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?
Apple Vision Pro
Lol, well *I* thought it was funny:-P. You might get fewer fake internet point reductions if you threw in a /s.
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
In my opinion postmarketOS is the most promising mobile Linux OS now. But the phones? Only OnePlus 6 is good. PinePhone is a project to look at as well but the hardware is not as good from the regular user’s perspective
Pine64 has also had terrible communication for a while now and their site has had technical issues for a month. They have not filled me with confidence as of late.
postmarketOS is great though.
Does anyone know what’s going on?
Well, I can at least say that any of my recent orders promptly arrived in perfect working condition, even though the communication is absolutely very lacking.
I think the Fairphone 4 is also worth checking out. It works great with Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS seems to be doing well on the device, and there’s developments towards PostmarketOS. :)
Ubuntu Touch is almost dead, Sailfish is proprietary and many many phones have that kind of postmarketOS support. I’m talking about things that are already usable
Why do you think Ubuntu Touch is almost dead? The development community is pretty active. They recently finished the huge task of upgrading to 20.04, and are hard at work getting up to speed with 24.04, at which point they will have paid back a lot of technical debt.
Ubuntu Touch on a supported device is probably the most usable experience you can have with Linux phones as a daily driver at the moment, especially as Waydroid runs quite well on many devices to fill the gaps.
Oh I thought they weren’t planning to update it further than 20.04
Fairphone looks really cool, but I feel like too big for my weak little hands
I’d probably just refurb an old old Android phone. Would love to buy hardware that is more ethically sourced though
In the end, nothing is better than second hand!
When I was looking a couple years ago Ubuntu Touch was by far the most developed and stable. Primarily because Canonical poured millions of dollars into its development before giving it up and dropping it, but the community has gone a long way to make it what it is today.
Probably not a popular choice on this community though.
It’s a friendly community, and Lomiri is a great DE that people have also gotten up and running on [other distros].
For the time being it runs better on Android devices than on “pure” linux phones such as the PinePhone, but I have great experiences with it. If you don’t depend on other IM services than Signal you could probably use it as a daily driver on several phones already.
@GravitySpoiled
I’ll trying to buy a pine phone as my first Linux phone as it’s cheap. Not great but would be okay for tinkering.
@linuxI found Ubuntu Touch/Droidian the most promising when I last tried to get a good Linux mobile setup. Everything was working and i could run any linux app i wanted. The only problem was mobile data configuration with ISP here in the UK. I would donate to whoever is making the best progress and having the most impact. There is so much variety of hardware with phones that a single (or very small number) of compatibility layers needs to emerge.
I would donate to whoever is making the best progress and having the most impact.
OP is asking who that is.
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.
I love my Pinephone, not enough to use it as my main phone thou.
It’s running Mobian, mostly because everything else I have is running Debian in some form, but it looks like the largest project is PostmarketOS.
I would go with Lineage os on your current device. You can install F-droid so you won’t need to worry about Google and there proprietary ecosystem of data collection
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”.
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.
AOSP. Sad but true.
When first pinephone came out I really believed it’s heading somewhere. It thought that it will be kind of like raspberry Pi (fun, cheap platform to play with) and that we’ll quickly see copycats and it will slowly grow the way Linux on desktop did. AFAIK nothing like this happened. You still can’t get a phone with decent Linux support which for me shows that we’re stuck with android. I think most people that would help Linux phone happen are simply satisfied with LineageOS so there’s no incentive to put as much effort into it as it requires.
AOSP is dying as Google is killing off all the apps in favor of proprietary Google ones.
Lineage os is slowly becoming its own thing as they are maintaining basically all of the system apps at this point.
I like the security measures that Google takes for Android.
I don’t like how Google fucks everyone over in everything else
Yeah, I love having to use a custom ROM to get security updates and subsequently root my phone to be able to pass safetynet so I can use banking apps on my phone. Else I have to do as designed: Buy a new phone every 2-3 years :))))))
Not Google’s fault alone, but the way Android and ARM both have proprietary components combine into a delightful piece of hot crap that stifles users freedom and innovation.
