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Hi folks,

A few weeks ago, I read a book on the downfall of “Nokia Mobile Phones”. It was a rather impressive read and new stuff I have never heard of before like MeeGo, Mer, SailfishOS, etc. were mentioned.

Over the past weeks I read quite a lot about SailfishOS, Jolla, the community, etc. and I have become quite fond of it. It’s kind of funny, since I don’t even have a SailfishOS mobile phone. All is just theory for me at this point. Anyway, I have ordered for a Sony Xperia X and can move from theory to hands on real soon. I’m rather excited about this.

I recently came across a newer brand of mobile phones, which is TECNO produced in China and sold mostly in West-Africa. Some of these phones have rather impressive specs.

Fact is that CM/LineageOS/libhybris do not support them. In addition, it may be difficult to get the attention of the producers, who are focused on Android only.

I got to understand that popular mobile phone producers like Samsung, Google, etc. make porting harder due to closed source stuff and the use of fancy hardware. I think that TECNO may not have these issues. They rather use standard components with common kernels and drivers. This should reduce porting time considerably with the help of a few porting experts.

I know that the info I’m giving here is very limited to come up with better answers. However, I’ve come to understand that there is a lot of expertise available in the community in regard to porting devices.

A had a closer look at the specs of TECNO mobile phones and it appears that there is quite some variability using different SoC’s. Is there a preference apart from being ARM powered?

Anyway, what do you think of my plan to port SailfishOS to TECNO mobile phones?

Is this idea reasonable or should I better forget about it?

Is there a real chance to succeed?

How bad does it look?

What is the best approach to get this done?

Ok, that’s all I have for now. I look forward hearing from you soon! Please let me know if you need more information.

Kind regards, Sonox