On Sun, 13 Dec 2015 09:22:30 +0000 Josh Branning <lovell.josh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I do not expect that all non-touchscreen apps can be used with a touch > screen, but it's certainly possible to make things 'easier' for the > user when switching between things. There are several devices now, > like a laptop, where the keyboard can be detached to make a tablet. The thing to watch out is if the desktop environments that are friendly to tablets all require 3D acceleration. As for 3D acceleration, I don't see the any work to convert LIMA into a proper upstream driver. This is because Luke had to stop working on it. He did a wonderful work. Thanks a lot Luke. Qualcomm drivers are upstream and should work well, some tablets use a qualcomm SOC that lacks a modem. However that doesn't make such SOC acceptable due to other freedom issues, such as the lack of free bootloader. I think the most promising SOC for 3D and freedom are the I.MX6 ones. Their GPU has been documented trough reverse engineering, and patches series are being posted to mainline Linux to support it. However this SOC is typically used in industrial or automotive environments. I know no phone nor tablets using it. Given that this SOC also supports PCIe, ath9k mPCIe cards are possible. There are power consumption tests here[1], and such card might fit in tablets. I'm unsure if it's doable to fit one in a phablet. I've no idea if the power consumption is low enough for a tablet. Note that the ath9k(and ath5k) supported cards have no fimrware, it's just hardware and a driver. This architecture is truly wonderful. Nvidia Tegra are also promising with regard to the Tegra K1, however the more recent Tegra X1 require some signed fimrwares for the GPU. As for Replicant we now aim to support devices with free software bootloader and isolated modem. So I'd expect a GNU/Linux replacement to be at least as free as that. Given that we don't have 3D acceleration on such devices, and we probably won't on the ones using powerVR GPUs, I'm unsure if some phone friendly GNU/Linux desktop environments could work well enough on such phones. The LG optimus black specifications would be the kind of worst case scenario for GNU/Linux: -> PowerVR: No 3D acceleration. -> Capacitive touchscreen without a stylus. -> 480×800 display (~233 ppi). -> (512M of RAM.) So here, the screen is small, the DPI is high, the touchscreen is not precise, you have no 3D acceleration, and 512M of RAM. Given how rare are phones with unsigned bootloaders, increasing the requirements would not be a good idea. The GTA04 is way better in some respects for that (resistive touchscreen, way better documentation(only 3D is missing) and already runs GNU/Linux by default), not everybody can afford it. The last batch is or will be done soon. If we find the time, we want to support both phones, and possibly other with free bootloaders in Replicant. The wifi/bluetooth firmwares issues is still unsolved, since we know no phones nor tablets with free bootloaders, isolated modem, and WiFi that works without any non free software/drivers/firmware that could run Replicant. The OpenMoko FreeRunner is way to slow to run Replicant. References: ----------- [1]https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/ath9k/power-consumption Denis.
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