@ryujin470 Difference between ARM architectures, few standards, closed bootloaders, no interest for developing apps...
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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Because they aren't fully baked and they aren't properly backed by billion/trillion dollar companies.
It’s banking:
https://slrpnk.net/post/28294479
The army of corporate boot lickers in the mobile phone context is largely composed of people who think banking on a smartphone is wise, despite the attack surface and despite the bank being empowered to monitor their customers more closely. Banking apps are the most significant culprit for gluing people to Android.
We may never see the day when more than 5% of the population realises the importance of FOSS enough to shake free of their addiction to convenience.
You know some of us don't have an option, right?
Every bank in México forces their app to use the 2FA, needed to transfer money and to pay the credit cards.
Some random told me I was limiting myself by only using mexican banks... Never told me what alternative I have when I live here, so I guess these kind of comments are only to feel superior over those of us who have to deal with it.
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This is the correct answer. Specifically NFC contactless. If there was a watch that could do that without needing a phone, I would definitely put in the effort to get a Linux phone.
The army of corporate boot lickers in the mobile phone context is largely composed of people who think banking on a smartphone is wise
This is extremely reductive and oblivious to the actual realities of banking in various countries. If you think it's easy to be "unbanked" then I would suggest that you try it yourself first.
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we are close to cracking 5% on desktop.
do you think it's gonna get corpos to support it?
Corporations certainly would bend to consumer demand if consumers were wise enough to boycott and make demands. But the question is whether consumer wisdom would ever advance on a scale to make that happen. I think I have little hope of seeing it in my lifetime.
Hardware is too locked down. Open source chip platforms are only starting to be developed now after decades of computing. It's all been running off the same architectures from monopolists. Linux phone devs like PostmarketOS work in such a tiny box that AOSP guys get much further. That is what I have gathered learning about it past few years anyways.
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They're horrible
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So you designed an OS, nice, so, the apps are vertical to match, right?... r-right?
Hardware support.
If I have to own a specific phone or line of phones, that I otherwise would never buy, I'm not going to get one just to run Linux on it.
because phone manufacturers don't make them available without going through hoops.
For me, it's lack of Linux smartphones and also not selling in more popular shops. If I wasn't curious about Linux and decided to watch videos online about it, I wouldn't have known a Linux Smartphone exist and also, a smartphone is already a oversaturated market where it's just another iPhone or some sort of variation of a Android phone.
I'm sure what I'm about to say has already been echoed by others, but there are a few factors working against them. This is from a US/Canada perspective. Other countries may have more or fewer barriers.
- Mobile hardware - Mobile hardware has higher security. Some of this is by design for the user, since mobile devices are more likely to fall into wrong hands than e.g. a desktop. Some of it is corps preventing users from using their hardware in ways they don't want you to, though. The level of locked down mobile hardware has only increased over time.
- Carriers - This one is particular to North America, I think. Carriers here have a long history of meddling in phone hardware - from bloatware to SIM locks and everything in between. One of the things they do since LTE is require device makers to pay them to get certified to make calls on their network. Linux capable devices are too niche to be able to afford this. This is why Fairphone, for example, even with its Android-based OS, only works on one carrier here.
Those are the main two barriers here. Things like apps can have workarounds for those that would be interested in early adoption of Linux phones. But there's no way around the combination of carrier certification costs and limited options of only very locked down hardware.
In terms of the mobile side, these OS's aren't very well polished, and the Linux phone is quite new. However, there are Linux phones being made, but this is more of a niche kinda deal, as people tend to use GrapheneOS or an iPhone (Stock Googled Android is a no-go anymore due to the malware that both Google and other malicious devs add to the Play Store). That's just how I see it, though.
A lot of technical answers, but consider a social driver: Linux users and developers are a lot more likely to prefer to do their computing on a "real" computer with a keyboard and large screen. Therefore, Linux as a desktop/laptop OS will always be significantly ahead of mobile offerings.
My guess is that because hardware support, you can install PC Linux on pretty much any system, but I am unaware of mobile Linux os that officially supports my phone.
In my case it's because I can't get hardware that supports it without paying a fortune for importing. The other option is ancient hardware that most likely has a cooked battery that I'd have to hunt for in a used market.
Then there's the lack of VoLTE support on a lot of models which is becoming a non-starter as carriers are taking down the 3G towers.
That's before I've even gotten to try the software which I'm not hearing great things about.
It's not popular because it's an enthusiast niche at best. Linux mobile needs more time in the oven before it's ready, by my measurement another couple of decades.
Because they don't work as phones, at least not for practical use
No one has cracked it yet, some projects seem to be getting close, but the radio in a phone is a very complicated and poorly documented black box
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