E: apparently it needs to be said that I am not suggesting you switch to Linux on your phone today; just that development needs to accelerate. Please don’t be one of the 34 people that replied to tell me Linux is not ready.
Android has always been a fairly open platform, especially if you were deliberate about getting it that way, but we’ve seen in recent months an extremely rapid devolution of the Android ecosystem:
- The closing of development of an increasing number of components in AOSP.
- Samsung, Xiaomi and OnePlus have removed the option of bootloader unlocking on all of their devices. I suspect Google is not far behind.
- Google implementing Play Integrity API and encouraging developers to implement it, which prevents apps from the Google Play Store from being downloaded without a system-wide OS-level account login. Notably the EU’s own identity verification wallet requires this, in stark contrast to their own laws and policies, despite the protest of hundreds on Github.
- And finally, the mandatory implementation of developer verification across Android systems. Yes, if you’re running a 3rd-party OS like GOS you won’t be directly affected by this, but it will impact 99.9% of devices, and I foresee many open source developers just opting out of developing apps for Android entirely as a result. We’ve already seen SyncThing simply discontinue development for this reason, citing issues with Google Play Store. They’ve also repeatedly denied updates for NextCloud with no explanation, only restoring it after mass outcry. And we’ve already seen Google targeting any software intended to circumvent ads, labeling them in the system as “dangerous” and “untrusted”. This will most certainly carry into their new “verification” system.
Google once competed with Apple for customers. But in a world where Google walks away from the biggest antitrust trial since 1998 with yet another slap on the wrist, competition is dead, and Google is taking notes from Apple about what they can legally get away with.
Android as we know it is dead. And/or will be dead very soon. We need an open replacement.
E2: thank you to everyone stopping by from Hacker News, Reddit, etc. to check out the threadiverse. I hope you’ll stick around for a while. Check out https://phtn.app/ and the Voyager and Blorp apps for a nicer UI. Fuck Spez!
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My next phone will run Linux, even if it is inconvenient.
As soon as this phone is paid off, I’ll be changing from Google Fi as well. Which sucks because it’s hella cheap.
I’m with you, I’ve switched all my computers to Linux for similar reasons. I bought an android phone recently and put Linux on that, although still some things to iron out such as sound and microphone input but it’s working well otherwise. Looking forward to when I can ditch my iPhone.
same. There is one windows computer still in this house and it’s unplugged. Everything else is Linux, Android, or FreeBSD based.
I’ve switched as well but didn’t realize you could put Linux on an android device. Is it a specific distro and can you throw it on an old android tablet?
There are several distros. You do need to ensure (as listed in the OP) that your bootloader is unlockable (listed as “OEM unlock” in Android).
- SailfishOS
- Ubuntu Touch
- Mobian
- PostmarketOS
- Manjaro ARM
Interesting. I’ve seen Sailfish mentioned before, I’ll look into it. I’ve got a couple old tablets to mess around with, seems like a fun project. Thanks for the info!
Take a look into PostMarketOS, they are the bleeding edge for Linux mobile development. You can search on their wiki if your phone is supported.
The other solutions listed might be more turn key but not close to mainline Linux. (Custom kernel, etc)
They don’t seem to have any supported devices apart from community contributions?
“These are the most supported devices, maintained by at least 2 people and have the functions you expect from the device running its normal OS, such as calling on a phone, working audio, and a functional UI. Besides QEMU devices, this is currently empty.”Yeah I wasn’t kidding about bleeding edge. It’s a double edged sword. You get more compatibility across a wide range of devices but it might not be 100% polished, yet.
To be fair, as most things in Linux, they are community developed. The community supported devices are supported by people who are taking their personal time to develop Linux to support these devices. You can view each individual device in the wiki to see how much support they have.
It’s all what you’re comfortable with, I still daily drive my iPhone as I need a very reliable device for my work. But I definitely rock my Linux phone when I can.
Wow, surprised to see the old Samsung Galaxy S3 on there. Looks like I’ve got a project coming up
I think they are very device specific. Like only a handful of specific phones have builds for these OS.
