# I want FreeBSD on a smart phone ...



## unitrunker (Aug 21, 2018)

and every app runs in a jail.

Oh, if only ...


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## Beastie7 (Aug 21, 2018)

They're always accepting patches.


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## unitrunker (Aug 21, 2018)

At least I'm not alone ...

https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/smartphone.50208/

... and this ...

https://hackaday.io/project/13145-bsd-based-secure-smartphone


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## rigoletto@ (Aug 21, 2018)

Some will come here and say: so, buy  iPhone.


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## Birdy (Aug 21, 2018)

A smart phone. Do you mean one of those STD's? 

Surveillance and Tracking Devices I mean.


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## Deleted member 48958 (Aug 21, 2018)

I want Windows to be installed on my vacuum cleaner
(blue screen of death is a good way to take a break from cleaning,
also "start menu" will finally start to make sense) ,
MenuetOS on my bed and macOS on my toilet, with that shitty iTunes crap.
But I'm afraid that one day the water will stop washing away without an update… 
Also these ads about new Apple toilet paper are pretty annoying. 






Also Windows vacuum cleaner license agreement scares me a lot,
they want to analyze, save and send to third parties all data about my dust...


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## SirDice (Aug 21, 2018)

unitrunker said:


> Oh, if only ...


Every new invention starts with a dream, or somebody pissed enough about the current state of affairs and wanting to change it


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## michael_hackson (Aug 21, 2018)

ILUXA said:


> I want Windows to be installed on my vacuum cleaner
> (blue screen of death is a good way to take a break from cleaning)
> MenuetOS on my bed and macOS on my toilet, with that shitty iTunes crap.
> But I'm afraid that one day water will stop washing away without an update…
> ...



Windows sucks, macOS is filled with shit and MenuetOS is the most tiring OS?


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## Deleted member 48958 (Aug 21, 2018)

michael_hackson said:


> MenuetOS is the most tiring OS?


No, it's just because "Menuet" means "blow job" in my native language, and such functionality is pretty good for bed.


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## michael_hackson (Aug 21, 2018)

One can try running FreeBSD on Librem 5 perhaps?


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## xavi (Aug 21, 2018)

SirDice said:


> or somebody pissed enough about the current state of affairs and wanting to change it



"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw


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## Deleted member 48958 (Aug 21, 2018)

xavi said:


> Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.


Or degradation...
Some people are very happy to degrade, BTW,
but some aren't. If there were no such people,
world would became a zoo many years ago.
Make crap, sell crap, buy crap, eat shit...
Here is few main rules of so known "modern world".
And most of people are happy with it. And it is sad IMO.
Such people have animal consciousness, so they act similarly.
And there is nothing easier, than to control some animal masses,
especially when these animals use tracking devices…
Animals, that go to the slaughter, are submissive too.


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## rigoletto@ (Aug 21, 2018)

IMHO, what "we" are missing on smartphones OSes is something truly hardened like the old special/gov versions of BlackBerry OS. I mean, a "smartphone version" of FreeBSD hardened with SPARK[1] would be a good start point! 

I mean, there is a market for this kind of solution, and they pay "top money" for them.

And the UI could be one more layer/extension of the Dæmon Desktop, Thread 66322. 

EDITED: [1] yeah, there is the lack of properly licensed Ada compiler, but there is the DRACO work going on ( and looking at it now it seems to also be a marino work ). 

EDIT: no IMSI catcher, please.


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## kpedersen (Aug 21, 2018)

FreeBSD already works great on a smart phone.

So long as the exact hardware of the smartphone is a Thinkpad .

Oh and it doesn't actually call people. But to be honest, most people use smartphones only for the internet anyway.

Oh and it is also quite heavy to hold to your ear. But to be honest, most people don't actually call using a smartphone these days anyway.

Comes with a great keyboard


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## Deleted member 55181 (Sep 4, 2018)

So buy it and create.

