money) it will never exist.
If you have the money to spend, then spend it. Consider it a donation to the cause.
Fully agree - there has been a lot of talk about an erosion of privacy, ads and consolidation in the tech sector. Viable alternatives will not emerge unless we fund them with individual purchasing decisions. We must remember that we are the invisible hand of Adam :) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand]
Disclaimer: Views expressed are my own and do not have anything to do with my employer.
"Buy one of these phones because its a stepping stone to what you really want."
Part of the backlash against purism is that they market themselves as a fully libre platform when they are not. Many viewed that as trying to cash in on the desire for a truly libre laptop.
From their website
> Purism’s Librem products are the only modern high-end devices where you are in control and have complete visibility into the operating system, all bundled software, and the deeper levels of your computer.
Emphases added. This is false, or at best misleading. You don't have complete visibility into the Intel Management Engine. Only after their initial release have they managed to strip the ME down to a fraction of its original size, but its still there doing who knows what.
Purism started during a time when concerns behind management engines were gaining a lot of traction. They capitalized on those fears by marketing a laptop with "complete visibility" without actually delivering on that.
They are a step in the right direction, but they don't market themselves as that. It makes things harder for people like Raptor Computer Systems who actually deliver "completely visible" machines as from the marketing its easy to assume that their products are equally free/libre, so why pay extra for the Raptor products?
> If you have the money to spend, then spend it. Consider it a donation to the cause.
If you have money to spend, spend it on a Raptor machine that is _actually_ completely visible, or donate it to a reverse engineer working on libre drivers, or a hardware engineer working on libre designs.
I'm impressed and very much respectful of what the Purism folks are trying to achieve but I just don't think their business plan is viable as it is. As such I really don't really believe that getting a few geeks on HN to support the project will really make much of a difference. They need a much broader market share if they want to have a chance to survive in the long term and I don't see how they can get it. As it stands the only people who will consider buying this are principled FLOSS folks with a lot of disposable income. I doubt that's enough. It's not just about building the phone (which is already very difficult), it's also about maintaining the software and app ecosystem in the long term.
Windows Phones and countless other smartphone environments floundered over the years even though they were backed by behemoths. What chances does Purism have?
So while I have absolutely no hostility towards the project I just don't think it's worth donating money to what I consider to be a lost cause. I'd rather donate money to other Open Source projects who I think will make better use of it.
I would be very glad to be proven wrong however, the current smartphone ecosystem is an absolute nightmare if you value privacy and having control on your hardware. If it turns out that the Librem 5 is not dead on arrival like I presume it will be (assuming that it even manages to arrive in the first place) I'll definitely consider buying one.
The difference could be : a phone that you're not supposed to throw away after two years. Something that would be maintained over the long run. Lots of people would buy a phone that can last 5-7 years. I am one of them. My mother is one of them. My father too. Not everybody is fond enough of phones or tech to want to change often. If it runs apps and has a good camera, it's fine. A phone that lasts 5-7 years would also be good for the planet, and that's a bigger market share than FLOSS enthusiasts.
I agree with you on all counts but in order for the phone to be supported for a long time (both by Purism and by third parties) it needs to be reasonably successful. Otherwise nobody is going to even remember it existed two years from now, much less port and maintain apps for it.
That's my main problem really, I have Spotify, WhatsApp and a couple other closed-source applications on my smartphone that I need in order for said phone to be useful. If there are no ports or alternatives maintained on the Librem I'd just be buying a very expensive paperweight. And I don't think I'm a heavy app user compared to most of my friends who often have a couple social network apps, games etc...
Sibling comments mention that MS could probably make a profitable phone but they don't have the same objectives and I say that it's irrelevant. The problem is third parties and app supports. I need my phone to do more than calling and texting these days, I need decent driving directions, a multimedia player (ideally something that interfaces with Spotify, but I know that's asking for a lot), a chat application that can connect to WhatsApp (I won't convince all of my contacts to switch to Signal, Jabber or IRC) etc...
I need that stuff to be maintained and updated for at least a few years. And ideally after that I'd like to know that I can count on a Librem n+1 being available so that I won't have to change ecosystem once again.
I've bought a few open source/homebrew systems over the years, mainly handheld consoles to run emulators. It works but the software is often rather lackluster and very amateur looking. It's also generally maintained for a little while then the contributors move on to something else. It's fine for a toy emulator console, not so much for a smartphone.
The hardware is not the issue, the ecosystem is.