Is it true that the top 2 in your list have the most features?
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I’ll have to look into it. 30GB isn’t bad at all. I think I have unlimited now with text and phone for only like $10 more a month. I’d have to look, it’s been a while since i’ve dealt with it.
Worth noting that some services will reject VoIP phone numbers.
JMP also explicitly states that it doesn’t work for emergency calls.
Do you need a phone plan at all for emergency calling? It’s required for all carriers to take 911 calls in Canada.
That’s a good question. You don’t need a phone plan but I think you do still need some way to communicate with the towers. If you do like jevans (data plan only), I suspect there will be no calling functionality at all. Emergency or otherwise. But I could be wrong. Take out your SIM card and call 911 and let me know haha.
It works in Canada without a SIM. I know because my son did it on his “wifi-only” tablet.
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My next phone is definitely going to be a Linux phone. I don’t care if it’s ready. I’m ready.
Same here.
My feelings on point.
Smart phones are simultaneously such a wonder of human engineering and have become such a disappointment of human greed.
This whole situation has made me just care less about my phone, and use it less in my life while I use Linux PCs much more.
I don’t see my phone as a “computer” at this point, really. It’s more of a communication appliance. If I’m launching an app that’s not texting, calling, GPS, or music, it’s probably a replacement for a website I’d normally use on a PC.
Linux phones could change this though. The idea of your PC being your docked phone would work great for most use cases. Unfortunately though, even though I would love it I don’t really see the general public jumping at the chance to get back to the desktop experience. I could maybe see a little traction in the business world.
I found myself using my phone less and less too, and to be honest, I’m even feeling healthier mentally. Portable devices were supposed to improve our life, not make it worse. Big tech did something really terrible to phones :(
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Oh same here! My reduced phone usage has been part of a much larger overall improvement in my well being and being able to live in the moment and be content.
I recently saw a video from a harvard dude talking about how we NEED to be bored. It’s when we fall into our baseline mental state and start thinking through shit and figuring life out. And not doing that can lead to anxiety and depression and other bad shit. Given my experiences, I certainly cannot disagree.
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I love hearing the individual specifics. All the variety and niches that make life interesting.
It’s funny you mention getting back into Japanese, because my big focus this year has been rebuilding and upgrading my koi pond. It would be neat to learn the language, but knowing how I function I don’t think it’s in the cards for me.
Then for my more physical activities, that was carpentry and construction driven by the damn pond. :D
It’s perfect for me though. I am a builder and creator to my core, and my career is in software and electronics, so outdoor wood working perfectly offsets that.
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I hope you have fun as well, whether your account is deleted or not!
One note about the complaints and drama in response to your suggestions though: I see your instance is lemmy.ml and that fact alone will make a lot of people respond to you with hostility, regardless of what your personal political beliefs actually are.
And I don’t know the latest of who is defederated with who, but you may also not even see some of the more decent communities.
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Anywhere there is freedom and thoughtful development there are corporations waiting to capitalize on it and ruin it.
Unfortunately there’s a lot(!) to do to make Linux enjoyable on a phone. I bought a Pinephone some years ago. And in addition to the slow hardware, the entire software/desktop experience isn’t great. While everyone else has instant messengers, Linux doesn’t have connected standby and emails and messages just don’t arrive unless the screen is on. It wastes quite some power, and there are a bazillion small little quirks and annoyances and it’s barely usable if compared to a regular smartphone. I think someone needs to invest quite some more time and money until this becomes a thing. I mean don’t get me wrong, Linux and the low-level system is awesome. And it’s brilliant on any server/laptop/desktop computer. It’s just that there’s so many things missing for a proper phone experience. And it’s not just mildly inconvenient, but like people expect instant messages to be delivered…
It seems like you read the title as “everyone needs to switch to Linux mobile right now” but that’s not what it says.
The point is, as you said, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, and that work is more important now than ever.
