Ask HN: What are the OSS alternatives to iOS/Android? - benevol
======
i336_
Long-term (1-2 years or so), keep an eye on Fuchsia. Nobody yet knows what
Google's intentions are with this project relative to Android (which has a
staggering installed base, btw, and is going to stubbornly stick around like a
slightly less terrible Windows Mobile 6); right now it's just a research
project. But it can apparently scale from tiny IoT sensors to ARM phones to
x86 PCs.

[https://lwn.net/Articles/718267/](https://lwn.net/Articles/718267/) /
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002386](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14002386)

EDIT: This just got downvoted to 0, unsure why...

~~~
jhasse
My guess is that Google's intentions are to get rid of the GPL.

~~~
sangnoir
Maybe not directly - _my_ guess is that they want to get rid of the Linux
kernel: the Linux driver model leaves Android upgrades held hostage by OEMs
and SoC manufacturers who are incentivized _against_ old phones getting OS
upgrades (planned obsolescence).

With Fuchsia, Google has a clean slate and can choose to have 'write-once'
drivers with a stable driver interface across kernel/version upgrades.

~~~
jhasse
> With Fuchsia, Google has a clean slate and can choose to have 'write-once'
> drivers with a stable driver interface across kernel/version upgrades.

Which makes it easier to write proprietary drivers.

~~~
sangnoir
Writing once-off proprietary drivers for Linux is equally easy, no more, no
less. Proprietary Linux drivers have the added downside of not supporting
later kernel versions.

~~~
jhasse
And most likely not supporting future kernel versions.

~~~
JadeNB
> > Proprietary Linux drivers have the added downside of not supporting later
> kernel versions.

> And most likely not supporting future kernel versions.

Huh?

------
darrmit
Am I the only one who has decided that I'm more comfortable with iOS and an
AppleID than I am with something like LineageOS and still having to have a
Google account - even though I prefer Android?

I'm operating under the assumption that Apple is more privacy friendly than
Google under pretty much any circumstance.

I've done the Cyanogen + F-Droid thing and it's just miserably inconvenient,
and none of the "proprietary" alternative app stores have any sort of catalog
to write home about.

~~~
BeetleB
>I'm operating under the assumption that Apple is more privacy friendly than
Google under pretty much any circumstance.

I'm curious as to why...?

~~~
jacobwg
Because Google is primarily (not solely) an advertising / information company,
so there's a financial incentive to sacrifice privacy.

Apple is primarily (not solely) a hardware / product company, so the financial
incentives are different.

There's also a stronger history of Apple fighting for user privacy against
government requests, etc.

~~~
darrmit
Yes, this. If it's free, you're the product. Same reason I pay for Fastmail.

~~~
paulcole
interesting phrase. did you coin it?

~~~
darrmit
No, think I saw it on here first..but it's a pretty powerful phrase.

~~~
majewsky
I saw it first on this comic: [https://www.ethannonsequitur.com/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2011/...](https://www.ethannonsequitur.com/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2011/09/facebook-and-you-pigs.jpg) (not on that site though, I
searched for it on Google Images)

~~~
Esau
My understanding is that Andrew Lewis first said it.

[http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-
discontent#325604...](http://www.metafilter.com/95152/Userdriven-
discontent#3256046)

------
heuller
We need hardware that doesn't need to get upgraded every two years. AOSP
doesn't cut it since Google inevitably stops building isos for their hardware
and the community can't support a million devices. The whole market is sorely
in need of generic drivers. The fact that I can pick up a PC from the nineties
and install an up to date Linux proves that we're not there yet in the mobile
world.

Is there a way currently to install baremetal Linux on a phone without
emulating it? A small Linux, usb microphone and VoIP would get me 90% there.

~~~
jacquesm
> the community can't support a million devices

If anything the open source community is a lot better in supporting large
numbers of devices than closed source has ever been. Witness the incredible
hardware support in your average linux kernel. The only reason they're a bit
behind the times is because hardware manufacturers are loath to open up their
specifications to open source implementers.

> The fact that I can pick up a PC from the nineties and install an up to date
> Linux

See, that's exactly the reason why this works.

