This is barely related to the article but what is the status of Linux phone operating systems? Last time I used one, you could make calls and that was more or less it.
Everytime someone mentions linux on mobile, I mourn the death of Maemo.
The Nokia N900 was an incredible phone, and having a native linux command line and package manager on it felt like the future to me. Shame the industry went in completely the opposite direction.
For having used a PinePhone for a year as a main phone, I would say that the biggest limiting factor for me is the hardware. I want something reliable that has good autonomy and good and reliable call quality. I would not want the phone to leave me behind in an emergency for instance.
But the PinePhone is none of this: terrible phone quality, the modem on my device is unreliable, the autonomy is okayish. I also had a PinePhone Pro that died: big improvement except the autonomy was much worse and it would strongly eat. I believe that's what killed it, actually.
With good hardware, I would be happy with a Linux mobile OS. But I don't use WhatsApp, I don't have a banking app, I don't pay with my phone, and have no proprietary app in general.
Things like Wi-Fi calling would probably not work neither, but I don't have this with my old Android phone neither.
You will have to hope mobile alternatives to Signal will work well enough for you too (and I guess that requires liking some adventure, but if that works, you also win on not being limited to one phone per Signal account).
> With good hardware, I would be happy with a Linux mobile OS.
You mention autonomy a lot, and I agree. I don't think it's a question of hardware: I can install Android on my PinePhone and see that it uses much less battery than a Linux system.
Android was built for that: it is extremely optimized for battery usage. I think it will be very hard to beat that with Linux.
It is also hardware: the 2800mAh battery is limited and the modem is a separate SoC wired on USB. And everything is heavy for the limited main SoC, so takes more time and more power and so the phone is not sleeping for longer for the same tasks.
But I'm willing to believe that Linux mobile can improve a lot.
> I can install Android on my PinePhone and see that it uses much less battery than a Linux system
Did you and what did you manage to achieve? I could reach 1.5-2 days of light use with mobian.
Your last paragraph reminded me that I had to set up Waydroid so I could install Telegram(Android). Just so I could create an account, so I could then use the already installed Telegram desktop that came by default with like any mobile distribution I tried.
There are cool projects looking into that (e.g. PostmarketOS, which is the system used in the article).
While I think it is cool, I am really wondering if there is a future with the idea. If the goal is to run Android apps through Waydroid, then I may as well run Android. If the goal is to be more private... well I think AOSP-based systems like GrapheneOS are in a better position because they get the Android security model.
The cool thing about running Linux is the freedom, but honestly I generally don't need that on my phone. On my phone I want the mainstream apps that allow me to connect with friends and family (yes, that includes WhatsApp and Signal). It quickly ends up being a fancy RPi with a screen and battery (and tons of sensors that probably won't be useful), but then I can actually go with an RPi and SSH from my laptop (I think such server projects suggest removing the battery anyway).
This said, I truly admire all the mainlining work that the PostmarketOS contributors are doing. This really helps everybody, including the AOSP-based Android alternatives.
I read Hacker News every day on my Pinephone. Calls and texts(mms included) 80-99% work. Youtube.com worked/still does but very badly. I'll just blame the really cheep SoC. When I tried to get GPS working it looked like 90% of it was there. Had modem getting locks on sats and a maps app, but locks took forever, and the inter process communication didn't work so I'm not sure if the cords I saw in terminal we're actally accurate. The pluging it into a lapdock and using it like a laptop works if your paitent (blames cheep SoC agian). GIMP did manage to load but small screen and slow cpu resulted in that not getting reinstalled next disto hop.
If you want to ask more questions and this site has some way to message me with notifications feel free! I've been using this Pinephone for at least over a year or 2.
Random aside: Don't use an SD card as a boot/main drive. I got a 256 & 128 gb SD card that are read only now..
I'm daily driving a Sony Xperia 10 III with SailfishOS. It works as a phone, has a small selection of native apps available and runs many Android apps using LXC based solution called Android AppSupport. It's really not bad at all.
Unless you have one of their handful of (obsolete) blessed phones and pay them money for the privilege, you can't use their stuff.
I get that they're effectively a startup spun out of Nokia, and that they'd rather sell value than give it away. Still, non-Android Linux for touchscreens is in a sad state. Having one of the only options locked up where few people can try it and nobody can contribute to it makes the ecosystem worse.
There's gotta be a better solution to raise all the boats than get a handful of enthusiasts with old Sonys to pay them $30 each.
Instead of going all-in on Android, you get to choose the apps that are most important to you and otherwise minimize your exposure to the privacy-grab. For example, if you'd really prefer to avoid using Android but do want mobile banking on your phone, just get the app for that and skip everything else.
Personally I like having Linux on the phone a lot for other reasons as well. For example, last summer I was backpacking in North America for several weeks. At some point I realized that I'd really hate to lose the photos on the memory card of my DSLR. Instead of getting another card and hiding the first one somewhere "theft-proof" in my belongings, I just went to BestBuy, got a memory card reader, plugged that into the phone, mounted the memory card filesystem and rsynced the files home over my vpn - which is exactly what I would have done if I had my laptop with me. Sure, I probably could have figured out a way to achieve something similar on Android as well, but having all the familiar tools available made it so much easier.
You could probably have done something similar using Android with Termux, yes. I use rsync in Termux to move files to or from my phone all the time. Android is a complete mess when it comes to app permissions and the file system, so I would not dare to guess if it would be possible to access a USB drive from within Termux or not.
I preferred SailfishOS on my Jolla Phone (and my Jolla Tablet) as the experience is much better with how you can access files on the file system etc. But for various reasons (including a cracked phone screen) I went back to Android several years ago.
I'm using Librem 5 as a daily driver. The most limiting is the battery life (4-5 hours of screen time), otherwise it works sufficiently well for me. Fortunately I can take another battery with me just in case.