Sure. It’s just that the timeframe is a bit disheartening. To me… so all of this is highly subjective. We had the Nokia N900 in like 2009. And I was expecting to live the full Linux experience within a few years and those things to become a bit more affordable. And today it’s almost 16 years later and it doesn’t feel like we’ve come substantially closer. More recently we had Librem and Pine64 put some effort and publicity into it, and that’s also been 5 years. The mobile/touch desktops made some good progress. PostmarketOS is kind of nice. But there are entire layers missing like the app framework in Android which enables such app lifecycles, connected standby… Sandboxing and a fine-granular permission system for proprietary apps (or just modern mainstream usage) is kind of in its infancy. And I’m not even sure if everyone is going to use Flatpak for everything. And all of those missing things are huge undertakings.
So I’m not sure when to expect such an every-day phone… Maybe in 2030 or 2035? But that’s kind of late if the headline is “more important now, than ever”. Because all the while Google is moving more and more stuff from AOSP into their proprietary Play services and it’s getting uncomfortable for me. We have a deadline with the Google messes with the allowed apps on a phone starting 2027. And my life includes more and more mandatory apps, or I have to forfeit taking part in society, culture, convenience or riding a train… This year, Google started giving the GrapheneOS devs a hard time… Now they’re making it even more complicated.
So of course not everyone has to use it, and I’m first of all concerned with my own wellbeing. But I really don’t see a solution in the near future which is going to address the important issues if today and the next few years. So I’m a bit unsure if a Linux phone will come around and help me before it’s too late, or if I need to find other ways to deal with it.
True but I also never even considered it before because honestly open source Android works really great on most devices already. Now that that’s all basically disappearing, hopefully more people will be more dedicated to creating an alternative.
So which is the best project to back?
I dunno! It will really require the participation of the entire community.
Gnome has been making great progress on the graphical front.
Notifications should be pretty simple, and probably should be provided by hardware manufacturers. But the support will need to be implemented into the apps that need them. That can potentially also fix the battery issue.
PostmarketOS I think is probably the most mature Linux mobile package currently but I’m no expert on the subject.
I’d argue that Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish are the most mature offerings. Both OSs are (or at least were at some point) developed as commercially viable alternatives to the duopoly. That gives them a headstart in terms of apps and overall pollish.
The postmarket shells are catching up, but you still get instructions like “drag and drop a file from your file manager to open it”, which doesn’t work on a phone. Phone UX still seems like an afterthought in many cases.
Postmarket OS is a desktop Linux system, but for phones. UT and Sailfish on the other hand are mobile OSs, that happen to use much of the same tech as desktop Linux. They are therefore much closer to the duopoly (for bettet or for worse).
Great, thanks! The next step would be to figure out if either is compatible with Syncthing and GPS-guided nav…
Woohoo!! Now I can’t decide between the two…
comparison is the thief of joy and it’s unrealistic to expect a product of grass roots community effort to compare to a product that benefits from deep pockets that can afford the finest talent and a considerably long head start.
I’m not sure. A phone is kind of a tool, same for a computer. Ideally we weigh our options (aka compare them) and pick which suits us best. And this grass roots effort isn’t doing a half-assed job. I have almost everything available. I can do regular tasks, edit videos, do computer aided design, do heavy database stuff, run the bookkeeping for an entire mid-sized company, a server farm or almost anything I like with Free Software and Linux. I don’t think a phone is fundamentally different and I kind of have the same high expectations for that niche. We’re already doing great with lots of other things, both more niche and more ordinary stuff. And oftentimes it does not include money from tech giants.
the vast majority of commenters here either have no direct experience with a Linux phone or have seen some shallow youtube “review” of a dude swiping the same two screens left/right and extrapolate a buncha shit that has no contact with reality.
presently, and in the foreseeable future, linux phones aren’t an android alternative, they are just linux on the phone, i.e. they allow you to do linux shit on a handheld device.
like, the bleeding edge version of any variant (plasma mobile, gnome, phosh) isn’t even close to an Android phone from like 2015, let alone a modern one.