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
As someone who still has an HP Touchpad, the unfortunate pattern of AOSP /
Cyanogenmod / LineageOS support is the following:

1) One volunteer spearheads the development effort towards keeping
phone/tablet/device X supported. 2) Various other people draw on the 90% base
work already done by Lead #1, add their own wrappers, tweaks, etc, such that
the community on the whole appears to be vibrant and bustling around
development for device X. 3) Lead #1 eventually stops supporting the project
because he gets a newer device. 4) None of the developer's behind Lead #1's
forks have sufficient technical knowledge to continue the base development
without him, and all of their forks stop updating as well. 5) Community on the
whole for Device X fizzles out.

I've seen it happen multiple times on XDA-developers forums. That
dozens/hundreds/thousands of people are using an AOSP-based ROM on a device
does not mean that the community necessarily has the technical knowledge to
continue it without someone to steward the project. The volunteer leads do an
incredible job, but at the end of the day, they usually only last as long as
the device is the lead's daily driver--after that, they usually stop.

------
Nutomic
I'm personally using LinageOS together with microG and F-Droid. MicroG is
necessary if you don't have Google apps installed, to get push notifications.
Unfortunately, it is still rather complicated to install.

[http://lineageos.org/](http://lineageos.org/)
[https://microg.org/](https://microg.org/)
[https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/)

~~~
hueller
I use lineage, but not microg. Things like Conversations poll effectively
enough and it keeps me off the Google.

I feel like this isn't a solution for the planned obsolescence inherent in
mobile devices though. Every release after Google officially drops support
(and provides their own image) gets exponentially harder. The amount of things
moving out of AOSP and into Play services grows every month too.

~~~
strcat
Conversations keeps open a TCP connection and the server pushes new messages.
The only kind of polling is a ping to keep the connection alive which can be
scaled based on how often it proves to be necessary on that connection. It
works the same way as GCM. GCM isn't inherently more efficient than an app
doing it, but with GCM it's one connection across all apps using it for push
vs. each app doing it on their own. Conversations is also one of the few doing
it very well without GCM. Most have a much lazier implementation of push or
worse they don't do push at all and really do poll.

~~~
hueller
Thanks for the update and sorry for the misinformation. The performance is
much better than the few apps I've seen advertise "non-GCM" so I definitely
believe it.

------
hannob
The alternative is Android. Unfortunately the "alternative android" ecosystem
isn't very good.

My dream would be an android "distribution", that doesn't rely on some murky
"update by getting a new image somewhere if you're lucky enough that someone
built one for your device". WOuld work more like a linux distribution
(packages and updating) and is generic over a variety of phones. Challenge is
probably how to handle drivers.

~~~
jhasse
> My dream would be an android "distribution", that doesn't rely on some murky
> "update by getting a new image somewhere if you're lucky enough that someone
> built one for your device".

LineageOS ([http://lineageos.org/](http://lineageos.org/)) has OTA updates
with UI:
[https://1.f.ix.de/scale/geometry/710x500/q75/imgs/71/2/1/3/6...](https://1.f.ix.de/scale/geometry/710x500/q75/imgs/71/2/1/3/6/5/2/2/08-9193144f71369d06.png)

So your dream has already came true :)

~~~
mcjiggerlog
Wow, that homepage provides zero information on what the project is/does.

Much more info on wikipedia -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LineageOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LineageOS)

~~~
nulagrithom
The 'About' page is a dictionary definition of the word 'Lineage':
[http://lineageos.org/about/](http://lineageos.org/about/)

Wow

~~~
jhasse
I think they are still working on the homepage (LineageOS is pretty new as it
was CyanogenMod previously).

------
jumasheff
SailfishOS [https://sailfishos.org/](https://sailfishos.org/)

UPD:

Jolla -- company behind SailfishOS (ex-Nokia people)
[https://jolla.com/about/](https://jolla.com/about/)

~~~
pawadu
I have not touched one of these myself but friends who did had many positive
things to say about it.

Nevertheless, if Samsung can't push their Tizen into mainstream I doubt a tiny
company from Finland can.

~~~
ethagnawl
> a tiny company from Finland can

Based on what a _single person_ from Finland has achieved, I wouldn't be so
sure. ;)

Seriously, though, why even mention the country of origin?

~~~
tomcam
> Seriously, though, why even mention the country of origin?

Here's a zany answer: maybe they're proud of their country of origin. Hi-
larious, I know, right?

