I want to donate to a linux phone. I believe in linux and I want a linux phone. Maybe we can use one in very few years as a normal daily driver. It’s getting closer and closer every month.
I want to donate that we get there sooner. But which project? I’m following postmarket but I’m not sure if they are the most promising. What’s your stance on this? To which project would you give your money to accellerate it?
Edit: I don’t want to buy a phone. I want to support the phone os devs. Sorry for the bad wording.
I think either PostmarketOS or Mobian would be the best existing candidates right now.
Hardware wise, the Fairphone 4 is probably the best option, especially compared to something like a Pinephone.I tried Phosh (Gnome mobile shell) on an exhibition a while ago and honestly loved it.
However, I’m absolutely not confident in those tbh, in terms of reliability. The whole thing is highly experimental right now, and I wouldn’t trust them as a daily driver.
Phosh is also available for Fedora, especially Silverblue (available as ARM iso), since you are, with me together, probably one of the most prominent Fedora Atomic fanboy :D
I see big potential in a uBlue-phone spin maybe. I tried making one myself, but I absolutely don’t have a clue what I’m doing and don’t want any responsibility for such a project.
Do you know if or how we could organise such a project?I really wish PostmarketOS worked with more recent hardware, especially some of the Pixel line.
Your welcome to port it.
Thx! Sounds like it’ll be postmarketos
It’s porbably best to connect with ublue devs on their discord
Don’t use Discord, rather use the official uBlue-forum. That way, everything is public, better organized, accessible and not in the hand of some chinese corporation.
None. The sad, infuriating truth is that the makers and devs are a lot like this comments section: focusing on how good of a computer it is (or what apps it has).
You do a little digging and beneath all the hype there is a line buried in every review, so as not to raise suspicions, that says something like “now the call quality isn’t perfect, but…” and what they mean is “it will sound like your friends are playing a full concert on a kazoo trying to talk to you.”
Time and time again. Every linux-based, privacy-respecting, freedom-loving phone team out there seems to have conveniently neglected to make the phone good at being a phone.
Anecdotally, I have been using my L5 for almost a year now and haven’t had complaints of call audio quality once.
What is a review if not just an anecdote from someone who got paid to write it.
It’s good to know, as the Librem 5 was one of the ones I’d seen the aforementioned practice of burying the lede in reviews of.
There’s a large ecosystem in the Android space. Right now F-droid and Lineage os are making leaps and bounds.
The problem with mobile phones is that they have big differences between each others in terms of hardware, so it’s really hard to come up with a “unified solution”, thus making development really slow.
Right now, the two distributions which came further in development are PostmarketOS and UbuntuTouch, but they are still far from being a reliable daily driver.If the reason you’d like to chip in is not just Linux per se, but FOSS in general, there are plenty of fully free and open source Android roms that are a great deal in terms of usability, privacy and support, notably LineageOS, GrapheneOS, /e/OS and the one I chose for myself which is CalyxOS
+1 for Graphene
None. Linux phones are not going to be daily driver worthy in a long time. We already got our FOSS Linux based mobile OS, it is called Android.
If you want to donate to Linux devs, sure do it. But delusion about Linux phones is a futile and even dangerous exercise if you needed the phone to work in critical times.
Linux phones are not going to be daily driver worthy in a long time.
My friend’s daily driver is a PinePhone. So daily driver worthy.
None of my PinePhone owning friends say it’s “quite there yet” to be a daily driver. I have been asking them every six months if it’s time to take the plunge.
To people down voting you, it’s important to note that Google-free, pure FOSS Android based OS do exist.
This is what you should be looking at if you want a fully Open Source phone OS, with no privacy issues (no phoning to Google servers).
if you want a fully Open Source phone OS
That’s not the topic of OP’s post.
Postmarketos with phosh works “fine” with the pinephone.
Don’t do this.
Android is already Linux on a phone and it’s bad.
Donate to normal Linux on computers. There is an ever expanding mess of packages that need to be updated, fixed, hosted, maintained, streamlined, back ported and generally massaged into functionality with whatever goofy distro you pick.
Donate to Linux on computers instead.