and that’s before we touch on the pillars of mobile tech like fluidity, battery efficiency, reliability, etc., none of those things are even in a remotely passable state, not to mention - using the thing to make calls. you are better off forgetting about the camera, as well.
and the reason is simple, not only is there a gargantuan discrepancy between evil corp’s resources and the predominantly unpaid enthusiasts, each dev team’s reimplementing shit that’s already solved on another platform. apple doesn’t have to do that. google as well.
then there’s the idea that the javascript-backed Gnome - that has issues running fluidly on super-capable hardware - is the basis on a low-power device on which the linux mobile phone experience is built. reinventing solved shit, but in a stupid way - THREE FINGER swipe on a phone, really?
although there’s a solid app base, the apps that are supposedly mobile friendly are few and far between, most are just downright unusable on a vertical screen and dog help you if launch an electron app. firefox, even with pmOS patches (useless without) is tiresome to use. you can forget about dating, ubering, banking, or even just using a messenger everybody else does.
if you’re squeamish about flashing custom recoveries and ROMs, the e.g. pmOS install process is way, way, way more involved and failure prone. if you go with ubuntu touch or mobian, even more so.
finally, if you’re talking about a device that you’ve grown accustomed to to the extent that you’re using it subconsciously, swiping and multitasking and such whilst walking and dodging other pedestrians - no such thing exists over here.
I’m just tying this up because I keep reading about “switching”, people are either delusional or misinformed, there’s nothing (yet) to switch to.
get a couple of $50 ex-flaghips to play with, flash lineageOS on one and pmOS on the other and that should hold you over for a coupla years.
apparently it needs to be said that I am not suggesting you switch to Linux on your phone today; just that development needs to accelerate.
I’m not critiquing your post, I’m just clarifying to a buncha people who think otherwise that it’s not an option.
as to “it needs to accelerate”, I have a grim outlook. the only way it’s gonna do that is if there significant cash behind it and if everything non-essential is to be trimmed so that a functional platform can emerge. in our ever-enshittifying, greater-fool-theory investment climate, it’s doubtful there loose capital with such an agenda, and I doubt such a thing is even on the horizon.
same way with “desktop linux”; like, can you image where we’d be if every development effort is geared towards just one DE/WM, instead of tons of duplicated efforts and abandoned paths? yeah, good things eventually emerge from all the disjointed chaos, but eventually. and our joint assessment is that we’re running outta time for the “eventual” part.
It’s not great but lots of people are using it today. There are multiple entire businesses built on it. It may not fit your needs but it obviously does for many. And it’s only going to get better.
see, this is the thing I’m talking about. your comment indicates that it’s possibly a viable alternative to OS developed by the wealthiest corps in the world, for 15+ years and people are like “ok, there’s options”…
it is nowhere near that. it’s linux on a mobile device, and that’s such a humongously, vastly different thing than an alternative and that should be the first and foremost thing said. same with the “android is linux” bozos in every thread (it really, really isn’t) who are not helping the issue, at all.
and then we can dwell on whether it’s usable or not in its present state.
it’s possibly a viable alternative to OS developed by the wealthiest corps in the world, for 15+ years
It already is. It’s just a matter of porting it over to a different form factor.
if you’re squeamish about flashing custom recoveries and ROMs, the e.g. pmOS install process is way, way, way more involved and failure prone. if you go with ubuntu touch or mobian, even more so.
What?? PmOS and Ubuntu Touch both have very easy, foolproof installers. No idea about Mobian to be fair.
I’ve been using only Linux-based mobile OS’s since my first smartphone, and while you’re right for a lot of the new breed made for the Pinephone and Librem, Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Touch are both perfectly useable for lots of people. Both have a decent app ecosystem and both support running Android apps to fill in the gaps (I’ve used both, the proprietary Jolla one is about as good as it gets and is practically seamless for like 99% of Android apps).