The ubports team developed something called halium to address this: its more or less an android emulator that has apparently been working for a couple of years now in testing at least. Its in the purism future goals to add this iirc.
That's sort of the issue the OpenMoko faced. It was designed to be a device with long-lasting support - but support died quickly because so few people had one.
TBH community distros were pretty long lived (and let's be honest, those were the only ones that mattered). At least SHR was actively maintained to around 2012, with last generated image being from April 2013, and I seem to remember QtMoko being maintained even tad longer. IMO that wasn't bad for a device released in 2008, especially for today's standards.
Until they can say "Mainline Linux kernel can run on the device without modifications", I don't believe them about the "don't throw away after a few years"-aspect.
Isn't that the intent?
Everyone that I know has phones that can last 5-7 years, basically they only get replaced when they die or get stolen.
Most non-technical users don't care about updates, their care about their low prices for pre-paid phones and the respective monthly expenses.
Maybe being a little bit too cynic, but markets need consumers to 'renew' their products. Otherwise, how can you have never ending growth and capitalist wealth. It's all tied together, pre-planned obsolescence comes with our current economic system. I would gladly discuss this opinion with any sensible arguments and nuances.
> . It's not just about building the phone (which is already very difficult), it's also about maintaining the software and app ecosystem in the long term.
I doubt the Purism folks are unaware of this, but I think this running a standard GNU/Linux stack as opposed to what Ubuntu Touch/Firefox OS were doing, gives it at least a shot.
I'd say it's a misguided comparison since Microsoft and Librem have very different goals.
I'm sure Microsoft would've no problem making profitable phones, but if their goal is to obtain as many users as possible, as fast as possible, by spending millions upon millions on marketing and other endeavors then it becomes a lot more difficult.
backed by behemoths with motives other than simply make a good phone.
You are right. Although I think that most are just lurking around even when positive. There is not much to be said if you just like the project. But people can always complain.
I like the project with some minor reservations, but there is not much to discuss at this point. I'm not gonna cheerlead. My biggest regret is price and size. I'm waiting for more information on Necuno Mobile [0] as I believe it will be in my price range, however with worse hardware. But they both can share software and that's great.
As for Purism I will wait for when it's cheaper or I will have more money to spend. I would buy one if it would be in a notebook or netbook form though. That's also what I'm hoping for - an iMX8M laptop.
Thanks for introducing Necuno, I hadn't heard about it. Apparently [0] it's been mentioned here a few times, but never got more than one comment. At the moment they don't have a lot of info, other than some of the hardware used and that it's a linux kernel. Looking forward to hearing more.
There are various Chromebooks that you can put standard Linux on.
I've got an Acer R11 which I put GalliumOS on (definitely use 2.1 / 2.2, 3.0 has issues). If you really want ARM, there are options there, though I'm not sure about regular Linux support on those.
The R11 is small and handy, with a decent keyboard. Battery life isn't quite as good as with ChromeOS, but still sufficient.
> an iMX8M laptop
8M is really weak. That would be pretty much a Pinebook with Vivante graphics.
The i.MX 8 QuadMax at least has two A72 cores, similar to Rockchip RK3399.
Have Purism explained their processor choice anywhere? It would have been nice to have used the i.MX 8 QuadMax - it would have given a little more hope for the phone lasting.
I'd guess that power consumption characteristics of those two i.MX8 variants are different enough to explain that choice.
Well, the mainstream phones have much more powerful processors than Cortex-A53, they just power manage them well…
I wouldn't expect a SoC that's not even targeted for mobiles to "power manage them well". Mainstream phones are completely irrelevant there.
Oh, I didn't know. Nevertheless a Pinebook with Vivante graphics at up to $250 would be pretty nice. If there is a better SoC with as good mainline support, all the better.
Totally agree. I don’t feel like I can pay for a phone right now but I’m already working on an app for it.
Also donating some time and money to postmarketOS and ubports(the community continuation of the ubuntu phone) because I really want any or all of these to be successful.
Your comment inspired me to preorder one. So I just did. Thanks!
Agreed! As soon as I can afford one, I am buying two :-P. I sure wish that I new about the dev kit when it was still available to order :-(
Agreed, I'm not sure how you reconcile advocating open soft/hardware with not pushing it along as people try to make it viable.
I agree with these points, but the device also needs to offer a good experience (like responsiveness, speed, camera/photo/video quality) and a starter set of apps. The former is where Firefox OS went wrong (IMO) by going low end and having a terrible experience. The latter seems to be an issue with the Librem phone since it comes with very few apps that most people generally use. I seriously wish this project the best, because we need good alternatives for people outside the two main smartphone OSes. But I personally cannot use this phone as my only device at this point.