You need write "only" (Hardware)bootloader, screen drivers - xrandr, GPU drivers, keyboard (screen) driver, GPS. Camera, Rewrite some aps like Browser, Terminal Emulator, USB support :F, or squeeze GNOME.
Android Compatibility Layer, for aps. FreeBSD like NetBSD have ARM port.

https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/arm-development-boards-10193790262.html
https://0.allegroimg.com/s512/038689/a370ac22488dae90ea7635d3b800
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/C0gw0delnf8/maxresdefault.jpg
https://m.gadzetomania.pl/nokia-e7-with-homescreen-054c2ce,750,470,0,0.jpg


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## swirling_vortex (Sep 4, 2018)

Technically, you could make a FreeBSD "phone". You would need to get a 3g or 4g stick, connect it to something running FreeBSD and then use a softphone for making calls.

Personally, I'll just stick with my iPhone. There's a few apps I need that aren't available in stock Linux/FreeBSD and I'd rather not go back to Android.


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## puretone (Jul 30, 2019)

ILUXA said:


> Or degradation...
> Some people are very happy to degrade, BTW,



Effectively, any person who buys Apple crap.


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## malavon (Jul 30, 2019)

Funny, been working on this very idea on and off. Still haven't gotten my pcb's laid out though and schematics have been in and out of limbo for 2 years, so I wouldn't hold my breath.
Also, current design is way underpowered compared to 'real' smartphones anyway. It's basically a BBB with 1Gb of RAM.
One day I'll be able to replace my dumb phone that I've been repairing for the past 10 years now and have FreeBSD running in my pocket.


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## Datapanic (Jul 31, 2019)

ILUXA said:


> No, it's just because "Menuet" means "blow job" in my native language, and such functionality is pretty good for bed.



I was going to mention that, but you _beat_ me to it.


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## Crivens (Jul 31, 2019)

Datapanic said:


> I was going to mention that, but you _beat_ me to it.


Whatever turns your crank.


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## ronaldlees (Aug 1, 2019)

Birdy said:


> A smart phone. Do you mean one of those STD's?
> 
> Surveillance and Tracking Devices I mean.



Haven't owned one since 2009.  LOL - maybe that's why I'm not walking around in a hypnotized state all the time.  STDs indeed!


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 1, 2019)

Frankly I don't suffer smart phones lightly. I'm still waiting for a smart smart phone.

OK, I have to admit that there is a _slight_ chance that it's actually me that's stupid. I spent 15 minutes trying to find SMS on our phone. It turns out that one has to look for an orange triangle. Presumably anybody of average intelligence would know that.


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## CraigHB (Aug 1, 2019)

I'm still using a basic phone, but my time is short.  When my provider obsoletes 3G I probably will not be able to buy a basic phone that works on their network pushing me into a "smart" phone and doubling my bill.  Even if that weren't the case, it's getting harder and harder to find basic phones.  I imagine they're on the endangered list about now.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 1, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> doubling my bill.


Cell service is already way overpriced. Here in Canada it is through the roof. I currently pay $25 per month for unlimited calls (within Canada only!) which is a pure ripoff. I can get a better and more sophisticated phone for 1/10 of that, just not cellular. In my case I need the phone for my wife's hospital stays, otherwise it wouldn't be worth such a huge amount of money.


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## aragats (Aug 1, 2019)

ILUXA said:


> No, it's just because "Menuet" means "blow job" in my native language





Datapanic said:


> I was going to mention that, but you _beat_ me to it.





Crivens said:


> Whatever turns your crank.


I agree with Crivens !
The word sounds kind of similar, but has completely different spelling, the OS name comes from Menuet.


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## aragats (Aug 1, 2019)

OJ said:


> I currently pay $25 per month for unlimited calls (within Canada only!) which is a pure ripoff.


Most providers in USA have evеn higher prices, but still you can find an inexpensive service. I got one for my wife who almost doesn't use cell phone for $10 for 3 months.


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## aragats (Aug 1, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> When my provider obsoletes 3G I probably will not be able to buy a basic phone that works on their network pushing me into a "smart" phone and doubling my bill.


There exist basic phones which support 4G. _Target_ has some on shelf.

