The power of things like this taking off is not what they are now, but what they can be. There are lots of real people with their own good reasons to not be tied to Google/Apple, and whats really impressive here is that unlike firefox OS, they are (in my opinion) doing this in a much better way.
As this catches on, it only helps improve linux hardware (ARM) support, telephony applications for linux, and the like. As well as being able to have (or make for others) a truly remarkable user interface and apps. This is a mobile computer, running linux, running a desktop environment (not webkit, or Java VM, or closed source code) that only limits what you can make by your skill and imagination.
Yes it looks pretty mediocre now, but that's because its waiting on you to get involved.
I used to have that. It was my Nokia n900. I was able to pull up live thumbnail previews of all apps running in the background, and this included live simultaneous previews of: youtube videos in a web browser, games, and Debian, without lag. Try doing that on today's technology. It had a wonderfully acurate resistive touch screen that was pressure senstive that was really good for drawing and coloring! The camera would start up immediately as soon as I opened the shutter, even while the screen is off and in a sleep state. My modern android device takes so much longer to even get the shutter ready.
I loved always having access to a physical keyboard and an actual root linux shell out of the box without any hacking. I loved that my n900 behaved more like a computer and less like "mobile" device.
Too bad Nokia decided to end support for the n900. Most of its developers and lots of its users abandoned ship, and now I only use it as a camera because the n900 is stuck in 2009, and the web in 2016 is so bloated and heavy that nothing- not even the web browser or the unupdated apps- are usable now.
The trouble isn't the software. I'd gladly jump onto Ubuntu Touch and wanted to try out FireFox OS when it was still maintained, but the trouble is the hardware. I didn't want to buy a Nexus, which seems like the only device that's the first to be supported by any alt-OS.
Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, you could just run Linux on your x86. Sometimes half your hardware didn't work, but as long as you could get Ethernet and display you were in pretty good shape usually. The thing is, you could install it. You could try it.
With ARM, everything is so specialized. Looking at the forum posts for this thing, half of the threads are about porting to devices.
The manufactures have no incentive to standardize the platform. They customize to a device and it's better for them if you just throw it out in two years when they drop support.
A limited number of hobby devices now use the device tree configuration, but the ARM platform is far from being as standard as Intel or Power.
If the Ubuntu Edge had been funded, I think we'd be in a difference space with at least a handful of devices that had some standardization (if only to accommodate Canonical). As it stands, ARM fragmentation is a huge problem for hackers/devs.
I never liked KDE looks nor ergonomics. Nor their attempts at grand projects (plasma makes me cringe everytime I see the word now). But I appreciate "simpler" open linux platform for smartphones. Wish them the best.
ps: I was actually looking into FDroid to free myself a little from Android locks, wishing for a simple linux + ssh + any signed code I wish.
The question is: how? The website doesn't make it very clear to developers (after a fairly quick skim on my part, at least) as to how they can help with the initiative. I have a Nexus 6p, and it seems like my device isn't supported, but how can I maybe help with porting to a new device?
If I understand correctly, this is a user environment. What OS does it run on? A Linux distro? Android?
I don't see that detail mentioned on the site. Perhaps people familiar with KDE and Plasma know, but I don't. Or perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious ...
EDIT: Wikipedia says that Plasma is a desktop environment, not an OS, and that "Plasma Mobile is a Plasma variant for smartphones".
The content on the page does a very poor job of explaining what it is and why we should care. It's only until I saw the KDE developers at the bottom that I realised it's a graphical desktop environment but for your mobile phone. It's FOSS so it's hackable, as in you have access to the source code and development is done in the open and contributions are encouraged. The target developer phone seems to be the LG Nexus 5. I guess it's running some Debian-based OS as apt-get is its package manager.
The project is about running KDE in a linux container on Cyanogenmod which is a modified build of open source Android OS.
But for some reason they use marketing language to make it look like they have invented some new mobile OS.
By the way, it doesn't look very secure:
- first, you have to unlock the bootloader. It means you can install custom firmware but anyone having physical access to your phone can do it too.
- Google did a lot to make Android more secure. For example, every application is run under a separate user account to protect it from other (potentially malicious) applications. Applications' privileges are restricted. KDE doesn't have such features.
