E: apparently it needs to be said that I am not suggesting you switch to Linux on your phone today; just that development needs to accelerate. Please don’t be one of the 34 people that replied to tell me Linux is not ready.
Android has always been a fairly open platform, especially if you were deliberate about getting it that way, but we’ve seen in recent months an extremely rapid devolution of the Android ecosystem:
- The closing of development of an increasing number of components in AOSP.
- Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus have removed the option of bootloader unlocking on all of their devices. I suspect Google is not far behind.
- Google implementing Play Integrity API and encouraging developers to implement it. Notably the EU’s own identity verification wallet requires this, in stark contrast to their own laws and policies, despite the protest of hundreds on Github.
- And finally, the mandatory implementation of developer verification across Android systems. Yes, if you’re running a 3rd-party OS like GOS you won’t be directly affected by this, but it will impact 99.9% of devices, and I foresee many open source developers just opting out of developing apps for Android entirely as a result. We’ve already seen SyncThing simply discontinue development for this reason, citing issues with Google Play Store. They’ve also repeatedly denied updates for NextCloud with no explanation, only restoring it after mass outcry. And we’ve already seen Google targeting any software intended to circumvent ads, labeling them in the system as “dangerous” and “untrusted”. This will most certainly carry into their new “verification” system.
Google once competed with Apple for customers. But in a world where Google walks away from the biggest antitrust trial since 1998 with yet another slap on the wrist, competition is dead, and Google is taking notes from Apple about what they can legally get away with.
Android as we know it is dead. And/or will be dead very soon. We need an open replacement.
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tl;dr: buy a second hand pixel 8 and install GrapheneOS. It’s Android, but it will get you through a few years while you wait for postmarketOS to become viable as a daily driver.
Check out postmarketOS, a real Linux distro for phones with a 10-year life cycle goal and mainline kernel support. It’s not daily-driver ready for everyone, but it frees you from Google and OEM lockdowns. If we want an open mobile future, this is the project worth supporting.
the vast majority of commenters here either have no direct experience with a Linux phone or have seen some shallow youtube “review” of a dude swiping the same two screens left/right and extrapolate a buncha shit that has no contact with reality.
presently, and in the foreseeable future, linux phones aren’t an android alternative, they are just linux on the phone, i.e. they allow you to do linux shit on a handheld device.
like, the bleeding edge version of any variant (plasma mobile, gnome, phosh) isn’t even close to an Android phone from like 2015, let alone a modern one.
and that’s before we touch on the pillars of mobile tech like fluidity, battery efficiency, reliability, etc., none of those things are even in a remotely passable state, not to mention - using the thing to make calls. you are better off forgetting about the camera, as well.
and the reason is simple, not only is there a gargantuan discrepancy between evil corp’s resources and the predominantly unpaid enthusiasts, each dev team’s reimplementing shit that’s already solved on another platform. apple doesn’t have to do that. google as well.
then there’s the idea that the javascript-backed Gnome - that has issues running fluidly on super-capable hardware - is the basis on a low-power device on which the linux mobile phone experience is built. reinventing solved shit, but in a stupid way - THREE FINGER swipe on a phone, really?
although there’s a solid app base, the apps that are supposedly mobile friendly are few and far between, most are just downright unusable on a vertical screen and dog help you if launch an electron app. firefox, even with pmOS patches (useless without) is tiresome to use. you can forget about dating, ubering, banking, or even just using a messenger everybody else does.
if you’re squeamish about flashing custom recoveries and ROMs, the e.g. pmOS install process is way, way, way more involved and failure prone. if you go with ubuntu touch or mobian, even more so.
finally, if you’re talking about a device that you’ve grown accustomed to to the extent that you’re using it subconsciously, swiping and multitasking and such whilst walking and dodging other pedestrians - no such thing exists over here.
I’m just tying this up because I keep reading about “switching”, people are either delusional or misinformed, there’s nothing (yet) to switch to.
get a couple of $50 ex-flaghips to play with, flash lineageOS on one and pmOS on the other and that should hold you over for a coupla years.
I’ve been a mobile dev for many years, I fell in love with the Nokia 810 with maemo which kinda got me started, but I never had one myself. I moved to OpenMoko and saved to buy a Neo. But then Android became big with Google’s support and all companies rushing to have an alternative to iOS with the iPhone. Back then when Android meant openness. As much as I loved the openmoko project it had plenty of issues as a daily driver, so eventually I cracked and moved to Android with a Galaxy S2, ah, the innocence back then when one could think Google was actually different… Actually doing good and creating a great Linux phone.
