Replicant

h1. Targets Evaluation

h2. Evaluation criteria

h3. Minimal requirements

List of the bare minimum requirements for a device to be ported to Replicant:

* The device must be supported by CyanogenMod officially (better) or via 3rd party repos

* There must be a way to flash images (via bootloader or recovery) using a free program

* The kernel must not be signed: the bootloader must not check the kernel signature

* The kernel sources must have been released

* The network type must be GSM, no CDMA phone can be supported for now

h3. Good target

What makes a good target for Replicant:

* Bootloader must be ready to flash images, or be very easy to unlock

* Free user-space implementation for most of the hardware already available

* Standard or well-known protocols used in the hardware (V4L2/ALSA/NMEA, etc)

* Firmwares needed only for WiFi/Bluetooth, and not sound, screen, touchscreen, camera, etc

* Freedom-compliant hardware design: Modem isolation (no shared mem, GPS, audio)

h3. Ideal target

An ideal target for Replicant would be:

* Free bootloaders that allow easy flashing for the user

* All the hardware using standard protocols, kernel-drivers and no user-space binary blobs

* Components that do not require loadable firmware

* Ways to update the internal firmwares of the chips (for instance to allow a free software modem implementation)

* Total modem isolation (doesn't control audio, nor GPS, mem, NAND, etc)

* SIM unlock

h3. Known to be bad targets

Here is a list of the bad targets for Replicant and reasons why:

* *MSM/QSD* devices are known to have bad hardware design where the modem controls GPS, audio (including mic), RAM, NAND.

However, some MSM/QSD SoCs don't ship with a modem embedded, so they may be good targets.

* *Nvidia Tegra 2* devices are known to be too slow with Replicant, since there is no NEON nor any free hwcomposer/gralloc.

Perhaps newer Tegra SoCs (which include NEON) would be faster on Replicant.

h2. Devices evaluation

h3. Android devices

|_. Device |_. Manufacturer |_. CyanogenMod port |_. Flash method |_. SoC |_. Graphics |_. Sound |_. Modem |_. WiFi/Bluetooth |_. Camera |_. GPS |_. Sensors |_. Notes |_. Freedom Issues |

| *One* | *GeeksPhone* | CM 7.2 (Android 2.3) | Recovery | MSM7K | Should be fast | Should work | Non-standard protocol but AT seems possible, bad design for freedom | WiFi is *not* the same as GTA02 and requires firmwares | MSM undocumented mechanism | Probably NMEA from modem, bad design for freedom | ? | PaulK has one | Qualcomm => Hardware is BAD for freedom |

| *Zero* | *GeeksPhone* | CM 7.2 (Android 2.3) | Fastboot | MSM7227 | Should be fast | May need firmwares | ? | Need firmwares | MSM undocumented mechanism | Probably NMEA from modem, bad design for freedom | ? | | Qualcomm => Hardware is BAD for freedom |

| *"Galaxy Tab 8.9":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Tab_10.1* | *Samsung* | CM 9.0 (Android 4.0) | Heimdall/Recovery | Tegra 4 | ? | Free module | Samsung IPC, XMM6260 | Need firmwares | Non-free tegra module, perhaps not even v4l2 | BCM4751: secret protocol | ? | PaulK had one but failed to port to it because of Tegra slowness issues. | ? |

| *"Galaxy S3":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_SIII* | *Samsung* | CM 9.0 (Android 4.0) | Heimdall/Recovery | "Exynos 4412":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exynos | Should work, maybe as well as Galaxy S2 | Free module | Samsung IPC | Need firmwares | Non-free | BCM47511: secret protocol | ? | | ? |

| *"Galaxy Tab 2 7":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_Tab_2_%287.0%29* | *Samsung* | CM 9.0 (Android 4.0) | Heimdall/Recovery | OMAP 4430 | Should be fast | Free module | Samsung IPC, transport is over high speed serial on OMAP SoC (shared memory on other versions) | Need firmwares | Needs Ducati M3 firmware and PowerVR user-space (tiler camera) | BCM4751: secret protocol | Non-free | Ported to Replicant, GNUtoo has one | pretty good if you don't push the camera firmware, "modem uses HSI":https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_kernel_samsung_espresso10/blob/ics/arch/arm/configs/cyanogenmod_p3100_defconfig#L1054 which is good |