For the vast majority of people these days, a phone/tablet is their computer, and a laptop/desktop cannot fulfill the same use cases. So if someone makes the very reasonable request for a phone recommendation, telling them to just use a laptop/desktop doesn’t make any sense. It would be like someone asking for a recommendation for a moped, and responding “don’t bother, just get a Ford F150”.
For all the people using phones as their computer I doubt there would be many who want to use linux. It’s a bit like someone asking for recommendations for a moped and you tell them to build it themselves.
I’m all for wanting linux on phones and supporting that but I have never ever known someone to be interested in linux and only use a phone/tablet. I can’t imagine working a CLI with a phone keyboard.
It’s not clear to me why you believe Linux on mobile implies typing into a CLI interface using a phone keyboard. We choose to use the CLI when it makes the most sense as an input method for the platform, not because it’s required by Linux.
As the post above pointed out, android is already Linux, so that’s already an option. But OP’s goal would be to have a FOSS phone given that phones are increasingly the computing device of choice for people, and there are very few feature complete FOSS options in that space right now.
I’m not saying it is CLI, I’m saying that I don’t want CLI on my phone. Android for instance is based on linux and isn’t a CLI for the most part.
Again, why I say it’s like asking someone to build it themselves when people who only use phones and not desktops/laptops don’t typically want to build it themselves.
Cool then don’t use a CLI on your phone, I don’t know anyone who would.
Android is Linux, you don’t need to build it yourself. That’s not a precursor to using Linux on mobile any more than using a CLI is.
Android is kinda linux, I think most people would find it weird to call it a linux distro. OP also isn’t looking for an android phone when they say a linux phone. For a linux phone there is a lot of build-it-yourself and people generally don’t want to flash their device to install it, especially people who only use a phone as their computer.
Android isn’t kinda Linux, it is actually Linux. It includes other proprietary stuff too, but Google regularly contributes their changes upstream. Like it or not, android is a prime example of what is possible on mobile using Linux.
Yes, I agree that OP isn’t looking for Android and wants to support an alternate option. But here’s where I think our disconnect is: the goal wouldn’t be for the alternate option to be a difficult to use, niche, build-it-yourself headache. That’s never anyone’s goal for anything. The goal is to make something roughly as good as, or better than Android, except FOSS.
It’s just that it takes funding and vision to make something as feature rich as android, and both are hard to come by.
The point of Linux on phones isn’t to have a phone that requires you to constantly fix it with CLI tools. The point is to have a free and open software platform for a device that is increasingly necessary for daily life.
As a side effect, developing Linux for phones would probably help us eliminate the need to reach for the terminal on desktop Linux as well. I believe snaps (which laid the groundwork for flatpaks) were originally developed for Linux on “smart” devices. The whole ecosystem improves when we try to bring Linux into a new domain.
P.S. I use termux (a terminal for android complete with its own tiny Linux environment) from time to time when I need to access my server over SSH. It’s a bit clumsy, but super handy!
No, it’s not like that at all.
The op didn’t ask for a phone recommendation and I didn’t recommend instead that they use a laptop or desktop.
The op said they want to donate to a Linux phone because one day they believe they’ll be able to use a Linux phone. They want to pick the right one to give money to so it’ll have the best effect towards that end.
I said they shouldn’t do that because they can already use a Linux phone and there are tons of other Linux based projects where the money will go much farther.
We ought to be looking at this from a completely different perspective though: op is trying to maximize the value their donation has, and that’s a bummer. They should just donate to the one they like and not worry about effectiveness.
Apologies if I misunderstood your meaning when you said “android is already Linux on a phone and it’s bad”. If android is sufficient for your mobile Linux needs, that’s fine, I use it too. But it doesn’t fit the bill for everyone, and that’s the point of OP wanting to support an actual FOSS mobile effort. The alternatives you list don’t get them closer to what they’re looking for.
You’re right. I didn’t tell the op how to get what they’re looking for.
I told the op that they’re looking for the wrong thing, which is more helpful advice than dissecting the difference between pine and postmarket.
If you want to support a Linux phone project, the PinePhone looks most promising. If you want an actual usable phone that runs open source software, offers great privacy and security, good (open source) app support and doesn’t come with ads, trackers or any other bloatware, get a Google Pixel and install GrapheneOS and F-Droid.
If you dont feel too happy about owning a Pixel phone; I would also suggest a Fairphone with CalyxOS as an alternative.
The GrapheneOS team has already absolutely dismanteled the Fairphone on Mastodon:
Fairphone is an insecure device with substantially delayed privacy and security patches. It receives the Android Security Bulletin patches consistently 1 to 2 months late and receives the recommended patches years late. It has a broken, insecure verified boot implementation. They have also misled their users about support by claiming their devices will get 6 years of support when they can only provide 2-3 years of security patches. That is not a privacy first device at all.
The GrapheneOS team is security focused to the point where it is detrimental to the regular user experience. I.e. “Secure App Spawning” increases app startup time considerably on older devices like the Pixel 4a.
GrapheneOS is security focused and it’s great that they point out security issues, but for most people security updates being late isn’t an issue. Half the people I know have devices without security updates for months to even years.
Also, with the Fairphone 5 using an automotive SOC with 13 years of updates, the FP5 might actually be able to receive Android updates for 6 years. Iirc the FP3 still receives security updates, albeit not monthly and a bit late. Edit: The last security update for FP3 is from 2023-12-05.
Also, the GrapheneOS team has very high standards for security features supported by a phone. Basically no phone besides Pixel supports those features, which obviously isn’t a big problem for most people (else we’d have a big problem).
Anyway, I’ll keep recommending Pixel + GrapheneOS, but imo Fairphone is also a solid choice.
The GrapheneOS team is security focused to the point where it is detrimental to the regular user experience. I.e. “Secure App Spawning” increases app startup time considerably on older devices like the Pixel 4a.
That’s why Graphene allows you to disable the security features. Turning off secure app spawning won’t make your device incredibly vulnerable, it will just be set back to normal AOSP security level.
Also, the GrapheneOS team has very high standards for security features supported by a phone. Basically no phone besides Pixel supports those features, which obviously isn’t a big problem for most people (else we’d have a big problem).
You know which phone has basically all of those security features? The iPhone. GrapheneOS is not building something insane, they’re just hardening Android to a point where it’s actually comparable to iPhone security. Sure, usability might not be perfect because Google only releases base Android as open source software and keeps all their fancy apps proprietary, but it’s not in a state where it’s totally unusable either.
Sure, usability might not be perfect because Google only releases base Android as open source software and keeps all their fancy apps proprietary, but it’s not in a state where it’s totally unusable either.
Agreed. GrapheneOS/AOSP feels a bit like desktop Linux, where the base OS is there but many components like screen time have to installed seperately (e.g. screen time/app usage). Compared to many phone manufacturers installing apps for ads or other unnecessary bloat.
That’s why Graphene allows you to disable the security features.
That’s what I did the second time I tried GrapheneOS. The worse ootb performance made me install CalyxOS again, until I found out Secure App Spawning can be disabled.
(also you should get their usb-c powered soldering iron… pinecil )
Pine phone is a nice gadget but I don’t think they contribute to software development as much as Purism does. Not that I recommend buying anything from Purism because of their business practices.
What’s wrong about that to you? I’ve a laptop and a phone from them and I’m happy with them.
Have a scan through the posts in https://reddit.com/r/purism
I know better than that.
I got my phone after 5 years of waiting too, it’s a nice paperweight. I power it on twice a year, do a full update, play for an hour and put it back in the drawer.
Same. I was fine supporting the effort but it isn’t a replacement.
Unusable as a daily driver. It’s a nice gadget, just expect the worst user experience ever.
My friend’s daily driver is a PinePhone. So usable as a daily driver.
yeah well i was responding to:
Maybe we can use one in very few years as a normal daily driver. It’s getting closer and closer every month.
so… yeah, i know it’s not super useable as a daily driver (to a pussy)
but seriously it is getting a lot closer…,
All smart phones are *NIX, i don’t even think the Windows phones were really Windows. Pick whichever UI you like best.
Tbh GrapheneOS.
Android is Linux.
And unlike desktop Linux it was able to spread secure and private standards
- every app is sandboxed, not some opt-in like Flatpak
- apps start with no permissions (or at least very little), everything is opt-in
- it is like 99% unbreaking, immutable, it just always works while my desktop Linux broke all the time
- there is a webview, which can be hardened. Not Electron, which is insecure and bloated
- energy saving etc work like a charm. 1% battery loss over an entire night!
- hardware security with trusted element is decades ahead of desktop Linux (Ubuntu is just now getting TPM encryption support)
- it is a unified platform, with tons of apps, many of them essential (as the platform is so secure), like 2FA, Banking, public services etc. you can have a full FOSS phone though
I am sure excited for other operating systems but they are just toys. GrapheneOS does amazing work that is a 100% alternative today, for real phones with normal prices, good performance and outstanding security.
When i think of Android i don’t think of it as part of the gnu/linux ecosystem, but a heavily modified linux kernel turned against the user.
How is it turned against the user? Androids Linux is highly restricted in that it doesnt support a lot of things, but that makes it extremely stable, while this doesnt mean that apps are also “stable” like in Debian
They don’t expect users to do development on android.
(Phones should be used like telephones lol.) I’m going to buy a landline phone
No a phone is an end device. But I dont think GPL or whatever says you need to be able to modify the code on that device.
Makes no sense.
Btw as I only said this in another comment, afaik android runs a tailored LTS linux kernel. It is not as bloated as regular linux as it contains device drivers and also doesnt need all the random drivers for whatever hardware to run on a specific phone.
So you can say android restricts freedom in exchange for security, but “linux kernel turned against the user” makes no sense. Their kernel is just fine.
Their kernel is just fine.
It is just fine, yeah. The things that restrict what the user can do is the interfaces.
@scratchandgame @Pantherina i only have an issue when they dont upstream any of the functionality they add… buuuutttt… a lot of the progress linux has made in recent years has been upstreamed evil corporation™ code so… i dunno… mixed blessing
What phone are you getting 1% over night on with Graphene?
6a, nor now the last non EOL device that is tolerable I guess
5a was the last one with a headphone jack 😑
I’m getting less than 1% battery loss over night. But I have the unihertz tank and it has a 22000mAh battery.
how are you only getting 1% battery drain overnight? my pixel 7 w grapheneos drains 10% overnight and battery saver makes it worse somehow
I would like to know your secrets
6a is good. The 7 is said to be bad.
6a, the one with a hackable fingerprint sensor, is good… this is the level of security GrapheneOS people enjoy. Rather have a debloated $50 BLU phone. These people know zilch about security and instead are just interested in inventing gospel to circlejerk their stock Android hobby.
These people know zilch about security
Agreed, now your mission is OpenBSD
Let’s watch if your shit got cared, you can only attacks small projects with peoples who don’t want to write portable code (amd64 and aarch64 only) for “security”
you can only attacks small projects
I do not do that. Pretty sure most said in your thread that you write weird stuff, and I also tried talking to you to no avail.
Your OpenBSD fandom sounds like TempleOS meme. Weird. Pass.
I do not do that. Pretty sure most said in your thread that you write weird stuff, and I also tried talking to you to no avail.
You are doing that. You dispose contributions like hardened_malloc. Why don’t you spread more misinformation about it? Maybe when hardened_malloc have a bug you will.
You can only laugh on some security bugs of Pixel. You thought “debloat” is enough. This is insufficient. (And using adb to debloat can be considered overkill. Your software recommendation is insane and overkill. Being both insufficient and overkill are the current infamous attitude of current privacy communities, including privacy guides, privsec.dev, grapheneos community and other “degoogled” android communities)
Your OpenBSD fandom sounds like TempleOS meme. Weird. Pass.
???
The 6 series was when google introduced the tensor which is where the stereotype for worse battery life, worse performance, and less efficient radio come from.
I have a 6a too and for the price it’s fine, and I think a lot of the battery concerns are overblown, and for a budget phone competing with other budget phone devices tensor was great. That said the things that would make the tensor in the 7 bad are as present in if not more so in the 6a.
I have a 6a, which I tolerate for GrapheneOS. The battery life is absolutely terrible.
For me its 2 days when I use it rarely.
Being pixel only makes me cry
Me too man, me too
Android is Linux.
This should be repeated in every “Linux phone” thread.
It’s also possible to install a full GNU userland using Termux, and nowadays a graphical interface is even possible with Termux.