I absolutely agree on all your points. It is time to kill Android as a free/open source idea if it is not dead yet. And you know what, Linux is absolutely ready to substitute anything as a mobile platform. It needs more polishing in terms of UI but Maemo nearly 20 years ago already offered a great UX IMO. Thank you Microsoft and all Nokia management for destroying it.
Now, I say Linux as a mobile platform is ready… But we all know it doesn’t lack problems. What are those? The problems come from anticompetitive practices, locked hardware for chips, drivers and so on, specially all related to phone networking. The other main problem is apps which is only a small issue with all the ways there are available to make android apps run on Linux, that is… Until google comes to fuck things up with the points #3 and #4 you make. Those are the biggest threats right now, and it’s no wonder Google is doing that. They are preventing the possibility of competition arising. Like I said, I have been a dev for many years, it absolutely sucks the path all tech is taking. But there are solutions, just need to have proper anticompetitive practices and protections… At least in Europe we kinda do, but more needs to be done.
The main point is, Linux as an alternative is kinda ready, if only there was a real posible competition to be had outside of being incredibly rich.
Lets just load a e sim on the steamdeck and call it a day
My next phone will run Linux, even if it is inconvenient.
As soon as this phone is paid off, I’ll be changing from Google Fi as well. Which sucks because it’s hella cheap.
I’m with you, I’ve switched all my computers to Linux for similar reasons. I bought an android phone recently and put Linux on that, although still some things to iron out such as sound and microphone input but it’s working well otherwise. Looking forward to when I can ditch my iPhone.
same. There is one windows computer still in this house and it’s unplugged. Everything else is Linux, Android, or FreeBSD based.
I’ve switched as well but didn’t realize you could put Linux on an android device. Is it a specific distro and can you throw it on an old android tablet?
There are several distros. You do need to ensure (as listed in the OP) that your bootloader is unlockable (listed as “OEM unlock” in Android).
- SailfishOS
- Ubuntu Touch
- Mobian
- PostmarketOS
- Manjaro ARM
Is it true that the top 2 in your list have the most features?
Interesting. I’ve seen Sailfish mentioned before, I’ll look into it. I’ve got a couple old tablets to mess around with, seems like a fun project. Thanks for the info!
Take a look into PostMarketOS, they are the bleeding edge for Linux mobile development. You can search on their wiki if your phone is supported.
The other solutions listed might be more turn key but not close to mainline Linux. (Custom kernel, etc)
They don’t seem to have any supported devices apart from community contributions?
“These are the most supported devices, maintained by at least 2 people and have the functions you expect from the device running its normal OS, such as calling on a phone, working audio, and a functional UI. Besides QEMU devices, this is currently empty.”Yeah I wasn’t kidding about bleeding edge. It’s a double edged sword. You get more compatibility across a wide range of devices but it might not be 100% polished, yet.
To be fair, as most things in Linux, they are community developed. The community supported devices are supported by people who are taking their personal time to develop Linux to support these devices. You can view each individual device in the wiki to see how much support they have.
It’s all what you’re comfortable with, I still daily drive my iPhone as I need a very reliable device for my work. But I definitely rock my Linux phone when I can.
Wow, surprised to see the old Samsung Galaxy S3 on there. Looks like I’ve got a project coming up
I think they are very device specific. Like only a handful of specific phones have builds for these OS.
what phone and os do you have? im currently shopping and have always been on android; im looking for recommendations on both phones and os <3
I have the Nothing Phone 1, running my fork of Mobile NixOS. I bought it because I wanted a bit of a challenge to get it running Linux and it’s relatively newer then other better supported Linux phones. I don’t recommend it for anyone who is new to Linux.
If you’re relatively new to Linux and want something that’s more compatible, I recommend looking at the OnePlus 6 or 6T. They have pretty good support for multiple different distros.
What options are you looking into as far as a Fi replacement? I’m also on Fi and want to ditch them, and the Pixel soon.
I’m on Mint.
T-Mobile acquired them, per the usual bullshit, but I get 15GB a month with unlimited talk and text for “$20” a month. The catch is that you pay yearly in bulk for that price. Had it a year and change. Been solid.
I’m likely going to go to t-mobile as they’re cheap from what I understand and they make up a big part of the network that google leases, along with (i think) US Cellular, or something similar.
That said, I’ve got about a year to decide, unless someone decides to hire me and then I can pay my phone off early.
As someone dailying a Linux phone, I will say that there were no issues getting it to work on T-Mobile. The only thing I did was manually enter the APN details, but that was an OS thing.