Realistically the only way I can think of to have a purely open source phone, is to not implement it as a mobile phone at all. You can do voice and interface to the pstn with a purely open source asterisk and sip softphone software combination. If you're a super gpl zealot, do it on one of the few thinkpads that can have its bios flashed with a open source version.
Sorry it's not very portable, beyond whatever subnotebook sized x86-64 system you can run it on. Where your phone calls meet ss7 and the pstn is still going to be totally closed source and opaque to you.
Indeed. The first step is commoditizing and genericizing mobile hardware, like what happened to the PC market in the 80s. Purism is taking a big leap at this, and I definitely want to encourage that.
Is it possible to buy one of those phones? As in I pay and get a physical thing for the money in a couple of days?
I ask because I wanted to buy a Firefox OS phone and it was impossible. There were preorders and non-official compatible terminals, but the official, all hardware working, reasonably featured ones were impossible to get.
Not yet. These are just the development kits.
Apparently the phone is due in Q2 2019, though I find that unlikely.
I do have one of their laptops. I paid and got it a week later, so they have shipped things.
Spend it, preorder one.
It most likely will never make it to production. At this point in time, if the creators were being honest, they would either have announced an OEM sign up, or have announced that it has already been delayed beyond Spring 2019.
As much as I like donations to causes, donations to doomed causes who aren't honest about the probability they'll ever come close to a reality are useless.
They advertise lifetime updates for a product they don't even have a supply chain lined up? Really? And the money spent will serve to (according to them) support the development process? So who will actually pay for the phones ordered?
Wishful thinking is nice, but it is nothing beyond wishful.
regarding date and supply chain uncertainty i would tend to agree.
in this case however, they do sell laptops. so, they aren’t completely incapable of supply chain.
depending on if the laptop is really an in-house design, or not, they may be certainly going from a very basic to an extremely sophisticated supply chain.
or it could be that it’s not an in-house design fully and someone else is doing the supply chain and general design of the hardware.
the date is extremely optimistic or the handset hardware is much farther along than is obvious from the content on the site.
having said that i am a backer and can’t wait. vote with your dollar i suppose.
Anybody is capable of supply chain. I can fly into Shenzhen, shop around for ODMs and in a day have an order for a custom designed phone based on an ODMs white label model, with my logo, brand name, app preloads, etc.
Anyone can do it, because it can all be outsourced. But they don't talk about any of it.
Not only that, but they say that the cash from preorders will be used for development, which raises the question: who will pay for the actual devices of those who pre-ordered?
Give it another year or so and they'll inevitably fold, not returning any money to those who pre-ordered and posting a cute, self-pitting story about all the challenges they faces on such a honorable mission.
Just like everyone before.
Have you tried to order a laptop? I did... After 2 months of waiting I cancelled my order and it took another month to get refunded.
Has anyone who pre-ordered the cancelled Librem 11 from Purism got their refund?
I put money down more than a year ago. They didn't meet their MoQ, and so offered refunds or applying it to another product. I chose a refund almost two months ago, and I still have not received it despite many follow ups and shifting deadlines.
I'm concerned that Purism may be having cash flow issues?
FWIW I cancelled a preorder (not the 11, the 15) and I got a full refund very quickly.
This is the concerning part for me and is why I have been holding off on this purchase (for reference, I check their website/twitter/mastodon for news/updates every second day or so).
The price rise, while making sense, also says to me that they're trying to gain access to more funds now rather than in the future.
This was my exact experience with their laptops. All of them.
Great that there is a company that wants to do this. Not great that they have 0 transparency around refunds and supplychain.
Is there any document where they describe how their focus on security shapes pureOS? I'm seeing stuff like bundling some add-ons for the browser, and kernel patches.
In my mind, securing users in 2018 means to have a decent password manager with an up-to-date browser, make sure that apps are sandboxed and prohibit the browser from accessing all my user's files. Do they tackle this?
Edit: Sorry, I realized you were only asking about the OS after making this post. Feel free to ignore.
I think it looks like an interesting project and will buy one. I especially like the hardware kill switches.
>Here are some benefits and key differentiators of the Librem 5, the world’s first ever IP-native mobile handset and the only user-respecting mobile phone product offering on the market:
- Privacy protection by default, instead your profile and data being products sold to the highest bidder.
- Does not use Android or iOS. The Librem 5 comes with the mobile version of our FSF-endorsed operating system PureOS by default, and is expected to be able to run most GNU+Linux distributions.
