[Replicant] Replicant phone?

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 01:10:02 +0100
davide <davide at tatanka.it> wrote:

> Good morning and thanks for your efforts.
Hi,

Unfortunately the contact address is only for private inquiries that
cannot be made public.
Public inquiries have are to be handled in the mailing list.
I've CC-ed the mailing list for convenience.

> I always hoped to find a low cost phone to install replicant but up
> to now I was not able to find it. In any case the hardware is not 
> completely free.
> 
> But looking on the marked I found this:
> 
> https://store.arduino.cc/product/A000116

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardTian says:
>  Arduino Microprocessor
>  RAM: 64MB DDR2
Recent Android requires way more RAM[1].

> and this:
> 
> https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-fona-3g-cellular-gps-breakout/overview
I've no idea if it runs GNU/Linux or not, but eve if you could run
GNU/Linux on that device[4], it probably has very few ammount of RAM
too[5].

> you need to find only a battery, a touch screen and a 3d printed case.
I don't think this is very practical yet.
You also need:
- If there is no WiFi, optionally A WiFi (and bluetooth) card that
  doesn't require a non-free firmware and an antenna for it.
- Optionally a GPS.
- Good power management chips, battery gauge chip, battery charger
  chip. The gauge and charger chips can be integrated to the battery
  but that would drive the cost up.
- Some buttons.
- A proximity sensor not to hangup in a call when your face touches the
  touchscreen.
- Optionally light sensors, compas, etc
- Optionally some camera sensors
- And probably many things that I forgott.

The phone would also probably not be small at all. You also might want
something robust enough not to have the cable detach themselves during
its usage.

At the end of the day you probably need to design your own PCB and
case. If you do that you can choose the chips you use, to make sure
that they respect users freedom and can work with Replicant.

You also probably want to take into account the primary operating
systems you want to have on that device as GNU/Linux and Android have
different hardware requirements.

> Would replicant possible to be installed on such device? making a 
> real-free DIY smatphone shoud be a good kick start for Replicant..
It would require adding support for the device.

I don't know how far the switch to a mainline linux kenrel went in
Replicant 6.0, but if/when done, it will probably be way easier to add
support for many devices, if the devices are supported by the
official/mainline linux kernel.

> Best regards
> 
> Davide Sandini
> 
> Italy
> 
> 

References:
-----------
 [1] 340MB For Android 4.2[2], 424M For Android 6[3]
 [2] 7.6. Memory and Storage in:
 https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/source.android.com/en//compatibility/4.2/android-4.2-cdd.pdf
 [3] 7.6.1. Minimum Memory and Storage in:
 https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/source.android.com/en//compatibility/6.0/android-6.0-cdd.pdf
 [4] https://osmocom.org/projects/quectel-modems/wiki
 [5] The ammount of RAM might be mentioned in the wiki pages[4] or
 could be deduced from the logs posted there.

Denis.