------
koehr
The problem is that most of the hardware is not open. It is hard to get fully
open software running in proprietary environments like mobile phones and
networks. The fairphone might be worth a look though:
[https://www.fairphone.com/en/](https://www.fairphone.com/en/)

~~~
nerdponx
I've wondered lately what exactly "not open" means in the hardware context,
and why so many manufacturers do not make "open" hardware.

Can someone enlighten me? I do understand what blobs are, but I guess I'm not
clear on why they're needed.

~~~
rsync
"I've wondered lately what exactly "not open" means in the hardware context,
and why so many manufacturers do not make "open" hardware."

What you need to understand is that your mobile phone is not a single
computer. There are _at least three_ computers inside your phone that have
their own CPU, memory and ability to run code.

First, there is your SIM chip. Your SIM chip is a fully functional, standalone
computer with its own CPU and memory. Your SIM card can (and does) run
arbitrary java applets that can be forced onto it by your carrier _without
your knowledge_. Yes, that is indeed as terrible and horrifying as it sounds.

Second, there is the baseband processor which handles all of the tricky real-
time radio comms with the cell towers and which could not be preempted by your
browser or other apps you would be running on the AP (see below). The baseband
processor is not controlled by you, can be controlled by your carrier, and in
many cases _has DMA control_ over the memory in your application processor
(what you think of as your "phone"). Yes, you read that right - many, many
mobile phones can have their physical memory directly manipulated by a
baseband processor that they do not control. Remember that next time some cute
"secure" messaging/encryption/marlinspikey/secretive communications app gets
released.

Finally, there is the application processor which is the "actual" CPU and
memory that you think of as "my phone" which runs things like the uber app and
chrome and facebook.

We are sort of, kind of, getting closer to having a free/open stack on the
_application processor only_. There are two other very powerful agents in your
telephone that we have made almost zero progress in opening up. There are very
powerful financial interests that stand in the way of opening those up.

~~~
beamatronic
You could get rid of two of those three computers, could you not, if you went
for say an iPod Touch, as opposed to an iPhone. And then separately you got a
dedicated WiFi hotspot. At least this decouples those functions into two
devices and breaks the DMA link that you referred to.

~~~
pdimitar
I've heard long ago that the government (or whatever agency is responsible for
this) won't license you to produce a phone if you don't put a baseband chip in
your device. Don't take my word for it, I'm only sharing a vague memory.

Sounds pretty logical though. As @rsync said, there are very powerful
financial interests behind the hardware backdoors in phones.

------
jhasse
Android (without Google Services) is FOSS. Check out
[http://lineageos.org/](http://lineageos.org/) (successor of CyanogenMod).

As a replacement for the Play Store, check out
[https://f-droid.org/](https://f-droid.org/)

~~~
distances
F-Droid is cool but will lack lots of applications, even open source ones. I
recently checked what it would require to publish my app there -- alas, can't
do that since my app includes an API key that can't be published (according to
the rules of the service in question), and F-Droid would need that[1].

[1] [https://f-droid.org/forums/topic/what-to-do-with-private-
api...](https://f-droid.org/forums/topic/what-to-do-with-private-api-keys)

~~~
pawadu
I think the response krt gave was fair enough:

\---

I dont get all that API key nonsense, you can search this board for our
opinions on API keys. I’ll keep this short:

If your app requires an API key and you withhold it (because you entered an
agreement with the service provider), this basically makes it not buildable
for 3rd parties in a useful manner. F-droid will not sign an agreement with
whatever service provider you use nor will we withhold build information.

There are actually only two solutions:

1) Provide a way for the user (!) to enter API key or account information at
runtime.

