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.
Waydroid runs decently on the pinephone. On a phone with better specs, it might be downright usable for proprietary apps.
Potentially a proton-style layer could really ease transition, like on the steamdeck
BlackBerry 10 was actually a pretty slick OS that supported Android apps and you could even side-load Google Play services.
Progressive Web Apps. Web programs broke the need for Microsoft Windows.
Agreed. Classic story that has been repeated several times over the years. Ecosystem is everything.
Microsoft’s Windows phones were fantastic. They had super nice hardware, high refresh rate screens, better cameras on their flagship models than iPhones at the time.
They were sleek, fast, the Windows tile UI actually worked great on a phone touchscreen. But it didn’t matter to most consumers because they didn’t have apps. MS had their own business apps…and that was about it. Didn’t matter that every other aspect of the phones were great, people couldn’t do what they wanted to on the Windows phones, so they didn’t buy them.
I would love to see something like Proton but for .apks instead of Windows executables. If it were as easy to install and run android apps on a mobile Linux OS as it is now to install and play Windows games on Linux, we would be in a great place to see a proper Linux phone.
GNU/Linux is not aimed at people who want the most features. It’s made for people who value freedom above everything else.
I would love to see something like Proton but for .apks instead of Windows executables. If it were as easy to install and run android apps on a mobile Linux OS as it is now to install and play Windows games on Linux, we would be in a great place to see a proper Linux phone.
You mean Waydroid? I’ve read that it works pretty well.
We need proton for Android apps
We have Waydroid which is close enough. It needs some quality of life improvements for better integration with the native Linux ecosystem but it runs Android apps just fine on Linux phones.
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.
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.)
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’d agree with you in the context of standard (google) android.
One caveat that I’d like to highlight, though, is that for me GrapheneOS and F-Droid handily achieve the privacy and rich FOSS ecosystem parts. Useful terminal depends on your definition :) but for my use case Termux fills the void.
It doesn’t feel like Linux (you can’t even use Wifi and Ethernet at the same time for crying out loud) but for a relatively cheap low-power device, I like the flexibility.
It’s far enough from being a foot gun that I can give a Pixel 5 with GrapheneOS and some F-Droid apps to my grandmother and know she’ll have no problems. Balancing that with having enough extensibility to scratch the itch for 99% of tinkerers is a feat to appreciate in my view.
ChromeOS is Linux and even starting to become it’s own full blown distro.
ChromeOS even uses Wayland now.
Lacros
I wish Valve would make a Steam Phone. They seem to know how to do Linux devices.
Valve laptop to revive the thinkpad glory days
Hell, I think even Raspberry Pi Foundation getting into the phone market would be a game changer too.
A lot of the libcamera work done on Raspberry Pi boards is going towards improving the camera support on linux phones like the PinePhone, which is great!
Aside from that, sadly a lot of people (including myself) are kind of fed up with Raspberry Pi, after they essentially abandoned their mission during Covid to please corporations, and are preparing to go public despite being a “charity”. Broadcom, their SoC supplier, also has left a sour taste in my mouth after their purchase and mass layoffs at VMWare.
If they created a phone it would likely end up being scalped to death, and maybe pretty pricey compared to a PinePhone
Aside from that, sadly a lot of people (including myself) are kind of fed up with Raspberry Pi, after they essentially abandoned their mission during Covid to please corporations
Just out of curiosity, could you state what you think their mission was?
(I’m just wondering if anybody even remembers their original original mission.)
AFAIK their original mission was along the lines of making computers accessible at a low price point, particularly targeting the education sector in parts of the world where computers weren’t very accessible or affordable. Comparable to the OLPC, but not on an individual basis
I could be wrong though
Remember when they donated one pi for every one sold?
Android is Linux.
Modified Linux kernel, but you very well know what people mean don’t you
I think when people say “Linux phone” they mean GNU/Linux.
No. Most people mean PostmarketOS, which is Busybox/musl/Linux
A lot of people use Manjaro and Mobian (mobile Debian).
No? PMOS isn’t the only thing people refer to by “Linux phone”, often its something like Ubuntu touch, which absolutely is GNU.
Fair but Ubuntu Touch is not mainline Linux. It’s a hack to get a GNU/systemd Userland working with an Android kernel (which arguably is also a huge feat)
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?
Isn’t that like claiming all Linux, Android and MacOS are just UNIX?
GNU is a recursive acronym for “GNU’s Not Unix!”,[6][12] chosen because GNU’s design is Unix-like, but differs from Unix by being free software and containing no Unix code.[6][13][14] Stallman chose the name by using various plays on words, including the song The Gnu.[4]: 45:30
See, this is why, yet again, Stallman was right: insisting on “GNU/Linux” is necessary in order to disambiguate between the fully-Free Software OS and bastardized half-proprietary stuff like Android.
It’s a valid point, but unfortunately your non bullshit options are limited to replacing the OS with something like Graphene or Lineage.
The powers that be REALLY want your data.
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.
the only device which Ubuntu Touch currently has VoLTE support for (and which is still shaky) is the PinePhone Pro.
I’m incredulous that this is the case. You’re probably right but there’s no way in hell I’m using a phone restricted to 2g or 3g.
I am talking about VoLTE (Voice over LTE) which is the protocol just for making phone calls over 4g networks - NOT 4g/LTE mobile data! Ubuntu Touch has worked well with 4g/LTE mobile data for 10 years now.
The loss of Dalton Durst from that team from burnout was a big hit. They’ve been doing work on it but I haven’t seen anything approaching the output they had when he was heading it up.
Dalton is an amazing and very cool guy, and when he left it was indeed a big hit to dev speed at first, but recently a few super smart and dedicated guys have been able to do a big jump in updating the base from 16.04 to 20.04 (which involved moving from upstart to systemd) and they are getting close to rebasing to 24.04 (target for this is this June in fact). Plus Waydroid support has gotten really good in the time since Dalton moved on, and snap support is getting worked on now as well.
