On Thu, Nov 01, 2018 at 08:02:26PM +0000, Daniel Abrecht wrote:
> On 31/10/2018 15.00, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 09:44:48AM +0100, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> > > Hendrik Boom - 31.10.18, 01:49:
> > > > Now they're working on a Purism phone. They do seem to intend it to
> > > > work with a variety of GNU/Linux systems. They're currently hoping
> > > > to get some developers to adapt their free software to Purism's
> > > > mobile hardware.
> > >
> > > AFAIR Purism also contact both the KDE and GNOME communities about
> > > adapting their desktops. Maybe some developers got test machines.
> >
> > I know they were selling development boards. But a development board
> > doesn't have the same ergomonic affordances as an actual mobile device.
>
> I've ordered both back when their crowdfounding campaign was running. The
> devkits aren't for sale anymore, but the phone is still available for
> pre-order.
>
> The devkits haven't been delivered yet. Initially, they made one with i.MX6
> processor, and posted images of it working. But then they decided to switch
> to the newer i.MX8, and that in addition to some other things delayed things
> a bit. The last estimate I know of was around the middle of October, but
> given the mails their devs accidentally sent to the public development
> mailing list around that time, (they renamed the mailinglist domain
> afterwards to make sure that doesn't happen again), they just got the Bord
> to boot to the console with the new core around that time, and they can't
> make changes to the hardware anymore. So I assume the boards may already
> exist, but I expect until they finish the software side and finally ship
> them, it'll probably take at least another month. The phone has already been
> delayed too.
>
> All the software is publicly available on their gitlab:
> https://source.puri.sm/Librem5
>
> They have some documentation for new devs (some stuff needs an update
> though):
> https://developer.puri.sm/
>
> There are instructions to setup a qemu vm, but I haven't done anything yet,
> because a VM just isn't the same thing.
>
> The mailing lists for the librem-5 are pretty quiet. They used to read them
> though. Most communication is probably on matrix, but I haven't looked at it
> yet. There is a someone at a mastodon instance somewhere who gives
> interesting updates, I forgot where exactly. Their twitter account mostly
> posts links to the usual boring public stuff, and they don't seam to read
> development questions sent to their twitter account. The mailing lists and
> matrix stuff can be found in the documentation too:
> https://developer.puri.sm/Contact.html
>
> There have been 21 progress reports as of now:
> https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-1/
> https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-2/
> ... (just replace the number in the url)
> https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-progress-report-21/
>
> I hope they ship the devkit soon, I want to install devuan on it too.
> Getting a Desktop Environment and Apps to work so it is usable could then
> become a bit tricky though.

Uness there is already a desktop environment adapted to the needs of
mobile touch devices.

Or they provide it. Unless they rely on systemd, of course.

-- hendrik