Maybe it's time to build your own ;-)
I got a module from Quectel for $20, it contains, in particular, a quad-core CPU.


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## rigoletto@ (Aug 1, 2019)

CraigHB said:


> I'm still using a basic phone, but my time is short.  When my provider obsoletes 3G I probably will not be able to buy a basic phone that works on their network pushing me into a "smart" phone and doubling my bill.  Even if that weren't the case, it's getting harder and harder to find basic phones.  I imagine they're on the endangered list about now.



Some of THESE and eventually THIS may work.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Aug 1, 2019)

I don't know what other people do, but if you're going to use a basic cell phone, then I guess you'd have to carry a tablet or small laptop with you as well in order to get smart phone functionality. That's definitely doable and is a way to get that FreeBSD install.


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## Datapanic (Aug 2, 2019)

aragats said:


> I agree with Crivens !
> The word sounds kind of similar, but has completely different spelling, the OS name comes from Menuet.


Learn the russian bad words!


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## getopt (Aug 2, 2019)

Smart people do not need a smartphone. They even do not want to be an entry in smartphone address books.

Smart people say "Don't call me - we call you," which most of the times will never happen.

While slaves in ancient times had a certain degree of privacy, postmodern "slaves" carry a smartphone for being at disposal 24/7 and being put on virtual chains at least for generating continuous (meta)data.

And think of the huge mountains of not repairable smartphones while there are humans digging in deep earth holes for Rare Earth Elements. See the blood on your gadgets?


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## hukadan (Aug 2, 2019)

getopt said:


> Rare Earth Elements. See the blood on your gadgets?


I don't own a smartphone myself, but Rare Earth Elements are not just for Smartphones... That's a rather truncated way of presenting the situation.


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## kpedersen (Aug 2, 2019)

hukadan said:


> I don't own a smartphone myself, but Rare Earth Elements are not just for Smartphones... That's a rather truncated way of presenting the situation.



To be honest, the media over here would have you believing that only "smartphones" are being made and used today. Any actual computer you own, you should hand in for recycling so it can be sent to a 3rd world country to teach kids on...

There was even one advert; can't remember if it was Brexit related or some other commerce thing but they explicitly said that



> this agreement would help us import and make more chips *for smart phones*



Wtf, what about chips for... just about anything else? haha. You can certainly tell what the consumer plebs have been made to want when this kind of oddly specific crap turns up.

I even hate the word "smart phone". Most of them don't even come with a sodding system C compiler! How can they possibly be smart if they can't be told how to be smart?


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## getopt (Aug 2, 2019)

hukadan 
your rather truncated way of picking citation used the very last line. Did you forgot the beginning of the sentence by accident or by intention?

Claiming contributions of others in a discussion truncated calls for a more elaborate posting from yourself.


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## getopt (Aug 2, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> Any actual computer you own, you should hand in for recycling so it can be sent to a 3rd world country to teach kids on...


A cynical narrative for shipping electronic waste to "3rd-world" countries" for "recycling" that happens in a dirty toxic way if ever. I don't even like the term "3rd-world". There is one earth only.


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## kpedersen (Aug 2, 2019)

getopt said:


> A cynical narrative for shipping electronic waste to "3rd-world" countries" for recycling that happens in a dirty toxic way if ever. I don't even like the term "3rd-world". There is one earth only.



I agree; it is just manipulative media crap.
The only true 3rd world I know is the UK's broadband situation.


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## hukadan (Aug 2, 2019)

I don't know if you can call this "picking citation" when the whole post is just above for everyone to read. I am not a native speaker, but by saying "blood on *your* gadget", you seemed to specifically target Smartphones. Old computers also pile up in developing countries, so blood is on everyone's gadgets.


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## getopt (Aug 2, 2019)

hukadan said:


> you seemed to specifically target Smartphones.


Isn't that thread about smartphones? At least I try to stay specific.


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## hukadan (Aug 2, 2019)

getopt said:


> Isn't that thread about smartphones?


I thought this thread was about running FreeBSD on a Smartphone, not the supply chain for their fabrication. Let's agree to disagree on this (except for the 'I don't even like the term "3rd-world"' on which I agree).


