We need to set the ground work now before google closes up android

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

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?

Genuinely interested, but any time I look into it it requires hardware that's expensive to import or many years out of date.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)

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.
- That's an adoption problem. The manufacturers don't care for it, they have no reason to.
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
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen
  Remember LiMo, which became Tizen? What about MeeGo?

Android is already the linux phone. It already exist, there is no need to recreate something that exist, it is much easier and more efficient to improve an already working base project.

Every android kernel takes Linux and makes it closed source when the code is included to make it work with the hardware.
- not really sure what the argument is here, this is a problem about manufactures not publishing their source code for their drrivers and firmware,
  having another linux based mobile os would do nothing to solve this issue.
  furthermore i doubt grapheneOs would describe their kernel as closed source

I have a work phone I can fall back to in the worst case scenario, and I have been consciously avoiding phone use a lot lately.

I am ready to ride out some bugs in a Linux phone.

Edit to add: Or, given the state of the US government and its potential close ties to various tech oligarchs, maybe I should just keep this old iphone as long as possible and just not put anything sensitive on it. I mean we're talking about violent people who think "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about" is unassailable logic.

I support this so much, however due to work, I can not get away from Android/iOS. Many companies want you to install Microsoft Authenticator with this generally wanting to prompt you for MFA authorisation when accessing company resources. On top of this they often want you running Company Portal on your device too if you're accessing resources such as emails or IM

Then they need to give you a work phone.
My personal phone is rooted. I couldn't access anything work related (beyond authenticator) on it even if I wanted to.
- I resisted carrying two phones for the longest time... up until recently I worked for places with relatively small IT departments and I trusted the people I worked with and worked for. Now I'm with a much larger company and I don't even know all the people in IT, much less how they have their MDM system setup.
  What I didn't expect was how nice it feels to be able to put the phone down when I get home and then forget about it. Of course, anyone who may need to reach me in an emergency knows my personal number, but that's only happened once in the past 2 years.
I was forced into using Microsoft Authenticator as well, but you can extract the tokens it uses for TOTP code generation from its database lol.

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.

Here are the big Linux phone contenders that I've found:
https://volla.online/en/volla-phone-x23/
https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1/
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/#tech-specs
https://pine64.org/devices/pinephone/
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
- $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.
- 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.
- And literally none of them are available for sale in (or shipping to) my country...
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.
- I'm not sure FLX1 counts as a full 100% Linux phone. It uses the android driver stack in order to then boot to Linux. But I guess this might get them stuck with old insecure drivers? Not sure this is the best long term approach.
- Hu? They joy of s linux phone is, that Hardware is not locked to specific software, isn’t it?
  I mean if you can install a Linux distro, you can install any Linux distro, not?
  So we just need hardware that is strong enough as well as power efficient enough
  Maybe a good screen and big battery
- Briefly looked into it, and Sailfish OS looks like it's getting closer to reasonable for an average user. The Aptoide store seems to have major apps (WhatsApp), but it still requires some tinkering, like going into several settings screens manually to do things that pop-up automatically in Android. Not too bad, but definitely only for someone who's okay with a bit of tinkering.
  WhatsApp is a "must" for most users globally as it's the defacto messaging protocol standard used most places. Probably more important than SMS/MMS for most users. At least until everyone starts to switch over and something better (Signal, probably) starts to get a big enough install base that people use it.
  In Canada, I frequently tell people they can Signal, text, or Whatsapp me, but the only people who ever use Signal with me are family I installed it for.
  Games are probably a big deal, too. tbh, it's not a "must", but I'd be annoyed if I couldn't play Minion Masters on my phone. (But I could probably set up Sunshine/Moonlight streaming, if needed.) I'm guessing a lot of people have games that they wouldn't accept not being able to use.
Jolla Sailfish OS. Can buy a phone from them preinstalled, or flash certain Sony Xperia devices with the OS. Runs smooth as butter and has 2+ day long battery life according to owners. Its based on the old MeeGo project from Nokia back in the day and is based on Debian.
If you want something more Linux-like then the FLX1 is it. It runs very close to stock Debian Stable with Posh as the UI, but it runs some Android code underneath for device drivers, so its not a "pure" Linux system, but it's a very good experience and still not controlled by Google.
I wouldnt recommend Fairphone if you want to do Linux stuff with it, it's a perfect AOSP or LineageOS device though.
- Can buy a phone from them preinstalled
  If you're in the EU... they don't ship to North America sadly
- I wouldnt recommend Fairphone if you want to do Linux stuff with it, it’s a perfect AOSP or LineageOS device though.
  Why not? Ubuntu Touch lists Fairphone 4 and 5 as 100% fully optimized and even writes "The Fairphone 5 is currently the best supported device with Ubuntu Touch." I am curious to try this out.
  I know there are postmarketOS build for Fairphone as well (but more limited in functionality, so I am not considering this yet).
You can install Ubuntu Touch on the Fairphone 4 & 5. It is pretty well supported.

