I would love to, I will get the phone for other means most likely on the next sale. But without the basic official support (android in primis) the phone with SFOS is pretty much useless for me. Would make more sense to try to get the Android 10 hybris up to speed for the XPeria x perhaps instead (Yes, I am aware that the kernel would need quite a bit of loveee). Considering the license is tied to the device; if (hypothetically) I would be to bump the android layer to 10, and have a working kernel; would that enable my license? Considering opensource licensing, I’d assume this to be the case (at least to some extent).
Edit: there seems to be an updated kernel for XPeria X in the 4 series; that would probably help alot?
This is something I’ve been wondering about as well:
Sailfish X is running on Xperia X kernel 3.10, but Xperia X has kernel 4.4 and 4.9 officially available.
If a community member would want to put in the work to get Sailfish running on the newer kernel, would Jolla officially support it?
If a community member would want to put in even more work to replace the Xperia X’s old aliendalvik (which only supports Android applications up to Android 4.4) with the new method used in the Xperia XA2, Xperia 10 and soon Xperia 10 II, would Jolla support this endeavour? This would allow Android applications up to Android 9 to run on the Xperia X, which would future-proof the device for many more years to come, as the most common minimum version these days is Android 5.0.
I can’t attend the community meetings, but if someone would want to bring this up in my stead, please do.
Loire being the older kernel, right?
What we would need here, I guess, is hybris for the 4 series kernel; and build it on top of the XPeria X kernel (assuming the Vanilla Sony kernel does not require any mods to compile in order to work with hybris).
Loire is the whole Xperia X platform consisting of the F5121 (Xperia X) the F5122 (Xperia X dual SIM) and Xperia X compact. It’s been a while that I read the HADK, but as far as I remember you need LineageOS or AOSP from which you want to port.
patches for the kernel might be necessary for hybris
patches for AOSP might be necessary for hybris/Android support?
Come to think of it, n00b question:
does MER require AOSP ? If hybris (as I understood) is managing the compatibility between glib & android drivers in the kernel; theoretically, the AOSP is necessary “only” for the android support?
Oh, so someone already got it to work with an even more recent kernel version, that’s interesting. It’s a shame that person seems to have stopped working on it. @vknecht, if by any chance you read this, do you intend to continue your project?
Thanks for the interest in Oreo/Pie based ports for Loire, and I understand how important it looks to SFOS on Loire users/fans. Sadly, it seems to be a dead end since Jolla :
never really acknowledged this work (like for all community devices/ports)
never agreed to provide/allow AlienDalvik for community devices/ports
so there’s no real benefit to it except maybe more recent kernel (and new problems/incompatibilities to solve), but even Sony’s 4.9 kernel branch (LE.UM.2.3.2.r1.4) is almost dead now and not update-able anymore.
Future is in getting Loire devices mainlined, that is, integrated in Linus Torvald’s Linux tree.
And thankfully there is a team working on it which already mainlined Nile/XA2 : https://www.somainline.org/
That way, no need for binary blobs anymore, and it opens gates to newer and native Android or SFOS ports.
Also, Anbox seems to be better supported on mainlined OS/devices.
Thank you for replying so quickly! Mainline kernel support for mobile phones sounds incredible, but I guess a lot of work will still be needed to make sure those phones can function like a proper phone, with decent battery life and functional sensors.
Indeed, Jolla does not support community ports more than on the tech side.
Premium aspects (Alien Dalvik, predictive text etc) are not available.
Which is why I was wondering if updating the kernel would yield at least a better AOSP.
But perhaps that’s not enough.
I am not looking for (yet) another open source project aimed at saving the mobile world (Jolla gracefully demonstrated this to be not a feasible solution already); I just want a sustainable (from user perspective) phone with SFOS :). The XPeria X is an excellent HW, and actually quite reliable.
If there’s not a better alternative available by the EOL of it, there might be better options around. Will see!
Thanks for the reply. I’ve checked the IRC meetup logs and thanks for the clarifications there too. I’ll wait hopefully for an official release for Xperia 10 II if that happens.
Slightly sad that the shift is towards B2B customers, but hopefully one day the momentum will be back again for providing phones/OS for end-users as first-party too (not just developers and testers).
For the moment, the only real alternatives for Android/iOS are you guys at Sailfish and the other Linux phones. Sailfish being the most mature and stable of the Linux ones.
(Yes, I am aware that the kernel would need quite a bit of loveee). Considering the license is tied to the device; if (hypothetically) I would be to bump the android layer to 10, and have a working kernel; would that enable my license? Considering opensource licensing, I’d assume this to be the case (at least to some extent).
But we would need a “ready made” Image to flash, right?