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Progress Update From the Librem 5 Hardware Department

posted by mrpg on Tuesday September 11 2018, @10:45AM   Printer-friendly
from the I'd-buy-one dept.

Bytram (from IRC) writes:

Progress update from the Librem 5 hardware department:

[...] Making a non-Android mobile phone that will run an FSF-approved OS that supports all the features that we've all come to rely on (cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, touchscreen input) has and continues to involve a lot of pathfinding, given that a RYF phone has never been attempted before and discovery involves solving issues as they come up.

The industry offers all the hardware to create a smartphone on a fast path, as the SoC vendors typically provide the modem (cellular and wifi) integrated directly on the SoC. Like a recipe in a cookbook—take an SoC, place it on a PCB, add RAM and flash chip on top of it (called a package on package—PoP), add antennas and finally power. The difficulty comes down to the firmware and the software that run these devices. The necessary firmware to operate the cellular modem, WiFi, BT etc. is provided by the chip maker, including the drivers for the GPU and more. The firmware and software included is proprietary with no source code with little to no alternatives.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @11:13AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @11:13AM (#733108)

    This cant come out soon enough imo. Im so tired of every phone being otherwise cool thing controlled by an adversary.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @11:43AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @11:43AM (#733111)

    Im so tired of every phone being otherwise cool thing controlled by an adversary.

    There will always be plenty of fresh side channel attacks.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @12:32PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 11 2018, @12:32PM (#733121)

      At least it wont come preprogrammed with this stuff. Did you read that wikileaks where google was (not even being paid to) run a project to show the optimal search results, hashtags, etc to people to brainwash them into voting for hilary clinton? All based on their phone data... Thats what they are doing for free, think about whats going on for business reasons.

      Its the same reason multiple people I know started saying "bitcoin is dead" recently even though its selling for insane prices. They got brainwashed by some fake news facebook/news/whatever feed that someone paid for to take their money.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:24AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:24AM (#733464)

        Where's the black helicopters mod when you need it?