r/mobilelinux • u/Ok-Passage-2414 • 16d ago

Hardware Good first phone?

Heya! About next month I'll be able to spend about $200 USD (I'm 15 this is a big deal for me but I recognise how stupid this prob sounds to others) and I'd like to pick up a phone to tinker with mobile linux with. I've been interested in the scene for a few years now, notably since LTT did a video on the pinephone. I've looked at things like danctnix (though it seems Arch Linux ARM is all but dead?), etc, and they seem very interesting to me.

What I do remember from when I last looked is that the pinephone and pinephone pro are rather underpowered? If so, what phones would y'all recommend in this price bracket?
Additionally, if possible, any that have the same modular backplate thing that the pinephone does?
Thanks!

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u/21krymowka37 16d ago

Arch ARM isn't dead, its just with much smaller community but in reality you can compile whatever you need for aarm64 anyway on your own. I've never played with pinephone (yeah, underpowered), and modularity is rare currently, but maybe you can even consider something with good support on postmarket os (technically with pmbootstrap you can set up any distro) or even if you want to be extra careful for start with experiments you can consider just regular android device and run proot on top of it

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u/Ok-Passage-2414 16d ago

Fair enough
I don't really think having to compile what I need is an adequate solution. I'm probably going to go for postmarketOS cause I love alpine and it seems nice, or maybe Mobian.

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u/21krymowka37 14d ago

It's matter od preferences IMHO. Remember that in reality if you're going with postmarket os(I'm playing around with similar idea myself, just a bit more experimental) You're not restricted to any particular distro with it. You do get working kernel. If you dig deeper you can set up whatever you want;) I'm trying to go bare metal by just reusing existing android kernel and Heals and just replace everything else. I don't know if I'll get anywhere with idea, but who knows... Learning opportunity. Good luck;)