2) Provide a way for us to get the key at buildtime, e.g. there was one app
where I had to download a pre-compile APK file, extract the key from it and
re-use that key in our builds.. which sucked. Anyway, I dont see what’s the
difference to just providing the API key. If you distribute an APK, you
distribute the API key (in one form or another) — since without it the app
would not work… sigh.

~~~
pawadu
Should also add the f-droid tries to build software that are truly open, i.e.
can function without 3rd part closed services.

I think many times you can limit the FOSS version to not include functions
such as leader boards to avoid such issues and no one will complain.

------
Jonnax
There is Tizen which is being led by Samsung

[https://www.tizen.org](https://www.tizen.org)

However news that one researcher has found 40 0-days for it doesn't really
sound good:

[https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/samsung-tizen-
ope...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/samsung-tizen-operating-
system-bugs-vulnerabilities)

I remember reading about Plasma Mobile

[https://plasma-mobile.org](https://plasma-mobile.org)

But it looks like the latest phone they use as a Dev device is a Nexus 5x so
it may be stalled/dead

~~~
thanksgiving
Someone linked to two daily wtf on hn the other day and that to me shows tizen
under the current management is not simply useless but actively harmful.

~~~
pawadu
Didn't find it on HN, is this the daily wtf post you mentioned?

[https://forums.thedailywtf.com/topic/21368/samsung-
insisting...](https://forums.thedailywtf.com/topic/21368/samsung-insisting-on-
tizen)

~~~
thanksgiving
Sorry, was on Mobile*

The story was Samsung's Tizen is riddled with security flaws, amateurishly
written

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14036965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14036965)

------
hcal
The [http://puri.sm](http://puri.sm) people are trying to make an open source
phone running their distro PureOS (based on debian). They even said on a
podcast that they have removed or mitigated the binary blob issues. Apparently
they are already working with Gnome developers to make Gnome work on a small
screen and build the specialized phone software like a dialer.

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/10/purism-wants-make-
truly-o...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2016/10/purism-wants-make-truly-open-
source-linux-phone)

~~~
grizzles
Sadly, it will fail. I spoke to the founder about the project and in my
opinion he's underestimated the challenge. He said something to me like "all
we need to do is solve the battery life issue". That's like saying, to get to
space all we need to do is build the space shuttle. As far as efficiency is
concerned, android is the only show in town. Debian won't cut it. What he does
works for stuff you plug in, not for battery operated gadgets.

------
demarq
Jolla on a Sony Experia?

Sony put everything you need to run your OS on some of their Xperia phones on
GitHub as part of their Open Device Program. Jolla which is going to become
open source sometime has been successfully (in feburary 2017) run on one of
the devices.

So in the near future, there is hope in that direction.

~~~
wvh
I second this, I'm pretty happy with my 1st gen Jolla, though it desperately
needs an hardware update. To be able to get a terminal either on the device or
by logging in with SSH to fix things or make changes is great.

Not all the UI components are open source (yet?) though it's pretty close to
stock Qt; at least the base system is open-source, and that's more important
to me – I think they want to prevent full rip-offs rather than lock down the
system from their own users.

I've been critical of these computer-in-your-pocket claims a few years ago,
but I can see now that if the hardware keeps improving at the rate it does,
having a full Linux system based on something like Sailfish or Ubuntu Phone
with a keyboard and screen attached could work out for a lot of scenarios.

------
emilsedgh
If you want community based FOSS mobile operating system that is actively
developed [0], Plasma Mobile is the answer.

I think the biggest issue is still device support.

[0] [https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-
devel/2017-April/threa...](https://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-
devel/2017-April/thread.html)

~~~
Programmatic
Have you actually used Plasma? I would be curious to know your experiences if
so.

------
tannhaeuser
My best bet would be to restart/re-instantiate a community around
CyanogenMod/Lineage OS, Android being F/OSS after all. Though maybe the
community around CM is still strong (I honestly don't know).

Question is, are you willing to spend money (or testing/integration efforts)
on a community O/S for your phone in exchange for _knowing_ that you're not
being spied on all the time?

I could imagine a model where you pay a reasonable price for a
tested/supported third-party O/S, but maybe CM has shown this isn't
economically feasible.

~~~
bigbugbag
I don't remember android being floss since google bought it. My exprience of
cyanogenMod is bad: support for the devices I owned was shaky to inconsistent
through time. Then it turned into a commercial attempt at maximizing profit.

IMHO the effort put into cyanogenmod would have been better used if put into
building an actual OS. Though this is a mostly unreachable moving target as
devices get obsolete faster than one can add support for at best manufacturers
do not help.

Right now I'm considering jolla/sailfish for the next time I buy a phone which
hopefully will not happen before 4 or 5 years.

------
tray5
Well how about the PiPhone? :P [http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-
pi-based-smartph...](http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-
smartphone/)

------
unicornporn
My vote goes to
[https://copperhead.co/android/](https://copperhead.co/android/)

I've been running it for some time now and I like it a lot. Support for a lot
of phones? No. Wide range of apps available via F-droid? Decent.

