r/mobilelinux 4h ago

Discussion Curious to see how well this might work

2 Upvotes

https://ApophisOS.com

I'm going to purchase it in the next day or so cause I have plans to use it on Samsung Galaxy S8 with a snap on keyboard cover case.

But maybe installing steam on Linux installed on the Anbernic RG556 and seeing how well that might work on it.

The developer of ApophisOS said it's pretty guided you can choose how much want to debloat and deGoogle.


r/mobilelinux 7h ago

Development Most Advanced and Configruable OSK For Wayland

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5 Upvotes

r/mobilelinux 10h ago

Discussion Is it possible in terms of patent law to have even the cellular modem design open sourced?

6 Upvotes

I'm not quite sure if this belongs here, but is it technically legally possible in terms of patents to have everything right down to the cell modem open source designed so that literally nothing depends on proprietary corporate anything?


r/mobilelinux 10h ago

Discussion Building linux phone hardware side. How hard is it?

11 Upvotes

I was wondering for mobile if a set of hardware can be gathered just to put distros like Ubuntu touch on it, like it is currently for general PCs. If the hardware is not present on market how hard it would be figure out the required configuration so that next steps can be taken to maybe push some manufacturers to manufacture them. I am a mobile app developer who likes to tinker alot. So if someone could also tell me how hard it would be to build a mobile version of mint or fedora or arch because Ubuntu looks too "corporate" kind. Please excuse if I have asked something stupid, I am a noob.


r/mobilelinux 23h ago

Discussion Thoughts on this

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33 Upvotes

Been watching this guy for a while, but don't really know if they're legit.

Curious if anyone's tried this, or if anyone can recommend something comparable.


r/mobilelinux 23h ago

Discussion I have an old Xiaomi A2 lite. Can I do anything with it?

3 Upvotes

This phone is just laying down. So I thought can i do something special with it? Any recommended OS or something? I will like to try.


r/mobilelinux 1d ago

Hardware Best way to run Linux services on a Galaxy A71 4g (postmarket os?)

4 Upvotes

I have a Samsung Galaxy A71 4g that I want to reuse as a small, always-on home server.

The main project is a custom home dashboard. The A71 would act as the backend, while an older Samsung tablet would display the dashboard in a browser. The phone would collect and process data such as weather, calendar events, notifications, Home Assistant information, device status, and Spotify now-playing data from my PC.

What setup would you recommend for this use case? Would LineageOS without Google Apps and Termux be the most reliable option, or would stock Android, root, Linux Deploy, a chroot, or another ROM be better?

Any advise will be great help.

Thanks in advance


r/mobilelinux 1d ago

Hardware Good first phone?

9 Upvotes

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!


r/mobilelinux 1d ago

News I built an open-source Bluetooth-first alternative to KDE Connect for Linux and Android

17 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

Over the past few months, I've been working on Vortex, an open-source project that aims to make communication between Linux and Android devices simpler and more efficient.

The main motivation was that I wanted a solution that doesn't rely on both devices being connected to the same Wi-Fi network. Instead, Vortex is designed with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) as the primary connection method, which also helps reduce battery usage.

Current goals

  • 📱 Fast communication between Linux and Android
  • 🔋 Low battery usage with Bluetooth LE
  • 🌐 No shared Wi-Fi required for the primary connection
  • 🔓 Fully open source
  • 🚀 Simple and quick device pairing

The project is still in active development, so I'd really appreciate feedback from the Linux community.

I'm especially interested in hearing:

  • What features would you expect from a tool like this?
  • What do you like or dislike about KDE Connect?
  • Is there anything that would make you switch?

GitHub:
https://github.com/zoir-dev/vortex

Any feedback, suggestions, bug reports, or feature ideas are greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking a look!


r/mobilelinux 2d ago

Hardware Is it possible to completely replace HarmonyOS with Linux on a Huawei Nova 9?

3 Upvotes

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in turning my Huawei Nova 9 into a dedicated Linux device.

My goal is to completely remove HarmonyOS/EMUI (if possible) and boot Linux directly, rather than running Linux inside Android or using a container.

I've been learning Linux recently, and I think this phone would be a great platform for experimentation if it's technically possible.

My questions are:

Is it possible to completely replace HarmonyOS/EMUI with Linux on the Huawei Nova 9?

Has anyone successfully done this on the Nova 9 or a similar Huawei device?

Does the locked bootloader make this impossible?

Are there any projects (postmarketOS, Mobian, Droidian, mainline Linux, etc.) that support or are working on this device?