So if you like KDE or want to run or maybe write KDE applications this project will help you. But you'll have to forget about security and I guess the project is in early development stage now so there can be bugs and something might not work.
I think it's a full OS. Look at the forums and they talk about porting. I don't think it runs on Android, but has a Linux base that has to be ported to different arm platforms.
Just like desktop KDE, the UI doesn't appeal to me. I find it too flashy and kind of "in your face".
My favorite mobile OS so far has been Meego that ran on N9. That device was mind blowing and that OS. Amazing. It had such a simple, yet useful UI. Multi-tasking was better than what even Android has now. I hope Jolla doesn't die like that and we see a lot more devices come out running Sailfish.
I know this is a completely subjective matter but I'm really surprised you'd use the word flashy and in your face as a description, I really like it, but boring and dull could fit better as a criticism IMO, specially with older versions, I'm really curious about your choice of words, this is what it looks like to me:
.. on the other hand Gnome2 used to be pretty great. It didn't look pretty and took quite some effort to make it look good with themes and icon sets but it was a highly usable, easy to use and yet powerful desktop. I hate the direction Gnome3 is going in. Every Gnome3 app feels like designed for iPad instead of keyboard+mouse. iPad apps and Gnome3 apps basically have same UI philosophy. I can't even begin to explain how wrong that is. Even Apple has not "dumbed down" their dekstop apps to make them iPad like.
Just other day I was trying latest Ubuntu on a pen drive and I couldn't believe that renaming a directory now open a modal dialog that asks you for the new name of the directory. WTH? What was wrong with the inline directory naming? It was perfect and everyone else does it. It's such a basic thing to understand. You rename an item and edit it's name inline. You see all the time what you are remaning. As soon as you rename it, you see the change take effect immediately and see the new item take new place if sorting changes. Instead we now have a modal dialog that that asks for the new name. I also couldn't find any "create new file" in right click. What was wrong with that? IRRC, the search button also does open a dialog elsewhere.
Then come GnomeShell. That thing has 4 different types of controls on 4 edges of the screen. Every edge has a different control. Left has dock, top has a panel, right has workspace switcher and bottom has yet another panel which hosts different indicators than the top panel. I think bottom one handles 3rd party app indicators. Why do I as a user have to remember which different positions for different indicators? If I open something from top left corner (launcher) and want to switch workspace, I'll to drag my mouse all the way from top left corner to the right edge. I just don't get it.
I do actually really like Unity7. It's simple, clean and yet powerful. All indicators are in 1 place, switcher is simply inside dock and has amazing keyboard accessibility. I hope Unity8 doesn't ruin it with it's focus on mobile.
/rant
I don't hate Gnome. I love Gnome and has great respect and gratitude for it's developers. They are some of the best developers I know. It's just that the recent UX decisions have made it unusable for me and it kills me to think about how amazing and simple Gnome could have been.
Main plasma mobile developer here, I wanted to reply some questions that surfaced in comments and give a bit of overview on current state and where we need help. We initially based it on Ubuntu Touch, and later on started using our own stack based on Cyanogenmod, more information on it at : http://blog.bshah.in/2016/05/02/plasma-mobile-new-base-syste...
So basically currently Plasma Mobile is made of,
- KDE Frameworks
- kwin_wayland
- Plasma workspace
- Plasma phone shell
- Various Applications
And to run Plasma Mobile stack on mobile devices, we have
- Minimal Cyanongenmod base
- LXC userspace tools for android
- Neon rootfs with Plasma Mobile
Q: Why not use Mer and/or Ubuntu Touch
A: This question is mostly answered in the blog post I linked above, Mer is using RPM .spec based packaging and we don't have resources and as well people who have expertise in RPM packaging, about Ubuntu Touch, we initially based our stack on top of Ubuntu Touch, however later we ended up diverging on various levels, for example libhybris, Qt etc. and it was impossible to keep using Ubuntu Touch stack
Q: Why we are using libhybris and not freedreno?
A: Short answer: In theory, we can use freedreno.
