I think that it is better to look at the tasks that Purism has to do before it can ship Evergreen, and then try to estimate how long that will take:
- It has to get FCC certification or it can’t legally sell the phone.
- It has to get suspend to RAM working if it wants the Evergreen batch to generate any new sales. Otherwise, battery life will be so horrible that every reviewer will tell people not to buy the phone.
- I don’t think that it has to have the cameras functioning, but it has to have enough kernel support for the cameras, so that it knows that the hardware will work with later software updates. This means that it has to figure out the poorly documented MIPI CSI-2 interface and get support for it into the mainline Linux driver.
- It has to verify that the BM818 and PLS8 can keep functioning while the rest of the system is suspended and will be able to wake up the phone when a phone call is received. It doesn’t have to have it functioning, but it has to know that the hardware allows it and it will work later with a software update.
- It doesn’t have to have video out working, but it has to have it working enough in the mainline Linux drivers that it knows the hardware will work and software updates will be able to provide it.
This is hard stuff and Purism is still far from being able to ship Evergreen. If Purism can’t verify that the cameras and video out will eventually work in the Linux kernel and the cellular modems will eventually be able to wake up the system, it really should not ship Evergreen, because it can’t change the hardware later.
Watch the issues and merge requests for Librem5 and especially linux-next and you will have a much better idea when Evergreen can ship.
NXP has done a very poor job of supported the i.MX 8M driver in mainline Linux, and it is really hurting Purism. It drives me crazy that people always compare the PinePhone to the Librem 5 and never acknowledge the kernel work that Purism has to do compared to PINE64.