How many of you run a Linux phone (Pine64, Librem etc) as your daily driver?
How many of you run a Linux phone (Pine64, Librem etc) as your daily driver?
I was going through Pine64's page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?
I'm considering purchasing the Pine but I'd like a better screen, more RAM and a better CPU. Don't know if I should wait for a new model to be released (are they even planning to do that? Is the company active?). I will only really use it to browse the Web, and might even look to desolder a couple of parts that I know I won't use.
Thanks.
Edit: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it'll be fit for me?
Edit 2: overall, I am much saddened about the state of affairs regarding private computing on the go. I desperately hope that Linux on mobile takes off, even though its incubation looks disheartening at the moment. Thank you everyone for your comments.
My problem with linux phones was the hardware. Either far too expensive or too cheap and slow. And the cellular radio is ABSOLUTELY PROPRIETARY.
I would get one at a $300 price point with 12 hour battery life that can play HD video without hiccups. Also would be nice to have open source baseband drivers in it.
I've got really low standards that haven't been met.
I looked into this for myself but I was told a lot of what has already been said here and decided to go with a pixel + graphene OS .
I'm probably sticking with this type of setup until there's a proper Linux phone that can be easily used as a daily driver.
I think the key is patience. One day I think we'll have something that will be able to daily drive Linux that won't feel like you're using the alpha release of android.
I've bought a Nexus 4 to play around with Ubuntu Touch many years ago, but I really don't think I could daily drive even a more powerful Linux phone. Many apps from messengers to banking apps are Android/iOS only, so it'd be really inconvenient to use — not to mention problems with calling and a not-so-great camera.
Almost all things I want to do on a phone are possible with a Pixel + GrapheneOS, which also makes an open source, secure and private phone OS.
Usually ssh'ing into a server through termux is all I need, altough it'd be cool to be able to plug my phone into a monitor and have a desktop with me all the time. But it being "cool" is the problem, as it's not useful day to fay for me. If I need a pc I'll take my laptop. I'll probably try it at some point, but that's many years into the future.
I used a pinephone as my daily driver for about a month. Importantly, this was 3~4 years ago, things could be better now.
My take at the time: The battery life was bad, the phone was slow, MMS did not work, making a receiving calls was iffy at best.
I really really hope this improves/has improved over time. Android gets more and more difficult to de-google. A linux phone would solve a lot of privacy issues (not all, but some)
Forget the pinephone as a daily driver. It is nice to play around with and having linux on your phone is awesome. But you can't really use it as a daily driver. You'll try it and it's going to end up in the drawer of unfinished projects. Trust me, I own a pinephone and I know other people who do.
There's nothing wrong with it. Just like 50 mild annoyances with anything you're trying to do with it and on top it's super slow, compared to any other smartphone.
As I read, the phone by Purism isn't much better and it's really expensive.
Would really love to but have yet to see basic phone functionality covered in a way that isn’t a painful compromise. Stock Android is a privacy nightmare, which is why I left it. I had some fun with Cyanogenmod back in the day, maybe there’s another de-googled Android distribution around today but since I last checked I couldn’t find one that runs on modern mainstream hardware without really jumping through some crazy hoops to establish root.
I have a Mobian community edition PinePhone with postmarketOS and it is my daily driver. It suits my humble needs, but these few years have been a mixed bag. Especially with Mobian I've had periods of it working great, punctuated by periods with annoying issues. I stopped using the phone for a while when it suddenly stopped taking calls but I didn't notice since there was no indication of trouble. My family reported me missing when they couldn't reach me after a few days. Luckily that was then sorted out, but it wasn't great. This hasn't happened since.
postmarketOS has been pretty solid and seems to perform better than Mobian.
After a few years I'm starting to think I need a new battery, but the official store has been out of stock for a while. I'm not sure if they will ever get more parts. Communication from Pine64 has also slowed down to a crawl, which is not great. At least their official monthly blog was last updated in august. At the moment I'm somewhat skeptical of their future. We'll see.
Be warned though: the PinePhone can browse the web and banking probably works, but watching, say, youtube is not going to be a great experience. You're probably better off using alternative solutions like Pipeline. The PinePhone is not a powerful machine and you will have tinker every now and then.
Having said all that, if you set your expectations correctly you can probably get along with a PinePhone as your daily driver. I'm not sure if I can recommend it because there are many caveats, but in the end you know your needs and what you're comfortable with better than I do. I like my PinePhone and I surely wish more people get Linux phones and that the ecosystem evolves.
Been using a Librem 5 since May, and am typing this on it now. I love it.
I have a lot to say about the Pinephone, but in the interest of not re-iterating what has been said before, I'll just say this:
Correctly inserting the SIM card was the most harrowing experience I've ever had with a phone.
Me, GrapheneOS!
No jokes, I found a Oneplus 3 with broken Display, will fix that and try some distros. But the choices all seem pretty bad tbh, I would like Fedora Silverblue but I guess that doesnt exist... yet.
Maybe I will try to create a custom Ublue image?
I'd love to run a system without Google but it's hard. I tried to run LineageOS with microg for a week or two but eventually had to install Google Play Services. Lots of hurdles with push notifications and unfortunately some apps really refused to work when they detected no play services installed. It really sadden me, to be honest. Really wanted to make it work.
