The Discussion on Linux-based Phones.
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I like at least 1 device that actually works without issue. Like missing calls for a job interview for example is pretty bad and where I live google maps for public transit and cars are essential. OSM is horrible btw, a good 25% or more of places aren't on OSM where I live, and I can't just add them on the fly every time I need to go there.
Dreaming about this since more than a decade. My issues are banking apps, health related apps and basically anything somewhat official. A lot of them won't even work on a rooted Android device. How are things looking in that regard with Linux phone projects?
I'm not really sure the state of things, but what if Linux phones containerized Android apps so they'd appear to be on a non-rooted device?
So who is the strongest contender here? I hear stuff about pinephone, then nothing. Fairphone, more silence. Purism, so much silence.
I will happily pay someone now for a half decent phone so that by the time android is fully enshittified we all have a place to go.
Hardware wise, I’m not sure. Google Pixels seem to be the most likely hardware target in the short term.
Software wise… Probably GrapheneOS and LinageOS forking Android to create a community OS around it, and PostmarketOS as the full Linux phone distro.
There’s bigger problem is going to be replication of the backend services Google provides. Push services for instance. That’s going to be a project in itself.
As far as I know, the most useable pure Linux phone right now is the Furilabs FLX1. They're currently out of stock, and doing preorders for their second batch. By "pure Linux" I mean "a distro pretty close to what you can use on your laptop."
There's also several phones that can run Sailfish OS, including an official device. Sailfish OS isn't quite vanilla Linux, but it might the most useable and supported non-mainstream option. I can't find a clear answer about if you can run regular Linux applications on it, though.
I used Sailfish OS on a Sony Xperia smartphone for about a year until my carrier switched to VoLTE, and Sailfish OS at the time didn't support VoLTE. It does now, though, so I plan on trying it again soon.
Furilabs has my attention simply because you can "seamlessly" run android apps on FuriOS in a container called Andromeda. Might be next after my Pixel 9 /w GrapheneOS is used up.
There's also a grapheneos phone coming out soon which gives a bit of hope
Are you referring to just the rumors that they will partner with an OEM, or did I miss an actual announcement or something?!
Here are the big Linux phone contenders that I've found:
I think the only promising one these days is the Furilabs FLX1, but it's definitely good to keep an eye out for how things progress from here.
just found out about jolla https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-community-phone
Interesting! Thanks for sharing! Looks promising. I wonder how the Jolla C2 compares to the others I listed
$550.00
Fast, performant and cheap
It may be fast and performant, but it's not cheap.
If I had $550.00 to spend on a new device I would spend it on a good and powerful computer, for video editing and 3D modeling, not on a phone.
For comparison an used business laptop, costs about $120, an israeli spyware loaded phone costs about $150.
Going from that to $550 is a big jump, and not affordable for most internet users.
What kind of phone do you get for 150 used.
One that the hardware perfectly fits my needs.
Browsing some web pages can be a tiny bit sluggish sometimes, but if I'm doing anything serious I will use the computer anyway.
For what I use the phone for, which is, playing music, watching video, instant messaging, reading, light browsing and Lemmy I couldn't ask for more.
I also don't care about the camera, if I want to take photos I will use my DSLR.
The only single problem I have with my phone is the software which is non-free and loaded with spyware. Not the hardware.
I'm an electrical engineer, so I grew up learning about electronics and how you can buy a lot of stuff from Mauser, Vishay, etc.
Usually those companies offer better prices if you buy more and more bulk goods.
For those companies making Linux machines, they might not have the same economies of scale to reach cheaper numbers than Samsung or Google. Then again, Linux phone makers don't have to add the same amount of profit margin as Samsung or Google, although they still have to make some profit to sustain their business.
$550 seems cheaper to me than a carrier phone, which may be a lot of these manufacturers' markets.
I had not heard of furi labs until now. I do have some concerns that they operate out of hong Kong, have no published corporate structure or stated ownership and that they are able to produce something so far ahead of any competitors.
It smells like its got a lot of money and resources into it and I'd really like to know who is funding it.
They show one employee on LinkedIn and no job postings. Company size is 2-10 people.
When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Purism sells their phones for 2x the cost, theyre huge and half-done. I would wager that they are a more realistic representation of where the market really is.
Full advantage, of their hardware from 1996 /s
Maybe a slight exaggeration but I'm really tired of Linux phones that are charging flagship prices for mid grade hardware from 10 years ago. I don't expect the latest chip by any means but fuckin come on.
I say this as a full time arch user of the past 10 years lol. I love linux and want kde mobile on my phone. I would just like one from this century is all
Genuinely interested, but any time I look into it it requires hardware that's expensive to import or many years out of date.
The oldest phone I still have lying around is my Pixel 7 that was my initial jump into GrapheneOS, I haven't found any distros that are compatible with a Pixel newer than a 4a. If anyone knows of a compatible distro I'd make the jump.
Graphene is a good upgrade over stock android.
You can keep track of this page:
https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Google_Pixel_7_(google-panther)
Linux phones don't even really exist right now. Wonder why Ubuntu has never tried again.
Linux phones better be perfect or they’re not worth pursuing waaaaah.
Is phone calls, text, and battery management the baseline?
My next phone will be a Linux phone. Might be an old refurb. But if Google is fucking up android I don't have a choice.
Now, why not just fork AOSP a la grapheneos?
Why we always have to invent something new? Why not just take the fork in the road and go build something better from it?
Thinking modern os, not even google has been able to do it (fuchsia).
Asking the question I was wondering about too. If Google wants to kill AOSP eventually that's all fine and dandy but that doesn't stop people from forking it and continuing its development. And that way, at least, we don't end up with another Windows Phone conundrum where the OS is perfectly fine but will eventually die due to lack of app compatibility (although Windows Phone's demise was helped by some truly knuckleheaded executive decisions too to be fair).
Or, failing this, all Linux phones need a flawless Android emulation layer similar to Proton for Windows games, because I am afraid it will be a significantly steep uphill battle otherwise.
We've been 'setting up the ground work' for Linux on Desktop and Phones for decades. It's not the groundwork that's the issue, it's adoption.
bruh Liinux phones don't even standby working ffs.
Its the lack of openness and standards on hardware, drivers, and boot sequence for ARM chipsets and phone hardware that's the problem. x86/x86_64 hardware had standards that the industry settled on so the Linux adoption was fairly quick, with phone hardware, every phone, android kernel, camera hardware and driver, display hardware and driver, etc is slightly different so the hardware is so hard to adopt when literally every device has to be blackbox reverse engineered because the hardware manufacturers don't make anything open or standard.
Groundwork on what? The only Linux phone I've seen that I'd want is the Jolla C2 and they don't ship outside the EU so I can't even get one