For some reason everyone is assuming the worst out of my comment.
For reference, I was talking about the change in the system certificate store in Android 14, to which even root cannot directly write to now. This seems like a massive bug to people but this is actually an unintended byproduct instead of intentionally fucking everyone over.
I don’t think people realise the amount of work Google puts into Android. I hate their policies as much as the next person, but I can never fail to respect their efforts towards Android. You think A/B would be reality if we left it to Samsung? It would become another locked garden like Apple.
Unless the day comes that we absolutely cannot run custom ROMs (and this is a problem specifically in America because of carriers, not Google or any other OEM), I will never fail to acknowledge the great benefits that Google has brought to Android.
Your problems stem from capitalism and not from Google’s code
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AOSP is OSS though?
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With LineageOS, you pretty much are running AOSP on your phone.
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Try to compile just the Android SDK yourself. No one even knows if this is possible (if all the source code needed is there).
AFAIK the only proprietary parts of AOSP are Google’s services and GMS. And any smaller related bits.
Or are you saying that Lineage OS is just guessing in the wild with every release?
“Security measures”
The benefits are there, some of ideas out of my head:
Better networking for administrator, access to /etc/hosts file, not being tied to a single VPN slot.
Using old mobile phone as a simple server, having access to firewall tools and normal remote control.
Installing simplier graphical interface for eldery people.
Lifetime updates for many system components that are not device specific.
Simple backups and cloning with standard tools like rsync or borgbackup instead of Google Drive. Also backing up whole system.
Everyone can add a feature, you can make a difference, no need to mess with Google’s Android developing pipeline.
Making native apps for mobile and desktop at the same time, no need for bloated web-like abstraction layers.
Apps made in Python, C, Rust… No need to fit into Android SDK. And no forcing Android SDK and Android Studio!
Customizations of the interface look via CSS files (Phosh have it to some sort).
Someone give more ideas?
Oof, now I am sad on the account of what could have been.
Yes, it’s all true but the issue is you can already do a lot of those things with a lot of cheap hardware that is is simply easier to support than old phones. And when it comes to phones being phones Android is really good and has a lot of apps. I think the problem with Linux phones getting more popular is that the overlap between desktop/server and mobile is very small. I mean I use my phone only for phone things and a lot of things I do on my phone I can do only on my phone (e.g. charging an electric car is basically impossible without a Android/iPhone). Having a phone that can do some things desktop/server can do but can’t do a lot of things a phone can do is pretty much pointless at this point.
When we’ll get a proper Linux phone with full Android apps support and convergence it will be really awesome but I just don’t think there’s enough interest to get there at this point.
The problem with Android is it is very invasive and in my opinion untrustworthy. How many of these Android OS’s from various vendors are not kept up to date, with unpatched vulnerabilities because they dump support to force upgrade their customers to the next model, when your phone should still be functionally viable. How many apps in the Android ecosystem are just info vacuums? It’s a very predatory ecosystem and i would prefer a libre solution to these scumbag predatory corporations. It blows my mind how people are so numb to the abuses of these companies, they won’t even consider alternatives. Iphones aren’t a viable alternative either unless you’re into joining abusive cults. I have both a Pinephone and a Librem 5, and they work fine if you don’t mind horrible battery life, i just wish we had more alternatives and I’ll put my money towards that endeavor.
Yes, Android has issues but what I’m saying is that so far Linux on phones really hasn’t been able to compete. No one want’s a phone with no camera, no GPS, no apps and terrible battery. Making Linux phones is just super difficult and sadly I don’t see it happening anytime soon. Android is a good platform with lots of hardware and apps. You have Fairphone offering long tern support, f-droid offering privacy oriented apps and LineageOS offering stable OS. Getting more phoes to support it is a better bet than getting Linux to properly work on modern phones.