I'm not a very appy guy though. Most of my needs are browser based.

~~~
mimi89999
It is not FOSS anymore

~~~
milcron
How do you mean?

~~~
notsrg
The project has transitioned to a non-commercial license
([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
sa/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)) until
sustainable funding has been acquired. The code is still open source, but
apparently asking to be compensated for work that improves the security of the
entire Android ecosystem is too much for FOSS fanatics.

------
lloeki
I was just reading about webOS[0] lately and it turns out LuneOS[1] exists and
is supposed to work wherever cyanogenmod did.

[0]: [http://www.openwebosproject.org](http://www.openwebosproject.org)

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LuneOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LuneOS)

~~~
patcheudor
I performed numerous security reviews of WebOS and frankly it was a bit of a
problem. I never actually made it to the point of doing kernel exploitation
since the numerous XSS vuln discoveries kept me pretty busy. What was
unfortunate at the time is that the WebOS team didn't seem to take the XSS
situation seriously even though XSS on that platform effectively compromised
the entire UX. I made at least one POC which emulated WebOS trust dialogs.
There's no need to break out of an application sandbox when you can make the
application look like WebOS, complete with authentic looking authentication
dialogs. I've not looked at it in several years, however. Maybe LuneOS has
solved some of the core issues but I'd be skeptical as the whole OS was pretty
well designed if your intention was to introduce XSS vulnerabilities.

------
dandelion_lover
To me the best alternative is [https://neo900.org](https://neo900.org).
However, expensive it is.

They truly care about the privacy and redesign the hardware according to this
goal.

~~~
bratch
This is what I'm waiting for, but in the meantime I'm still running Maemo 5 on
an N900.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maemo)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900)

There's still a relatively active community going:

[https://talk.maemo.org/](https://talk.maemo.org/)

------
TheAceOfHearts
I placed a preorder for a Pyra [0]. I'm hoping it works well enough to allow
me to replace my locked down Pixel.

[0] [https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/](https://pyra-
handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/)

~~~
andrey_utkin
In mobile FOSS computing, Pyra is The Handheld PC, and GTA04 is The
Smartphone. Both being developed partially by same people. Both working with
generic recent ARM Debian Linux and recent kernels. Kernels have some non-
mainlined parts due to scarcity of engineering resources, but all features are
forward-ported on each release and even RC of mainline Linux.

My personal expectations from Pyra are very high.

~~~
bigbugbag
I still have my openpandora from the first preorder batch, it delivered almost
all expectations I had for it and sometimes even went beyond battery life got
pushed further than 10+hours and had a memory upgrade.

I have no doubt the pyra will deliver.

------
phh
Ok, so Android is open-source as mentioned already by other comments.

Now the thing with Android is that, it is just a framework, so saying Android
is Open Source is missing big points There are two major limits: 1\. What
about apps? 2\. What about drivers?

Today, if you get an Android phone with Google Apps, especially Google Play
Store, you have access to many tools that can be considered useful for
everyday use, which you won't have with FOSS Android. Here are some examples:

With Play Store, you can have (mostly?) any IM, as long as you install the app
going with it. The only possibility I know to do that with FOSS Android, is to
use matrix or IRC, and have server-side libpuprle connectors.

With FOSS Android You don't have factorized push socket: Most apps pushing
notifications on Android require GCM. But even if it doesn't require GCM,
there is nothing fully open-source an app developer can use. All they can do,
is open a socket to their own server, and deal with it, which is a huge
battery-killer.

Many people are mentioning f-droid as an alternative to Play Store. I'm sorry,
but I consider this a joke. I highly respect the work done on f-droid, but
this is not a usable alternative. For instance, you want to save your SMS. We
call that backup, but not every knows that. Well you search for "save sms" on
f-droid. No result. You search for "save sms" on Google Play Store, the second
result is SMS Backup+ which is open-source! You search for SMS, the result is
on the first page. Same thing happen if you just search for "sms", QKSMS (an
opensource SMS application) is much easier to find with Google Play Store than
f-droid. Even to look for open-source apps, you're better off with Google Play
Store! Again, I totally respect F-Droid devs, this is this way because of
their choice of not tracking or saving any user information at all, which is
legit. But then, some people might want something intermediary. Just counting
the number of installations of an app can be really useful to better sort apps
(SMS Backup+ and QKSMS really deserve to be among the top in the results for
SMS).

Now, about the drivers. Yes Android is open-source, but good luck running a
phone with a FOSS Android! At the moment, you have the choice with either
replicant, which is old and missing gpu acceleration, or running a mainline
Linux kernel with Mesa & stuff, but then you have no radio.

Though I have to mention that on the drivers side, Sailfish OS and Ubuntu
phone have also those problems.

