This month 15 years have passed since I've received my Openmoko Neo FreeRunner, which started my personal adventure with mobile GNU/Linux π
I remember wondering back in 2008 whether I should invest myself and my money in Openmoko or Android as both were at their infancy and looking interesting. In hindsight, even though Openmoko does not exist anymore, I'm convinced that I've made the right choice!
#openmoko #mobile #linux #gnu #phone #smartphone #shr #linuxmobile #mobilelinux #linuxsmartphones
@dos i also owned this peace of hardware... it was fun to play around with it but for me it never worked as it should...
@christian I wonder - which OS have you used on it? I think my one was from one of the earliest batches and still shipped with Om2007.2. Later ones shipped with Om2008 which I never switched to as I didn't like it at all; I kept using Om2007.2 until FSO and SHR came around. Maybe it wasn't the most reliable thing I've ever used, but it wasn't really unreliable either - everything worked fine if you treated it well ;)
@dos i often switched the os but i also wanted to use it as a phone and that dont work really good... as a pocket pc it was great
@christian It was my main and only phone for a few years. It was suuuuper sloooow and you could switch WiFi modes between "unstable" and "power hungry", but it worked well as a phone for me.
@dos then you made better experiences than me
@christian @dos Omg ja hast das ding noch π iwie haben da am Anfang die elementarsten Funktionen nicht funktioniert
@dos so cool. I bet on android instead, but I almost regret it now. It would've been a way funnier experience the other option!
@dos Very cool. I have my old one still and tried to charge it / power it on a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I could not get it to boot any more. Tips on how to power it on again are welcome!
@janvlug There's a spare bootloader in NOR you can access by holding AUX while powering it on; provided that it actually gets power. I don't remember if it's able to boot with no battery though, so if the battery is dead you may have to kickstart it first (you can use standard Nokia BL-5C or BL-6C batteries to boot and swap afterwards).
@dos Is the interface E17οΌ
@ltlnx Yup, Illume 2.
@dos I still have it! Although I lost the last image to flash, and don't remember how to flash it anymore π It was cool. That sensation of freedom, an infinite world of possibilities, a wifi connection to look at Internet... The newsgroups ! The meetings ! Ah... those times... πͺ
@KinmenRisingProject It used dfu-util after booting from NOR (by holding AUX), shouldn't be hard to figure out! But yeah, getting an image may be a challenge π
@dos I made the touchscreen usable! Getting a job there 15 years ago was a dream come true for me. Too bad it didn't last, small team, great people.