This is a problem with the current industry, smartphones are conceptually no different than any other computer. It’s Qualcomm not publishing proper documentation and tools, propietary bootloaders, drivers being baked as Android packages, no specification how main processor can talk to a modem…
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.
Not necessarily, F-droid combined with Lineage os or other free software ROM gives you the same freedoms are the Linux desktop does.
You can’t even compile any of those FOSS apps without running propietary build of Android SDK. No one managed to build current versions of Android SDK from the source code yet.
Android is like one big blob and changing anything in it require giant effort. Meanwhile making new feature for a Linux phone with common Linux tech stack is super easy and any mid-tier developer can change something in Phosh for example.
I don’t believe that is the case
What you’ve said here doesn’t contradict what I said. A phone running Lineage OS is explicitly not what people are referring to with the phrase “Linux phone”.
I know and what I’m saying is that all those project are moving very slowly while projects like GraphneOS/LineageOS already offer open, privacy oriented phones with good hardware and lot’s of apps. This is simply where more effort is going, where we’re seeing more progress and our best chance at getting “Linux phones”.
I know
Apparently not.
projects like GraphneOS/LineageOS … our best chance at getting “Linux phones”.
To repeat myself: an Android phone (for example, running GrapheneOS or LineageOS) isn’t a “Linux phone”.
I 100% agree.
Love it or hate it, Android is extremly fast, polished, stable and easy to use, not to mention it has gigantic library apps that are built to work perfectly with a touchscreen.
I honestly don’t really get what there is to gain by using “Desktop Linux”. I mean sure some proper Programs offer way more features than Apps but using them on a 6.5" Touchscreen sounds like pain.
I honestly don’t really get what there is to gain by using “Desktop Linux”.
More freedom I guess. I remember my n900 and how fun it was to just ssh into it and dig in my home directory, install apps with packet manger, edit config files with vi and so on. It really felt like having small Linux machine in my pocket. With Android everything is definitely more locked up but then again, I’m not sure what would I do if it was more open. Writing apps for Android is easier than for desktop (or just as easy), there are no more hardware keyboard phones so using terminal on them is terrible anyway and phones just work anyway so there’s no need to mess with the configuration. Personally I mostly gave up on the ‘Linux phone’ idea and if I need any new features I will simply write cross platform app that runs on Android (for example with tauri).
Sounds a lot like the Android 4.X and 2.X days. Its unfortunate that Google over time has locked down Android more and more. I mean having the option to do wild stuff is better than not having it.
The only real usecase I could see is with a proper Desktop Mode like DEX on High end Samsung phones or Motorola’s ready for. Where you can plug your phone into a Monitor and attach a physical keyboard and mouse. In that case, yeah it would be neat to break out of the Android jail.
@aluminium @ExLisper i mean technically, apple is unix based and android is too, the unix-based OSes have clearly overtaken all the other proprietary systems that popped up in the last 30 years, so there’s that
Actually regarding the app department (caveat is that I have an iPhone looking to switch to android), there has been a huge wave of developers making apps for mobile Linux or making their apps compatible. So much so that someone like me (I download everything that’s shiny) has more than had his app needs met and exceeded by what has been released.
Actually my main reason for wanting mobile Linux to succeed is because these apps look and work so good. Especially the gnome ones, the app ecosystem alone makes mobile Linux desirable.
Honestly, even more so when you consider how mobile linux could potentially get Apple levels of cross-device integration (without the baggage), and the ability to have the same UI on your phone and computer. I want to use gnome and libadwaita apps everywhere lol.
I honestly don’t really get what there is to gain by using “Desktop Linux”.
I don’t think anyone actually want’s desktop linux, just a free & completely open source phone OS, the only hope for which is a linux derivative.
It doesn’t need to be competitive with a flagship phone experience. I think device capabilities have plateaued somewhat… I’ve been playing around with a 4 year old phone the last few weeks and it’s supremely adequate for everything I need to do.
There are a myriad of potential uses for older devices.
That’s just capitulation.
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.
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.
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.
None because a phone is useless without applications.
That’s why Lineage os and F-droid are probably the better bet.
Yes, even GrapheneOS or Calyx will provide a much better experience.
Oh yeah, my bank will definitely support Linux phones lol
If your banking app is proprietary then I’m not sure its worth supporting. Software should serve the user not the other way around.
If you must do mobile banking use a website as you can actually have some limited control.
If your banking app is proprietary
Are you drunk, what bank doesn’t have a proprietary application? lol
It doesn’t have a proprietary application I would use.
Mine was fine with me using a rooted Android after an in person meeting - they just provided me a hardware 2FA device to use instead.
As long as your bank is as understanding, you could use Waydroid or their PWA on a GNU/Linux device
I have two banking apps that both run perfectly on Sailfish OS’s Android support layer. Obviously I’d prefer a native/webapp at a push but if for some reason you really need to use the banking app there are ways to do it.
The rain why I need nativa banking apps is because there are some features that are only available through the app and not with web banking. Another thing about those support layers is that banking apps usually know how to detect rooted devices and stuff like that and won’t work.
That’s unfortunate but it is what it is.
Another thing about those support layers is that banking apps usually know how to detect rooted devices and stuff like that and won’t work.
Android emulation layers emulate secure, non-rooted devices and banking apps work.
That’s unfortunate but it is what it is.
No, it isn’t.
Banking apps run in Android emulation layers on GNU/Linux. Your bank doesn’t need to support Linux phones.
And Waydroid also exists
applications from the Play Store or App Store are something people have to get and use everyday
I haven’t made the full switch to mobile Linux yet, but my Android phone has 0 proprietary apps besides the firmware and it’s 100% usable
in my country, if you exclude browser-based banking no bank will work
Well, the question is why are you excluding web banking? While it’s less convenient at times, banking apps collect every piece of info about you they possibly could collect, they try to prevent you from “messing” not only with the banking app, but with the phone itself - they are one of the most egregious cases of “normalized privacy invasion”, so web banking is much preferable to banking apps. If you’re allergic to webapps for some reason (which would be a very weird thing to say for someone who installs banking apps), fine, switch to a bank that allows doing operations via SMS (that’s the only feature I miss from Sberbank).
the NFC / contactless payment system here requires either Apple Pay, Google Wallet or a proprietary app develop by a banking alliance
Why are you using contactless payment? Unsatisfied with the amount of data your bank collects, you want to give the same data to Apple/Google? What’s the problem with just carrying a card with you? I genuinely don’t understand. This certainly isn’t a “100% unavoidable requirement”, but just a fad you didn’t even think whether you could do without
Govt provides electronic versions of your identity card, driving license and a ton of other cards related to the govt that also require an Android/iOS app they make…
That’s absolutely true, which is egregious. You should petition your government to open-source those apps (public money = public code), you should reverse engineer those apps to get their functionality without the proprietary code (if they just show a barcode/qr code/picture, it’s easy, but it gets harder if it uses NFC). Either way, this isn’t something you “need”, as carrying your documents around really isn’t a problem… for me, anyway, YMMV I guess
Even something simple like setting up a TP-Link Tapo wireless security camera will require an app these days.
…first you buy an IoT device that connects to “the cloud”, then you say you need proprietary software to access it. Of course you do, that’s the kind of device you bought - the vast majority of IoT devices are made with zero regard to the user’s privacy and security, to hackability or right to repair.
That said, it’s very easy to find hackable devices if you do the bare minimum research. Examples from my home - Valetudo (FOSS robot vacuum firmware) on Viomi V2 Pro, Tasmota (ESP32 firmware) on an AiYaTo light bulb. This is not a problem with mobile Linux, but rather you choosing a device that’s made to collect data from your phone.
