We Must Break The Chains
We Must Break The Chains
Apple and Google will gladly erase the works of developers to chase profits.
We Must Break The Chains
Apple and Google will gladly erase the works of developers to chase profits.
i don't think they are ready though.
It's sort of a paradox. Low adoption leads to less resources, bug reports, developer interest, etc. and that in turn leads to low adoption.
What works for me is daily driving my linux phone, and having a used regular smartphone sitting in a drawer, turned off, until I absolutely need to run an app that is not compatible with Waydroid.
i would 100% own a big tablet like this to use at home, at the right price.
but then i remember i can more easily just get a used touchscreen laptop and install linux on that instead.
are the prices affordable ?
Yes, because you can buy used phones that have unlocked bootloaders to install a distro.
sorry I'm asking a lot, but does there happen to be a wiki or list of such devices ? What should I buy if I ever (rn I don't have a mobile, only a computer with Ubuntu MATE)
I can’t wait to no longer be forced to use the robber baron apple’s AppStore.
to the dismay of the stans, all sorts of cool "subversive" stuff will start popping up on iphones!
It's been years, and I still miss windowsphone so much. I knew we were fucked when they axed it and iPhone and android were already starting to stall out with a duopoly.
At one point, we had blackberry, some form of meego, Windowsphone, android and iOS, as well as niche things like jolla and sailfish.
Eh? Microsoft and Windowsphone basically killed the only real alternative to Android and iOS when they did their hostile takeover of Nokia, and Windowsphone itself was an atrocity that luckily died rather quickly.
Windowsphone itself was an atrocity that luckily died rather quickly.
"Tell me you never used Windows Phone without telling me you never used Windows Phone"
Please let me know viable options.
Get a Pixel 8 or 9 and install GrapheneOS. The recent changes to AOSP aren't some death knell for the project. Even if it were: using GOS on an older Pixel for the next five years or so is going to be way safer than alternatives.
I'll grant that whether or not this matters to someone depends on their personal threat model. My counter argument is to gesture broadly at the state of things. If they think the computing device they use most often shouldn't be their most reasonably secured and trustworthy computer then I'm not sure there's much else to discuss on the topic.
I want to be able to recommend any of the Linux phone projects or even something like Murena's new partnership with HIROH but they don't solve the problems GrapheneOS does.
The best breakdown of current options I've found is here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
There are no realistic linux options for your phone. These memes are pipe dreams by people that haven't actually looked at how utterly incapable linux currently is at powering a smart phone for normal daily use and how these apps that they're complaining about android and apple are removing won't run on the linux phone in the first place.
All dreams start as pipe dreams. Every one.
Sounds like switching will mean we will lose everything we're already losing. Might as well go ahead and quit cold turkey.
That's funny I've had several Android apps run fine under Linux mobile OSes.
I'm not going to say they're ready for general public daily use but there's no reason they one day couldn't be? There's a foundation there. With a good enthusiast community we could get it to the point that it's at least useable for power users and grow from there.
UBPorts is a solid foundation. It just needs more adoption and backing.
https://pine64.org/devices/pinephone/ https://jolla.com/
I haven't used either of those directly but have started looking into linux on a tablet (Plasma mobile mainly) and things are definitely rough... nowhere near the polish of Android or iOS (understandably) and the app store options are not great / hacky
I'm just getting into things here, but my guess is that if you want to try a linux phone, if you're OK living in a world that's closer to the first days of smartphones than the current fairly-advanced smartphone, you might only be slightly or mildly frustrated. If you're looking for a modern smartphone experience, you're probably going to have a bad time.
That said, the lack of viable options for smartphones is terrible and it's somewhere I'd like to invest some time contributing to open-source projects to improve
I want one. I wish any had great hardware. Like Snapdragon 8 gen 3 level soc
To add why I want great hardware. A Linux phone needs a mainstream draw and I think gaming can be it. What I see on Android going on with GameFusion and Winlator, with a real Linux phone, such a thing could be way more streamlined especially if such a device draws in way more interest in open source drivers for mobile GPUs - Adreno, Mali, PowerVR.