Of course there’s going to be people who will respond to me to say they can’t possibly switch because of that one app that they and 5 other people in the world use, as though they’re in any way relevant to what I’ve said. Just the same as when I post about people switching to Linux on the desktop and there’s always that one Fusion 360 user who thinks everyone in the world also uses Fusion and so Linux can’t possibly ever work for anyone.
To be fair, Fusion 360 is pretty good… I hate to love it, to miss it. I can’t wrap my head around the work flow in FreeCAD.
But more often I am shocked by people saying they have to stay on windows because of Office… Like, the fuck? MS doesn’t even want you to have that installed on your computer anymore and is pushing all web based, but that is going to keep you on Windows?? Nothing there is particularly hungry, just put it in a VM if you absolutely can’t get by with one of the several great alternatives.
Yeah, my point isn’t that F360 sucks or that FreeCAD is awesome, it’s that basically no one uses either of these apps in the grand scheme of things. Doing CAD is just not something most people do. To be honest, the same goes for Photoshop which is another often-touted point, as though even a small percentage of PC users ever go near Photoshop!
I agree with your sentiment entirely. Hell, I do really like F360, but it isn’t enough for me to go back to using windows.
In most situations, especially ones typical users are going to run into, I’ve found the alternatives to be much easier for me to learn and use. I fucking love Krita for the image editing I need an image editor for. From my experience, 95%+ people would have a better time if they weren’t blindly sticking to proprietary software they think they “need”.
UT and mobian need to be on stock, ancient versions of android prior to flashing. that is a challenge in an of itself, just check out what it takes to go from lineage A15 to stock A9. also, “easy” and “foolproof”, please - you’re not the target audience I’m addressing.
This seems less of a problem in the US, but a lot of stuff here is done with some apps that won’t run on these distributions.
Banks have created identity provides which now the government also uses, and they’re locked down to Android and iOS. Without these, making payments or do other stuff you need your identity for gets hard. And there are used by hundreds of thousands of people daily.
If they can run, I’d switch over instantly, but now I’m pretty much stuck.
Thank you. I get what OP is saying, but in general I’m so over the constant blind Linux fanboy hype train, like it’s the solution to everything. One of the reasons I can’t really stand to be on this instance unless I see something important enough to hit the front page. I’ll take a remotely functional windows dist with customized features over pretty much any linux OS anyday in order to not struggle to complete the most basic, essential tasks.
Life’s too short to spend glued to Stackexchange instead of actually getting shit done.
Spoken like someone that’s never actually tried Linux. Enjoy your electron start menu, shill.
There is always the option of waydroid to get android apps running on Linux. It’s not a great solution, but a first stopgap measure to use services only available as apps.
that’s not a thing, presently. the OS has trouble running on its own and handling “native” apps, let alone introducing an emulation to the mix.
of course, it can and does work to some extent - but not one where you depend on it, like you do with modern phones.
That’s a security nightmare
dating
What dating apps work in Andorid? Lol
Not to mention navigation and using the car screen.
Osmin on PinePhone was… Tolerable. I’m just pleasantly surprised it worked okay with GPS being integrated into the modem.
Takes a long time to get a GPS fix (like old standalone GPS units), but it’s possible to provide A-GPS data to it.
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I went with a Sonim XP3Plus flip phone
This is how I solved the modern tech problem.
You didn’t solve any problems, you just opted out of a whole bunch of features.
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I did solve the problem; by choosing not to bother with it
Walking away does not solve the problem. It just makes it no longer your problem. Everyone else still has to deal with it. Not everyone has that privilege.
If we all stopped the world would adapt. The council let the street signs rot because everyone is on gmaps, restaurants stopped having menus just qr codes, places in England were you get kicked out if you insist to pay by cash.
All of it would be reversed if… we reversed A pipe dream but weirder things happened
If we all stopped
Okay well let me know when you get everyone to stop. Until then…
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They did reverse the cash ting at the pub, every day a different customer would have a proper argument about it. Don’t ask why I was there everyday tho
It’s a pub. I think there should be no questions 🤣
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Yes and no. Some of us actually need our phones to accomplish things. Work, primarily. As people mentioned elsewhere, simple things like accessing their banking accounts. I wish we didn’t, but we do.