- CPU separate from baseband, isolating the blackbox that the modem may represent and allowing us to seek hardware certification of the main board by the Free Software Foundation.
- Hardware Kill Switches for camera, microphone, WiFi/Bluetooth, and baseband.
- End-to-end encrypted decentralized communications via Matrix over the Internet.
-We also intend the Librem 5 to integrate with the Librem Key security token in the future.
Also see here: https://forums.puri.sm/t/librem-5-final-decision-about-kill-...
No worries, it's part of the whole story. I don't particularly see the point of kill switches when you trust the software.
I acknowledge the efforts in hardware integration they do. I'd love to see the Linux desktop being upgraded to Android's standards.
> I don't particularly see the point of kill switches when you trust the software.
In my view it's two things: 1. It's defense in depth. No one person will ever be able to review every single line of code running their device, but anyone can crack open the case (and/or check the open schematics) and verify that flicking the switch kills the microphone. And 2. The baseband still has proprietary code running it that you can't verify so the only reasonable thing you can do to it is power it down.
I'm excited for kill switches, mostly the baseband one. Cell providers sell real time location data. I will be happy knowing that my phone is doing no communication when I want it to.
I don't see any MAC mentioned, that's a bit sad.
Would be interested in some links to SDKs and/or style guides. As a developer, how do I get started writing my app to target the Librem 5?
Went through the website and many forums but haven't found any definitive.
> how do I get started writing my app to target the Librem 5?
For commandline applications all you need is to develop for GNU/Linux. It should work pretty fine on Librem 5 too. If you want to develop GUI applications see libhandy[0], a GTK+ widget library developed by Purism for Librem 5.
If you need to, you can get motivations from https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Design/app-mockups and HIG guide for GNOME is available at https://developer.gnome.org/hig/stable/
Btw, I wonder : I intend to use KDE on librem 5 (at least eventually, if it's not ready on phone release). Do you know if mixing GTK and QT apps on the system will be as easy as on desktop?
I just went through their SDK docs.
https://developer.puri.sm/Librem5/Apps/index.html
Looking at their guides, the app APIs usability is a joke from Android point of view, even Tizen has better docs.
https://developer.tizen.org/development/api-references/nativ...
Best of luck I guess.
a.) This is all very much WIP.
b.) As long as you develop a standard GTK app for Linux, it should be easy to adopt it for Librem 5.
c.) Are you seriously comparing their WIP docs to someone who has put billions of dollars and over a decade into their platform and has a JetBrains powered IDE?
a.) Fine, but they are runner ups on an well established market.
b.) What is the standard GTK way to access Linux desktop services like address book, NFC or Bluethooth LE?
c.) Yes I am, because that is what the large majority apps developers will be expecting to even loose a day of their income playing around with it.
I don't forget the corpses of OpenMoko, Maemo, Moblin , FirefoxOS. Even Jolla, Tizen and webOS aren't something that have managed to move the needle, in spite of the amount of money that has been wasted on them to this day.
So yeah, I am sceptical that it won't be yet another attempt joining them in a couple of years.
a.) Yes, which is why they're targeting enthusiasts first.
b.) When I am talking GTK, I mean GNOME here, as that's what the Librem 5 will run out of the box. There's all the APIs GNOME exposes for your dev pleasure + any other that you can utilize on standard desktop Linux, including bluetooth, contacts etc. [1] [2] [3].
c.) The majority of devs that are on iOS and Android, sure. but since there's plenty of Linux desktop applications already, I suspect the initial set of apps would be these, optimally ac customized to a mobile screen.
That'll give them a functional edge from their Android/iOS equivalents pretty much from the get go. which is also the major advantage of this effort compared to Ubuntu Touch/Firefox OS - the fact that if you're on Linux. you're already on the Librem 5.
d.) This is very much ideology-driven at this point. It is very important for efforts like this to exist. It probably won't ever be as big as Android/iOS, but it's important to do for the smartphone what Stallman set out to do in the 80s for computers. And few believed in him then. I don't see how "being skeptical" is furthering any cause.
I believe in a free, open-source, privacy-focused smartphone, in the post-Snowden age and an age where war on general-purpose computing is heating up. If this ships, even in less than ideal state, I'd welcome it with open arms. I realize that others may not be so inclined, but there must be people who push the boundaries in order to preserve free computing. I count myself among them.