From what I have seen on forums Verizon won’t let you at all, and AT&T might take a bit of work to get them to whitelist the IMEI on their network.
at&t collects any and all data they can and sells it directly to law enforcment and the government btw. im pretty sure they all sell your data, but at&t has illegal deals with the government
Good luck! Hope you get hired soon.
thanks! me too lol
go w an mvno; they’re usually cheaper and it rob the carriers of profit.
and the carriers deserve it for blacklisting chinese smartphones from their networks in collusion with the us gov’t in order to prevent chinese tech from entering the us like they’re doing with EV’s and solar panels using tariffs.
My family just switched from T-Mobile, as they’ve been jacking up prices lately, and without good reason, considering other carriers have better reception anyway.
What’d you switch to?
apparently it needs to be said that I am not suggesting you switch to Linux on your phone today; just that development needs to accelerate.I switched to Visible Wireless for now.
They’re asking what provider you switched to, not what phone.
Duh, thank you. Photon makes it hard to see context now.
I like us mobile alot. Well priced too
Mint and US Mobile are both good alternatives to Fi. US Mobile is a bit more flexible since you can use any of the major US carriers.
I switched from Google Fi to the T- Mobile MI30TI plan (30GB/month, $10/month, data-only) with JMP.Chat VOIP and couldn’t be happier
Worth noting that some services will reject VoIP phone numbers.
JMP also explicitly states that it doesn’t work for emergency calls.
Do you need a phone plan at all for emergency calling? It’s required for all carriers to take 911 calls in Canada.
That’s a good question. You don’t need a phone plan but I think you do still need some way to communicate with the towers. If you do like jevans (data plan only), I suspect there will be no calling functionality at all. Emergency or otherwise. But I could be wrong. Take out your SIM card and call 911 and let me know haha.
It works in Canada without a SIM. I know because my son did it on his “wifi-only” tablet.
100% agree. It’s worth testing with a new number first before porting your current number to JMP.Chat
I’ll have to look into it. 30GB isn’t bad at all. I think I have unlimited now with text and phone for only like $10 more a month. I’d have to look, it’s been a while since i’ve dealt with it.
You can’t sideload in Linux.
On linux it’s just called running an executable
Edit: As a less snarky answer, you can run Android apps natively on linux by installing Android OS in a container using something like
AnboxWaydroid.
As soon as this phone is paid off
What? People finance phones? 🤣
Yes, some of us have good credit.
I don’t but it doesn’t mean I’m better than other people who do
Smart phones are simultaneously such a wonder of human engineering and have become such a disappointment of human greed.
This whole situation has made me just care less about my phone, and use it less in my life while I use Linux PCs much more.
I don’t see my phone as a “computer” at this point, really. It’s more of a communication appliance. If I’m launching an app that’s not texting, calling, GPS, or music, it’s probably a replacement for a website I’d normally use on a PC.
Linux phones could change this though. The idea of your PC being your docked phone would work great for most use cases. Unfortunately though, even though I would love it I don’t really see the general public jumping at the chance to get back to the desktop experience. I could maybe see a little traction in the business world.
I found myself using my phone less and less too, and to be honest, I’m even feeling healthier mentally. Portable devices were supposed to improve our life, not make it worse. Big tech did something really terrible to phones :(
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Oh same here! My reduced phone usage has been part of a much larger overall improvement in my well being and being able to live in the moment and be content.
I recently saw a video from a harvard dude talking about how we NEED to be bored. It’s when we fall into our baseline mental state and start thinking through shit and figuring life out. And not doing that can lead to anxiety and depression and other bad shit. Given my experiences, I certainly cannot disagree.
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I love hearing the individual specifics. All the variety and niches that make life interesting.
It’s funny you mention getting back into Japanese, because my big focus this year has been rebuilding and upgrading my koi pond. It would be neat to learn the language, but knowing how I function I don’t think it’s in the cards for me.
Then for my more physical activities, that was carpentry and construction driven by the damn pond. :D
It’s perfect for me though. I am a builder and creator to my core, and my career is in software and electronics, so outdoor wood working perfectly offsets that.
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I hope you have fun as well, whether your account is deleted or not!
One note about the complaints and drama in response to your suggestions though: I see your instance is lemmy.ml and that fact alone will make a lot of people respond to you with hostility, regardless of what your personal political beliefs actually are.
And I don’t know the latest of who is defederated with who, but you may also not even see some of the more decent communities.
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This is pretty much how I am. Use my desktop for important things. On weekends I try to not even have my phone on my person and I check it a couple times a day while it stays in the bedroom like a house phone. Life is so much better without it.
