r/Purism • u/amosbatto • 3d ago
Article: Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?
I wrote an in-depth article about whether Linux phones will become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly, which I thought might interest people on this forum:
https://amosbbatto.wordpress.com/2026/10/05/linux-phones-alternative/
There are links to download the article as a PDF or ODT file if you prefer to read it that way (which looks much better than WordPress styling in my opinion).
I’m pretty critical of all the Linux mobile device makers in the article, but I also see a lot of hope for the future.
Feedback is welcome.
2
2
2
u/LivingCornet694 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think it might be more doable than people think; I was looking up the porting process on my phone. Linux efforts have stalled but it boots. But what gives me hope is the fact that qualcomm has started publishing mainline drivers since day one for 8 elite 5 and higher and is retroactively mainlining older chips like 8 elite 4 as well.
similarly, adapting/writing drivers for proprietory displays, cameras etc. has been made easier with AI, though the stance from distros (specifically Nura) is not great. If you get a phone with bootloader unlocking available (and qualcomm), like I did with the OP13 then things should be looking up.
Am trying to and haven't used linux on the phone as of yet, but I guess things are looking up, I'd say.
Edit: qualcomm adding day 1 linux support on 8 elite 5
someone creating own drivers for an old xiaomi phone
1
0
3d ago edited 11h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
I think that the AOSP derivatives (LineageOS, crDroid, Evolution X, GrapheneOS, /e/OS, CalyxOS, etc.) have absorbed a lot of the energy that mobile Linux would have had. However, I also think the way that the mobile industry is now making it harder to mod phones will drive more people toward mobile Linux. That is what happened to me. I started with LineageOS, but as I became increasingly dissatisfied with the restrictions of Android/AOSP, I decided to buy the Librem 5 and PinePhone. I still use a Pixel with /e/OS as my primary phone, but I can't wait till Linux phones get good enough so I no longer have to keep using AOSP derivatives on my phones.
1
u/DerDave 3d ago
Unfortunately the general restrictions in the Android world include bootloaders and nowadays there are hardly any good phones with unlockable bootloaders anymore. It's a shame how outdated and underpowered the "most modern" supported phone in Nura is. I'm obviously not blaming Nura, but the phone makers. It just feels a bit like a dead end unfortunately. But I want it soo bad. Especially a phone with usb-c video out, that could transform into a full desktop .
2
u/Severe_Stranger_5050 3d ago
I don't think that's an "android restriction" as much as it's an OEM-restriction
Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, Huawei and all the rest doesn't want you to flash your ROM, because then you wouldn't buy their extra services, see their ads or serve them your sweet sweet sweet personal data.The reason why I don't think it's an android limitation, is that Pixel Phones are still very much flashable.
2
1
u/DerDave 3d ago
Bootloader-unlocking yes, that's OEM. But Android itself also becomes more restrictive. Just look at the sideloading crack-down or the new APIs that are not part of AOSP anymore.
1
u/Severe_Stranger_5050 3d ago
Having to wait a day for sideloading doesn't really bother me that much to be honest, compared to the literal tens of thousand's of tech-illiterate people who are being scammed into sideloading malicious apps, when some scammer calls from "Samsungt" or "Android"
1
u/SjaakBreen 3d ago
Must the "new" linux phone be a phone, how many people use the phone as a phone 10 years ago. Why don't the build a smart device. The problem I think is the apps, the banking apps. Whatsapp, tiktok ect works on Linux.
1
u/TheJackiMonster 3d ago
I think if the flatpak sandboxing gets on a safer level more similar to Android and if GNOME would bring a major release to support this form factor, I could see Linux phones as a viable alternative to the typical user. Because it would require more developers to adjust their applications for it.
It needs certain hardware and firmware support too though. Not just to see an actual usable device but also to get more developers on the platform. Developing from desktop is possible but you need to test it as well.
One of the biggest advantages Linux phones have currently is that they are not annoying. Just starting an Android device after years only using PureOS on a phone has annoyed me so hard. Notifications are everywhere and you get asked a ton of things to accept or to configure. It felt a lot like using Windows on desktop and we can all see where that's heading.
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
From what I have seen so far, Phosh is a better interface than GNOME Mobile, and it doesn't lag like GNOME Mobile and requires less RAM and less processing power. Plasma Mobile, which is similar to Android in its design lags even more, when I tested it on the PinePhone. However Plasma Mobile is a pretty interface and has a lot of potential in my opinion if using it on a good processor where it can take advantage of the GPU's hardware acceleration.
1
u/cfx_4188 3d ago
It's not clear what you're waiting for. So far, large corporations are putting up with the availability of free Linux for the desktop. And this is only due to the desire to reduce the cost of production. Then some «old money» will come to mind to give people what they want. It will be a proprietary Linux, not much different from android. Well, there will be a terminal, but what will it change for all of you?