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## CraigHB (Aug 2, 2019)

OJ said:


> I don't know what other people do, but if you're going to use a basic cell phone, then I guess you'd have to carry a tablet or small laptop with you as well in order to get smart phone functionality. That's definitely doable and is a way to get that FreeBSD install.



That's actually what I do now, I can "tether" my phone and get internet connectivity for the laptop through the phone network.  So that's my "smart" phone, I use two devices, phone is just the modem.  Though I have no idea how I would do that with FreeBSD, laptop runs Windows.  I use a Desktop system for FreeBSD.


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## Crivens (Aug 2, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> I even hate the word "smart phone". Most of them don't even come with a sodding system C compiler! How can they possibly be smart if they can't be told how to be smart?


Amen brother! A phone with a systemC compiler! This hardware wrecker would like that!


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## olli@ (Aug 2, 2019)

Datapanic said:


> Learn the russian bad words!


Learning bad words in _any_ language can be useful. For starters, it is sufficient to watch the “Despicable Me” and “Minions” movies. 

I remember when I watched “Despicable Me” in German, one of the minions shouted “malaka!” at a person he didn't like. Turned out that it was the Greek word “μαλάκας” which means “Wichser” in German. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to translate that to English … I'm pretty sure that the Greek version of the movie does _not_ use the Greek word in that scene.

On a related note: The German theme park “Europa-Park” (the second largest in Europe after Disneyland Paris) contains an attraction called “Cassandra's Curse”. During the ride you hear Cassandra's voice speaking in Greek language in a rather unfriendly manner … I do not speak Greek myself, but from the intonation it seems that she isn't talking about lovely things.

Sorry for off-topic, but I think that's more interesting than arguing about the curse of cell phones.


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## Crivens (Aug 2, 2019)

olli@
Also nice - some things coming from marketing departments.
The Chevy Nova. Imagine you _only_ speak spanish.
The Pajero, also a spanish slang word.
Why does the Audi ETron sell so bad in france?
And the list goes on...

Edit: w.r.t Nova, you will split that into No Va, which is the imperative of working/going/moving - prefixed with a negation.


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## hukadan (Aug 2, 2019)

Crivens said:


> Why does the Audi ETron sell so bad in france?


What a nice name indeed !


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## ProphetOfDoom (Aug 2, 2019)

Programming in C on an Android phone would be a thoroughly miserable experience. With the stock keyboard on my phone you need to tap _three times_ to get a curly brace, a backslash, a percentage sign or a dollar.
Admittedly that's probably not _why _these devices have no compiler. They don't give you a compiler because you are Stupid.


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## Birdy (Aug 3, 2019)

kpedersen said:


> I even hate the word "smart phone".


Smartphone/TV/... are probably named that way to suggest people using them they're smart.
EDIT: Next, the Smart Car?


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## kpedersen (Aug 3, 2019)

Birdy said:


> EDIT: Next, the Smart Car?



We already have those 

Going down a fairly busy motorway in one of these tiny things is anything but smart XD
Yet you see people wizzing past you at 90mph+ in basically a glorified moped.


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## CraigHB (Aug 5, 2019)

It's like a clown car, can't believe people buy those things, opposite of cute and I like small cars.


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## getopt (Aug 6, 2019)

I ever wondered about what people live in smart homes?
Once upon a time you got a discount from your insurance when having an alarm system. Now "smart residents" face an extra charge.


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## SKull (Aug 8, 2019)

Considering that I've yet to get Wifi to run on my Thinkpad with FreeBSD on it, I'm not sure if I'd really want FreeBSD on my phone


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## Amzo (Oct 15, 2019)

What sort of hurdles are there to this as it seems like driver support for some phones is there. Take Nexus 5X for example.

CPU: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 808 processor
GPU: Qualcomm® Adreno™ 418 GPU
MODEM: Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ X10 LTE modem

From this alone it's possible to get a working phone with FreeBSD Arm 64. The GPU is supported by the Freedreno Gallium Driver and the Modem will work under UCOM and U3G kernel modules.
Xorg will handle the touch screen and KDE has a Enviroment for mobile phone and tablet devices.

