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

Never thought someone would port FreeBSD to Pinephone and I thought the product is discontinued.

From normal user pov, scrollable tiling window definitely a good use case here assuming lower level hardware work well enough with FreeBSD.
 
cracauer@ said:
Why?
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Because the form factor and look and feel of the BB have always fascinated me. And because armv7 on FreeBSD is running out of time. It makes sense, perhaps, while it's still supported. Also, I've never liked the BB desktop manager in terms of usability and ease of use.
 
ZioMario said:
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 :
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No one here has done this, it's impossible to provide you with sound advice.

The only thing I can tell is that you don't need to be right first time. Trial and error is the most common way of learning. There's even a rule called "Thompson's Rule for First-Time Telescope Makers" quoted in "More Programming Pearls: Confessions Of A Coder" that says:

It is faster to make a four-inch mirror then a six-inch mirror than to make a six-inch mirror.
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So what I suggest is you choose the option that looks easiest to you and begin with that. If at some point you're not happy with it, you can always choose another route, but you'll have learnt a lot during the first phase, you'll know what works and what doesn't, and what you really want instead. You'll be in a much better position than you are now to make a good decision.
 
myuserid said:
No one here has done this, it's impossible to provide you with sound advice.

The only thing I can tell is that you don't need to be right first time. Trial and error is the most common way of learning. There's even a rule called "Thompson's Rule for First-Time Telescope Makers" quoted in "More Programming Pearls: Confessions Of A Coder" that says:



So what I suggest is you choose the option that looks easiest to you and begin with that. If at some point you're not happy with it, you can always choose another route, but you'll have learnt a lot during the first phase, you'll know what works and what doesn't, and what you really want instead. You'll be in a much better position than you are now to make a good decision.
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All true,but I live in this community since / from 5 years. I trust the opinions of everyone of you. My ideas are nothing if they are not powered by yours. This does not mean that I want that someone should work the job for me,but that I don't live in a cave. It means that ideas, to grow strong, need continuous comparison. After an healthy discussion, I can try the path that stimulates me the most.
 
ZioMario said:
Because the form factor and look and feel of the BB have always fascinated me. And because armv7 on FreeBSD is running out of time. It makes sense, perhaps, while it's still supported. Also, I've never liked the BB desktop manager in terms of usability and ease of use.
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But you realize that even if you succeed you still invest a lot of resources into a dead thing?

Don't you want your gained knowledge to be reusable?
 
cracauer@ said:
But you realize that even if you succeed you still invest a lot of resources into a dead thing?

Don't you want your gained knowledge to be reusable?
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You're right. But it's stronger than me. The way I'd install FreeBSD in the phone fascinates me more than the phone itself.
 
I mean I want to try the AMP (as suggested by Claude),that seems to be the only way to run a lot of components of FreeBSD on the BB. Basically it will reserve some cores to Linux,cores necessary to proxy some drivers to FreeBSD,such as the driver of the modem. These drivers don't exist in FreeBSD and can't be ported or if they can be ported,the job will be too huge. AMP is a more doable way instead of using qemu + kvm that probably can't be used on that old hardware. So,it's the right time to learn something really exciting. So. FreeBSD can't run totally bare metal on the BB. It will be hybridated with Linux.
 
ZioMario I have nothing to recommend, but engineers tend to poke at something that interests them, even if noone else cares.
The industry has a lot of times where someone thought "it would be cool if I could get A running on B" (kind of like NetBSD).

So, if it makes you happy, makes you think, that's good. Use whatever tools you need to help you achieve your goal.
 
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Who has a phone that runs native *BSD, accepts some USB keyboard, real display and is able to make a real phone call on a mobile network? I've never heard of it. What's the price?
 
How about porting FreeBSD to properly run on a SnapDragon X chip first?

Both kernel and bootloader need to be re-compiled for the AArch64 architecture, which is actually a Tier 1 supported architecture on FreeBSD.

Lots of phones use the Snapdragon chips. Maybe OP should start there, and successfully get FreeBSD to run on a laptop with a Snapdragon X processor. If OP can get there, then getting FreeBSD to run on a phone is reachable. Otherwise, OP will have to get ahold of a few Pi boards, and get FreeBSD running there.

OP is the same guy who wanted to run Plasma Wayland 6 on FreeBSD, he started this thread: Thread trying-to-run-kde-6-plasma-with-wayland.93951. Eventually, it got hijacked from him by people who frankly did a lot more than OP even knew to do, including coding, testing, generating actual patches, and reporting problems. I made noise in that thread, actual devs dropped in and said, "Hey, here's some code for this, please run it and let me know if there are problems". It took brains, adequate metal, time, and effort to go down this road.

I personally treated Wayland as a bit of a wild goose chase. I see myself as being able to understand enough to realize that no, I can't really come up with code to really fix the problems, I can only watch on the sidelines, download a copy of code, play with it, and report problems. Actually coding stuff up takes serious brains. And I've said so to OP multiple times, in other threads.

If OP has something running, or can at least admit that he's way out of his depth (like he has been on a lot of the ideas we've seen out of him on these Forums), it would be nice to see that.
 
MG said:
Who has a phone that runs native *BSD, accepts some USB keyboard, real display and is able to make a real phone call on a mobile network? I've never heard of it. What's the price?
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This is exactly what I'm building right now. With FreeBSD as os. Stubborn as I'm I will complete this project sooner or later.

Now I'm working on the power management feature :

WhatsApp Image 2026-08-27 at 09.43.24.jpeg
 
Respect and salute to you for your dedication to make FreeBSD run on phone. ZioMario.

I see you have. another threads that successful run A7z and detect the GPU. do you manage to run any WM on it successful ? how hard for you to port the gpu driver on it ?

I also looking into building myself a cyberdeck something like hackberry design with some China made SBC LubanCat-Zero-W rk3566.
I choose this chip mainly due to there is dev work on this chip on FreeBSD to reduce as much friction as possible.
 
MG said:
Who has a phone that runs native *BSD, accepts some USB keyboard, real display and is able to make a real phone call on a mobile network? I've never heard of it. What's the price?
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Can a laptop with a WWAN card + SIM slot do that?

I've seen a few laptops with the slots but never cards; I'd probably use my computer more for texts and HQ voice depending on the software involved :p
 
claudiuschan said:
I see you have. another threads that successful run A7z and detect the GPU. do you manage to run any WM on it successful ?
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Actually I'm using LXDE on the radxa zero and on the radxa cubie. But it's temporary. Soon I will port some components of Plasma Mobile with the goal to create a WM tailored for a phone. Since I'm building a phone,it should have a proper WM.

how hard for you to port the gpu driver on it ?
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It's hard for everyone. Without the help of Claude it can't be done if you aren't a serious and seasoned ARM and FreeBSD developer and maybe much more than this.

SBC LubanCat-Zero-W rk3566.
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I don't recommend this to you. It uses the same chip of the Radxa Zero,but I'm not sure if it has some relevant change compared to it. I suggest you the Radxa Zero 3W,it's more known and there is a serious work that some devs did on that,already. Ask on the ML.
 
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