It is repeated in every single damn “Linux phone” thread, and in every single thread an answer like this is needed: No, it fucking isn’t. You know exactly what everyone means, stop being a dick about it.
It is repeated in every single damn “Linux phone” thread
Good. The more people pushing back against falsehoods, the better.
falsehoods
What falsehood are you referring to here?
“Android isn’t Linux,” of course. This is a very obviously false myth that is debunked very easily by simply looking at any Android device or the source code. It is not a myth spread by people who are technologically literate. Yet, this easily verifiable fact upsets Linux fans so much they resort to downvotes and ugly language (I have my ideas why, but it’s probably a waste of time to elaborate in this thread).
Of course, the more savvy among the Linux fandom will admit that Android “contains Linux, but isn’t real Linux” - but “real Linux” is yet another myth; that is, the myth that there is more to Linux than an operating system kernel, a myth that leads to further myths such as the myth of fragmentation, or the myth that distributions are worthless and we need a “unified app store.” It’s a myth that clouds history and assigns the wrong motives to the wrong people and meanings to things that don’t need or deserve them (the misunderstanding that that “Linux” is “about openness” or “against corporations” for example, when large companies are the main contributors to and users of the Linux project). Linus Torvalds himself says he only cares about code, not about freedom or openness or any of that stuff (that’s Richard Stallman’s thing)
The fact that this myth is widely believed is not relevant. We don’t live in a world where a falsehood becomes true if it is widely believed; people used to believe the sun revolved around the earth, for example. Also, a falsehood being widely believed doesn’t mean it deserves to stay unchallenged.
The point of reminding Linux fans that Android is based on their beloved kernel isn’t meant to be a well-actually or anything. It’s a reminder that much of what a so called “Linux phone” can do is already possible without having to switch to an operating system that in many respects is not ready for general use. For example, you can run xfce in Termux - I hope this is enough to disabuse one of the silly notion of “not real Linux.” For some reason. people looking for so-called “Linux phones” desire Android compatibility, and it turns out that because Android itself is Linux, it is far easier for Android to run so-called “Linux apps” than it is for so-called “mobile Linux” to run Android apps.
Android is Linux and that’s a good thing. I should point out that it’s not my preferred Linux operating system - I was a Pinephone early adopter and used to daily drive Mobian, I would prefer that or GNU Guix over Android. Still, not only is it a Linux based operating system, it also has its own rich free software ecosystem backed by F-Droid. It’s very usable once you cut out the Google crap and stick to free software only (or as much as possible).
I wrote more on the “real Linux” myth here in case anyone’s interested in more reading material.
On GrapheneOS right now typing this, love it! I switched over about 2 years ago to Graphene and never looked back. Rarely have any issues, solid battery life, all my apps work, life is good and private.
Android is Linux.
It runs Linux but it isn’t a “Linux phone” in the sense used here.
Yes I know but the Term is simply incorrect. I dont have a better one though.
And even though I am excited to use some Linux Distro on a phone I own, it will be way worse in stability, security and crucial app support than Android / GrapheneOS.
the Term is simply incorrect
LOL
Is this seriously your takeaway from a well-thought out post? This the smugness of reddit that I really don’t miss.
a well-thought out post
LOL
I had hopes we could rise above reddit brain, but you can’t take the reddit out of the redditor so easily.
I dont have a better one though.
I just say non-Android Linux systems. GNU/Linux if I’m talking about that type of system, but there are some like postmarketOS that are strictly not in that group (it’s based on Alpine)
This comment is GrapheneOS propaganda making its way into Lemmy. Ban these 4chan tier advertisers.
AOSP with rebranded features is not doing anything over AOSP or LineageOS.
- Every app on Android is sandboxed
- there is no immutability thing with Android
- WebView already runs sandboxed by default on Android in general
- energy saving is dependent on phone chips and not this scam Android distro
- closed source hardware is the same as Intel ME/AMD PSP and not a “trusted element”
- Android is unified, there is nothing unique about this scam distro
GrapheneOS is pure snake oil with a disgusting sole developer that believes in pushing corporate Big Tech propaganda, harassing and witch hunting any critics, having a little social media army with sockpuppets to do this, abuses mentally challenged by hiding behind “autism” label (Louis Rossmann has a nice video), falsely claims he was swatted without giving evidence or coverage in local Canadian media and blames everyone from redditors to community mods to YouTubers and so on.
