"But my friend runs a PinePhone as a daily driver"

I wish Valve would make a Steam Phone. They seem to know how to do Linux devices.

Linux phones will need to run established Android apps to get users, devs won't move where there is no users, users won't move there if there aren't apps. It's almost cyclical

Right now we're working with people who are exceptions to this, users who want to experiment and devs who don't care about money.

Everyone saying Android is completely missing the point. I mean yeah, it runs the linux kernel, but i feel like most of yall wouldn't call ChromeOS linux on the other hand.

The obvious connotations are privacy, choice, wayland/x11 support, a useful terminal, a rich foss ecosystem, and arch btw.

I appreciate the people who daily drive pinephones. They are paving the way for when they'll be viable alternatives for the masses. (Or verifying that they won't be, we'll see.)

Daily drivin Manjaro (Plasma mobile) on my Pinephone Pro for over a year now. If you are not into the whole "taking pictures all the time" thing you can easiy use it as a daily driver. (This message was typed on it)

Who's gonna tell him Android is based on Linux ?

Okay look I get what we're trying to say here but would it be problematic if I pointed out that Android is also running Linux?

Really a shame that Nokia gave up. The N900 was a well working Linux phone. I miss it dearly.

I have a PinePhone. ama

I was downvoted before for suggesting the Pinetab is not a viable Android or iPad replacement. That thing doesn't even have a working wifi driver yet, you have to plug in a dongle just to connect to wifi. I'd love to have good smart devices running Linux one day, but we're not there yet.

I'm quite optimistic about a usable Linux phone in the near future, maybe 5 years from now or so. When smartphones were a new thing, it was really hard for open source projects without a major company backing them to keep up with all the new developments. Hence all the projects that died out. But innovation on smartphones has basically come to a halt these days. Sure, your phone can get a little bit faster and have round displays now, but nobody cares anymore. Nothing of all that is essential. So, give it some time, we'll get there.

If your needs are very simple, and you’re willing to go without a lot of luxuries, then yeah, it could work for you.

I've been daily driving Ubuntu Touch on the Fairphone 4 for over a year. I love it, even if some features are lacking. Calling and text is stable, but unfortunately Volte support is still missing. Waydroid is also working great.

ironically, the fact that i would genuinely rather spend my money on a pinephone as opposed to an android should go to show how little i care for android devices.

it's a fun toy, not super useful but probably fun to tinker with
I've done some ungodly stuff to my android phones (even non-rooted ones, I'm totally abusing them) and I can't even imagine all the possibilities with a proper linux distro. Having a pocket pc with a full arm64 linux sounds awesome

Hear me out: THEY ARE VIABLE TO ME

Between October 2018 to April 2023 I used as my daily drivers a series of phones (OnePlus One, Meizu Pro 5, Volla Phone, Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro) all flashed to running Ubuntu Touch. During this time UT (Ubuntu Touch) was less developed than it is now, in that Waydroid (which allows using some Android apps over a Lineage OS container that boots on top of UT) did not yet exist, and Libertine (which allows some Linux desktop apps built for Ubuntu arm64 deb to be installed) was not as functional. And yet is still worked great for my modest needs (e.g. I don't do banking, or any kind of more advanced gaming, on my phones).

The reason I reverted last year to de-googled Android ("vanilla" Bliss ROM on a Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro) is that being in the USA, the carriers here have closed or are closing down all their 3G/2G networks, and requiring VoLTE for phone calls. While UT supports LTE for mobile data without a problem, given that VoLTE is a proprietary closed protocol with implementation varying between carrier, oem and device, the only device which UT currently has VoLTE support for (and which is still shaky) is the PinePhone Pro.

Anyhoo - the UT dev community is pretty small, but definitely dedicated, and still offers some promise into the future for a nice privacy respecting alternative OS for mobile devices and tablets. Hopefully at some point VoLTE, and a few other issues gets figured out for it so I can return to using it for my daily driver - in the meantime I've got it on a OnePlus 5t as a secondary device, and on a Lenovo x306f 10" tablet.

