Good Potential Targets¶

Requirements¶

Basic¶

• The device must be supported by CyanogenMod officially (better) or via 3rd party repos
• There must be a way to flash images (via bootloader or recovery) using a free program
• The kernel must not be signed: the bootloader must not check the kernel signature
• The kernel sources must have been released
• The network type must be GSM, no CDMA phone can be supported for now

Good target¶

• Bootloader must be ready to flash images, or be very easy to unlock
• Free user-space implementation for most of the hardware already available
• Standard or well-known protocols used in the hardware (V4L2/ALSA/NMEA, etc)
• Firmwares needed only for WiFi/Bluetooth, and not sound, screen, touchscreen, camera, etc
• Freedom-compliant hardware design: Modem isolation (no shared mem, GPS, audio)

Ideal target¶

• Free bootloaders that allow easy flashing for the user
• All the hardware using standard protocols, kernel-drivers and no user-space binary blobs
• Components that do not require loadable firmware
• Ways to update the internal firmwares of the chips (for instance to allow a free software modem implementation)
• Total modem isolation (doesn't control audio, nor GPS, mem, NAND, etc)
• SIM unlock

Devices status¶

Geeksphone Zero¶

Has root: YES
Sim Unlocked: YES
In production: YES

The Geeksphone Zero allows custom Android and Linux images to be run instead of the deault ones.
Cyanogenmod (the android derivate Replicant is based on) provides support for the Geeksphone Zero.

SoC is Qualcomm MSM7227 (easy to support on Android).

GizmoForYou FLOW G1.55¶

Has root: YES?
Sim Unlocked: YES?
In production: ?

Overo boards used in this phone are OMAP 3 with free xloader and u-boot (like in GTA04).
Modem uses AT and Android reference RIL (free) is used. Audio is ALSA.

Instructions to build Android 2.2 for it are provided: http://www.gizmoforyou.net/wiki/index.php/Building_G155_Android
The Android 2.2 source code is availble here: https://gitorious.org/flow-g1-5/

Non-free firmwares are needed for WiFi, bluetooth, etc on the Overo boards that include these.
Also, a non-free gralloc lib is used (for graphical acceleration). The 0xdroid project should be able to provide a free gralloc for OMAP 3 boards as a working replacement.

Documentation (datasheets) are also available for most hardware components.

Unfortunately that phone isn’t cheap.

DIY Phones¶

Has root: ?
Sim Unlocked: ?
In production: ?

There is a small number of Do-it-yourself phones where the user is
expected to assemble his phone.
Examples of this include the odroid
( http://www.hardkernel.com/ ) phones with comes with android support.
However the issue is that not all users wants or are able to assemble their own phones.

Comparison of potential targets¶

Support easyness¶

Hardware freedom¶