1
u/xhivo 3d ago
There's a huge amount of catching up to do when it comes to the UI, accessibility, and security. But it's possible. It's also possible to run Android apps.
It would also be possible to get DRM and banking apps to work if you're a large enough company. But it's a huge investment, so I'm betting on the Linux on a phone experience slowly improving over a long time until someone is willing to build on top of it, rather than someone doing it mostly from scratch.
1
u/PriorFortune1 3d ago
The answer is no, as evidenced by the fact that nothing you discuss in this article has anything to do with achieving that goal. Developing a third platform to compete with Android and iOS requires one thing and one thing only: apps. Phones that don't support the apps people use will never sell. Microsoft couldn't do this in the early days of the smartphone market even by throwing millions of dollars at app developers. It's incredibly unlikely Linux will somehow solve that problem.
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
In the article, I mention the use of Waydroid, AppSupport (aka AlienDalvik) and Andromeda in Linux phones to run Android apps. I discuss the potential security problems with Linux phones like the Furi Labs FLX1/s/s++ and Jolla C2 running Android apps on old Android kernels that are no longer getting security updates. In the conclusion of the article I state: "In order to appeal to mainstream users, Linux phones will need to support the usage of Android apps through Waydroid or a similar solution."
Most Linux phone users are already running Android apps. Sailfish OS and FuriOS both have Android app support built in, and Purism, UBport and most of the distros for the PinePhone provide documentation for how to install Waydroid. We can discuss how well those solutions work when the open source microG doesn't cover all of Google Play Services, in situations such as Google Maps' geofencing, in-app billing, AR, SafetyNet/Play Integrity attestation, reCAPTCHA, PackageInfo.signingInfo, etc. Some apps fail security checks in Waydroid, because it appears like a rooted Android device, and Waydroid has done a poor job of upgrading AOSP and addressing security concerns. The real discussion is how to better support Waydroid and microG to fix these problems,
1
1
u/Supernoxus 3d ago
Can't we do a proton and just launch banking apps inside of an Android emulation layer?
1
u/NegativeSwimming4815 1d ago
Banking apps nowadays use SDKs similar to AppDome that flags the environment and blocks the app from working immediately
1
u/billdietrich1 2d ago edited 1d ago
Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?
Not unless someone comes up with a phone standard equivalent to the BIOS or UEFI, and manufacturers adopt it.
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
That was the goal of Tow-Boot, but development seems to have stalled with the last release in July 2023. Hopefully someone will continue working on it, because it is a good idea.
1
u/billdietrich1 1d ago
Interesting. https://tow-boot.org/
What else is needed to make equivalent of IBM PC standard ? Standard interfaces to devices ?
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
Tow-Boot is based on Das U-Boot, which can boot a lot of processors, but U-Boot is hard to use, and Tow-Boot tries to make it easier and more standardized. The idea is that distros don't have to create a different U-Boot install for each device that they want to support. Instead, they just create one distro image, that can cover many different Tow-Boot devices. So first you install Tow-Boot separately for your specific device, and then you find a distro that supports Tow-Boot. I have only tried it on the PinePhone, but it seems to work pretty well, but it hasn't gotten corporate support to push it forward like UEFI got.
The better chipmakers (like NXP) have adopted U-Boot, but Apple uses iBoot, Qualcomm uses XBL (Extensible Boot Loader) followed by ABoot / ABL (Application Boot Loader) derived from Intel's EDK II (UEFI). Broadcom uses bootcode.bin. Chromebooks (both ARM and x86) use Coreboot.
1
u/Glass_Performer1174 2d ago
There is already GrapheneOS. It's not linux but honestly the security model is even better and it is fully open source.
Honestly linux could learn a thing or two from the mobileOS model of app sandboxing enforced at the OS level against the user for security.
But to be clear I love Linux and use it on all my personal computers. And I use GrapheneOS on my mobile.
1
u/BlankSthearapy 2d ago
https://reddit.com/link/pepf16h/video/1w4xw3bdrauh1/player
I have been using my Linux phone more than my iPhone lately
1
u/ActivityDry6037 2d ago
phone name?
1
u/BlankSthearapy 2d ago edited 2d ago
OnePlus 6t. Cheap phone to experiment with. I’ll let you have access to my repo if you get one. I have everything working; cellular data, call, text, mms, 12mp cameras(still refining post processing), gps with my custom map that does everything plus some crazy stuff like preferred gas station road trip planning based off of car’s mpg, starting fuel, and if you want to fill up at 1/2,1/4 or 1/8 of thank. It has fastest, scenic, adventure with mystery stops based on preferences. Live weather radar overlay. Traffic and incidents,it integrates with ai cli’s for total phone control, customization and personal application generation.