In conclusion, everything you listed so far isn’t a problem with mobile Linux, but a problem with your approach to software/hardware freedom. Chances are, you aren’t a hacker, and by extension aren’t a part of the target audience of a Linux phone. That’s fine, but don’t pretend there’s some insurmountable barrier preventing anyone from using it - it’s just that you don’t need it. Waydroid exists, which makes all of the claims in your comment invalid (besides maybe banking apps which may detect Waydroid), but you won’t consider Linux phones viable anyway - because, again, you don’t need it.
So while I agree with some or the majority of your commentary I would like to add a bit of context.
Well, the question is why are you excluding web banking? (…) If you’re allergic to webapps for some reason
I’m not allergic, I just happen to live in a country where banks unfortunately force you get their mobile app for certain operations / you can’t do everything on their web app because of “security” . There’s a big thing in Europe around secure transaction authorizations that require a secure 2FA methods (not SMS) and banks here decided to implement that in way that their mobile apps kinda work as a 2FA to the web version. Heck I can’t even generate a virtual credit card here without installing an app. Compatibility layers / emulation, such as Waydroid, even GrapheneOS is flagged by most of the banking apps here as well and they don’t allow you to proceed.
Why are you using contactless payment? Unsatisfied with the amount of data your bank collects
If I’m using the app from the banking alliance they won’t gather more info than what they already do whenever I swipe a debit or credit card on a payment terminal. I kinda becomes about convenience at that point. Obviously the same can’t be said for Apple Pay / Google Wallet and I avoid them.
Govt provides electronic versions of your identity card (…) Either way, this isn’t something you “need”, as carrying your documents around really isn’t a problem…
Actually that’s something I need, let me tell you why: I’m required to digitally sign a LOT of documents everyday and here you’ve two ways to do that. The classic one is by having a smart card reader in your computer, open a desktop app, choose a file and place the identity or professional card into the reader and type a PIN code. The second way is to open the application and click “sign with your phone”, this will prompt you to open the govt phone app and enter a PIN / biometric authentication there and the document will get signed as well. While the first option works fine it’s just annoying to have to carry a card reader around to meetings and other places and it also takes way more time for the desktop app to respond and sign the document if you se the identity card.
…first you buy an IoT device that connects to “the cloud”, then you say you need proprietary software to access it. Of course you do, that’s the kind of device you bought - the vast majority of IoT devices are made with zero regard to the user’s privacy and security, to hackability or right to repair. (…) That said, it’s very easy to find hackable devices if you do the bare minimum research
You proceed to give examples of vacuum cleaners and other stuff that is indeed easy to find more open.
I’m all for open-source IoT, I like it as an hobby and I run HomeAssistant and most of my IoT is DIY ESP32-S2 devices with sensors and relays. I also have some cheap relays and plugs from Aliexpress that are BL2028N and I managed to flash with ESPHome / Libretiny however things become a LOT harder when it comes to CCTV.
Cameras in general aren’t as easy as cheap plugs to deal with. There’s the OpenIPC project but it seems only to support very specific chips that are sometimes older, hard to find or not price/feature competitive with TP-Link offers.
For what’s worth TP-Link Tapo cameras (TC70, 71 etc.) aren’t that bad when it comes to privacy, there isn’t much “cloud”. They do require you to use their mobile app to setup the camera but afterwards you can just run them on an isolated VLAN / firewall them from the internet completely and you’ll still be able to use all of the camera’s features. Those cameras provide a generic rtsp stream that even VLC can play and there’s also a good HA integration that provides all features of the TP-Link Tapo application like pan / move / download recordings from the camera’s SD card and whatnot 100% locally / offline.
but don’t pretend there’s some insurmountable barrier preventing anyone from using it
No, but it would make my life considerably worse or at least impractical in some cases.
All smart phones are *NIX, i don’t even think the Windows phones were really Windows. Pick whichever UI you like best.