Long answer: kwin_wayland supports DRM backend, and freedreno provides the DRM on android devices, however we don't have access to device which supports freedreno easily. For instance I attempted to get mainline kernel working on Nexus 5 device and also submitted some device tree source files to Linux kernel tree, and will be available in kernel 4.9 release.. But sadly I was not able to finish this project
Q: Why not other devices?
A: Currently we don't have access to multiple devices, however we will be happy to help the community members to "port" or in other words, make Plasma mobile run on their devices.
Q: Where we need help?
A: You can help on pretty much everything.. Some things that come to mind, are
- Porting to other devices
- Various Plasma on Wayland todo items
- More applications for Plasma mobile
- Work on base system
Interface seems gratuitously large except the status bar and clock and whatnot. In all the shots of the home screen (?) the on-screen navigation buttons seem to cover the labels of the app icons... sometimes. The "Muon" app has a smaller icon so the label sits higher... looks not so great.
However, it seems they're trying to appeal to the more Libre folks - anti-all-current-smartphone-OS-vendors and their watchful eyes - who are generally developer types -- at least as far as I know. And those types of people are usually willing to give in the UX department.
I'd love to see this (and any alternative smartphone OS) project succeed, but it's got a fair amount of growing to do before that happens in my opinion.
I would love to someday have Linux running on my phone and just be able to do whatever the heck I want with it with simple APIs for interacting with sensors and cellular voice/sms/data just working. Like Arch Linux for your smartphone. That would be so fun to hack on I think.
I hope that you are right and this turns into that, but its also an opportunity for someone to branch it off into a commercial product. Some people don't want a pocket computer, they want a groomed and simple to use OS with user experience in mind, that "just works".
I like the larger feel. As my eyes find it harder and harder to read small things as I age, having an interface that defaults to objects I can comfortably see and manipulate is a good thing.
I've been using Linux on desktop for years and love how flexible and open it is. I use maybe 1% of its capabilities and it's amazing.
I'd love to be able to have a working, stable and open mobile system. I don't want to be locked in into Google because i don't trust them (or anybody else) enough.
Android is great but i miss linux-like feeling of possibilities. But it can be due to my lack of technical skills. Maybe if i rooted the phone it'd be good enough now?
The intro video is very...interesting. They have this fast paced, upbeat music while they very slowly do things on the phone, like make phone calls. It felt like they thought we should be impressed it can make phone calls.
It's an improvement on Openmoko. I remember the first time some freetard tried to show me Openmoko at a trade show, and before he could successfully make a phone call he had to pop up an xterm, run alsamixer, and fix everything. It was hilarious.
I believe Openmoko used GTK+. Maybe Qt was what the project needed all along.
How do they justify calling it "fully open" when it uses libHybris to support binary blobs for Android just to get graphics and other essentials working?
Well, there weren't any major updates from them lately (the intro video is from Jul 25, 2015). I'm waiting for some handset device which can run it properly with Wayland on native GPU drivers and Mesa, without any libhybris and Android graphics blobs.
Freedreno[1] kind of was progressing to enable that, but I'm not sure if there is any handset around which would be usable in native form given there some other drivers involved besides the GPU. Did anyone try that with Google Pixels?
I like this announcement and still root for any alternative phone platform. The thing is - which device would I buy?
Plasma Mobile supports the Nexus 5 and (maybe) the OnePlus One right now. CopperheadOS doesn't support either of those. I was unable to get a reliable source for supported devices for Ubuntu Phone (best I found was [1], not even sure if that's related) and so far I don't believe that the supported devices for THAT platform intersect with the other two.
Searching for sailfishOS device support only comes up with Jolla phones. It seems as if not only is the market lacking alternative systems, it's also near impossible to try out the ones that do exist. Buying a device for some experimental OS is something I have done (Flame for FxOs - still sad that it died, owned a Palm Pre), but cumbersome and expensive.
Video was fun with time being 13:37, Linus giving the finger, etc... but the actual UX seems gross and over-sized (albeit not quite as bad as FireFox OS).
I'm sure they will have at least a couple dozen of installs.
I think the title is misleading. This project is about installing KDE on a smartphone over Cyanogenmod (which is a modified build of Android).
