Which phone should I buy for running Replicant?

[Chapman Shoop]

Hey Michael,

I've had a pretty good experience with the Nexus S (
http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/NexusS). I took the SIM
card out of my iPhone 4S, put it into a Samsung Nexus S with Replicant 4.0
and it's been my primary phone for a few months now. The only major
drawback I've encountered so far is not having wifi enabled on account of
there being no free software drivers for it.

Chapman


On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 2:20 AM, Michael Spacefalcon <
msokolov at ivan.harhan.org> wrote:

> Hello list,
>
> I have a question: of the phone models that are currently supported by
> Replicant, which would be the best one to get?  My budget is high
> enough to where device cost is not a factor.  I have a comrade to whom
> I'm trying to teach the moral principles of Free Software as outlined
> so wonderfully by the FSF, with the emphasis on the Four Freedoms, and
> our current frontier is the phone.  The comrade in question is an
> absolutely wonderful person, but she is very very non-technical: her
> skills and interests in life are elsewhere.  Hence her relation to
> technology will always be as an end user and nothing more.  But I
> believe that the fundamental moral principles outlined by the FSF
> should apply to everyone, not just us computer science geeks, and it
> is vitally important to bring Free Software to the non-technical end
> users.
>
> Of course the free-est phone ever made is Neo Freerunner by Openmoko,
> and I have one - but remember that here I'm trying to reach out to a
> very non-technical end user.  Whether the motherboard inside that Neo
> case is a GTA02 or a GTA04, my target audience will *not* like that
> case and that small (in comparison to the typical mass-produced
> smartphones) resistive touchscreen - again, compare with the typical
> mass-produced devices of today with large capacitive touchscreens, and
> some with slide-out keyboards too.
>
> So with the GTA02 and GTA04 not being viable options, we are left with
> the repertoire of several mass-produced smartphones which are currently
> supported by Replicant, and I'm probing the wisdom of this mailing list
> to help me decide which of those I should buy on ebay.  Obviously all
> of these devices are plagued by limited hardware support because of
> undocumented hw, proprietary firmwares, etc.  Which model suffers the
> least from these problems?
>
> I'm looking specifically to run Replicant 4.0, not any of the older
> versions - I need to make the best possible impression on my target
> audience.  Of the devices currently supported by this Replicant
> version, which would give the best user experience to an uninitiated
> and totally non-technical end user?  Which would draw the least number
> of disappointed curses from such a user?
>
> TIA for any insight,
> SF
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-- 
Chapman Shoop
(254) 537-2303
chapman.shoop at gmail.com
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