Congratulations! This is one of the most amazing projects I've seen on here and I can't believe I haven't heard of this earlier, especially since you got the phones to boot it as well!

Amazing article as well. I learned 600 new things from this :)

Do you have any more information on sh.rt and its use cases?

As my old ARM Chromebook gets nearer to it's EOL I start to look for how to install Linux on it. I'm wondering if postmarketOS could be used to do this. Has anyone tried to do something like this or where should I look?

I'm slowly dabbling on my own Linux distribution [0]. I'm using Void Linux packages and build system to prepare a rootfs image. Thanks to how it's done in Void I can build the whole image without root on newer kernels. I intend to have the update model of ChromeOS (two partition scheme, reboot to update), but Void being a rolling release only distribution may bring me same pains as Alpine edge brings to postmarketOS. So I wonder: how's Alpine build system in comparison to Void's? Does pmbootstrap bring the isolation or is it already an Alpine feature?

[0] https://github.com/hadrianw/tomatoaster

What is the best way to help the project?

I’ve got an old Sprint Samsung Epic 4G slider (WiMAX, the old 4G), that would love to be a little mobile terminal...might be a little too dated though...

Anyway, this is a fantastic project and I’m eager to contribute!

It's nice to see obsoleted hardware made useful once again.

I can see this becoming only more popular over time. Phones show already a slowing pace of improvements, so maybe in the future devices can be useful (at least in some form) way beyond current 2-3 year period.

Much as I admire the goal and the scrappiness, doesn't it make way more sense to start with an AOSP foundation (without Google Services) and invest one's energy improving (or even forking) that experience instead of reinventing such an enormous wheel?

Really good idea, fair play to everyone working on it. I generally try to keep my phone as long as possible but the main driver to make me get new phone is the diminishing battery capacity. This isn't helped by the fact it is very hard to get a replacement battery shipped to where I live.

I've got piles of old devices, I wouldn't mind having a go at getting this to boot on my Xperia Z5c and Z3.

I'm so glad this project exists, with smartphones being designed to be disposable embedded devices with none of the conveniences the IBM PC architecture provides this is going to be an uphill battle.

Very very nice project. Did you communicate with the lead developper of the Zero phone ? (https://www.crowdsupply.com/arsenijs/zerophone) These two projects could be a great match I think.

I hope to start hacking on my Motorola E 4G (surnia) for which works has started on the wiki but it is my main phone and I need to keep it working :(

Nice blog-post and nice project! Rock on!

This is something really interesting and great. Unfortunately, even to get the basic functionality (calls, audio) working, one has to spend a lot of time and effort.

I am sure I’m missing the point, but surely getting the GSM/3/4G radio working for a voice call would be the whole point here and there’s zero calls made yet by postmarketOS, in over 600 days that’s a pretty bad state to be in. No? Is this supposed to be a Linux phone or not?

confused

I've found that it kinda-sorta works, on some hardware. I really wish they were targeting Debian instead of something as prone-to-broken as Alpine, but beggars can't be choosers.