| *"Galaxy Tab 2 10.1":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_Tab_2_%2810.1%29* | *Samsung* | CM 9.0 (Android 4.0) | Heimdall/Recovery | OMAP 4430 | Should be fast | Free module | Samsung IPC | Need firmwares | Needs Ducati M3 firmware and PowerVR user-space (tiler camera) | BCM4751: secret protocol | Non-free | Ported to Replicant, PaulK has one | Seems ok from block diagram, "modem uses HSI":https://github.com/CyanogenMod/android_kernel_samsung_espresso10/blob/ics/arch/arm/configs/cyanogenmod_p3100_defconfig#L1054 which is good |

| *Nexus 7* | *Asus* | CM 10 (Android 4.1) | Fastboot | Tegra 4 | ? | Free module | 3G version modem uses AT | Need firmwares | Non-free tegra module, perhaps not even v4l2 | BCM4751: secret protocol | ? | | ? |

| *Nexus 10* | *Samsung* | ? | Fastboot | "Exynos 5250":https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exynos | Free gralloc, hwcomposer, non-free 3d, beware: ultra high resolution(could be slow) | Free module | N/A (Has No Modem) | Need firmwares | Free module | BCM4751: secret protocol | Free module | | ? |

| *Nexus 4* | *LG* | CM 10.1 (Android 4.2) | Fastboot | Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 | ? | ? | Unknown protocol | Need firmware | ? | ? | ? | ? | Really BAD: "has too much proprietary things":https://android.googlesource.com/device/lge/mako/+/77f8e6b51a8f26ea9288a9186179511a92c07df0/proprietary-blobs.txt and the hardware is bad for freedom: modem transport is over HSIC (high speed USB), but it controls the GPS (included in the modem chip), audio and perhaps NAND too |

| *Defy* | *Motorola* | CM 7.2 (Android 2.3) | Recovery, in-system recovery flash | OMAP 3630 | Should work | ? | ? | ? | Non-free | ? | ? | | *Kernel is signed*, making a Replicant port impossible |

h3. Other devices

|_. Device |_. Manufacturer |_. Android port |_. Bootloader |_. SoC |_. Standardness |_. Blobs |_. Firmwares |_. Modem |_. Notes |

| *Neo Freerunner* | *Openmoko* | "AoF":http://code.google.com/p/android-on-freerunner/ | u-boot, flash with dfu-utils | Samsung S3C2442, CPU @400Mhz | Audio: ALSA, GPS: NMEA, Modem: AT | No | No | Total isolation | Hardware is too old to be support by Replicant, armv4t |

| *N900* | *Nokia* | Nitdroid | partially signed, chainloaded u-boot, flash with 0xff | OMAP3430, CPU @600Mhz | Voice calls depend on cmt_speech pulseaudio plugin, modem protocol is non-standard but implemented in ofono | Nitdroid uses blobs | Nitdroid uses firmwares (WiFi, bluetooth, camera) | GPS is controlled by the modem, modem transport is over high-speed serial | GNUtoo has one, Nitdroid is hard to build and undocumented | 

| *iPhone* | *Apple* | "iDroid":http://www.idroidproject.org | iDroid bootloader seems free | iPhone 3G: Similar to Samsung S5PC110 | iPhone 3G: Audio: ALSA, Modem: AT, WiFi: libertas | Probably needs some | Probably needs some | Known to never sleep | already supported by the "Idroid project":http://www.idroidproject.org ,however it has "a really bad status":http://www.idroidproject.org/wiki/Status : it can't suspend to ram...  |

| *FLOW G1.55* | *GizmoForYou* | "Stock":https://gitorious.org/flow-g1-5/ | xloader + u-boot | OMAP3 | Audio: ALSA, Modem: AT | ? | WiFi/Bluetooth | Needs to be check, could be OK | Instructions to build Android 2.2 for it are provided: http://www.gizmoforyou.net/wiki/index.php/Building_G155_Android Unfortunately that phone isn’t cheap. |

There is a small number of Do-it-yourself phones where the user is expected to assemble his phone. Examples of this include the "odroid":http://www.hardkernel.com/ phones with comes with android support.

However the issue is that not all users wants or are able to assemble their own phones.