Looking to pick up a FreeRunner

swoody swoody at ubuntu.com
Thu Apr 8 21:12:30 CEST 2010


> Warren Baird wrote:
>> Hey Woody,
>>
>> Just a word of warning - the FR is a very fun device to play with -
>> but if you expect it to be a fully functioning phone, you will
>> probably be disappointed.   I tried to use it as my cell phone for a
>> long time, and found it *very* frustating - regularly missed calls and
>> had to reboot it because it had hung.
>
> Which distro were you using?  I recommend QtMoko because it is the best
> and only usable distro I have found.  Make sure you use QtMoko v19 or
> higher, though, because earlier versions miss some incoming SMS
> messages, including notifications of new voice mail, until QtEI is
> restarted.  I do not recommend QtMoko v18, even though it is newer than
> v19, because v18’s 2.6.32 kernel lacks support for both RNDIS and USB
> mode changing.
>
>>
>> I've been using an N900 for a couple of months now, and am very happy
>> with it - isn't quite as open as the FR, but it is open *enough* for
>> me, and it *works*...    Of course if laying out $200 for an FR is a
>> problem, then the N900 is probably out of reach...
>
> The N900 lacks USB Host support at the hardware level.  I guess this
> does not matter to you, but I might miss it because I have used USB Host
> multiple times on my FR.
>
> Anyway, I had a disappointing and frustrating experience with my FR too
> until I discovered QtMoko because all of the distros I tried before
> QtMoko (Om 2008.x, Om 2009, SHR (misnomer++;)) were unusable.
>
> swoody:  If you get an FR, please try QtMoko first.  That way, if you
> decide to try other distros later, you can at least compare them to
> something usable (QtMoko).
>

Thanks for the advice :) I will see what OS the phone comes with, and I'll
play around with that for a bit. Then I will give QtMoko a try and see how
that works out. Reading over the disto info on the wiki it seems like
QtMoko is the crowd favorite, so I'm hoping it will be reliable as well :)

- Woody




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