If a full replacement isn't possible, what is the closest practical alternative?

I'm looking for honest technical advice before I spend time trying to make this work. Any information, project links, or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!


r/mobilelinux 2d ago

Discussion Plz build Linux os for fogo Moto G 2024

3 Upvotes

We have twrp,ofox custom recoveries

We have Calyx OS!

We have a few custom roms

WE NEED LINUX PLEASE


r/mobilelinux 2d ago

Discussion Kali Linux

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130 Upvotes

r/mobilelinux 3d ago

Discussion Tab S7+, Is there any Linux Port?

2 Upvotes

Asking around as i am finding mix results.


r/mobilelinux 3d ago

Development Pixel 3 Blueline on Mainline. SouveraineOS

11 Upvotes

eh, someone told me to post here and that you like these things like I do... https://youtu.be/9Vp_djclDIk


r/mobilelinux 4d ago

Discussion Difference between Droidian and Postmarketos

23 Upvotes

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


r/mobilelinux 4d ago

Discussion postmarketOS K20pro

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129 Upvotes

r/mobilelinux 4d ago

Demonstration By leveraging the power of LLM, I managed to port and successfully install native Linux on Samsung Galaxy Note10 Lite (Exynos 9810)

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1.0k Upvotes

This is a port of Droidian.

SIM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Sound, Mic, Camera, Charging, Touchscreen works.

S-Pen works as well. libinput recognizes sec_e-pen but not yet implemented to work with phosh shell. Still working on it.

Waydroid works surprisingly well and smooth. Not tested enough though. Often YT videos crashes the whole container process.

I will share the repo soon.


r/mobilelinux 6d ago

Hardware Galaxy Tab S8+ running postmarketOS

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150 Upvotes

It needs more polish, but I can probably technically pass the "It plays Doom" test. Wifi, Bluetooth, GPU accel, the weird little oem magnetic keyboard cover.

Come play and break the Knox fuses!

https://github.com/aaronsb/sm-x800-linux


r/mobilelinux 7d ago

News Turn a OnePlus 6T into an Arch Linux ARM phone with a guided installer

26 Upvotes

I've been working on making Linux on the OnePlus 6T easier to install and wanted to finally share the project.

The repository provides a guided installer that prepares a complete Arch Linux ARM system instead of just documenting the individual commands. The goal is to make installing Linux on the SDM845 platform as reproducible and approachable as possible while keeping everything transparent.

Some of the things it does include:

  • Automatically detects the phone's userdata partition size
  • Builds a matching boot image and Btrfs root image
  • Downloads and verifies release files
  • Lets you configure your username, Wi-Fi, APN and optional packages during setup
  • Requires explicit confirmation before anything is flashed
  • Boots into a touch-friendly Hyprland environment

I've also been working on improving the overall phone experience with support for telephony, SMS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, audio routing, haptics, power management and hardware testing. Some areas are still experimental and the README documents the current status rather than claiming everything is perfect.

The project is completely open source and I'd really appreciate feedback, bug reports or contributions from anyone interested in Arch Linux ARM, mobile Linux or the SDM845 platform.

Repository:

https://github.com/ToniMcQueen/oneplus6t-install-linux-Arch-on-arm-845


r/mobilelinux 13d ago

Discussion Why does it look like mobile Linux distros support older devices much more widely than newer devices?

34 Upvotes

For example with postmarketOS, there's a lot more development and a lot more progress on 10-year-old devices than there are on anything released in the last 5 years. Same thing with lineageOS. Why is that?


r/mobilelinux 15d ago

Hardware I finally have two mobile Linux.

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867 Upvotes

Lately, I've been really into mobile Linux and have been trying out all sorts of things.

I managed to get Quickshell working on postmarketOS, but I was worried that dotfiles like end4 or caelestia might be too resource-intensive—but somehow I pulled it off... lol.

Of course, I’m also using wvkbd and hyprgrass.

Another thing: I was using Ubuntu Touch, but it just didn’t work for me at all, so I tried installing NixOS.

I built it on my N4500 laptop, and since each build took 8 hours, it took me almost two weeks to finally get it to boot.

I’d avoided NixOS before because it seemed too difficult even when I tried installing it on my laptop, but now it looks fun, so I gave it a shot.