Besides that, I think there needs to be some default apps that are good even if not Libre or whatever. By default some company should come out with a phone that has Flathub(something that filters to applications that they declare they're mobile disaply and touchscreen friendly), Signal, Element (something Matrix to replace Discord), and the basic applications things come with. Gallery, dialer, SMS/MMS/RCS application, camera, calendar, email client etc. The application store needs to facilitate payments in some way. Whether it's crypto or paypal or GNU Taler or whatever. Facilitate developers to have a path to get paid for their work
Right now the only company coming close to having the software services is Proton. Company with hardware clout it missing. Don't know if Valve would ever consider doing something with Plasma Mobile seeing as SteamOS already ships with KDE Plasma. That would be the dream. Ship it with Steam configured with FEX/proton
Steam phone when? 🤩
I wasn't on board with your original comment until this one... Well put.
My plan going forward is to either make or buy a basic small cyberdeck type system. Using my phone as basically little more than a glorified cellular modem. Or for isolated calls or SMS.
Looking at investing in and setting up some mesh halow infrastructure at home and a couple other places to reduce the need for the cellular modem part a bit more.
Maybe check out the Pocket Reform and look into WWAN modules with SIM cards that have service in your geographical area.
Hear me out; steam deck as a phone. WE CAN BRING BACK SIDETALKING
Bring actual steam games to phones!
You jest. But those of us born in the 70s and before have first-hand knowledge of this magic device.
Behold! 30 minutes of total talk time, with no curly cords or anything!
LOL a Steam Deck isn't even that absurd.
I just need two things myself. SMS and phone. Maps would be nice, but I can use an old phone for that.
A cyberdeck with just VOIP/SMS would be awesome.
Even something arm-based, like a Raspberry Pi, can still run a KDE instance and allow you to connect to your phone through KDE Connect. There's definitely a lot of possibility there, as long as you're willing to keep around an old non-flag-ship phone as a modem.
I still have high hopes for the Open WebOS project.
WebOS was amazing. I didn't know what performance was until I touched a WebOS phone
What I loved most about WebOS was that their games ran flawlessly on my Nokia N900.
"Corporate needs you to install this app on your phone..."
Then buy me a phone to install it on. No way I'm putting corporate anything on my personal.
"None of my other subordinates had a problem with this, it's a simple ask and only takes a minute."
Damn right. I won't even give my personal number out to my colleagues.
I find it amusing that I don't "sideload" at all on my linux phone, rather, basically everything I want is already in the repos.
Which linux phone do you use?
A Oneplus 6 running PostmarketOS.
Android is Linux. Android is far more mature (and secure) than any other Linux mobile project. Just use GrapheneOS if you don't like base AOSP. Stop advocating to start from scratch and start helping the projects that are reclaiming AOSP from Google.
GraoheneOS is at Google's mercy. They were alarmed when google changed the way they released the source code for the pixel 10 recently, and while they ultimately were able to deal with the change, it's causing them a lot if extra work.
If google ever wanted to, they could completely screw over Graphene, since Graphene is ultimately reliant on Google playing ball.
A pure Linux phone would not be reliant on a big corporation to exist.
android is controlled with an iron grip by google, not unlike chromium. there can alwas be shenanigans. graphene and lineage are nice, but we need something truly ours.
i agree that linux isn't ready for phones, and it won't be for a while.
This is similar to telling people to stop advocating people using Linux on their computers and just use WSL in windows if you want Linux. You don't have the same level of control and privacy, freedom, features etc. Also you're beholden to the host OS for updates and security, etc. I'd MUCH rather Linux on bare metal, in both cases my computer and my phone. And yah you can make the point that a Linux phone is definitely less secure than android at this point but in the future when its more mature, I'm sure people will focus on tweaking security to fill the security holes.
I compared a mature Linux distribution to buggy new distributions and somehow that equates to WSL? I don't see the comparison whatsoever.
From a Mobile OS perspective Android has far more features and flexibility than traditional Linux distributions. Its not even comparable.
Use GNOME or Plasma Mobile if you wish, but people need to stop acting like Android is not Linux. Linux is the kernel, period. Not other GNU software packaged along with it.
I've been using GrapheneOS myself for a while now, and I love it! However, isn't the concern here that these AOSP changes might negatively affect all the Android forks as well?
Yeah, GOS and all other forks run the risk of getting shafted by Google if they implement some evil ass "feature" upstream that breaks something GOS needs.
They are planning to move away from the Linux kernel in the far future, so hopefully that also means their going to move away from Google too.
also I use GOS too c:
GrapheneOS chooses what they implement as its a fork and its own project.
That's not happening, you're obviously deleting them yourself.
/s
I don't understand.
Is pinephone still an option? I never got one, any alternatives?