~~~
bigbugbag
> Ok, so Android is open-source as mentioned already by other comments.

Is it ? I thought that only the AOSP part of Android was actually open source
and not that useful by itself. I might be wrong here but my understanding is
that the opensource in Android is mostly for show/marketing and is getting
worse with time.

------
gingerbread-man
It would be nice if there were a 100% free-software version of Android
available, or a way to remove all of the proprietary blobs from an Android
phone.

~~~
spacelizard
See Replicant: [http://www.replicant.us/](http://www.replicant.us/)

Unfortunately it is not well supported yet, as porting it to any given device
seems to require rewriting several proprietary Android drivers.

~~~
evolve2k
Latest release notes are interesting. Latest supported Android seems to be
Samsung Galaxy S3.

Looks like the core maintainer could benefit from donated android devices for
Replicant to run on newer devices.

[http://blog.replicant.us/2017/02/replicant-6-0-development-u...](http://blog.replicant.us/2017/02/replicant-6-0-development-
updates/)

------
redsummer
The ZeroPhone is based on the raspberry pi.

[https://hackaday.io/project/19035-zerophone-a-raspberry-
pi-s...](https://hackaday.io/project/19035-zerophone-a-raspberry-pi-
smartphone/log/51839-project-description-and-frequently-asked-questions)

Reddit AMA:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/5nwmfx/im_mak...](https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/5nwmfx/im_making_a_pipowered_opensource_mobile_phone/)

$50. Calling, SMS. Alarm clock, calendar, calculator, phonebook, file browser,
web browser and music player. I expect these will be very simple given the
screen.

------
klunger
Well, it isn't Tizen [https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/samsung-
tizen-ope...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/samsung-tizen-
operating-system-bugs-vulnerabilities)

------
elchudi2
This one could be an option [https://pyra-
handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/](https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/)

------
sparkling
LinageOS + OpenGapps for a minimal Google Play Services installation (the
"nano" flavour). Just make sure to buy a device that has a large userbase and
good LinageOS community support [1]. I am using a $170 Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
with LineageOS and could not be happier with it.

[1] check out [https://stats.lineageos.org/](https://stats.lineageos.org/) for
popular devices and also check the devices subforum on the XDA forums

------
SamWhited
I've been using OmniROM ([https://omnirom.org/);](https://omnirom.org/\);) it
was a fork of Cyanogenmod when they went commercial initially. Not sure what
the difference is between it and LineageoOS or why the lineage people didn't
just start developing for omnirom; maybe they still have political differences
or something. Regardless, it seems to work well.

------
jimmies
You are at the point of 2002-2004 of Desktop OS - if you want to use a mobile
OSS OS, you're just have to deal with lots of inconveniences. It depends on
what are you looking for and what you find tolerable. I have been annoyed with
the current paradigms of modern mobile OSes where I'm constantly bombarded
with notifications and things that I need to keep up with. So for me, an
usable OSS can have lots of drawback that I'm willing to sacrifice - I don't
need any of the notifications or apps.

If you don't care about the aesthetic, your best bet is Lineage. It is Android
without Google and you can still get lots of stuff done.

Personally, I came back to a cheap WebOS phone with a cheap plan and after I
installed WebOS 2, it has been really usable. LuneOS is supposed to be the
continuation of WebOS, but it's just not that usable yet - I see no way to
sync with my Google account (which syncs fine with the 10 year old WebOS
instance via Exchange). So I would keep an eye on the LuneOS development. For
such a niche and small dev team, they have been continuing making
improvements. Totally impressed by that.