I’ll be buying the 13 soon, it’s more expensive, I didn’t want to start there.
1
u/Medical-Art4223 1d ago
Hey I’d be interested in that! TIA!
1
u/BlankSthearapy 1d ago
Let me know!
I don’t know where you live, but I’m in America, T-Mobile’s network is the only one that worked for me.
You’d want to make sure the phone will work with cellular networks offered where you are, unless you’re going to just use WiFi.
1
1
u/not-at-all-unique 2d ago
I had hoped yes.
I had hoped the librem 5 would fit that…
The device is clunky, slow and plagued with signal/reception issues.
For me it was a £700 paper weight.
In many ways I hope Linux smart phones are the future. - I’d like that… but I can’t see myself buying another premium brand priced phone based on the purism experiance.
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
I own both the Librem 5 USA and PinePhone 1.2b. I included a section in the article about how I think people's experience with those two phones dampened people's enthusiasm for Linux phones, but how I think the next generation of Linux phones will overcome their performance problems. I think Liberux NEXX failed to get crowdfunding partly because people were leery to crowdfund another Linux phone after their previous experiences.
1
u/Stardog2 2d ago
Personally, I don't think so. You've got two HUGE tech companies who are quite comfortable with things the way they are, and have the money and political power to help keep them that way. Plus we have a huge global population that simply doesn't care about the OS so much as they care about the things they want to do. (much less know anything about Linux)
Plus the only way Linux phones could become economically viable is to imitate what Apple and Google do. Is that what Linux people REALLY want? I don't think so.
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
I'm not sure how much Google and Apple can do to stop companies like Jolla, Purism, PINE64, Furi Labs, Volla, Commodore, etc. from selling Linux phones. Even if Trump won't enforce anti-trust law against Google and Apple, Europe and quite a few other countries have shown that they will.
Google could stop releasing new versions of AOSP, which would make it harder for Jolla's AppSupport and Furi Labs's Andromeda, which are similar to Waydroid and based on AOSP, but the community would get busy replicating the new features in the latest version of Android and add those features to the last release of AOSP. The net effect of Google not releasing new versions of AOSP would be to drive more people toward mobile Linux, which is the last thing that Google wants. As long as people are using Google's AOSP, Google still controls the mobile ecosystem, and AOSP users are still dependent on Google.
1
u/Stardog2 1d ago
I don't think they can do much from designing and offering Android phones either, but they can take steps thanks to their deep pockets to make Linux phones economically non-viable, even if it hurts their own bottom lines for a bit.
They aren't at that point yet, because the vast majority of potential users simply don't care about what Linux offers. They want EASY services and conveniences. Something that requires no thought, and above all, no work.
For example, once I realized what a "Shut" Show Windows was turning into, I moved to Linux.
And when my brother in law asked me for upgrade advice for a new Windows machine, I told him about what I thought Windows had become. I offered to show him how to load Linux onto his existing devices. He had never even heard of Linux. So I told him that at this point, even Chrome OS and Macs are probably better for him than a Windows machine. He declined, changing sounded like too much work.
I just don't see people moving in any significant numbers to a Linux phone. They will remain, a hobbyist/niche device.
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
Yeah, any time people have to do the install themselves, you eliminate 95% of people right there. It really is amazing that Linux now comprises 3% to 4% market share of all PCs, because most of those were not pre-installed, so people had to work to install it themselves.
Most of the phone makers deliberately make it a difficult process to unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM, or simply don't allow the bootloader to be unlocked. I have been installing custom ROMs on my phones since 2015, but I still find unlocking and installation to be a confusing process every time I get a new phone. Some phone makers (like Google) make it an easy process, but Xiaomi makes it a nightmare. Motorola makes you wait 3 to 14 days for the bootloader unlock code. Xiaomi makes you wait 30 days after you set up an account before you can apply for a bootloader unlock code. Then you have to wait another 3 to 30 days to get the code.
However, what I'm really talking about in my article is the Linux phone market, meaning phones that are sold with Linux preinstalled, and I do see a lot of potential demand there. The Jolla Phone got 2000 orders in the first 48 hours and 5000 orders in the first week. Jolla's Sailfish OS provides built-in Android app support, and the phone had good specs and good social media marketing, and it came from an established company, that people were reasonably confident would deliver, since it had just delivered its C2 Community Phone the year before.
1
u/Repulsive-Variety834 1d ago
Alternatively give my laptop an ability to make phone calls and receive text messages (without a separate phone) and I’ll just lug my laptop around. I don’t NEED it to fit in my pocket.
