Merlijn B. W. Wajer

Linux mobile software and GNU/Linux distributions are currently not widely available for smartphones. This talk covers why it is desirable to have GNU/Linux (not: Android or Android-based) on your smartphone, what the current state of various software attempts at Linux on smartphones is, what progress has been made, and will also dive into the available old and new hardware (including the PinePhone and Librem 5) to run the software & distributions on.

Smartphones running regular (F)OSS Linux distributions are not common. We intend to provide an overview of the current Linux FOSS mobile stacks, distributions that package/provide the mobile stacks and to discuss the hardware that one can use to run this software. We will provide additional details for the postmarketOS distribution and for Maemo Leste (Debian based FOSS mobile software). We also hope to go into some detail about the upcoming PinePhone (https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/)

postmarketOS is a distribution based on alpine, with a focus on minimalism, security and mobile software. postmarketOS supports many old and new smartphones with varying degrees of support, and also packages/ships with various mobile software suites like Plasma Mobile, Maemo/Hildon, Phosh and more.

Maemo Leste is based on Maemo Fremantle (from the Nokia N900 days), but completely open source. It's a repository on top of Debian/Devuan that pulls in the entire Maemo/Hildon user interface and suite of applications. Building on top of a proven set of interfaces, Maemo Leste also aims to be mostly compatible with Maemo the way many people might remember it, with a modern twist.

Pine64 (known for ARM laptops and SBC (Single Board Computers) has decided to get into the mobile business with the PineTab and the PinePhone device. Aiming to deliver developer devices in 2020Q1 and enthusiastic end-user devices in 2020Q2, they've energized software developers who arewriting mobile interfaces for Linux and have been producing a mobile phone at remarkable pace. We will show the Pine64 device and discuss the current state of Linux support on the device.

We plan to give live demos during the presentation, but will have pre-recorded videos as fallback.

Maemo Leste is community a Debian/Devuan based GNU/Linux distribution for smartphones and tablets aimed at free software hackers. In spirit and look it is similar to the Maemo Fremantle OS for the famous Nokia N900 phone. This talk will present the current (alpha) state of Maemo Leste, the presently supported devices, our development setups, the present and upcoming challenges and lay out the future plans for software and hardware (device) support.

This lecture will introduce Maemo Leste, a free Debian/Devuan based GNU/Linux hacker distribution for smartphones and tablets. We will cover the history of Maemo and explain what drove us to work on and create Maemo Leste.

We will provide a technical overview of the software stack, show off and discuss the current status software stack, how we got there, our upcoming milestones and the challenges that lie ahead.

Additionally, we'll take some time to discuss the "hacker" aspect of Maemo Leste. such as (only) supporting mainline Linux, future (first class) Tor and Wireguard integration, bleeding edge open GPU drivers and the availability of all the packages of Debian.

Next to that, we will explain the development setups, build servers and infrastructure, provide some information on how to port Maemo Leste to a new device, dive into possible Android compatibility and hardware and driver issues difficulties (such as mobile GPU drivers and the current open source solutions).

Resources:

• Website+News: https://maemo-leste.github.io/
• Github: https://github.com/maemo-leste
• Wiki: https://leste.maemo.org/
• Nokia N900 status of Maemo Leste: https://leste.maemo.org/Nokia_N900
• Motorola Droid 4 status of Maemo Leste: https://leste.maemo.org/MotorolaDroid4
• Lima driver (Linux 4.19 + patches) running Maemo Leste on Allwinner A33 tablets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihCVsaEMNzY