mobile distributions and upstream challenges

Mobile Distributions and Upstream ChallengesFOSDEM 2010

Hi, I’m Andrew.

asavory@apache.org

twitter.com/savs

(All views are my own)

Raise your hand if you have a linux-based mobile phone

Raise your hand if you have a linux-based mobile phone

Raise your hand if you had a linux-based mobile phone

in February 2009

Raise your hand if you have a linux-based mobile phone

Raise your hand if you had a linux-based mobile phone

in February 2009

2008 ...

Raise your hand if you have a linux-based mobile phone

Raise your hand if you had a linux-based mobile phone

in February 2009

2008 ...

2007 ...

Raise your hand if you have a linux-based mobile phone

Raise your hand if you had a linux-based mobile phone

in February 2009

2008 ...

2007 ...

2006 ...

Embdebian

Maemo

Moblin

Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Android

ChromeOS

LiMo

OpenMoko

Building a mobile distro

Upstream challenges

Where is the latest release?

Where is the source?

What is the license?

Reference hardware

Chicken and egg: hardware not available until the software platform is built. Software platform not built until the hardware is available ...

How to get the hardware to the right people?

Availability of base boards e.g. BeagleBoard

Package management

.deb vs. .rpm vs. .tar.gz vs. ....

Cross compilation + hosting

Scratchbox

QEMU, Xen, KVM, Virtualbox

Where to from here?