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I’d never do banking on a smartphone; not in a million years.
They’re not doing it by choice. The phone is used as mandatory authentication to access the account.
One theft or hack in public, and all your money and data are at risk
…and how do you suppose your laptop is immune from this? Or your desktop, even?
that’s the aspect you want to keep avoiding.
I’m not avoiding anything. What you fail to understand is that not everyone’s situation is the same as yours. For some of us, these things are outside of our control.
He did solve a problem, his problem. What’s the deal with thinking everything that applies to you applies to others?
No problems were solved.
That’s your best answer? “No problems we’re solved because I said so”? 🤣🤣🤣
No wonder you sound so angry here, lol.
No problems were solved because they weren’t solved. I know that may be hard for you to wrap your head around.
It is, very.
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2 weeks? That’s awesome. SM6115 and 2300mAh. My Lenovo P11 with LineageOS(GSI) also has a SM6115 with much bigger battery and only gives about 4 days idle… Are you using some technique for longer battery time?
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Cool, not sure why it doesn’t work for me :/ I only turn on wifi about once a week to sync new books from my server since I use it as an offline ebook reader.
Haven’t had a pixel 3, but do have a pixel 2. Running stock rom because verizon and degoogled with adb and wifi off, only used for occasional quick photo shoots. The battery also only goes for about 3 days.
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My next phone will be a ThinkPad because it has a SIM card slot.
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I bought mine (P14s AMD) this year and it works flawlessly.
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Check out postmarketOS, a real Linux distro for phones with a 10-year life cycle goal and mainline kernel support. It’s not daily-driver ready for everyone, but it frees you from Google and OEM lockdowns. If we want an open mobile future, this is the project worth supporting.
Thanks for the suggestion! I was about to ask what non-Android Linux options are available.
Sounds good. I wish there was something for samsung s23s.
Ubuntu Touch has a planned release for September 24th! Eager to see what devices have a full compatibility rating to know what I’ll buy next
The main problem is that mobile OS is simply not useful without banking or government apps and they won’t ever appear on FOSS systems because giving control to user is exactly the opposite of what’s in their interest.
I don’t understand why people need banking apps on their phone. I only ever access my banking info from the PC…
2fa with a banking app, a lot of banks work that way
That’s insane. They don’t have TOTP? Or Passkeys? Or (God forbid) SMS or email verification? The only 2FA option is using their shitty app? I think I’d rather switch banks…
It became hard to do that in my country. I changed banks twice in a year because they became shit but even the third one uses its app as 2fa. At least it is a better bank…
None of my banks (a couple French and Belgian ones) seem to support anything but auth via app. Can’t log in on my computer without my phone.
I know Credit Mutuel can provide you a physical card with a bunch of codes of which one is selected at random at auth time
Had family use it because they had a Huawei phoneInteresting! Maybe it’s worth switching banks, at least once I get the courage to move to Linux mobile.
Vancity credit union uses standard TOTP. But RBC uses their stupid app where I live.
I had nothing but problems with banking apps. Can’t do anything if location is off, or it doesn’t like your IP, or if it thinks you have rooting software installed. And if it doesn’t work right, no one at the bank knows how to help. I just stopped using them, eventually.
If only banks could figure out how security works…
In Sweden many parts of society requires an app called BankID. We authenticate getting mail packages, sign contracts, book a time in health care, etc with this app. It’s needed everywhere. Buying a bus ticket. A phone without this app is not sufficient to function in swedish society.
Sounds a bit dystopian
A little bit yes, since the BankID is owned by private companies. There are those who are working on a free software version and some people think that the government should have an official authentication app free from private interests. But it’s been hard to make people aware and care about these issues. It’s like the xkcd worlds smallest open source violin. At the same time, many things that relate to proving that I am me has become very convenient in this society. For example I moved to a new apartment and they just sent a link to the contract and I signed it with the app and that was that, I did my taxes by just checking that the info they had was correct and signed it on my phone, etc.
