Purism's Librem 5 Developer Kits Finally Shipping, Linux Phone Price Going Up To $699

[spiritofreason]

Does it have a 4G modem?
Can it make phone calls?
Can it run an unpatched mainline Linux kernel? (Pixel 3 can)

Expensive and weak.

That's probably the right line of questioning, but you don't only want to know if it has a 4G modem: You also want to know if it supports the bands of interest for your particular needs, and the modem options look quite limiting.

Phones are RF communication devices first. If someone plans to actually use the Librem 5 as a phone (instead of a toy), band support should be the first question.

[tildearrow]

Pixel 3 does not run without binary blobs. But it does run with the mainline Linux kernel.
Other phones need a custom patched out-of-tree kernel.

https://lwn.net/Articles/775110/

https://www.collabora.com/news-and-blog/blog/2018/12/17/a-dream-come-true-android-finally-using-drm/kms/

Really? Does it?

Is there any list of mainlined phones?

[IreMinMon]

Can it run an unpatched mainline Linux kernel? (Pixel 3 can)

I sincerely doubt this

[uid313]

Really? Does it?

Is there any list of mainlined phones?

No, it does not.
I was wrong.
See the above post by ZeroPointEnergy where he corrects me.

I sincerely doubt this

You are right. I was wrong. See the above post where ZeroPointEnergy corrects me.

[Iiari]

By any standard, having hardware ready to test is remarkably impressive and a terrific first step. Congratulations to all involved!

[azdaha]

Make sure to properly link to it when it does.

https://puri.sm/posts/2018-devkits-are-shipping/

I hope it is still possible to buy developer kits after the ship date...

I might sell you mine for $450

[Flaburgan]

I deeply regret Mozilla stopped Firefox OS Those devices worked, it was my primary phone for years, and it was not giving any data to the GAFAM...

[Danniello]

I deeply regret Mozilla stopped Firefox OS Those devices worked, it was my primary phone for years, and it was not giving any data to the GAFAM...

Correct me if I'm wrong but FirefoxOS was very similar to Android - without proprietary blobs their hardware is useless. Yes, looking at software stack FirefoxOS was open-source, but without proprietary drivers "underneath" - cannot work.

[Flaburgan]

Correct me if I'm wrong but FirefoxOS was very similar to Android - without proprietary blobs their hardware is useless. Yes, looking at software stack FirefoxOS was open-source, but without proprietary drivers "underneath" - cannot work.

We need free software from hardware to the user apps, that's for sure, and as you pointed, most Firefox OS phones were using an Android kernel and proprietary blobs. Those are to fight, but the one doing most of the damage at the moment is the crappy OS who won't let you uninstall the Facebook app or force you to sync your Wi-Fi password with the clouds without even letting you know. On that point, Firefox OS was refreshing.

[Iiari]

On that point, Firefox OS was refreshing.

Has the full story behind the stop in development of Firefox OS ever been written anywhere? It seems like it happened suddenly, people were surprised, and then it was never talked about again, unlike Canonical, to whom it seems everyone always brings up the Ubuntu phone going away....