I covered this disease for about 5 years, and it emanates from the same sewer that “security” clowns like Brad Spengler and madaidan do in Linux community. All they do is either push their bullshit solutions or push corporate Big Tech propaganda and hate any FOSS project they think will not worship them.
https://old.reddit.com/r/privatelife/comments/ug9qnc/writeup_criticism_of_rprivacyguides_grapheneos/
harassing and witch hunting any critics
You can criticize GrapheneOS just because Micay will care about your words. But you can’t do with something like OpenBSD because the developers are much knowledgeable and they never cared your words. They maintain an operating system for themselves and will not develop features to please users.
You can only criticize some small project with a developer that isn’t good in communication. You are truly a petty person.
having a little social media army with sockpuppets to do this
No loser, the community is the army. (their quality isn’t better than any Calyx or Lineage). The developers don’t even have enough time to please user with a beautiful user interface then why they would screaming on social medias like you are doing.
But they maintained hardened_malloc and you never take a word for it.
You can only criticize some small project with a developer that isn’t good in communication. You are truly a petty person.
Someone who hides behing “autism” label to use actually mentally challenged as shields on internet is a fucking disgusting person. Someone who goes to lengths of inventing gospel like getting swatted, with banning people asking for some evidence by claiming everybody is a troll, with no evidence for it in almost a year, is not a good person. Or him officially instructing in his Matrix chat to witch hunt any reddit users that criticise his project by abusing JSON and RSS feeds for accounts.
I did not know asking for evidence and making things transparent was trolling. I did not know this.
having a little social media army with sockpuppets to do this
No loser, the community is the army.
Lost you on this one. You are an unreasonable BSD evangelist with incoherent rantings.
Have a good life. May you gain wisdom. Blocking you.
Someone who hides behing “autism” label to use actually mentally challenged as shields on internet is a fucking disgusting person. Someone who goes to lengths of inventing gospel like getting swatted, with banning people asking for some evidence by claiming everybody is a troll, with no evidence for it in almost a year, is not a good person. Or him officially instructing in his Matrix chat to witch hunt any reddit users that criticise his project by abusing JSON and RSS feeds for accounts.
May you gain wisdom
Stupid but likes to appear dangerously.
Can you take some word for hardened_malloc or linux-hardened?
Almost everything you said here is false, with the exception of controversy over the developer. However, GrapeheneOS is far from a single developer project, and the former lead stepped down a little while ago.
Well, I do not know, I just back up things with a bunch of quoting and hard evidence, and on top of it I am pretty self-critical as a leftist, so I feel fairly confident in my takes.
“Stepped down” is a big fat lie if anyone bothered to look at GitHub for GrapheneOS project, with just one person pushing commits to the project. From what I showed with DivestOS developer bullying incident, it is also proven that this is not a truly open source project, but one licensed depending on Micay’s personal whims. There is no freedom in his code licensing and can go ahead to do shitty things like falsely accusing FlorisBoard and Bromite devs of being neonazis on GitHub issue trackers.
Edit: since this clown calls me “misinformation” spreader and asks for evidence, it is easy to look at one of the two long investigation articles I wrote, in which in share DivestOS XMPP room chat logs with Micay bullying DivestOS dev into banning me otherwise he will initiate a harassment campaign on social media against him.
Don’t think that’s related
Similar stuff was done (calling neonazi in issue tracker) against Bromite project that used what should be open sourced code, but is not.
https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS/status/1537851090514890752
That’s personal emotion against bromite and lead to unacceptable wording. But Micay can’t force others to remove their code if they do not violate it. nevertheless, Vanadium code is free in Linux communities’ opinion, right?? (I’d not consider that since it is GPL)
simply: The license of vanadium is still gpl and is it free in your opinion?
There is no freedom in his code licensing
Evidence required.
Infinite freedom, with one requirement. Not restrictive like *GPL.
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/hardened_malloc/commit/c3a580727a9a844da05ae4e2787a937253b09427
Been enjoying my L5 for nearly a year. There are for sure problems but really it works as a phone and as a small Linux PC. I really want Crimson to come though, PostmarketOS and Mobian look very attactive.
