On Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:40:09 +0100 Sophie Hamilton via Replicant <replicant@osuosl.org> wrote:
> Hello, Hi, > (Yes, I realise the irony/hypocrisy about how I distrust binary blobs > in the firmware on my phone and yet I'm using a pre-built version of > Replicant. I'd like to be able to compile my own version of Replicant > in the future but so far haven't been able to look deeply into it. > This will probably change from now.) Even if you build Replicant there are still some free software binaries being shipped as part of the build system. To fix this issue we need to build these binaries instead. Right now in Replicant 6, part of the binary free software toolchain has been replaced (mainly by Wolfgang) by a script that builds some of the elements of the toolchain instead, but I'm not sure if that work is complete or not. If I recall well Belgin expressed some interest in doing that for Replicant 11. In addition the builds are probably not reproducible, so if one day there is work on that, and that everything is built from source, then we could have way more trust in the binaries. Though in that case, it would also shift the trust on the distribution that is being used to build Replicant (here Trisquel 9 for Replicant 11). > 1. What is the best phone that can run Replicant right now? Is it > still the i9300? Between the supported devices, yes. It might change in the future though but for now work is being done on that phone for Replicant 11. Though as doak pointed out, it's doesn't support networks more recent than 3G, and this is a serious issue in several areas of the world. Phasing out 3G (in favor of 4G and 5G) also forces people to buy new devices which creates many ecological issues which in turn also create more social issues (devastated land isn't great). This means that to limit the damage of the environment we can't simply maintain operating system for old phones anymore. In the longer run we also need devices where the modem can be upgraded. The huge downside of that approach is that new modems would also need to be manufactured, compatibility with the modem connector would also need to be assured over time (so the device would still be obsolete when no new modem are manufactured for older connectors), etc). And that kind of design also makes the devices more expensive and so they don't spread that much in devices. > 2. I'm aware that there is work on getting the Lima graphics driver > working in the dev versions of Replicant, which as I understand it > would speed up graphics on the i9300 considerably. That part is already merged and it seems to work fine. > Is there an estimate for when this might appear in a maintained version of > Replicant? It's really hard to estimate, especially because I'm trying to do it right in a way that is somehow maintainable instead of rushing to get something that somehow works but that is unmaintainable and that would need to be redone from scratch. If I did the opposite we would probably get more contributions but given that it's hard to predict if that will actually be the case. In addition less maintainable code might introduce issues that would at the end delay it more than than the time it's supposed to gain. Right now I'm trying to finish the work to be able to release alpha images (so removing nonfree software, enabling to build release images, etc). After that I'll get back to making the hardware work (right now we don't have calls, the audio is too basic, and we need to check if the battery charging also works fine in all conditions, we also need to test suspend/resume and power management, and so on). > 3. Talking of maintained vs. dev versions... as I said, I use my > phone as a daily driver and this would be my only phone. With that in > mind, I'm assuming it would be wise to only stick to maintained > versions of Replicant rather than trying dev versions. > Is this correct or am I making assumptions that are not necessarily > true? For Replicant 11, it's not ready yet to be usable daily. For Replicant 6, the 0004 RC5 probably works better than the Replicant 6 0003. Denis.
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