1 - https://developer.gnome.org/references
Is GTK intended to be the programming environment aimed at typical developers? Writing object oriented code using lots of boilerplate C macros seems quite a bit more tedious than using a language designed for object oriented programming from the ground-up. At the very least will GTKmm be a first-class citizen?
> Writing object oriented code using lots of boilerplate C macros seems quite a bit more tedious ...
If you are not aware, recently (since GLib 2.44), the boilerplate code required in C is a lot less than it was required before. Say for example see app.c and app.h files at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/tree/master/examples/appl...
There are GTK bindings for Python, JavaScript, Rust etc. It does not have to be C.
In fact it could be Qt too, that'll run perfectly fine too, if GTK isn't your thing.
The phone runs PureOS, which is a Linux distro using the Gnome desktop environment. They're developing their own shell, called "phosh", that they plan to push upstream back to Gnome.
Here is a resource directly from them:
Maybe I missed it, but it doesn't seem to cover setting up a cross toolchain and rebuild everything from source.
One thing about this is that it's nothing special/custom. You can use your regular GNU/Linux knowledge and the internet. It's all standard GNU/Linux userland.
There's plenty of information and tools on the internet for doing what you're after. You don't need one true way of doing this from Librem.
I don't like complexity so I have just a bunch of simple scripts for this. But it's also possible to use buildroot, crosstool-ng, Arch Linux ARM mixed system building, where you drive the build from the target device, but compile object files remotely on x86_64 using a cross-compiler, etc., etc.
Any app that work with GNU/Linux also work for the purism phone. KDE is working on an interesting convergent framework kirigami: https://www.kde.org/products/kirigami/.
I have one of these on the way.
The main surprise for me is they're shipping it without the lcd panel working.
They can control the backlight. But no video.
Now I'm participating in the gamble that can be made to function without rework, I'd at least like complete details, not "we are talking to the panel vendor".
That's why the support channels were setup. Also, there still isn't a lot of details to share in the first place. The problem comes down to sending the initalization codes to the panel, which for some reason is not working. The conversations continues. Now you're as up to date as the rest of the librem 5 team.
I didn't want to drop into overly technical detail as not everyone wants that. You are of course welcome to participate in the community forum that was setup to chat about the state of the dev kit.
One of the unusual and desirable things about this is your customers for the dev board will largely be very experienced... you acknowledge it in the letter you sent out.
What surprised me is until it's fixed, there's no certainty what the problem is. Eg, dsi lanes mixed up, polarity of dsi lane wired wrong, some semidocumented reset signal on the panel got forced to 0V or forced inactive but panel requires it strobed, psu to panel must come up in specific order, psu level or quality or wiring mismatch... there are many possible ways just from having no video it can be a hw rework issue to solve it. Of course dsi is also complex, it can easy be a sw-only config issue, or some combination.
It's not up to me as your paying customer to go ask on a 'support channel' why, it's up to you to explain the reasoning why you believe that's a software-only issue.
According to the status matrix, there's also no I2S from the BT/WWAN, meaning no audio from the modem and bluetooth. (probably meaning it's untested, or the driver/DT is missing)
The modem audio is not sent over i2s with the SIMCom SIM7100, it is going over a USB connection as raw PCM and is managed by haegtesse. https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/haegtesse
Interesting. Perhaps I can investigate if USB audio is possible with a USB connected 3G module I'm using in a tablet, too. That would certainly simplify some things.
Thank you very much for a lead!
Hmm, that's ballsy. Not a good sign that they are making such risky moves, so soon in the project.
But hardware is never easy. Lets hope it works out.
They're still aiming for a first release of the phones in Spring 2019 (this is from the newsletter, not the blog post)
For anyone not in $DEFAULT hemisphere, I'm assuming this means Q2/March-ish 2019.
April as a target month was declared 2 or 3 months ago.
I really hope they succeed. Do you know what the specs of the phone are?
I don't think they've announced final specs.
But it will have a i.MX 8M SOC [1] and more than 2GB of ram [2].
The dev kit has a 720 x 1440 5.7" screen [3] (I assume this is the final screen).
[1] https://www.nxp.com/products/processors-and-microcontrollers...
[2] https://puri.sm/posts/june-1st-last-call-for-librem5-devkit/
I'm in love with the mission - but don't want to really have to switch ecosystems again (from Linux --> Apple --> PureOS). I love OSX - could I not do the same with OSX by tightening it down?
> I'm in love with the mission - but don't want to really have to switch ecosystems again (from Linux --> Apple --> PureOS).
PureOS is Debian based linux operating system.[1]
> I love OSX - could I not do the same with OSX by tightening it down?
