Re: [gentoo-user] Gentoo on a cell?

[rudi]

On Feb 18, 2020 22:33, james <gar...@verizon.net> wrote:

On 2/18/20 9:29 PM, William Kenworthy wrote:
>
> On 19/2/20 4:16 am, james wrote:
>> So,
>>
>> After contacting several US carriers, the cover story is you can get a
>> cell phone, root it with linux, and it 'should work'. Supposedly, you
>> are encourage, but they
>> will not offer any help. So rather than spending months,
>> I'd like to 'cheat' and find a gentoo hack(er) that has
>> rooted and put some form of gentoo, or embedded_gentoo
>> on a cell phone.
>>
>> Please respond to the list, but, for whatever reason, private
>> responses are OK too.
>>
>>
>> I'm just tire of my Android cell phone downloading update *every
>> night*. I want/need control of the stacks
>> running on the phone. I have heard this is quite popular in Europe and
>> the Rf circuits have their own firmware, so it's really next to
>> impossible to hack the Rf side
>> of communications.....?
>>
>>
>> Any and all responses, public or private, are most welcome. Links only
>> are fine too!
>>
>>
>> James
>
>
> For gentoo, I would say "not easy at all" - the problem is custom
> hardware, propriety drivers and lack of information, even in well
> supported models.
>
> There was an app where you could install gentoo into something like a
> container - worked well but the android kernel I was using at the time
> didn't have some functioned enabled that fed into limiting some
> operations in the container.
>
> Easier and more practical would be to install LibreOS. You can build ii
> yourself and build/include your own software as needed - I did it many
> times with its Cyanogenmod predecessor (I presume you still can).� There
> are some other stacks suitable for phones such as sailfish and even
> android can be built yourself (and you can defang/customise it while
> doing it - google not needed and if you dont install GAPPS it still
> works fine)
>
> To be honest, if what you mentioned is your main gripe, build android
> and use a third party app store like F-Droid to control that side of the
> equation.
>
> Make sure you look into rooting, flashing a new OS and the implications
> of doing so - that can be another whole level of pain depending on the
> brand of your hardware, and how recent it is (less chance with new stuff
> as the really smart people have not had time to trailblaze :)
>
> BillK

Good info (thanks!)
Here's what I've found so far. The purpose of this posting is to share
info, so we have a gentoo on a cell phone. I am currently researching
'unlocked' samsung phones that support 5G and CDMA, so most sim cards
should work. If others are interested, or know of viable github (etc)
places to upload codes to, gentoo centric, I'd be all for that. I just
done with carriers running my cell phones. Sure they can control the RF
(hardware), but not the software running on the phone. here are a few
links::


https://fossbytes.com/how-to-install-a-linux-on-android-phone-without-rooting/


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_mobile_virtual_network_operators

Here is an unlocked 5G and CDMA? I'm looking at to root with gentoo::

Galaxy S20 5G 128GB (Unlocked)
https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/phones/galaxy-s/galaxy-s20-5g-128gb-unlocked-sm-g981uzaaxaa/

Chating with samsung right now. Explaining *why* there needs to be a
samsung dev phone, supporting and working with Gentoo....   we'll see
how this goes...

More comments? encouragement, folks interested?

James

I am very interested, although my testing capabilities would be restricted to a non-samsung Pixel 3. My understanding is also that the Pixel and Nexus devices publish their "vendor blobs" or hardware binaries online which may help? I've experimented with Ubuntu Touch a bit on the Nexus 5, however the device is quite slow at this point. My use case wouldn't be so much for control over updates, but more for things like Convergence (Ubuntu), Dex (Samsung) or Android Desktop. Where you dock your phone and have a linux/Android desktop with floating windows etc.

 I'd like to be kept in the loop on this, and if possible I would also like to help contribute software however I'm not really skilled with hardware. I configure my kernel and that's about it.