I unfortunately still do like to take it with if walking/biking/driving but I wish I didn’t. Id like to have another phone that only makes phone calls for that but has my same number. Its funny. When I was a kid we didn’t even think about it because none of us had phones. Going on a random dirt bike ride miles away with nothing. Better (also unsafe) times.
Im tired of smartphones consuming everyone’s minds.
Im tired of smartphones consuming everyone’s minds.
Resisting the standard smartphone addiction just makes the addiction of some others so much more apparent. My own wife is still pretty badly shackled to hers.
My one friend cant stop staring at his when driving. He lives near me and sometimes I wave at him driving by and hes like I never even saw you. Like dude, youre a fucking idiot.
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Anywhere there is freedom and thoughtful development there are corporations waiting to capitalize on it and ruin it.
My next phone is definitely going to be a Linux phone. I don’t care if it’s ready. I’m ready.
Same here.
I’m about a tech zero skill but I am at Lemmy for THIS news. Thank you for resisting complete shitification hegemony. Resist!
My next phone will be a ThinkPad because it has a SIM card slot.
Currently i am looking for a Jolla phone https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
They are private company but seems to be very user friendly and carefull with their dev community. What do you think about them folks?
What I really hope for is a way to install linux on any mobile device, be it Samsung, Google, One Plus or whatever, like we do with Linux… with linux it doesn’t matter which brand is your laptop… it always works, and if we can replicate that it means true freedom and also it means linux mobile phones are gonna be more fun and broader than desktop computers… cuz everyone uses smart phones.
I’ll switch away from Android when there’s a good alternative, but I’m not very technical and need something with a nice GUI and an easy installation process. Hopefully Linux will offer something like that someday, but I don’t think it’s there yet.
Unfortunately there’s a lot(!) to do to make Linux enjoyable on a phone. I bought a Pinephone some years ago. And in addition to the slow hardware, the entire software/desktop experience isn’t great. While everyone else has instant messengers, Linux doesn’t have connected standby and emails and messages just don’t arrive unless the screen is on. It wastes quite some power, and there are a bazillion small little quirks and annoyances and it’s barely usable if compared to a regular smartphone. I think someone needs to invest quite some more time and money until this becomes a thing. I mean don’t get me wrong, Linux and the low-level system is awesome. And it’s brilliant on any server/laptop/desktop computer. It’s just that there’s so many things missing for a proper phone experience. And it’s not just mildly inconvenient, but like people expect instant messages to be delivered…
It seems like you read the title as “everyone needs to switch to Linux mobile right now” but that’s not what it says.
The point is, as you said, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and that work is more important now than ever.
Sure. It’s just that the timeframe is a bit disheartening. To me… so all of this is highly subjective. We had the Nokia N900 in like 2009. And I was expecting to live the full Linux experience within a few years and those things to become a bit more affordable. And today it’s almost 16 years later and it doesn’t feel like we’ve come substantially closer. More recently we had Librem and Pine64 put some effort and publicity into it, and that’s also been 5 years. The mobile/touch desktops made some good progress. PostmarketOS is kind of nice. But there are entire layers missing like the app framework in Android which enables such app lifecycles, connected standby… Sandboxing and a fine-granular permission system for proprietary apps (or just modern mainstream usage) is kind of in its infancy. And I’m not even sure if everyone is going to use Flatpak for everything. And all of those missing things are huge undertakings.
So I’m not sure when to expect such an every-day phone… Maybe in 2030 or 2035? But that’s kind of late if the headline is “more important now, than ever”. Because all the while Google is moving more and more stuff from AOSP into their proprietary Play services and it’s getting uncomfortable for me. We have a deadline with the Google messes with the allowed apps on a phone starting 2027. And my life includes more and more mandatory apps, or I have to forfeit taking part in society, culture, convenience or riding a train… This year, Google started giving the GrapheneOS devs a hard time… Now they’re making it even more complicated.
So of course not everyone has to use it, and I’m first of all concerned with my own wellbeing. But I really don’t see a solution in the near future which is going to address the important issues if today and the next few years. So I’m a bit unsure if a Linux phone will come around and help me before it’s too late, or if I need to find other ways to deal with it.
True but I also never even considered it before because honestly open source Android works really great on most devices already. Now that that’s all basically disappearing, hopefully more people will be more dedicated to creating an alternative.
Can you help me understand why Linux phones are the answer rather than a community maintained android fork?
Android is already fully featured and has a solid ecosystem so it’s usable now, not in 5-10 years with less of a need for adjustment for the people who want to switch.