I am totally against Google and its restrictions and tracking proprietary code in Android but this project looks more like an attempt to get user base to sell them some paid services later.
Do you really need KDE to make your phone "hackable"?
Google did a lot to polish Android code and released it under an open license. I doubt that project is able to invest a comparable amount of work.
Having the same interface on desktop and mobile devices is not going to work well.
UPD: their installer installs a firmware (like twrp) that makes your phone unprotected from reflashing and stealing your data or installing a backdoor if someone gets physical access to the phone. They do not warn about it.
I have to admit I was thinking this was the more classic "penetrate networks" use of the term "hacking" as opposed to the modern "creatively overcoming limitations" usage. Took a moments of browsing to offset the confusion.
Kali is just a Linux distro. Most/all tools in Kali are available in other distros, and not just the 'hacking' distros. In other words, you can still run Metasploit and suchlike on something like Plasma Mobile.
Well, this thing can run Ubuntu Touch apps, and it may even be able to run Sailfish and Nemo apps later on...
Ubuntu Touch is the big one though, I'd love to see more devices compatible with it. Some industrious fellow out there is probably willing to port most of the python crap in Kali to something more useful, agile, portable, and compatible with Ubuntu Touch, if something like that isn't already going on.
[+] [-] benmcnelly|9 years ago|reply
As this catches on, it only helps improve linux hardware (ARM) support, telephony applications for linux, and the like. As well as being able to have (or make for others) a truly remarkable user interface and apps. This is a mobile computer, running linux, running a desktop environment (not webkit, or Java VM, or closed source code) that only limits what you can make by your skill and imagination.
Yes it looks pretty mediocre now, but that's because its waiting on you to get involved.
[+] [-] lphnull|9 years ago|reply
I loved always having access to a physical keyboard and an actual root linux shell out of the box without any hacking. I loved that my n900 behaved more like a computer and less like "mobile" device.
Too bad Nokia decided to end support for the n900. Most of its developers and lots of its users abandoned ship, and now I only use it as a camera because the n900 is stuck in 2009, and the web in 2016 is so bloated and heavy that nothing- not even the web browser or the unupdated apps- are usable now.
[+] [-] djsumdog|9 years ago|reply
Back in the late 90s/early 2000s, you could just run Linux on your x86. Sometimes half your hardware didn't work, but as long as you could get Ethernet and display you were in pretty good shape usually. The thing is, you could install it. You could try it.
With ARM, everything is so specialized. Looking at the forum posts for this thing, half of the threads are about porting to devices.
The manufactures have no incentive to standardize the platform. They customize to a device and it's better for them if you just throw it out in two years when they drop support.
A limited number of hobby devices now use the device tree configuration, but the ARM platform is far from being as standard as Intel or Power.
If the Ubuntu Edge had been funded, I think we'd be in a difference space with at least a handful of devices that had some standardization (if only to accommodate Canonical). As it stands, ARM fragmentation is a huge problem for hackers/devs.
[+] [-] agumonkey|9 years ago|reply
ps: I was actually looking into FDroid to free myself a little from Android locks, wishing for a simple linux + ssh + any signed code I wish.
[+] [-] lytedev|9 years ago|reply
The question is: how? The website doesn't make it very clear to developers (after a fairly quick skim on my part, at least) as to how they can help with the initiative. I have a Nexus 6p, and it seems like my device isn't supported, but how can I maybe help with porting to a new device?
[+] [-] paxcoder|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
I don't see that detail mentioned on the site. Perhaps people familiar with KDE and Plasma know, but I don't. Or perhaps I'm overlooking something obvious ...
EDIT: Wikipedia says that Plasma is a desktop environment, not an OS, and that "Plasma Mobile is a Plasma variant for smartphones".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Plasma_5
[+] [-] reledi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codedokode|9 years ago|reply
But for some reason they use marketing language to make it look like they have invented some new mobile OS.
By the way, it doesn't look very secure:
- first, you have to unlock the bootloader. It means you can install custom firmware but anyone having physical access to your phone can do it too.
- Google did a lot to make Android more secure. For example, every application is run under a separate user account to protect it from other (potentially malicious) applications. Applications' privileges are restricted. KDE doesn't have such features.
