recommend me a linux phone? do they exist? are they usable?
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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They definitely exist, and there is progress, but even in the best case scenario, you’re far from being able to comfortably daily one. postmarketOS is probably the most consistently updated project at this time
https://furilabs.com/ may be of interest.
As I understand it, they've made a lot of their own improvements that improve the user experience.
Pine phone.
Yes they exist.
Yes it's usable buuuuttttt not for everyday use
Yes, they exist, but there is no reason to use them other than tinkering around. Also they have much worse security than Android or iOS. So if you need something private and open source there are a plenty of degoogled Android ROMs.
Suggest one of them too
Graphene OS - best privacy and security, only for Google Pixel phones
Calyx OS - less secure but supports cheaper phones (Motorola) and eco-friendly phones (Fairphone)
Honorable mentions are LineageOS, /e/ OS, Replicant and iode OS, however their security is much worse than of Calyx/Graphene (no verified boot), so use at your own risk
I used to love Sailfish OS.
I guess I still do, but the problem is that while they recently expanded amount of devices they support, for some of them the "support" is just not what you think. Eg. I got Xperia 10 V just for the SFOS, but even though on their main list the device is listed as supported, turns out that camera, Android support and fingerprint sensor, these don't work. To be fair, this info was possible to find on their forums, and I did not have to pay for SFOS (they offer 6 month trial), so they have nothing to gain from communicating so badly, but it is what it is.
So in case you want to try it, just really make sure you know to what extent your device is supported.
First we need to have linux mobile devices 😂
I think it's the other way round, when the amount of interesting SW is rising,the probability of good HW will be higher. And yes, as we can see, the SW can be developed independent of HW.
You're absolutely right
Personnaly the hardware is not the problem it's the price of it
Linux tablets? I have a lenovo tablet that now runs fedora, but the hardware is not meant for gaming. I think Legends of Lumia was the game that I played, but the sound was missing.
Check out Pine 64s Lineup
I already saw them but they are not ready I think.
(But you're right it exists)
None of the items in your screenshot are games?
Should me mobile apps, my bad 😂
GnuPG best game
I really wanted to try developing for these. But after flashing my old poco F1 with postmarket os, the phone died instead. Now I can't justify buying a phone just for this.
What makes these "mobile apps"? Are they special versions optimized for phones?
They are enabled to (also) run on phones. E.g. libadwaita makes it possible to write application which can adapt to the screen size and therefore run on big and small screens.
What does "enabled" mean?
e.g. Fractal can scale down to mobile:
Hey, Fractal looks pretty cool. Might just replace Element.
Lacks many features atm, eg VoIP, matrix call, threads, etc. Still very promising and I like that it is written in Rust.
oh, very cool
Are these your screenshots? If so, what hardware and OS are you running, out of curiosity?
Yes, they are mine. I guess the question is targeted if they are done on a mobile device. The screenshots are done on Fedora Silverblue Gnome on a Dell XPS 13 laptop developer version (~7 years old). But I also have the Librem 5.
You can put the newer apps in a 'simulate phone screen' mode (it's still in development).
Sounds fractal
You don't need libadwaita to do that. Lots of KDE apps are designed to work on mobile. Libadwaita just makes everything broken outside of Gnome.
Didn't I write e.g.?
You sure did. Maybe libadwaita even includes tools to make it easier or something, I don't know. I just think maybe the toolkit that breaks everything all the time isn't the best example.
I know there is a lot of hate around.
Nevertheless I find it a good example, because I think they have implemented the adaptivity between big and small screen sizes very well.
Call it hate if you want, but it is an intentional design decision to break compatibility with other DEs. That is a choice they consciously made and have been very clear in communicating. There are trade offs involved. I'm not saying it's a completely irrational choice or anything, but it is aggravating for those of us that don't use Gnome when we have to deal with libadwaita apps. Libadwaita is designed from the ground up to be a Gnome exclusive thing. It is not for Linux. It is just for Gnome. That is the developers' stated intention.
Why does the site looks like it's affiliated with Gnome?
It seemingly follows the Adwaita theme popularized by Gnome and widely accepted in the Linux community.
For me it's a nice layout and I certainly get some enjoyment out of it being uniform with the interfaces I like on my computer.
Because it is affiliated with gnome...
Is it though?
EDIT: The about page doesn't mention it being related
It's a joint project between many organisations, primarly KDE and Gnome. In practice right now it's legally hosted by Gnome and they're trying to make flathub into its own organisation.
Yeah I was going to say lol
What mobile devices can run these?