------
bikamonki
I've faced the same dilemma and ended up stuck in Android bc of one single
app: Whatsapp. A phone is (still) mostly a communications tool and 99,99% of
my contacts use Whatsapp as the primary tool to chat/call/share. So, unless I
want to be an e-hermit I need a phone that runs Whatsapp.

(For a little while, there was an unofficial Whatsapp API which I used to
bridge chats to my Firefox OS ZTE)

~~~
Spearchucker
I read comments like yours and wonder what the other side looks like. I have
never, ever installed WhatsApp on my phone. My life hasn't disintegrated, or
even degraded - but that's exactly why I wonder.

Would my life be better if I use it?

~~~
bikamonki
I guess it depends on your cultural background. We latinos tend to be a lot
more _connected_ with family and friends. It is also the economic incentive.
In a poor country, a Whatsapp over wifi call is basically free. Furthermore, a
key selling point for most carriers down here is: unlimited Whatsapp and
Facebook.

------
fsiefken
* FreeRTOS Pebble (Pebble LIVES!) [https://github.com/ginge/FreeRTOS-Pebble](https://github.com/ginge/FreeRTOS-Pebble)

* Tizen OS [https://developer.tizen.org/](https://developer.tizen.org/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen)

Alternatively you could use Termux on Android to use the GNU/Linux ecosystem
on your phone.

------
webaholic
Maru OS. It installs a debian system along-side Android, not sure if it's
alternative enough though.

[http://maruos.com/](http://maruos.com/)

------
FossParrot
[http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Project seems to be abandoned?

------
alinspired
LineageOS with your choice of google apps. Easy to do with opengapps config
file or "aroma" gapps: [https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Advanced-
Feature...](https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Advanced-Features-and-
Options#include-or-exclude-gapps)

------
Apocryphon
Plasma Mobile: [https://plasma-mobile.org](https://plasma-mobile.org)
[https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Mobile](https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Mobile)

------
chrisdevereux
Thought experiment: Say that I have a raspberry pi or similar. What hardware
do I need to plug a sim card in and connect to a mobile network? Can I order
it from a commodity supplier?

~~~
rocky1138
The Pyra is attempting to do this. [https://pyra-
handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/](https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/pages/pyra/)

------
beagle3
Was there an official announcement on the killing of Ubuntu Phone? There was
an official pause announcement, and it might as well be dead - is there an
official status update?

~~~
slizard
[https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-
cl...](https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/04/05/growing-ubuntu-for-cloud-and-
iot-rather-than-phone-and-convergence/)

------
daccle
Ubnutu Phone just works fine on a FairPhone2

------
grizzles
There is a group called Mediatek Android Developers. They make android work
with some pretty low cost handsets.

------
d2kx
The next big OS is going to be Google Fuchsia, which runs on the Magenta
kernel (not Linux) and runs apps built with Flutter.

Inb4 nay-sayers, but if you have followed Fuchsia for a few months and have
seen the speed of development and just how many people and new technologies
are involved, you will see why this isn't even a question.

~~~
Programmatic
Given Google's current track record for AOSP with bringing active development
into Google Play and deprecating open source components, I am skeptical that
it will be good for openness.

------
tixocloud
How easy would it be to mod the loading screen and basic UI/UX on Android?

------
unlmtd
The problem isn't software. Let's say I have a dozen engineers to develop a
mobile UI on top of BSD. What do we use? Nothing, Nada, rien. There is no real
hardware. Even Linus can make a kernel, if there is hardware to develop it on!
So software isn't the problem.

------
kevinSuttle
Am I the only one who misses Web OS and now Ubuntu Phone?

~~~
dade_
Great point. I didn't know that Web OS was released as Open Source by HP, or
that LG bought it...
[http://www.openwebosproject.org/](http://www.openwebosproject.org/)

------
ry167
Android is open source:
[https://source.android.com/](https://source.android.com/)

~~~
Synaesthesia
Portions of it, lots of it is not.

~~~
pawadu
If you think that, how do you define Android?

~~~
Synaesthesia
There's AOSP admire android. AOSP is open source which is some components of
the Android system - however a lot of Android is not just AOSP. A lot of it is
Google web services and other proprietary stuff.

~~~
floatboth
You don't have to use "Google Android" to use Android. LineageOS + F-Droid +
microG is a very good setup, I use it on my phone.

The real problem is the hardware driver blobs.