Linux phones better be perfect or they’re not worth pursuing waaaaah.

Is phone calls, text, and battery management the baseline?
- Phone... calls??

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.

They just posted this today. Do with it what you will.

https://news.itsfoss.com/furi-labs-flx1s/

I'm not really interested in a phone that runs linux on top of Android software, like what furi labs does. They use Halium, which makes it more like phones running Ubuntu touch or Droidian like what Volla does rather than something like the pinephone or librem V.
The Furi's been around for a while. I'm hoping I can get one of the second batch due to be released soon, but I wouldn't be surprised if they sold out again pretty quickly.

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).

Google is becoming more and more a pain the as releasing AOSP. And they're migrating towards more and more proprietary. I think the worry here is having the work power to keep it updated and maintained.
I'm guessing the idea is that with this effort, it makes more sense to migrate to Linux phones instead.
- Pretty much. Google does a lot of heavy lifting, and they have a lot more pull with companies, which is why Android works now.
  It really is too bad that Google didn’t have to move Android to the Linux Foundation and make it a true community project.
IMO one of the greatest parts of a pure linux phone is that nothing is new. It runs the same apps as my desktop and works in the same way, so I don't have to learn two sets of apps. Other than stuff like call management and Phosh, the desktop environment I use that's tailored for small screens, I run all pre-existing software like systemd, wayland, firefox, nautilus, etc. IMO the biggest hurdle is hardware support, since only a few phones are able to run pure linux, and even on those few, there are still many parts of the hardware that are not supported.
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 have already tons of apps for Linux.. And soo many "apps” are already just fancy websites in a container..
  FirefoxOS for phones was such a great idea
  I am so sad it did mot take off, was a great concept
- emulation layer is the way to go IMO, best of all the worlds.
Because we want general computation machines, not walled gardens.

If you say it’s hard to install use the https://sailmates.net/ service then advocate that your local repair shop also offer this service then join your distro’s channel for troubleshooting.

NLNet really needs to start funding Flare, the GTK Signal client. If there was a native, fully featured client, I'd drop flaship price on a Linux phone yesterday!

Flare is good enough that I use it daily. The fact that it cannot act as Signal's "Primary Device" does kinda suck, but I just have a separate Android phone that I keep around for bullshit like that. It definitely is annoying that Flare only can see messages after you add it as a secondary device though.
- And it also lacks a ton f features. I use the video/voice calls a lot for example.

The only thing I need on a phone is too use nfc

wish my phone wasn't carrier locked so I could switch to graphine

I wish that there were better kernels around. A monopoly (Windows on a desktop, Linux on a phone - well, at least iOS still has BSD) is not a good thing on any platform.

2026 year of the BSD phone.
- For me, it sure is.
I want Linux monopoly anywhere…

I don’t know if the LinuxPhones community is any different, but the Linux community will come after your ass for proposing Linux be made more accessible for the average user. The gatekeepers are intentionally kneecapping it.

I think the Linux community overall these days are pretty helpful and want people to succeed. Many distributions have become extremely accessible over the past 10 years.

crys in dusty pinephone(not pro) on my shelf

"can"

The only thing I ask for is VoLTE actually working.

I would only consider getting a linux phone as a toy to play with in addition to my actual phone that I actually need to work and be supported. It’s just too niche imo

That’s fair. This seems like desktop Linux 25 years ago. Only special hardware works, and there are lots of hacks to get around the Windows only hardware.
It can work, but there are limits.