It depends entirely on how and who you trust. If you implicitly trust Apple and that their goal now (and in the future!) and that their team can vet all the code going in to the degree that no single or small group of developers there working in tandem could get a backdoor in place in either software or hardware, then I doubt there's a better choice given Apple's ability to design their own hardware and their complete control of the software stack.
If you would rather trust in a large distributed group of people having public access to view and vet the source which is public and believe their vested interest in keeping the system is the better choice for continues security, choose an open source system wide wide use.
1: https://puri.sm/posts/what-is-pureos-and-how-is-it-built/
Does that mean its running systemd? I thought that was generally frowned upon. I don't know enough to have end opinion myself but it seems like systemd was questionable especially for this type of endeavor.
Why would systemd be frowned upon, and why would it be questionable for something like this?
To my knowledge, most of the problems people have with systemd are because it replaced an extremely old and well known and understood system generally implemented with shell scripts and replaced it with a more complex and engineered project to get speed and extra features (pre-opening pipes and re-spawning listeners on the other end when a client want something from them, etc). In an effort to provide a more seamless boot, traditionally external projects ended up being subsumed (DHCP, and DNS resolution to support robust network support on boot).
I'm not sure if it was ultimately the right decision or not, but since to my knowledge almost every major distribution has adopted it, I assume it's viewed as worthwhile by qiute a lot of people within the distribution planning community at least.
I'm not really sure how any of that relates to this project specifically, so perhaps you're referring to some other aspect of it?
The librem5 may as well be subtitled "The GNOME phone", I think it goes without saying that it will use systemd.
You are free to install any operating system on it that you like. Just like your desktop. We will probably also see 100% free android versions (like Replicant) to be released for this phone when it's out. But you could also install another GNU based Linux system of course, or just another DE.
Indeed, that's part of the value proposition for such a device.
However, it's obviously preferable to want/use what's being shipped on the device to all recipients.
In this libre-oriented space in particular, what users are likely to want as a priority is the ability to easily reproduce the bits shipped on the device from source, and be able to restore the device to a state no different than shipped from the factory using those self-reproduced bits. The freedom to run some hacked up half-baked alternative stuff they're technically free to install should they wish, is not the top priority.
A major component of the value conferred by this freedom is that those shipped, reproducible bits, contain a desirable foundation for the community to converge on and iterate from.
Telling people "you can install whatever you want" before even delivering is signaling "potentially unusable, controversial vaporware is shipping, community fragmentation ahead" to anyone paying attention.
I'm not particularly averse to systemd/GNOME, but I do fear that it's probably too immature an ecosystem for production mobile use and it's unnecessarily threatening the project's overall success.
It would have been more prudent to collaborate with the Jolla/Sailfish folks and ship basically a secure Nokia N9 successor but with an easily reproduced and flashed image, which the N9 lacked, while the GNOME community grinds away on getting their stack mobile-ready for a potential future device. I don't know if the licensing could have been hashed out to get the N9 stack fully available in reproducible form, but I'm inclined to assume that if there were components legally obstructed from such distribution, it probably was less work to reimplement them than build all the components needed for a GNOME phone.
my phone has been running systemd since 2013 and it's fine - if anything, much easier to tinker with than android's mess of boot scripts
What are you using?
Not the parent, but the Jolla 1 with Sailfish came out in 2013 with systemd and wayland. I have been using it since 2014.
Jolla here too
> The really tricky problem is when a package must modify an existing shared resource. Such as appending lines to an existing config for example.
A big part of Librem 5's mission is to be secure and private, but perhaps even bigger part is to be FLOSS and hackable, so one could use any host and any stack to develop pretty much anything they could on a standard GNU/Linux distro.
Locking down iOS/macOS may improve security, but doesn't give you access to the source code, does not protect you from Apple and does not free you from the limitations they've put on you as a developer, or going via their-own distribution channels for that matter and having complete control over your future if you're an iOS developer.
So it all depends on why you're exited about the Librem5, but if openness, FLOSS, hackability are any part of it, then locking down Apple hardware wouldn't do it.
Great reply - thank you.
You aren't even root on your own device what tightening down do you imagine is possible?
macOS allows for root.
OSX on a phone?
There are librem laptops shown on the site.
Ah, the laptops are great as well though a bit outdated now with the core counts climbing.
I do have one and it works perfectly with most linux distros. I use manjaro to be specific.
Good luck buying one. Took me 2 months to cancel my order, at least another month to receive my refund.