I Tried Running Ubuntu on My Phone, Here's How It Went

Ah, tech journos...

Ubuntu Touch [is] a great choice if you seek an alternative that prioritizes privacy and open-source ideals.

But

One area that has improved is Google account synchronization. While it's not flawless, it's easier to sync services like Gmail and Calendar than it was before.

🤦 I don't think he fully grasps that Google is the main reason to use a more private OS than (stock) Android.

While true, in order to get Linux mobile more mainstream, you have to have great google compatibility just because of the sheer volume of people that have to use google calendar for sync with family and friends and/or have gmail as a primary email. That's just a shitty fact of life. Baby steps.

However, indeed you are completely right that at the current time there are probably a very low amount of people wanting to use it right now that are completely reliant on google.
I think they did a decent job. They report on compatibility for those that want it, but demonstrate it can be a Google-free experience. The fact that they also recognize they tested on an older device vs glossing over that was appreciated, too. Any journalist willing to install Ubuntu on their phone is probably going to be a bit more reliable to begin with, too.

“For instance, I often had to rely on the web browser to access services like Reddit, Telegram, and Discord since native apps weren't available. Web apps work for primary use but can't always replace dedicated apps, especially for banking or fitness tracking.”

That’s the core of the problem these days. Nowadays, there’s so much that requires an app to work.

Avoiding mobile apps was entirely realistic in the 2010s, but it’s too late for that now. The world has changed, that ship has sailed etc.

If you can isolate yourself from certain realities of the outside worlds, using a fully FOSS system can be done. The technology is there. It’s just that most people can’t isolate themselves to that degree.

It's really just banking, I can still use the browser for most other things.
- I don't understand the banking comment, and I've seen it several times. Don't other people's banks have web portals? Other than maybe depositing a check remotely, are there features you actually need a native banking app for?
- I'm pretty sure my bank's android app is just webview considering it has a cookie banner when starting it and it looks almost identical to the actual bank website. The biggest feature of the bank app is for 2FA, but it's not like it's much more convenient than SMS and they really should be supporting FIDO2 and TOTP codes for actually secure 2FA.
- What if you have appliances such as a scale, lights, watch or something? Pretty much guaranteed that those won’t work unless you use their app. If you want to go FOSS, you may need to sell all of your smart stuff and replace them with similar devices that work in a privacy respecting strictly FOSS environment.
It was already a challenge back in those days. I ran the Nokia N9 for a while, and within a year it went from being amazing at messaging due to its messaging app mixing different XMPP providers in one interface (Google Talk, Facebook Messenger, SMS, etc in a single interface) to everyone in the industry suddenly giving up on that and only supporting in-app messaging.

There were valiant attempts to create open source versions of popular apps, but those efforts were always intentionally sabotaged by those providers.

Key Points:

Ubuntu Touch offers privacy and control, is free from Google data tracking, and is perfect for privacy-conscious users.
Installation is straightforward with the UBports installer, even for unsupported devices, but app support can be limited.
Ubuntu Touch provides good battery life and performance on newer devices but lacks app variety compared to Android and iOS.

Another FYI: Ubuntu Touch does not support VoLTE at all, thus it might be more difficult to use it in some networks and countries (for example, USA shut down 3G some years ago)

However, I was pleasantly surprised by the responsive UI, the browser, and Cinny (the Matrix Client)

I wonder why test this on an 11 year old phone?

I have it running on a Pixel 3a and it's definitely smooth, but it still stutters once in a while. It feels slower than Android to me, but not much.

Battery life is indeed excellent, though mine doesnt seem to fast charge.

The camera app was the standout feature to me. The pictures i take look every bit as good as those from Android. I expected the app to be clunky or to have bad colors, but that is not the case at all.

Edit: Pixel 3a not 3

I thought Ubuntu touch wasn't supported on pixel 3?
- My bad it's a 3a

This is about installing on a Nexus 5 which is from 2013. Sounds painful.

And it will not get upgraded to 20.04, it will stay on 16.04. My biggest issue was that I could not do much with it. It was only a bit better than a dumbphone. Without apps, every mobile OS dies and back in the day I could not even get Signal working. It was a pain to set up webdav for contacts sync and when I gave up and wanted to use my own nextcloud, it refused to work because of my https cert...

I hope one day we’ll find a way to get banking apps working through Waydroid or something else. And by we, I mean people who are way more techy than me😅

I feel like it’s the only thing which would prevent a lot of people from using Linux every day on their phones.

Call your bank and ask them how to access your account without an Apple or Android phone.
Claim you need it for accessibility reasons.
Forcing you to use the product of one out of 2 tech corporations just to survive (for which you need a bank account) is ridiculous.
- I know and I agree.
  
  Well the other solution for some banks is to send you a card reader. My ecological side had to choose between future e-waste and evil corporations.

I tried and bricked my S10+

Soft bricked, can probably recover but have not got the time to bring it back.

This fear keeps me back to flash custom ROM on my phone! Plus, I can not afford to have those banking apps not working!
- If your phone is fully supported and not on the fringe of whatever project your interested in is, you're not in much trouble most of the time.
- I might have done something wrong, but my banking apps never stopped working on LineageOS.
- Custom ROMs are pretty safe to flash nowadays as long as you follow the instructions.
  
  Banking apps don't work on custom ROMs only in certain countries.

So, lineage is the best option for now?

It really depends on what you're looking for. I'm happy with Lineage, but others go for stricter privacy setups like Graphene. As long as you can avoid G Apps, IMHO you're fine. But that's still Android in some form.

The whole Linux phone experiment is a lovely idea that (if I understand correctly) is hampered by the tons of different mobile phone makes and models. Canonical dropped Ubuntu Touch like a hot potato, and it only survived as a community project.
- Its the same problem as standardized Unix systems in the 90s. There's more ideas on how to implement hardware than there are hands to integrate driver software.
  
  When it comes together it'll be because we either make the manufacturers warp around something like POSIX, or provide a common target on phones like the steam deck.
  
  Otherwise every hardware generation will get the undescribable misery of supporting the last one, from the one they're on, while writing the next one. The problem tends to compound.
- I’d like a comparison to lineage OS. There seems to be a very short supported device list for ubuntu, but maybe thats how they keep the install process simplified. Cyanogen always relied a lot on xda-developers community i think - so many unofficial devices supported just by enthusiasts willing to risk bricking devices.
  
  I recently upgraded to a (used) sony XA2. it was a right pain to install lineage os - way harder than previous samsung S3/4/5 type phones. It was mostly just trying every goddamn usb port on every pc in my house until finally one with which ADB would actually flash the bios.
  
  I’ve never bothered to researach exactly what are the security issues with lineage OS , it’s something where a decent bit of journalism might help. I’m not very into many apps though so i suspect that lowers the risk to me.
  
  I'm happy with lineage os too.
- I'd like a comparison to lineage OS. There seems to be a very short supported device list for ubuntu, but maybe thats how they keep the install process simplified.
  
  I recently upgraded to a (used) sony XA2. it was a right pain to install lineage os - way harder than previous samsung s3/4/5 type phones. It was mostly just trung every usb port on every pc in my house until ADB would actually flash the bios.
  
  I've never bothered to researach exactly what are the security issues with lineage OS , it's something where a decent bit of journalism might help. I'm not very into many apps though so i suspect that lowers the risk.

Are there any other useful touch distros? Ubuntu is not very renowned in the privacy realm at the moment.