Aren’t you able to get a dongle for 2fa like in Denmark? We have MitID but you can easily get a dongle so you don’t need a phone
Yes, true. But then you need to carry an extra device. I know it’s just inconvenience.
Interesting. I’m an online notary. I sign papers with essentially an encrypted certificate from my Linux PC.
and you can do it from your phone too using a browser other than android-chrome or ios-safari.
If it is what the user wants, then it is a factor for adoption. It is a hard sell to say “yes it can only perform half the stuff you usually do with a phone, but you don’t need that anyways”. It comes across as condescending, too.
My intent is not to be condescending. It is to make people aware of the fact that they have a choice: They can choose to subject themselves to increasingly-closed and exploitative platforms, or they can choose the extremely minor (I would argue non) inconvenience of using the browser or another computer to access their banking information.
it’s not really a need, it’s more an imposition. we’re forced to do everything via the app
Which is an odd take as when I statted using “smart phones” not a singke.one supported apps from banks or government,.yet here we arw.
@vermaterc @Ulrich It depends on what you want your phone to do
Me? Encrypted calls & texts
Banking apps… Banks are moving towards digital currency, so you need to plan ahead
Government apps… O well
I have a Pixel 9 Pro which is supposed to get security updates until 2031 but at the pace Google is closing Android down I wonder if it will even be viable to stay on an AOSP degoogled ROM until then.
I feel like the future is leading us to a place where we will have to reduce our mobile computing to a trusted but slow and unreliable main phone while keeping a secondary mainstream device for banking/government apps.
I don’t agree!
A linux phone, or any other open source alternative, has ALWAYS been more important than the ones we’ve got. Being locked into an eco-system, has always been bad for the regular user. It’s about companies controlling people and the market, and it should never have to be a choice between a rock and a hard place.
I really wish that the Firefox phone had gained more support. And I wish that there will soon be a linux-phone for the regular person, all over the world.
But I guess people in general keep choosing to lock themselves in, by using Google and Apple…
Android has been fairly “open” to the extent that I could do all the things I felt were important. But it’s heading in a concerning direction.
I really wish that the Firefox phone had gained more support
KaiOS 4.x just dropped with Fx 128 I think. You will be on an underpowered flip phone, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing…
How is it bad for the user? Most people don’t care and enjoy using their phones. Is it hurting them using iPhone or Android?
I already wrote why it is bad. I could mention even more areas. Don’t you know, it that why you ask? Or are you just trying to pick a fight?
My next phone will be a Linux phone.
I was on board the Fairphone hype, and while I think they have a good message, I actually think Pine64 does exactly what they do - just without the flashy marketing. Fairphone still uses AOSP as the basis for their OSes, so there is still a risk of hardware lockout by Google. This is leaving alone other issues like no headphone jack and USB 2.0 for the latest generation’s USB-C.
This is actually the same reason I think Ecosia won’t succeed in the long term unless they build their own search engine. Luckily it looks like they’ve already started delivering results as of last month.
I should also mention that the PinePhone isn’t Scott free from criticism either. Think I read somewhere that the camera is borked because the latest firmware or software update messed with the camera module functionality. No real fix for that soon, which sucks.
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Realistically, i think this idea might work well in tandem with a sort of PDA built off a Pi. I use my phone as a computer, because its a computer. The parts of my phone that i need to be a phone are calls and text, as i dont take photos almost ever. Data is nice, but im fairly certain i had seen recently a sim module for Pi devices, so i can just bake it into that instead so i still have a mobile computer.
Someone will eventually make a better phone OS, but in the short term it seems smart to move to a dumb phone and offset everything else to a device tou can actually control.
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I don’t get it. I’ve never been addicted to my phone. It’s just something I can look stuff up on listen to music and maybe remote to my server. Oh also navigation I used that every day when working.
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I was on board the Fairphone hype, and while I think they have a good message, I actually think Pine64 does exactly what they do - just without the flashy marketing.