Of course you'd need to create a MFS with FreeBSD and ship a stripped out kernel, and the desktop enviroment but sure enough the tools are there.

Plasma Mobile has all the software needed for phonecalls, wireless, contacts, messaging and web browsing.



Spoiler: Screenshots of Plasma Mobile













Of course that still leaves stuff such as fingerprint scanner, webcam, audio and other drivers, but there is at least something to work with. I might give it ago in the next few weeks after I research on it more, and uncover other hurdles.


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## Deleted member 48958 (Oct 16, 2019)

Amzo said:


> Plasma Mobile has all the software needed for phonecalls, wireless, contacts, messaging and web browsing.


KDE on a phone?.... What a madness  It is very slow on high-end PCs,
it's terrifying to imagine, what kinds of glitches you'll see, when you'll try to use it on your phone.
It'll start to call to the police and all of your photos will be sent to your local migration service,
also, all your web browser history will be sent to your relatives  but don't worry, it won't be very big,
because all qt browsers are pretty unusable.


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## 6502 (Oct 16, 2019)

unitrunker said:


> and every app runs in a jail.
> 
> Oh, if only ...


I prefer non-smart Nokia (S40 platform). Unfortunately they are discontinued.


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## Deleted member 48958 (Oct 16, 2019)

6502 said:


> I prefer non-smart Nokia (S40 platform). Unfortunately they are discontinued.


Finnish Nokia symbian smartphones were pretty good too, IMO.
But after iPhones appeared, all phones design started to be very similar, unfortunately.
I'll never like those similar bricks, like I used to like some symbian smartphones when I was kid,
also touchscreen is very ugly and annoying thing IMO. Nokia 3650 (2003) and Nokia 7650 (2002) -







Also it's not only "discontinued", Nokia was sold to M$ first, I don't know who owns it for now.


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## CraigHB (Nov 10, 2019)

I've had several Nokia phones over the years I've been using a basic phone.  Always thought they were well designed.  This last one I got is a real disappointment, horribly designed user interface.  That was kind of my last ditch effort to find a good basic phone. Next time it's probably going to be an LG or Samsung job and they quit making basic phones, all unwieldy big screen internet things now.  Not looking forward to using one of those clumsy turds, can't even put it in a pocket, not to mention what it's going to do to my monthly bill.

Seeing as how I'll be forced into using one of these internet phones, it would nice to run something other than Android on one.  Android is a pig so I'm sure FreeBSD could do a better job, just have to keep the software more lightweight compared to a desktop system.


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## unitrunker (Nov 14, 2019)

It is Android base but I like the idea.

https://e.foundation/products/


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## hruodr (Nov 14, 2019)

*unitrunker, *yes, it sounds interesting. I think there are other projects in that direction.

I think, smartphones exploit a good idea that was not new, but it is bad implemented because of the business interest behind.

Having a normal PC, we can install the OS we want, and select the pieces of hardware supported by the OS. Unfortunately
this is not supported by the smartphones you may buy. Hence, the best is to begin with android, ungoogle it keeping the
drivers, and make the OS you want. Perhaps can also be done with iOS?

I see smartphones not as phones, but as very portable computers. As terminals in Plan9 sense. Hence, you have an OS
in the phone and OS in servers. In servers you can put FreeBSD or what you want, the ungoogled android in the phone
must work in harmony with the server, and there is a field for a lot of development, at client and server side.

Since this portable computer does not have a normal keyboard, the GUI plays a big role. There is also a field for development,
and perhaps we get a better alternative Desktop and applications for normal desktops.

I would like a more unix like smartphone, but smartphones are used because of the apps that third parties offer: compatibility
with android can be also an issue.

And of course, the best would be to exploit standards. Why to use dropbox, google drive or photos if we can use scp, sftp,
rsync? One can begin writing appropriate apps for normal android.

And must be the smartphone a powerful computer? Why not to have, like in Plan9, not only file servers, but also CPU
servers?


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