Linux Cell Phone? Build OURPhone | Hacker News Reader

Linux Cell Phone? Build OURPhone

hackaday.com

18 pointsmdp202116 comments

Direct link to the "OURS" ("Open-source, Upgradable, Repairable Smartphone") project

https://github.com/evanman83/OURS-project/

Hmm, the RPi isn't exactly open source, it requires a proprietary bootloader. The LibreRPi folks had to do a lot of reverse engineering to get an experimental replacement.

https://github.com/librerpi/lk-overlay/

Thank-you. No mention of a SIM card. Is that one of the last pieces needed for a truly portable phone?

> SIM card

Some details are found in the code.

It probably uses the SIM7600X module

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/SIM7600X_4G_Module

The internet is accessed through R/NDIS

https://www.waveshare.com/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_networked_via_ND...

Thank-you. I see the SIM7600X has space for nano SIM.

Or, you can buy a Librem 5 (although it’s quite expensive).

The specs haven't changed since 2019?

https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/#tech-specs

https://tuxphones.com/purism-librem-5-vs-pine64-pinephone-li...

(I'm not suggesting pinephone - the librem guys seem to give a lot more back to the community.)

That comparison is very misleading, borderline wrong at times, written before any of those phones have been released and hence making tons of assumptions. Librem 5 is much more performant than PinePhone, running circles around the latter due to RAM bandwidth, L2 cache, GPU power, eMMC speed, thermal characteristics... It's actually closer to PinePhone Pro, which is faster but still immature.

$1,299.00 ... wow.

Pinephone was a good step in the right direction but I am not a fan of either of the cameras on it or Allwinner CPUs. Librem 5 is using an NXP i.MX 8M with better cameras but the price point is a tough sell.

So get PinePhone Pro

Any reason to GPL this, I'd love for a company to release a commercial version of this.

GPL did not prevent Purism from releasind a commercial version of their phone running an FSF-endorsed distro.

GPL allows commercial use

Most companies don't want to release their source code changes. It's still possible, just not very likely.

well thast's a problem with the companies, not the gpl

Very cool project!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com