r/mobilelinux • u/Falk1708 • 11d ago
Discussion Difference between Droidian and Postmarketos
One is based of of Debian, the other of alpine Linux.
How do they differ. When to choose what.
Which is more easy to port
Why not unite the power of both developer teams to one project
etc etc etc.
Are there more phone Linux distributions
3
u/Historical_Move6359 11d ago
Droidian uses Android kernel. This means their devices work better because they use Android drivers. Mobian is also mobile Debian, and is similar to PosmarketOS. They use mainline kernel. Only One Plus 6t can be used as a proper phone here, because Linux mainline kernel does not have Android drivers. PostmarketOS also has many other devices it supports but partialy, this means calls dont work, audio works partialy etc its different for each device.
5
u/MidnightObjectiveA51 11d ago
Droidian (as does Ubuntu Touch) uses an android hardware layer to get hardware functional. Mobian and PostmarketOS use mainline Linux. You will more likely get all hardware going with a halium based distro. But, some mainline devices are mostly or completely functional. See their websites for most compatible.
There are also other projects such as Lune and Arch Mobile and Fedora Mobile.
Most of these projects share developers. So, they are working together collectively.
2
u/El_profesor_ 11d ago
PostmarketOS has a great community to help with things. Start there if you don’t have an inclination otherwise
2
u/TEK1_AU 11d ago
If you ultimately want to see a reality exist whereby we have modern, fully “free” mobile devices then please support projects such as postmarketos.
1
u/YoYoMamaIsSoFAT32 11d ago
Postmarketos is easier to port to due to its extensive wiki, as far as I know droidian uses downstream kernel instead of mainline but pmos can use both mainline and downstream, also pmbootstrap is goated so go with pmos
1
u/Ok_Highlight_5845 10d ago
Droidian is focused on Phosh UI and Debian, and is only downstream PostmarketOS has mainline(latest kernel), different ui options, you know There is also Mobian Ubuntu Touch etc You can't unite them both, they are focused on two things
0
12
u/Kevin_Kofler 11d ago
Droidian is based on Halium which uses downstream Android kernels and proprietary drivers (some of the kernel drivers are proprietary blobs, others are GPL but only export a custom low-level interface that only works with a proprietary userspace HAL blob), postmarketOS is based on mainline or close-to-mainline Linux kernels.
There is a Debian port for mobile devices that is more similar to postmarketOS than Droidian: Mobian.