Originally posted by Michael_S
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Purism Eyeing The i.MX8M For The Librem 5 Smartphone, Issues First Status Update
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Originally posted by GI_Jack View PostIf the chipset has DMA access, or on north/south bridge, it can override the OS, and whatever OS and/or application countermeasures you might have. For anything, not just data. It could also not respect settings, turn on wireless devices turned off in software, invisible to the OS.
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Originally posted by DrYak View PostTheir primary target is people who want to be fully in control on everything that goes inside their phone (so a full GPL GNU/Linux stack).
Originally posted by DrYak View PostSo maybe some functions will be missing
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Originally posted by pal666 View Postfirmware is hardware's implementation detail. open source device does not need open firmware. open hardware device does need open firmware
The important thing is that Purism didn't lie about the situation. Buyers know what they're getting, and what they're not getting. Our best hope is that projects like this get popular enough that open firmware does become available for useful mobile devices. It's not likely, but there's nothing better on the horizon.
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Originally posted by pal666 View Postfirmware is hardware's implementation detail. open source device does not need open firmware. open hardware device does need open firmware
I do like the explanation that an LTE modem can only connect to a network you have no control over anyway. We would need open firmware and software to run on the cell tower, fully auditable. A way is to wait for a spectrum auction ; buy an LTE license for about 5 billions euros or dollars, hire a large team of lawyers and staff. I forgot about buying and installing an open source LTE tower.
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Originally posted by johanb View Post
If this succeeds and is still available in 3 years, this is our best bet on "real" convergence.
Personally I'd still like to have my desktop for performance, but to dock it into a laptop with just battery+screen+keyboard+trackpad would be really neat.
Everything could probably even be sent through a USB-C port with thunderbolt/usb3.1.
I wouldn't mind a RISC-V variant of the Librem 5 in the future either
On the other hand sending HDMI on some pins of the USB-C, USB on other pins, both at the same time, this should work!
Your target hardware has to support it, "HDMI alternate mode" ; if not, e.g. a monitor is too "dumb" then I suppose you would need some sort of break out box. Some or most existing USB displays will also only use USB and not HDMI.
I don't know with certainty if you get limited to USB2 when using HDMI. If so that's a decent worst case.
Just to clear up things if you mix up "thunderbolt" with the other, more affordable video + data options.Last edited by grok; 17 January 2018, 10:21 PM.
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Originally posted by Vasant1234 View PostAnd for those open-source advocates, the LTE modem runs closed source firmware and I believe the video decoder (VPU) is closed firmware. Some one needs to better define what a true open source device is.
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Originally posted by Vasant1234 View Post
The LTE firmware would be a perfect place to snoop on all traffic that is sent over the internet -. It doesn't really matter if the modem is inside the SOC or outside. Why do you think NSA wants to have a backdoor on Cisco routers ?
It makes a huuuge difference. If this is isolated, lets say on a USB bus, then no, the chip can only snoop on what comes in or is sent out. Most of that today is encrypted.(thank you https-everywhere), and its not hard to encrypt sensitive data.
As for the feds.
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Originally posted by Vasant1234 View PostThe I.MX8 is a quad core Cortex A53 which is pretty much an entry level phone right now. In 2019 it will be comparable to a $150/- Android phone with very limited software.
And for those open-source advocates, the LTE modem runs closed source firmware and I believe the video decoder (VPU) is closed firmware. Some one needs to better define what a true open source device is.
That said, the Linux nerd/hacker crowd has entirely different ideas of what they want to do with a phone than the mainstream, so trying to compare hardware specs will not really be possible. It will likely be able to do a lot of things that normal cell phones don't do.
There is a very real, but very niche demand for this. It will have a lot of utility value that is not reflected in raw processing power. Mostly of use to hackers, sysadmins, engineers, tinkerers, and the like. If the sensors are accurate enough, it might be of use to scientists as well. But generally the technical crowd that will use it to do technical things.
It will be more comparable to the Nokia N900. If I have extra spending money, I might buy one as a pocket size tablet/console as GNU support instead of hacking to run TWRP, ASOP based custom rom and termux/debian installer would be worth the price of admission.Last edited by GI_Jack; 17 January 2018, 05:11 PM.
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Originally posted by DrYak View Post
Hence the whole point of not using a chipset (e.g.: most from Qualcomm) where the modem is the north bridge of the SoC, but using a relatively clean Soc where everything is supported by opensource software, and isolate the modem as a separate chips that only communicates over standard protocols (for 4G, that's usually a combo of serial port and USB-networking).
From a security perspective the open source GPU brings nothing to the table. Yes, it may be able to run Wayland. But most of Linux desktop technology that has been developed on powerful Intel CPU just doesn't work well on ARM. I have several ARM SBC's and Linux desktop sucks on all of them -.
By the way Sailfish is a closed source software that pretends to be open source.
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