So if you like KDE or want to run or maybe write KDE applications this project will help you. But you'll have to forget about security and I guess the project is in early development stage now so there can be bugs and something might not work.
[+] [-] jbob2000|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokac|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djsumdog|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swiley|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hackuser|9 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12861481
It turns out it runs Neon, in a container, on top of Cyanogenmod. They formerly used Ubuntu Touch, but no longer.
[+] [-] owaislone|9 years ago|reply
My favorite mobile OS so far has been Meego that ran on N9. That device was mind blowing and that OS. Amazing. It had such a simple, yet useful UI. Multi-tasking was better than what even Android has now. I hope Jolla doesn't die like that and we see a lot more devices come out running Sailfish.
[+] [-] Trufa|9 years ago|reply
http://i.imgur.com/J82pZMh.png
You'd say that is flashy? Just curious :)
[+] [-] owaislone|9 years ago|reply
Just other day I was trying latest Ubuntu on a pen drive and I couldn't believe that renaming a directory now open a modal dialog that asks you for the new name of the directory. WTH? What was wrong with the inline directory naming? It was perfect and everyone else does it. It's such a basic thing to understand. You rename an item and edit it's name inline. You see all the time what you are remaning. As soon as you rename it, you see the change take effect immediately and see the new item take new place if sorting changes. Instead we now have a modal dialog that that asks for the new name. I also couldn't find any "create new file" in right click. What was wrong with that? IRRC, the search button also does open a dialog elsewhere.
Then come GnomeShell. That thing has 4 different types of controls on 4 edges of the screen. Every edge has a different control. Left has dock, top has a panel, right has workspace switcher and bottom has yet another panel which hosts different indicators than the top panel. I think bottom one handles 3rd party app indicators. Why do I as a user have to remember which different positions for different indicators? If I open something from top left corner (launcher) and want to switch workspace, I'll to drag my mouse all the way from top left corner to the right edge. I just don't get it.
I do actually really like Unity7. It's simple, clean and yet powerful. All indicators are in 1 place, switcher is simply inside dock and has amazing keyboard accessibility. I hope Unity8 doesn't ruin it with it's focus on mobile.
/rant
I don't hate Gnome. I love Gnome and has great respect and gratitude for it's developers. They are some of the best developers I know. It's just that the recent UX decisions have made it unusable for me and it kills me to think about how amazing and simple Gnome could have been.
[+] [-] bshah|9 years ago|reply
Main plasma mobile developer here, I wanted to reply some questions that surfaced in comments and give a bit of overview on current state and where we need help. We initially based it on Ubuntu Touch, and later on started using our own stack based on Cyanogenmod, more information on it at : http://blog.bshah.in/2016/05/02/plasma-mobile-new-base-syste...
So basically currently Plasma Mobile is made of,
And to run Plasma Mobile stack on mobile devices, we have Q: Why not use Mer and/or Ubuntu Touch A: This question is mostly answered in the blog post I linked above, Mer is using RPM .spec based packaging and we don't have resources and as well people who have expertise in RPM packaging, about Ubuntu Touch, we initially based our stack on top of Ubuntu Touch, however later we ended up diverging on various levels, for example libhybris, Qt etc. and it was impossible to keep using Ubuntu Touch stackQ: Why we are using libhybris and not freedreno?
A: Short answer: In theory, we can use freedreno.
Long answer: kwin_wayland supports DRM backend, and freedreno provides the DRM on android devices, however we don't have access to device which supports freedreno easily. For instance I attempted to get mainline kernel working on Nexus 5 device and also submitted some device tree source files to Linux kernel tree, and will be available in kernel 4.9 release.. But sadly I was not able to finish this project
Q: Why not other devices?
A: Currently we don't have access to multiple devices, however we will be happy to help the community members to "port" or in other words, make Plasma mobile run on their devices.
Q: Where we need help?
