[jancsika]

I thought PostmarketOS did not (yet) support making calls.

So what's the point of running it on hardware designed to address the issue of running FOSS alongside a blackbox baseband?

If you don't need the baseband, what's the usecase that a Chromebook form factor doesn't solve?

[miloignis]

As mentioned in the article and the issues linked, you can already make and receive calls & SMS and use mobile data with postmarketOS on PinePhone. I have a Community Edition PinePhone with postmarketOS and have gotten mobile data working on a data only SIM, but won't be able to personally test calls and SMS until my new SIM arrives in a few days.

It's a very cool device, and while it's def not a daily driver for most people, it's a ton of fun to use and seems to be improving quickly.

[ryantgtg]

Does it support group messaging? I don’t see that mentioned. That was the deal breaker for me when I used Firefox OS, Ubuntu Touch, and Sailfish OS in the past. I loved them all! But they all had a dealbreaker or two.

[ryukafalz]

Assuming you mean group SMS: I suspect not, since it seems to be using mostly the same stack as the Librem 5, and that doesn't seem to yet. (This is my dealbreaker too; I have a PinePhone sitting next to me running Ubuntu Touch, but I won't be able to use it as my daily driver until that works.)

[ryantgtg]

Thanks - yeah I figured.

This is silly, but I always get confused about whether "group sms" == mms. Maybe group sms was mms years ago, and things have since changed.

I love trying these alternative OSes (I even thought Windows Phone was great!), and really hope I can use one as my daily driver in the near-future.

[kop316]

Group SMS == MMS. This is the one thing that is stopping me from switching as well. There is someone who has gotten experiental support, but it sounded like there is still some work left to get it to work.

[pengaru]

The pinephone like the librem5 has hardware kill switches so you can operate with the baseband off whenever you don't need the cellular network enough to justify the risks.

[m463]

I thought the librem5 had a more distinct seperation between baseband and the rest of the device. I read that somewhere, and I can't find it.

[pengaru]

I don't know if the Librem5 goes beyond what the PinePhone is purported to do here:

"The LTE modem on the PinePhone is a ‘black box’, and runs its own Linux system internally. This includes all the proprietary modules (blobs) needed to run the actual cellular radios. However, this system is almost entirely isolated from the main system running on the A64 SoC. The only data contacts between A64 and modem are USB connection for data and I2S connection for audio. All data going in or out of the modem must go over these connections.

There is no RAM or flash storage shared between the systems. In short, unless you explicitly send data to the modem, it is never in contact with the blobs running inside it. The modem cannot send any data to the phone unless phone is willing to receive it (that’s the basics of USB)." [0]

That's in addition to the kill switches.

There might be other blobby aspects of the SoC/peripheral support story that the Librem5 gets better than the PinePhone, I haven't dug deep there.

[0] https://www.pine64.org/2020/01/24/setting-the-record-straigh...

[jiggunjer]

So is the modem/baseband the only non-open firmware on there? I think most phones will also have proprietary boot firmware and GPU drivers.

[fsflover]

Both Pinephone and Librem 5 have open GPU drivers and boot firmware. However they have proprietary WiFI/Bluetooth drivers. For the latter, Pinephone is using blobs in Linux, while Librem 5 made the firmware part of hardware (non-updatable), trying to get Respects Your Freedom certification from FSF.

[MartijnBraam]

The blobs on the pinephone don't run _in_ linux, they are just uploaded to the wifi chip on boot (it's a firmware patch, not full firmware)

[rhn_mk1]

The Librem 5 WiFi drivers are Free Software though.

[jentist_retol]

>So what's the point of running it on hardware designed to address the issue of running FOSS alongside a blackbox baseband?

The exercise of maintaining an open baseline is valuable. Also, having a development platform is valuable.

Some modern phones keep the blackbox baseband isolated on a non DMA bus, such as usb. In those cases, you simply don't t rust the baseband as anything but a packet forwarder, and enforce full TLS/VPN at a low level in the operation system.

It is limited, though. No argument there.