Never gave Linux phones a chance, I rely too much on apps that wouldn't be available.
for about one year i used exclusively motorola droid4 as mobile device. it runs maemo-leste: mobile linux distribution with nokia's hildon desktop (revived maemo fremantle sources) on top of devuan linux.
i also myself maintain about ten packages in maemo-leshe repository.
but most of the people won't use motorola droid 4 and maemo-leste.
they won't tolerate small screen and they need their 'apps' for 'banking' or 'twitter' or whatever.
i do not use banking apps or twitter or reddit or instagram or whatever they use, so i don't care.
i used pidgin on that device, even connected to 'ms teams' for work via pidgin.
worked more stabre than real 'teams' client, but of course pidgin is not the mosh usable app on a small screen.
today i use dino on it for e2e encrypted xmpp messaging. in devuan chimaera dino is old and buggy. well what can i do?
it is okay.
but how many people are ready to give up shiny androids or ioses for this cyberpunk device?
even camera doesn't work on it.
well, it is normal for mobile linux distributions that camera doesn't work ot most devices. if it works for photos then not for videos.
well i carry an old small point and shoot with me. i think though it is crappy it makes pdotos better than many phones do.
but i cannot recognize qrcodes with phone.
recently i am trying to use pinephone.
it is more powerful and it has more recent software in postmarketos. my environment is sxmo. it is hde best phone environment ever created, i think. but how many people will agree with me? even pinephone users prefer phosh or kde plasma or something more fancy.
what i do with pinephone?
first of all i charge it always. it is like tamagocci, if you don't feed it it will die. so i carry a power bank with me.
it runs about six hours if i dont touch it (without suspend) and about two hours if i run dino.
in best case, if dino won't make the device unresponsive.
i have an open source program called songrec on it, it can use shazam api and it recognizes music played around. it is a very useful app. and it is adaptive, works in both portrait and landsgape modes.
what else do i do with it? well, browse the web sometimes. but it is often a torture. and i wondur why dont i just do the same on laptop.
yeah and podcasts with gpodder-adaptive.
and radio with shortwave.
i know why i do this: i want to use mostly libre software so i am ready for inconveniences. but not many people are ready to this.
for many years i used sailfish. it is very polished. i would recommend it to 'regular people' instead of android.
but i do not like that it doesn't run on mainline on most devices, so proprietary linux kernel is necessary, the ui framework isn't libre so we cannot use an app we used to on other platform most of the time. so u r getting locked to sailfish. it is hard to leave it because u cannot take your apps with you. in order to port apps written with their silica classes one needs to rewrite the ui completely.
so i am a person who only used linux phones for years asd i know it is not easy foc regular people.
for me it is ok. i do not need much more than sxmo as environment. i only wish pinephone to not hang as often because of dino. (:
for about one year i used exclusively motorola droid4 as mobile device. it runs maemo-leste: mobile linux distribution with nokia's hildon desktop (revived maemo fremantle sources) on top of devuan linux.
i also myself maintain about ten packages in maemo-leshe repository.
but most of the people won't use motorola droid 4 and maemo-leste.
they won't tolerate small screen and they need their 'apps' for 'banking' or 'twitter' or whatever.
i do not use banking apps or twitter or reddit or instagram or whatever they use, so i don't care.
i used pidgin on that device, even connected to 'ms teams' for work via pidgin.
worked more stabre than real 'teams' client, but of course pidgin is not the mosh usable app on a small screen.
today i use dino on it for e2e encrypted xmpp messaging. in devuan chimaera dino is old and buggy. well what can i do?
it is okay.
but how many people are ready to give up shiny androids or ioses for this cyberpunk device?
even camera doesn't work on it.
well, it is normal for mobile linux distributions that camera doesn't work ot most devices. if it works for photos then not for videos.
well i carry an old small point and shoot with me. i think though it is crappy it makes pdotos better than many phones do.
but i cannot recognize qrcodes with phone.
recently i am trying to use pinephone.
it is more powerful and it has more recent software in postmarketos. my environment is sxmo. it is hde best phone environment ever created, i think. but how many people will agree with me? even pinephone users prefer phosh or kde plasma or something more fancy.
'''''''''what i do with pinephone?
first of all i charge it always. it is like tamagocci, if you don't feed it it will die. so i carry a power bank with me.
it runs about six hours if i dont touch it (without suspend) and about two hours if i run dino.
in best case, if dino won't make the device unresponsive.
i have an open source program called songrec on it, it can use shazam api and it recognizes music played around. it is a very useful app. and it is adaptive, works in both portrait and landsgape modes.
what else do i do with it? well, browse the web sometimes. but it is often a torture. and i wondur why dont i just do the same on laptop.
yeah and podcasts with gpodder-adaptive.
and radio with shortwave.
i know why i do this: i want to use mostly libre software so i am ready for inconveniences. but not many people are ready to this.
for many years i used sailfish. it is very polished. i would recommend it to 'regular people' instead of android.
but i do not like that it doesn't run on mainline on most devices, so proprietary linux kernel is necessary, the ui framework isn't libre so we cannot use an app we used to on other platform most of the time. so u r getting locked to sailfish. it is hard to leave it because u cannot take your apps with you. in order to port apps written with their silica classes one needs to rewrite the ui completely.
so i am a person who only used linux phones for years asd i know it is not easy foc regular people.
for me it is ok. i do not need much more than sxmo as environment. i only wish pinephone to not hang as often because of dino. (:
Does anyone use the Oneplus 6T? It is suppose to be the most powerful hardware that can run Postmarket or Ubuntu Touch.
We can't even get widespread adoption on workstations, what are the chances we'll ever get them on mobile?
It's all the same problems. There aren't nearly enough people using it for developers to spend their time developing compatible versions of their software, much less ones with a mobile-friendly interface.
Maybe they'll work with PWAs but those still suck.