A notable mention is https://ubports.com/en/ which is different from postmarketos in a sense that ubports uses old kernels with heavy patches. That means: good support for things, but difficult future.
PostmarketOS uses the newest kernels and tries to integrate their patches into mainline kernel, so that the reliability is maintained with all kernel developers.
just give us a headphone jack and removable storage and you’ll have a customer for life.
I wouldn’t mind easily swappable batteries
Xperia 1 VI?
Cool, does it run on a Galaxy Xcover6 Pro with a Verizon plan? I bet it doesn’t, nothing does besides the big-2 OS’s it seems.
I am sorely tempted, but its unlikely my banking apps and very specific work 2fa app is anything but Apple and Android compatible. I am almost at the stage of getting a second phone for day to day, and keeping my old for specific apps
Cool, does it run on a Galaxy S10 series phone?
Be nice if Linux phones could be like how Samsung phones used to be before they started removing features to directly compete with Apple smartwatch markets. I don’t understand how competition=downgrades because they wanna stretch features out to sell more products than how it used to be when both companies were all about being the One Phone That Does it All. I can afford the one gadget, always have and always will, but especially now when everything is so expensive I can only ever afford the Samsung A-Series not their main marketed S line.
But, do you ever need anything more than a A series phone? Or just want?
Phone functionality is the least of my problems, I need an open source replacement for Android Auto / Apple CarPlay.
Not sure how that would work, you’d either have to emulate it to talk to the infotainment system, or get all the infotainment producers to add an open source layer… Sounds like a nightmare either way.
That was the purpose of MirrorLink, but I think it’s dead now. I only ever saw Volkswagen support it.
give me ANYTHING that’s open-source and not tied to google or apple. i don’t care if it’s shit. i’m old. i just need a phone and maybe some pics and browsing.
Pinephone. Daily driver of you have low expectations. Not great for pictures.
GrapheneOS is an open-source Android fork lots of people like, it’s what I’m planning on using once I get a new phone
While I’m a fan of GrapheneOS, I think it could still be considered “tied to Google” both due to it being based on Android, and also because it only runs on Google Pixel phones. Graphene focuses more on security, then on privacy, but not so much on reducing our dependency on Google’s software and/or hardware.
Yeah those are things on my mind too, especially since Google moved Android behind closed doors.
My understanding is that AOSP is still and will continue to be a thing. That’s Android. What Google has done though is put more and more new capabilities into Play Services, which are not open, rather than AOSP.
I hope someone will correct me or add better nuance though.
No. The latest changes by Google means all incremental work is now no longer visible to the public until a release is done. For most people and developers this shouldn’t make a difference.
As an example lets say I implemented features A, B and C and then did a release to v2. Before the changes you would see A get added, then B then C and then the release. With Google’s changes you will see nothing for a while and then all of a sudden see A, B, C and the v2 release all at once.
Eventually I’ll try one. I feel like it can be like desktop Linux where it take a very many many long years until it starts to chip away at single digit values of market share
It’s worse. Linux desktop is only possible because of the relative consistency and openness of x86 PC hardware. Phones are nothing like that. At best we will have retro Linux handhelds with phone functionality.
There’s x86 socs. You can buy a linux tablet right now.
Yes the HW isn’t comparable to a modern phone though.
It’s much less effort to have something based on Android open source project though.
It’s also less interesting.
Using regular Linux means you can do a ton of stuff you currently can’t on Android:
- plug in a USB hub and use it like a desktop - Steam Deck does this
- run regular desktop/server software - want a portable Minecraft server? Go for it!
- do things w/ btrfs snapshots so you can restore phone state if you mess something up (e.g. I accidentally uninstalled an app and lost settings)
- keep getting security updates long past when anyone in their right mind expects to get them
Android is already FOSS, and you can get phones with minimal stuff on top of the FOSS core. That’s cool I guess, and I use one such distro (GrapheneOS), but it’s still Android at the end of the day. I want something different, but I still want basic phone stuff to work (calls, SMS, MMS, camera, etc).
I think the problem is there’s just too much work that needs to be put in these things and people don’t really think about it. Android has at this point almost 2 decades of refining the experience for phones, so it’s a good starting point.
But the most important thing I guess is software. People often neglect how much time and effort is put to refine software to the point it becomes polished and bug free. Android has a mature stack to build apps that is very difficult to replicate.
But to be more clear I didn’t mean just getting a degoogled Android and settle with it. Android could also evolve in other ways that aren’t in Google’s interest, such as allowing you to have a sort of Dex that’s actually a Linux Desktop Environment.
The thing is, I don’t really care about Android apps, and honestly supporting them probably adds a bunch of limitations since they have a lot of expectations on the system.
I just want an immutable base system w/ flatpaks, a basic dialer, a robust SMS/MMS app, Firefox, and good enough battery life (15 hours w/ moderate screen on time). Basically, openSUSE Aeon or Fedora Silverblue with phone-specific apps.
I’m happy to help port the various software I want to use, but I need the phone to work as a phone first.
Realistically, I would probably try a google free Android long before I’d try a more pure linux phone
Ive tried a couple of times, ended up bricking a phone and had to re-do another. Linux phones are hard to get set up (for certain models).
Can i play minecraft on it though? Ive got a horse ranch that I’d really like to continue
How do you tame a horse in Minecraft?
I need to know for… Reasons.
Just try mounting it, if you get bucked, try again.
Finally, my TV is unlocked!
Absolutely! The controls might suck and regular phone features might be iffy, but you could totally run the Java version of Minecraft if you wanted. No guarantees about performance though.