To which project would you give your money to accellerate it?
I would reign in your hopes of accelerating a project using money, unless you have enough money to pay someone’s salary for a significant period of time.
That said, I’d suggest postmarketOS or Mobian might be the most worthy of donations.
What kind of a response is that? “just give up”, “your contribution is worth nothing”, “your money is useless”, “anyway if you want to do something worth nothing, do it there”.
There is a commercial phone linux: SailfishOS. IMO also the most polished one.
If those fuckers at Microsoft hadn’t intervened with Nokia, we might have these things on much more devices. Meego was so promising 😔
Been daily driving SailfishOS for absolutely years. Originally ran it on a Nexus 4! It’s by far the most polished not-Android/iOS phone OS going right now.
Is sailfish OS on a libre software license?
Yes and no. The core of the OS is opensource, but the UI is proprietary. At least last time I checked.
No. The bits that make it Sailfish, the UI, are proprietary.
Then I guess I would not put muy 5 cents there.
Maemo on Nokia N900 was awesome. But even before Microsoft Nokia and Intel decided to rewrite a perfectly working phone OS from scratch and stopped development for years while trying to build Meego. At the time android didn’t have multi-tasking, but on Maemo you could play a video on vlc on the background, and it kept playing while switching windows, inside the list of little windows. It used qt for ui and you could even write native looking apps in python. It had full access to the camera api, people were writing crazy scriptable camera apps for the thing, such as the frankencamera. Why would you throw away a perfectly working os and waste time trying to rewrite the exact same thing for years Nokia!? why!? it could have been an actual Linux phone revolution years ago. and no, I don’t think Android is already Linux phone. fight me.
At the time android didn’t have multi-tasking
Android always had multitasking. Part of the issue with android 1 and 2 was that it didnt have any way to properly manage the task managers which lead to people installing task killers(which had utility in those days) and auto task killers(which due to how android handles caching just lead to a cycle of killing, thing popping up, killing, and etc). My g1 with a swap partition was probably my best android phone at keeping things in memory without auto killing it until I got a phone with 6gigs of ram.
Depending on your tolerance for frustration you can daily a phone running SailfishX. But the reality of it, at least for me, is that you will be running mostly Android apps using the Android emulator.
The emulator and the relatively easy access to Android apps makes it the most promising for me.
Lineage os seems to be the most promising. We already have F-droid so the apps are there and the good news is that for every component that Google makes proprietary Lineage os is creating and maintaining a free software version.
I would not call Android a Linux. It may have the kernel but it isn’t much GNU in it
It may have the kernel but it isn’t much GNU in it
Wait, does this mean Alpine Linux is not Linux?
It can be free like Linux so it counts in my book. I wouldn’t consider Google Android free but Lineage os counts
It is released under apache 2 license, not GPL. It is certainly free software, but I wouldn’t say it is as free as linux.
An Android phone isn’t what’s referred to when people say “Linux phone”. What they’re referring to is a phone running GNU/Linux, typically running one of the GNU/Linux phone shells/desktop environments.
It uses the Linux kernel yes but not what OP is asking at all
The main problem is political not technical. The market had been allowed to become a duopoly and too many critical things now need an app on an Android or Apple phone. The worse I know is banks needing an app for authentication for their online banking. No separate security device anymore, those are ewaste apparently.
Public EV chargers where you can only control them from an app.
Riding book at theme parks. The cases are growing. Even the app is just wrapper of hidden web page!
Frankly I think regulation is required to get competition in the market. Not the only tech one either. Why is it so hard for law makers to see monopoly in tech?
Can’t Linux phones run android apps pretty seamlessly via waydroid anyway though?
Increasingly lots of stuff won’t work without all of the Google services. Banking apps won’t run on root devices or anything odd they detect.
Even without that, I can say how seamless it is.
Banking apps won’t run on root devices or anything odd they detect.
Banking apps will run in Android emulation layers on GNU/Linux.
That’s good, though I still think it’s a problem they exist. I mean a lot of apps are a webpage wrapped in an app anyway, so why not just a webpage and skip the platform dependence.