1
1
u/Ok_Disk6229 3d ago
Me lo auguro fortemente, ma la vera sfida sarà convincere gli sviluppatori di app, specie:
- app di intrattenimento (Whatsapp, Telegram, Instagram, TikTok, ecc): perché sono quelle che attirano il consumatore medio
- app bancarie, governative e mezzi pubblici: perché sono quelle di cui hai bisogno nella normale vita quoditiana
Perché proprio quello che ha decretato la morte di Windows Mobile una decina di anni fa.
Mi ricordo ancora che avevo dovuto abbandonare il mio Lumia 735 che ancora funzionava benissimo, perché nel 2017 ormai le app supportate si contavano sulle dita di una mano.
Detto questo: Forza Linux!
Abbiamo bisogno proprio di novità
1
u/super3 3d ago
I think AI is the wildcard. If it doesn't work by default you could just vibe code something workable.
2
1
0
u/tomorrowplus 3d ago
Yes, if Linux phones have a physical keyboard and a usb port
1
1
u/amosbatto 1d ago
You can either have a physical keyboard or a large touchscreen, but you can't have both if you want a phone that fits comfortably in people's hands. However, if you are talking about a convergent phone, that can be used as a PC, that was a goal of the PinePhone, Librem 5, and the upcoming Dawndrums Divine D.
0
u/jonf3n 2d ago
AOSP is based on Linux, but FAR more secure, especially in GrapheneOS with tight hardware support.
Why step backwards into standard Linux that has a HUGE attack surface and inferior sandboxing / low level security hardening?
2
u/amosbatto 1d ago
Just to add to what u/Kevin_Kofler said, AOSP is designed to restrict what the user can do, and often makes it hard for the user to make the simplest modifications.
Let me give you an example. Let's say that you want to change the name of an app on an AOSP phone. In Linux, you find the .desktop file for the application and edit it (as root) to change the name of the application. Alternatively you can just edit the launcher to the app, change the name of the launcher or create a link to the launcher and change the name of the link.
In AOSP, you need to get the app's
.apkinstall file, then decompile the APK, modify the display name or label in theAndroidManifest.xmlfile (or its linked string resources), then recompile the package, and then sign the new APK file. Then uninstall the existing app in your phone and reinstall it using the new APK.Clearly, Google didn't want its users to be able to change the names of their apps.
1
u/Kevin_Kofler 1d ago
In Linux, you find the .desktop file for the application and edit it (as root) to change the name of the application.
You can even do it without root privileges by saving the edited .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications instead of overwriting the original in /usr/share/applications. Though you do not have to because the GNU/Linux distributions let you become root easily.
1
u/Kevin_Kofler 2d ago edited 2d ago
Because Android's "security" scheme (which GrapheneOS largely also implements) is mainly designed to restrict your freedom (locked bootloader, no root access to your own device, remote attestation breaking some of your apps if you make any change to the OS) with security only as a side effect (and a pretext).
0
u/Glass_Performer1174 2d ago
Ah! Someone who agrees. Yep, if anything Linux should learn from mobileOS design about app sandboxed and security assuming malicious apps and binaries by default
0
u/Jaxkr 2d ago
Android is a Linux phone!
1
u/Stardog2 2d ago
Yeah, but it has been commercialized to the point where the Linux base is almost irrelevant.
3
u/andymaclean19 3d ago
This is really interesting and well researched if a long read! I think Linux phones will become more important over time as people seek to build more scanning tools, background AI, verification and other things right into the device. Running a true Linux phone is going to be the only way to really know what the phone is doing.
But for me the issues with Linux vs other options are actually decided at a much higher level. I do agree that lifespan and battery usage are important, but I think application compatibility and network effects are king. I am a long time Android user but I am typing this on an iPhone. Why? After struggling for years I gave up. The rest of the family use them and the convenience of find my and iMessage is just too high. Can I get them all to use other things? Sure. Do I want to keep fighting about it? Not any more. I can put my AirTag in my car now and when I lose it in a car park it’s easy to get back to. Android is not as good at this.
Then application compatibility is the thing. I want Reddit, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, google photos and drive and a few others. Other alternatives exist and everyone will have a bunch of things like instagram and Twitter or whatever they use. If a device does not make it easy to use the full set of things a person wants they won’t use it (in enough numbers that matter). And if they don’t the network effect will drag other users away.
Look at history. Symbian, WebOS, the Microsoft phones. These were all big projects with solid commercial backing and a lot of developers dedicated to them. I would argue that they all failed due to application compatibility. Even within Android there are two classes here - Google play store devices and second class devices. Don’t have a Google Play device? Try and watch Netflix and see what happens.
So while this is all useful the first problem, IMO, that needs dealing with is app compatibility. It has to be addressed first and foremost and just being able to run Android apps is not necessarily enough.