Exactly what they do, except it’s not a functional product. “Overpriced, underpowered, and half-finished” is the motto of pine64.
Yeah, as I alluded to at the end of my post, Pine64 has a lot of issues with making their devices actually useful.
They base a lot of their development on the community though. So if the community isn’t up to it, then virtually no one at Pine64 is.
You missed the overpriced and underpowered part. In the EU, the pinephone pro cost 600€, the same as the fairphone 6, and it’s significantly worse in every single way. Even if it actually worked, who in their right mind would pay that much for a device that’s going to run out of ram as soon as you open a few tabs in Firefox?
They base a lot of their development on the community though. So if the community isn’t up to it, then virtually no one at Pine64 is.
I doubt they’ll be fixing anything since they seem to have stopped selling them.
Also, if we go by their track record with the pinetime, PRs fixing basic functionality will be left open for years. Like how they can’t be bothered to accept fixes allowing the stopwatch to run in the background and not reset when you get a notification, let alone QoL improvements like being able to tell the time on your watch while the stopwatch is running.
I doubt they’ll be fixing anything since they seem to have stopped selling them.
Pine64 stopped selling the PinePhone Pro due to a lack of demand.
The regular PinePhone is still being sold, although a lack of a “Pro” qualifier certainly doesn’t help their optics of producing a competent phone at today’s standards.
I just hope that this time we go Free Software and not committing the mistake of going Open Source for a 3rd time (BSD/UNIX AT&T; Android/Google). Unless we want to fall with the same stone yet once more.
Android going Open Source allowed Google to close Android once it got mature. It’s a Trojan Horse, yet people still go Open Source and then complain when some company closes their source.
Though we can’t use the android name and logo, the software that was open so far is still open for use.
Take that part and continue building from there
How exactly does Free, non-open-source software prevent that?
Because the license allows the closing of the code whenever a coder wants. BSD has that problem. It gives so much freedom that it can go against freedom itself. Microsoft took Kerberos (BSD), forked it and extended it. The MS fork gained ground against the BSD one and MS closed the source when its fork was the most used, pushing out the original BSD version.
I get where this argument is coming from, but I don’t think there are meaningful differences in the success of gpl or other copyleft licenses, vs permissive ones (except maybe cases where someone was willing and able to enforce the gpl in court). Companies are no less capable of doing EEE with copyleft. There are also plenty of permissively licensed software projects that have gained a lot of popularity, just like some gpl ones have.
The difference in traction between Linux and BSD probably has more to do with the same kinds of forces that allowed Android to succeed and then crowd Windows phones out of the market.
My bad for no specifying I didn’t use a very specific naming indeed. Normally Open Source it’s used for source code that’s not copylefted or copylefted software that does not defend user freedom (Although Open Source OSS does not say that, indeed GPL by the OSS definition is open source software). On the other hand Free software is commonly used for GPL like software (although most of the so called open source software could also be named free software). Also free software does not refer to “gratis” software. For a better explanation you can check this and this.
Anyways what I wanted to point out is that software that protects user freedoms and is copylefted (like GPL) protect users because the source code is protected from being closed if it is distributed.
On the other hand some open source software (open as open access), like ASOP, give open access without any protection for the user freedoms. For example the BSD-3-Clause.
I prefer to use the term Free Software instead of Open Software, because it points out that the whole meaning behind the licence is to maintain source code freedoms. On the other hand Open software seems to defend the fact that the source code is open but not its freedoms.
Both OSS Open source and FSF Free software definition refer to mostly the same set of licences, which in order to distinguish you would need to check the particular details like copyleft, etc.
tl;dr: buy a second hand pixel 8 and install GrapheneOS. It’s Android, but it will get you through a few years while you wait for postmarketOS to become viable as a daily driver.
Hi! I’ve been looking into getting GOS on a Pixel lately. I was wondering if there is a reason you recommend the pixel 8 over the pixel 9?
Just cheaper.
No. Incorrect. You should actually read it. GOS is Android. Android is the problem.
I said it’s android.
Its going to be a problem but it’s not yet.