Basically, why take several steps backwards and start from scratch?
Because a community maintained fork wont solve the problems in the OP?
I strongly disagree with this comment. I’ll answer your numbered points from the original post one by one with my perspective:
- Development would happen completely in the open, since its community driven
- A community android fork wouldn’t directly solve the issue of manufacturer locked bootloaders, but neither would Linux mobile
- I originally messed up on this bullet point, but this is the correction - the play integrity API would be unusable on both community driven Android and Linux mobile
- Developer verification will not apply to devices running an OS that isn’t Google certified, which a community maintained android fork would not be
Do you disagree with any of these? Would love to hear your thoughts
Wow. Ok.
Development would happen completely in the open, since its community driven
All “community driven forks” are based on Google’s AOSP. None of them have the resources to develop this stuff from the ground up.
A community android fork wouldn’t directly solve the issue of manufacturer locked bootloaders, but neither would Linux mobile
No but someone would sell Linux devices if they were commercially viable, and no one would buy a Linux device with a locked bootloader.
the play integrity API would be unusable on both community driven Android and Linux mobile
You wouldn’t need it on Linux mobile because…it’s not Android.
Developer verification will not apply to devices running an OS that isn’t Google certified
I already addressed this in OP.
So which is the best project to back?
I dunno! It will really require the participation of the entire community.
Gnome has been making great progress on the graphical front.
Notifications should be pretty simple, and probably should be provided by hardware manufacturers. But the support will need to be implemented into the apps that need them. That can potentially also fix the battery issue.
PostmarketOS I think is probably the most mature Linux mobile package currently but I’m no expert on the subject.
I’d argue that Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish are the most mature offerings. Both OSs are (or at least were at some point) developed as commercially viable alternatives to the duopoly. That gives them a headstart in terms of apps and overall pollish.
The postmarket shells are catching up, but you still get instructions like “drag and drop a file from your file manager to open it”, which doesn’t work on a phone. Phone UX still seems like an afterthought in many cases.
Postmarket OS is a desktop Linux system, but for phones. UT and Sailfish on the other hand are mobile OSs, that happen to use much of the same tech as desktop Linux. They are therefore much closer to the duopoly (for bettet or for worse).
Great, thanks! The next step would be to figure out if either is compatible with Syncthing and GPS-guided nav…
Woohoo!! Now I can’t decide between the two…
How cool would it be to out of nowhere see Valve come out with a SteamPhone based on Arch which does everything you ever hoped for and runs on high quality hardware including all the features that others took away (colour alert pixel, 3,5mm jack, replaceable battery), complete with dual boot or a containerised Android-mode for running apps that would never work like banking or eID. Would buy instantly.
comparison is the thief of joy and it’s unrealistic to expect a product of grass roots community effort to compare to a product that benefits from deep pockets that can afford the finest talent and a considerably long head start.
I’m not sure. A phone is kind of a tool, same for a computer. Ideally we weigh our options (aka compare them) and pick which suits us best. And this grass roots effort isn’t doing a half-assed job. I have almost everything available. I can do regular tasks, edit videos, do computer aided design, do heavy database stuff, run the bookkeeping for an entire mid-sized company, a server farm or almost anything I like with Free Software and Linux. I don’t think a phone is fundamentally different and I kind of have the same high expectations for that niche. We’re already doing great with lots of other things, both more niche and more ordinary stuff. And oftentimes it does not include money from tech giants.
I’ll consider a Linux phone as long as the following are met:
- Battery life is decent (for me this means a minimum of 24 hours of light use and no mystery drains).
- Reliable enough to not fear for my life when traveling.
- UX is polished enough to not be painful.
- Email notifications and communication apps work correctly (Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp).
If these are met, I’ll buy whatever is available in a year or two.
UX is polished enough to not be painful
This one requirement I believe to be already met. Mobile kde, for one, is pretty nice. I believe the bottleneck of linux phones are really in the hardware
UX is more than the UI, it’s the entire User Experience (UX). That means scaled down desktop apps are not good substitutes for proper Mobile apps.
communication apps work correctly (Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp).
Google and Facebook will cooperate. WhatsApp will never work reliably.
WhatsApp will never work reliably.
Use the web version, although you’ll need a phone to authenticate.
Better yet, move out of whatsapp (i know, network effect).There’s also some whatsapp clients on flathub that claim to support linux mobile. Matrix bridges are also available.
Yeah, I wish the Pine phone battery life was a bit better. Who knows, maybe it’s improved since I last tried it
