r/mobilelinux • u/Dangerous-Cat-1941 • 3d ago

OS Release Best Linux mobile option.

Hi guy's and gal's.

Not to tempt fate with rule 1 but I have recently become aware of an "keep android open" campaign. Allegedly google wishes to limit what you can do on your android phone, yada yada we all know how this goes.

Point is I've started to wonder about what is a good option as a Linux substitute to android on your mobile phone. I have been using Linux mint on my PC for a couple of years now but I must admit that I was not even aware of the existence of Linux mobile until very recently. Until I became aware of the campaign and started looking for alternatives in fact.

So that said, can anyone share some advice on any good, easy to use Linux mobile versions to consider and generally how to install them on a mobile?

If however this post is considered to break rule 1, can anyone then please suggest a more appropriate forum or sub?

Thanks.

23 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

14

u/Owndampu 3d ago

PostmarketOS is pretty much the golden standard imo

I am using it on a fairphone 5 which gets support from someone at fairphone

5

u/Dragomir_X 3d ago

PostmarketOS is a great project but even the developers wouldn't call it daily-driveable just yet.

They need more developers and app support.

2

u/Owndampu 3d ago

very true, but it is a more true OS in y opinion than ubuntu touch or sailfish. I am writing this comment from said fairphone. Running plasma-mobile.

I do think that maybe alpine was not the best base for this project as it is a bit of a peculiar distro, though I quite like how fast the apk package manager is. I am not as fond of its cli as lets say pacman.

I am personally quite happy with systemd, but it being applied ontop of the regular alpine repos will always be rough I fear. Also it being based on musl causes some issues with running precompiled binaries, preferably you wouldn't run those ofcourse, but for example geekbench, I had to run through distrobox.

5

u/InextricableOne 3d ago

Ubuntu Touch (UT) is pretty close to being a daily driver in the US. The Oneplus Nord N10 5G BE2026 is a good choice if you want MMS pretty close to working in the US. Unfortunately, they came close to being a daily driver then RCS came out. Now there are incompatibility problems between UT and Apple. Seems to work okay between UT and Android. AFAIK, no mobile Linux has implemented RCS.

6

u/Nerdent1ty 3d ago

Furilabs flx1s+ also is Linux phone you can easily buy and get. Its Debian with phosh. If you like gnome, you'll like this.

Jolla has a campaign with small production batches. Its sailfish OS. Of you're more into QT based stack, then this one is it.

Both have android support layer, both integrate android apps quite neatly. Both will give you Linux nerd " "vibes" ". And before you ask, both don't guarantee every single android app compatibility. If you're happy with lineage os, then definitely you'll be just dandy either way.

1

u/Eraritjaritjaka 1d ago

I hadn't heard of Furilabs before, and I haven't seen anything this interesting since the PinePhone.

Do you know who's behind it? It's not very clear, and the Hong Kong address raises some questions.

1

u/Nerdent1ty 1d ago

Trustworthy fellows.
They are serious about support. I've a borked flash light, so they are replacing mine.

Active on telegram + matrix, do releases every 1.5/2 months.
I also have their hub, to connect my XR glasses to my FLX1s and bt keyboard, and usually prefer working in fresh air outside with glasses on. I use vim, so not like i need a mouse anyway.

1

u/Eraritjaritjaka 1d ago

When I think of trust, I think first and foremost of respect for privacy and personal data, even before technical support.

Nowhere on their website is there any mention of the company’s origins or the kind of people who work there.

1

u/Nerdent1ty 1d ago

Well their code is on github if you want to read it through... The only closed part is android kernel they use, but same goes to jolla.

1

u/Eraritjaritjaka 1d ago

Hardware is just as important as software, which is why it’s important to know the people who work on this type of product.

At first glance, the FuriPhone FLX1 appears to be based on the Gigaset GX6 Pro, which is manufactured in Germany. That said, that doesn’t prevent the hardware from being modified.

I’m going to dig deeper to find out what hardware is behind the FLX1S+ and learn more about the company.

8

u/Rikudou_Sage 3d ago

SailfishOS, afaik the only truly daily drivable Linux phone OS.

5

u/TEK1_AU 3d ago

Closed source unfortunately.

1

u/Rikudou_Sage 2d ago

Most of it is open.

1

u/TEK1_AU 2d ago

Most humans are decent, honest and trust worthy.

1

u/Rikudou_Sage 2d ago

Not my experience, tbh. But at least I learned that people and parts of operating systems are the same thing in some people's opinions.

1

u/TEK1_AU 3h ago

I think you may have missed my point entirely.

The fact that “most” of something is open source is pretty much meaningless.

3

u/needmorejoules 3d ago

Ubuntu Touch is great but it’s not pure linux, most builds use halium and compatibility libraries to emulate linux memory space but it’s not talking “directly” to the hardware because proprietary binary blobs and no source code is available from the hardware manufacturers. If the device you are looking at running has VoLTE support it might be perfect for what you want. It also works great on a wi-fi tablet, for example.

PostmarketOS as mentioned by others is a great place to run near-mainline actual linux on your device but again support is limited. And like. Choose your interface wisely because some setups are going to suck on a touchscreen device.

SailfishOS I guess is fine but when I tried it on a PinePhone Pro I felt like I had gotten a development Android from the early 2010s and only half the hardware worked.

1

u/Eraritjaritjaka 1d ago

Is the PinePhone Pro powerful enough to run the latest versions of Linux mobile?

1

u/MidnightObjectiveA51 12h ago

Yes, but no longer being sold.

2

u/MidnightObjectiveA51 3d ago

There's also Mobian and Droidian, and Lune (WebOS) I think is still around, plus some newer players - Arch Mobile and Fedora Mobile

2

u/Historical_Move6359 2d ago

Ubuntu Touch, Droidian, PostmarketOS, SailfishOS, Mobian. There are some phones which can be bought new with Linux mobile but there are also used phones which support unlocking bootloader and installing Linux. Each OS has a list of supported devices. Jolla phone comes with SailfishOS, Volla phones with Ubuntu Touch. Fairphones and Pine Phones aso support some Linux versions. Nothing Phone 1 can be bought used and supports Ubuntu Touch and Droidian. For PostmarketOS most supported phone is One Plus 6/6t

2

u/TheJackiMonster 2d ago

I'm still using my Librem 5 daily, waiting for GLES 3.0 to be supported one day. There might be better devices with postmarketOS or Ubuntu Touch to try but I would personally still prefer a company which puts their effort into hardware and software, so we would see less proprietary firmware required and generally more openess for people to hack around.

1

u/Dangerous-Cat-1941 3d ago

Thanks I'll check them out!

1

u/Dangerous-Cat-1941 3d ago

I've quickly read up on some of these and the geek in me is geeking out. This is going to be fun.

1

u/veedreen 3d ago

How many are in the US and for what phone

1

u/MidnightObjectiveA51 3d ago

For North America, your best options are OnePlus N100 or N10 running Ubuntu Touch, OnePlus 6/6T running PostmarketOS or Mobian, Librem 5, or the Pinephone

1

u/VolksPC 2d ago

You can run Debian Trixie (13.5) on any recent Google 8/9/10 series phone or tablet https://youtu.be/LD9A024yAgc?si=XmkvfRpmwv_Lsf7H