01-02-2025, 10:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-02-2025, 10:31 PM by Kevin Kofler.)
He has no stock, only preorders (shipping estimated in March, i.e., 2 to 3 months from now).
And the hardware he uses is probably not compatible with mainline-kernel-based GNU/Linux. At least I see no mention of it at all. According to an article, the SoC is a MediaTek Dimensity 6300, which is a brand new SoC from 2024, which does not seem to have any mainline Linux kernel support at all yet. The pre-order announcement promises an Ubuntu Touch port, but since nothing else is specified, that is probably a Halium-based one, which is still the default for Ubuntu Touch. So the device is not comparable with the PINE64 devices at all. At best with the Furilabs FuriPhone FLX1 (but that one at least ships with Droidian preinstalled, not with an AOSP fork, though the underlying tech is still Halium).
He promises a "fully open-source OS", but since there is no mention of device drivers, you can be almost certain that the drivers will not be FOSS, but the typical Android proprietary driver blobs. Which means that GNU/Linux can only work on that device using Halium. So you will still be using some outdated Android kernel (old version of the Linux kernel + Android patches + hardware vendor patches) with proprietary drivers both in kernel modules and in userspace and be fully dependent on the hardware vendors (not only Braxman, but also those he sources the parts from) for updates. And some software such as ModemManager and Plasma Mobile does not (or no longer) support Halium at all.
Making a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device unfortunately means you have only a limited selection of SoCs to pick from, all older and not optimized for smartphones. Some vendors such as Qualcomm are entirely a no go because their SoCs require things such as signed bootloaders and even firmware signed with a device-specific key – those issues are a pain even for those Qualcomm-SoC-based devices (such as the OnePlus 6) supported by postmarketOS: the bootloader can only be unlocked and U-Boot chainloaded, you cannot install U-Boot directly on those devices, and the firmware has to be extracted from the Android ROMs provided by the device manufacturer (e.g., OnePlus) and put into a separate partition, because the device will refuse to load the firmware from the actual hardware manufacturer because it is not signed with the device manufacturer key burned into the SoC (which also means it is impossible to upgrade any of the firmware). So it is impossible for a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device to deliver the same performance for the same price as when using proprietary driver blobs. Blame the SoC manufacturers for this situation. We need devices that work without proprietary driver blobs and that do not enforce cryptographic signatures.
And the hardware he uses is probably not compatible with mainline-kernel-based GNU/Linux. At least I see no mention of it at all. According to an article, the SoC is a MediaTek Dimensity 6300, which is a brand new SoC from 2024, which does not seem to have any mainline Linux kernel support at all yet. The pre-order announcement promises an Ubuntu Touch port, but since nothing else is specified, that is probably a Halium-based one, which is still the default for Ubuntu Touch. So the device is not comparable with the PINE64 devices at all. At best with the Furilabs FuriPhone FLX1 (but that one at least ships with Droidian preinstalled, not with an AOSP fork, though the underlying tech is still Halium).
He promises a "fully open-source OS", but since there is no mention of device drivers, you can be almost certain that the drivers will not be FOSS, but the typical Android proprietary driver blobs. Which means that GNU/Linux can only work on that device using Halium. So you will still be using some outdated Android kernel (old version of the Linux kernel + Android patches + hardware vendor patches) with proprietary drivers both in kernel modules and in userspace and be fully dependent on the hardware vendors (not only Braxman, but also those he sources the parts from) for updates. And some software such as ModemManager and Plasma Mobile does not (or no longer) support Halium at all.
Making a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device unfortunately means you have only a limited selection of SoCs to pick from, all older and not optimized for smartphones. Some vendors such as Qualcomm are entirely a no go because their SoCs require things such as signed bootloaders and even firmware signed with a device-specific key – those issues are a pain even for those Qualcomm-SoC-based devices (such as the OnePlus 6) supported by postmarketOS: the bootloader can only be unlocked and U-Boot chainloaded, you cannot install U-Boot directly on those devices, and the firmware has to be extracted from the Android ROMs provided by the device manufacturer (e.g., OnePlus) and put into a separate partition, because the device will refuse to load the firmware from the actual hardware manufacturer because it is not signed with the device manufacturer key burned into the SoC (which also means it is impossible to upgrade any of the firmware). So it is impossible for a mainline-Linux-kernel-friendly device to deliver the same performance for the same price as when using proprietary driver blobs. Blame the SoC manufacturers for this situation. We need devices that work without proprietary driver blobs and that do not enforce cryptographic signatures.