A: You can help on pretty much everything.. Some things that come to mind, are
That said, if you have any questions feel free to reach me at [email protected], or to Plasma team at [email protected] mailing list.Edit: edited for line breaks
[+] [-] deadcast|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lytedev|9 years ago|reply
However, it seems they're trying to appeal to the more Libre folks - anti-all-current-smartphone-OS-vendors and their watchful eyes - who are generally developer types -- at least as far as I know. And those types of people are usually willing to give in the UX department.
I'd love to see this (and any alternative smartphone OS) project succeed, but it's got a fair amount of growing to do before that happens in my opinion.
I would love to someday have Linux running on my phone and just be able to do whatever the heck I want with it with simple APIs for interacting with sensors and cellular voice/sms/data just working. Like Arch Linux for your smartphone. That would be so fun to hack on I think.
[+] [-] benmcnelly|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rotten|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dom0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iUsedToCode|9 years ago|reply
I'd love to be able to have a working, stable and open mobile system. I don't want to be locked in into Google because i don't trust them (or anybody else) enough.
Android is great but i miss linux-like feeling of possibilities. But it can be due to my lack of technical skills. Maybe if i rooted the phone it'd be good enough now?
Anyway, i hope they succeed.
[+] [-] Etheryte|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] INTPnerd|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anoother|9 years ago|reply
Oh, but you should be impressed. For how long could OpenMoko not make phone calls?
Open-source phone OSs have a habit of neglecting actual phone functionality. So I think it's great that they highlight it.
[+] [-] benmcnelly|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mthoms|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nowayyeah|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] honkhonkpants|9 years ago|reply
I believe Openmoko used GTK+. Maybe Qt was what the project needed all along.
[+] [-] gue5t|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brianzelip|9 years ago|reply
If the anchor text ("VIDEO INTRO") isn't hovered while its parent `div` is, the result is black text on black bg.
[+] [-] shmerl|9 years ago|reply
Freedreno[1] kind of was progressing to enable that, but I'm not sure if there is any handset around which would be usable in native form given there some other drivers involved besides the GPU. Did anyone try that with Google Pixels?
[1]. https://github.com/freedreno/freedreno/wiki
[+] [-] darklajid|9 years ago|reply
Plasma Mobile supports the Nexus 5 and (maybe) the OnePlus One right now. CopperheadOS doesn't support either of those. I was unable to get a reliable source for supported devices for Ubuntu Phone (best I found was [1], not even sure if that's related) and so far I don't believe that the supported devices for THAT platform intersect with the other two.
Searching for sailfishOS device support only comes up with Jolla phones. It seems as if not only is the market lacking alternative systems, it's also near impossible to try out the ones that do exist. Buying a device for some experimental OS is something I have done (Flame for FxOs - still sad that it died, owned a Palm Pre), but cumbersome and expensive.
1: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices
[+] [-] deft|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peller|9 years ago|reply
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobil...
hardware specs: http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_nexus_5-5705.php
[+] [-] sockopen|9 years ago|reply
I'm sure they will have at least a couple dozen of installs.
[+] [-] mixedCase|9 years ago|reply
However Plasma 5 still has its fair share of UX issues here and there so I'm crossing fingers the KDE design community gets its hands on this.
[+] [-] jrochkind1|9 years ago|reply
But you don't want to clearly tell us who it is?
[+] [-] codedokode|9 years ago|reply
I am totally against Google and its restrictions and tracking proprietary code in Android but this project looks more like an attempt to get user base to sell them some paid services later.
Do you really need KDE to make your phone "hackable"?
Google did a lot to polish Android code and released it under an open license. I doubt that project is able to invest a comparable amount of work.
Having the same interface on desktop and mobile devices is not going to work well.
UPD: their installer installs a firmware (like twrp) that makes your phone unprotected from reflashing and stealing your data or installing a backdoor if someone gets physical access to the phone. They do not warn about it.
[+] [-] geuis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oldgun|9 years ago|reply
I'm now very expecting the KDE tablet.
[+] [-] chriswarbo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azurelogic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colinbartlett|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZenoArrow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptrash|9 years ago|reply
Ubuntu Touch is the big one though, I'd love to see more devices compatible with it. Some industrious fellow out there is probably willing to port most of the python crap in Kali to something more useful, agile, portable, and compatible with Ubuntu Touch, if something like that isn't already going on.