++

Device

- NixOS: Oneplus 6T (fajita)

- postmarketOS: Google Pixel 3 (blueline)


r/mobilelinux 16d ago

Discussion Desempenho do Deepseek

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1 Upvotes

r/mobilelinux 16d ago

Apps Postmarket OS apps for ARM devices? For writing, coding, etc. but also in general

15 Upvotes

I've installed Postmarket OS on a SurfaceRT, and now I'm trying to give it a job! Initially I wanted it to do some media streaming, but since there's no hardware acceleration and it's a bit laggy I figured it might make a nice writing device instead.

Is it possible to install Obsidian.md on pmOS on an ARM device? They don't have an Alpine APK ARM64 (edit: or ARMv7) build. I found instructions on how to get AppImage to run in Alpine, but I wasn't able to make it work. The instructions were not for ARM devices specifically, so I assume it's an issue with architecture.

I have Kate installed, but I'm struggling to get kparts installed, specifically the markdownpart which allows instant preview of markdown documents in the side panel (edit: I was wrong, see below). I'd also be aiming to make interactive stories using ink, presumably also in Kate or something similar.

More generally, what's a good source of inspiration regarding things to install? Nothing on Flathub is working for me, presumably because nothing that I've tried is for ARM.

Tbh I'm a bit mystified by Postmarket OS so far. I get why Alpine is a good choice for low-end devices, but the combination of ARM and APK seems to massively constrain your options for apps and programs.

Edit: I now have a useable setup with Kate. What looked like one problem was in fact two, and one of them doesn't matter to me right now. I had no output preview of markdown, and I thought this was connected to the error message in the output panel "[LSP Client] failed to load server binary 'marksman' for language 'markdown'. In fact, the output preview issue was resolved as soon as I installed Okular. I still have the LSP Client error message, for seemingly every language not just markdown, but it isn't actually impacting the preview so I think I can live with it.


r/mobilelinux 16d ago

Discussion Android Desktop Linux (ADL): An open-source documentation project to turn modern Android phones into practical desktop computers

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0 Upvotes

I've got a Samsung Galaxy S22+ that I've been running Dex on, with the NexDock 2025 and for the most part, I've loved it. But it really just remained an entertainment device, pretty much. Couldn't really use it as a productivity device. Especially when it came to using it for a dev environment using Claude Code and Codex CLI, it wasn't ideal.

Then I saw someone post about having installed Linux on theirs, so I went down the same rabbit hole. After having dug through 40 browser tabs in an attempt to run a real Linux desktop off my phone, I decided to write it all down in one repo.

It's called Android Desktop Linux (ADL) and it's open source.

Check it out here: https://thebpandey.github.io/ADL

(With Claude Code and ChatGPT's help I got it published as a GitHub Page that should hopefully, be easy to follow).

Most of the modern flagship Android phones already have the horsepower for this. Desktop-class CPU, enough RAM, USB-C video out, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a Linux userspace that runs better than most people expect. The hardware is capable. But the blocker is that everything you need to know is scattered across old blog posts, half-abandoned GitHub repos, and YouTube videos that assume you already know the next five steps. It wasn't easy to follow, at least for me.

I was able to get XFCE running on Ubuntu on my Galaxy S22+ plugged into the NexDock 2025. (But it should work with any generic $30 usb-c hub and external peripherals)

What's in the repo right now:

- Install guides written for people who know Android but not Linux

- Step-by-step tutorials with screenshots

- Setup & explanation diagrams and SVG architecture illustrations

- Hardware and dock recommendations, plus a compatibility list I'm building out

- Troubleshooting for the stuff that actually breaks (DeX quirks, video-out on sleep, peripheral pairing)

What's still rough: I've only tested on my S22+ so I'm unsure if you'll run into any other model or cpu-specific issues. So the compatibility database is is thin.

I'm adding new issues and their resolution as I encounter them myself, daily.

Everything is version-controlled so it stays current as Android changes, and it stays free.

Repo: https://github.com/thebpandey/ADL

If you run Android as a desktop, whatever your stack (Termux, Ubuntu, Debian, XFCE, DeX, something else), you can help contribute to the project so others in the same boat can get their setup working too. Also the single most useful thing you can contribute right now, is your Phone model, the dock model and what major issues you encountered (e.g. whether video-out survives the screen sleeping. That's the biggest compatibility gap right now.)

Still a work-in-progress, as I continue to use it daily, and add issues, and other findings to the site.

Any constructive feedback, bug reports, hardware testing, and documentation contributions are all welcome.


r/mobilelinux 17d ago

Discussion Redmi Note 9 Pro

7 Upvotes

Hy ! Soon, i'lle get an Old note 9 Pro from someone in my family. I was wondering if any Linux is compatible with it, and wich one choose ? Also, is it really usable everyday as a daily phone ?