Looking for a desktop environment suitable for use as a phone interface in FreeBSD installed on a phone.

[hruodr]

Older Motorola, Samsung and Pixel phones are well known and fully hacked. I remember old LG phones where you can dual boot Windows CE and Android. Unfortunately, such hardware is way too old for these kids that need 8K display resolution and 150 Megapixel octa lens camera. Which brings us to original conclusion. Its completely pointless and useless. In this very case, there is nothing to learn and nothing to gain.

But even if you install FreeBSD there, does one have the driver for the modem? For GPS? For touch screen? And all the hardware there?

That is why I insist in building from android.

I would not say pointless, a mobile unix-like computer in which one have the control may have many uses, even if it is not usable as modern smartphone.

 

[myuserid]

The problem here is not technical at all. I'm sure ZioMario will overcome all technical problems and finally succeed, whichever route he takes. The problem is that his phone will be useless because it won't have any ecosystem.

Take banks, for instance. There's a trend among them to discontinue their web banking in favor of their banking app. If you have a smartphone, you absolutely want it to run your bank's app, but your bank only provides it for iOS and Android.

Building a phone OS is challenging, but given enough time and dedication, a single person can do it. What a single person will never be able to do is build an ecosystem - only third parties can do that, it if there's a return on investment.

 

[ZioMario]

But even if you install FreeBSD there, does one have the driver for the modem? For GPS? For touch screen? And all the hardware there?

That is why I insist in building from android.

I would not say pointless, a mobile unix-like computer in which one have the control may have many uses, even if it is not usable as modern smartphone.

The touch screen already works in my scenario without any special configuration. That's because I've chosen a good display. In addition I'm using one USB physical mini keyboard. I will not implement the GPS. I don't need any special driver to enable the LTE / 4G + 4 ports HUB modem USB. So. I don't need any Android.
At the moment is already recognized by FreeBSD. One later step is to write a decent DialPad for placing and receiving phone calls. But since this is a phone,I can't stop here. I need a full desktop manager that looks like perfect to be used on a phone,that will add a Contact list and a Call history which naturally covers both dialed and received calls. Yeah,I'm enjoying very much,I will make a decent final product.

 

[ZioMario]

The problem here is not technical at all. I'm sure ZioMario will overcome all technical problems and finally succeed, whichever route he takes. The problem is that his phone will be useless because it won't have any ecosystem.

Take banks, for instance. There's a trend among them to discontinue their web banking in favor of their banking app. If you have a smartphone, you absolutely want it to run your bank's app, but your bank only provides it for iOS and Android.

Half True. For the banks,yes,I'm out. I can't do nothing to support home banking. But I will try to improve the Linuxulator for a better Linux compatibility and I will try to port some software structure from Android to FreeBSD,with a fresh reimplementation,for supporting a limited number of Android applications. As alternative,I could try to virtualize Android using qemu+bhyve.

 

[hruodr]

I don't need any special driver to enable the LTE / 4G + 4 ports HUB modem USB

You mean, the drivers of FreeBSD work on the LTE / 4G modems?

Every modem need a special driver, it is a headache to find a modem that works with an OS other than the supported ones by the manufacturer.

 

[cracauer@]

How does one go about installing an alternative OS on an Android phone?

You unlock the bootloader. The pre-OS firmware has enough functionality to write OS partitions from USB commands (via the fastboot command). That's about it.

 

[LibreQuest]

Do these projects recreate a desktop environment that can be used on a phone ?

FirefoxOS/KaiOS are mobile phone operating systems. They use the Linux kernel and include graphical environments. I thought perhaps you could port the UI to work for your project.

 

[ZioMario]

You mean, the drivers of FreeBSD work on the LTE / 4G modems?

Every modem need a special driver, it is a headache to find a modem that works with an OS other than the supported ones by the manufacturer.

ugen0.2: <USB 2.0 Hub Terminus Technology Inc.> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE (100mA)
ugen0.3: <EG800Z-EU Quectel Wireless Solutions Co., Ltd.> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON (
200mA)

 

[ZioMario]

You unlock the bootloader. The pre-OS firmware has enough functionality to write OS partitions from USB commands (via the fastboot command). That's about it.

If you are able to unlock the bootloader,that's ok...another project that I have planned in the future is about to install FreeBSD on the BlackBerry PassPort Q30. In this case the bootloader can be unlocked only applying an hardware mod.

I've sent it to the lab to apply the mod :

If I will be lucky and the mod will be succesfully,it will run FreeBSD,including the internal modem that I will try to make work porting the driver from Linux.

 

[ZioMario]

FirefoxOS/KaiOS are mobile phone operating systems. They use the Linux kernel and include graphical environments. I thought perhaps you could port the UI to work for your project.

These projects are very old. I'm not sure if they worth. Maybe it's a good idea to choose one option in the list of options that I showed on the first message.

 

[Zare]

What are we talking about here, vibe coding a functional mobile OS?

Lmao.

Also Zio, when you say "I will try to improve, I did, I built" is it you or the LLM? LLMs do not allow power users to become software architects regardless of what your initial results might look like.

 

[elgrande]

You can say what you want, ZioMario's threads always gather attention

 

[ZioMario]

What are we talking about here, vibe coding a functional mobile OS?

Lmao.

Also Zio, when you say "I will try to improve, I did, I built" is it you or the LLM? LLMs do not allow power users to become software architects regardless of what your initial results might look like.

Your question does not make sense for me. I'm focused to the result. Claude helps me doing what I want and I use it. That's all.

 

[ZioMario]

You can say what you want, ZioMario's threads always gather attention

What I want is not the attention. I wanted to talk about what I have asked on the first message. No one after the first message replied in a coherent manner (except few users), and after having tried to get you back to the topic,this one :

Thread 'Looking for a desktop environment suitable for use as a phone interface in FreeBSD installed on a phone.'

Yesterday at 3:36 PM

Hello.

Since I’m building a (smart ?) phone with FreeBSD as OS, I’d like a desktop environment suitable for use as a phone interface. So it needs to provide the basic features you would expect from a phone: a dial pad for making calls, a call log for received and missed calls, a contacts/address book with people’s phone numbers, and a photo gallery for storing and viewing pictures.

I’m fine with either a complete desktop environment or even an installable theme, as long as it runs on top of FreeBSD, which is the operating system installed on the phone.

If there is nothing ready-made, I...

• ZioMario

I failed and I've decided to go with the flow—that is, your comments. I certainly can't force you to discuss what I want. I suspect that all of your attention is not focused on the projects,but a lot of you are obsessed by AI,so,it's hard for you to keep the focus of your attention where it counts more.