I hope its stable enough when i stop using my current phone

also kudos to GrapheneOS social media people patiently explaining why both purism and pine64 are pretty mid at best when it comes to hardware security

My Nokia N900 ran Linux back in the day, and was a more polished experience than the iPhone it was then contemporary with. Too bad that particular line went precisely nowhere.

Starry-eyed me bought a pine phone and a librem5, and for both of them it was pretty much turn it on, about 5 minutes of navigating the UIs and suffering the performance, and putting it right back in the box for my own personal museum where they'll be safe and sound and kept in prime condition until they're thrown away some day when I'm dead.

It would be really hard to get an established manufacture to pick up Linux as an operating system. Most people get a Samsung phone if they can afford it and a Motorola if they can't in the states.

I'd be surprised if my family has done any research before picking up a phone outside of is it a Samsung.

Bought a pine phone because it's cool.

It is not daily driver worthy at all

I tried to daily drive a PinePhone for a long time, then a PinePhone Pro. It is not really ready. Too many dropped/failed to answer calls and missed texts. I love having a fully capable Linux PC in my pocket and am typing this on my OnePlus 6T with postmarketOS, but as a phone it is not ideal. My setup now is that I have a OnePlus 6 with stock Android and my main SIM for doing phone stuff (calls, texts, some apps, Bluetooth handsfree) and the OnePlus 6T with pmOS for Linux experimentation and doing pocket computer things (browsing, coding, SSH, VPN, testing Waydroid). I got a second cheap SIM so I can have service on both devices, but as the 6T with pmOS can't receive calls in 4G mode it really doesn't work as a phone. The PinePhones can work as a phone but the modem dropouts make it less than ideal and their battery life and performance leave much to be desired while the OP6T has fairly good performance and battery life on pmOS.

buy an iPhone

-Jobs 4:20

Mobile Linux is awesome, support it. Maybe just don't try to make money selling it as a finished product yet?

[X] doubt

(I say that as a PinePhone owner)

Damn this is timely, I just got a second hand Pinephone today

I used a flip phone for years are you telling me linux phones can't make phone calls?

Asterisk counts as a Linux phone, right?

...are we ignoring android?

Linux people tend to forget, that people want something that just works, why I love Linux, I have a mac and later bought an Iphone, the UX difference of using and airpod pro with an Android phone and an Iphone is just miles apart, I can literally have it in my ears, click on a video on my mac and the sound transfers, then as I go out for a walk with my dog and start a podcast, the airpods switch back to my phone without any hassle.

Before that I would have to disconnect and reconnect bluetooth multiple times to switch between the android phone and the macbook.

Granted I maybe care a lot more about good UX than normal people, but good UX like that just makes me hard.

I feel like people that unironically tout Linux phones as stable enough are the same people that think we can ditch Xorg, not true even though I obviously would like it to be.

Wait till bro finds out what android is

I run a pinephone daily during the first 5 or 6 months of covid but once I started going out again well... really poor camera and battery

Not reliable as a daily driver but very cool

For those who have used each, which did you prefer, GrapheneOS or a Linux-based phone, and why?

me rn:

Is sailfishos linux?

What’s a daily driver?

I would totally daily drive a Linux phone if performance wasn't so awful. I don't care if it doesn't a have any apps. In fact, the inability to install apple or android apps is actually a positive point in my view.

I'm sure PinePhone is better than the Openmoko distro was back in the day.

I used my Openmoko for a few months and happily sold it to a friend after explaining the state of the OS.

Shiftphone?

I'm daily driving Droidian for more than a year!

Meanwhile me absolutely running a dualboot Oneplus 6 with lineage and droidian that has had kupferos, mobian and postmarketos in the past... (yes, i distrohop my phone, so what?)

pear phones > everything