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Yes. You have your pine phone. It's more expensive than you'd like. But if if and only if enough people adopt it. Prices will come down with time
Since you don't want anybody to tell you that Android is Linux, and you can do everything you want to do on Android with a custom ROM. I won't mention it
Android with a custom ROM. I wonβt mention it
do you know of any projects which has good support (and reputation) which has something like a terminal in it? I mean, I just want a terminal.
Also, I will be happy to spend 500USD on a Linux phone just to support it, but I wanted to know how far they are. Thank you for your comment.
If you just want a terminal you can install termux from github right now. No need for a custom ROM. It will be fairly locked down but you can use almost all programs that there are for linux. I use yt-dlp in Termux to download youtube videos
I like you lol. btw, can I do stuff like control volume using Texmux? Like idk, switch on or off my wifi and turn off airplane mode and stuff
I'd guess not, at least without root, as Texmux is still an app and Android won't allow apps that much control over the phone.
I think this lack of real control via the terminal vs 'real' Linux is a key point.
Termux API from FDroid?
You can also install DE like XFCE into termux to run graphical programs. I use that for noaa-apt decoder.
"A userdebug build of AOSP or GrapheneOS has a su binary and an adb root command providing root access via the Android Debug Bridge via physical access using USB. This does still significantly reduce security, particularly since ADB has a network mode that can be enabled. Most of the security model is still intact. "
https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/13264di/is_root_possible_with_grapheneos/?rdt=38934
custom ROM
I'm using CalyxOS on a Fairphone 4, works pretty well, appart from getting Playstore apps from Aurora Store without a Google account (I search for apps in firefox and open the link with Aurora which is clunky but works). You can install a terminal emultor from F-Droid, not sure why you would tbh but I've found several.
I have a feeling those budget phones around that price are sold at a loss and gain the money from selling user data. So I doubt it'd get down to that price
Outside of ads or razor thin margins, data profiling. They can recoup the costs from selling more expensive and premium smartphones. A new entrant in the market catering to a niche is unlikely to do so.
Probably not what you meant, but you can buy a Nexus 5x on eBay for $200 and flash Ubuntu's mobile is to it.
Yes, no, maybe, depending on what exactly you mean.
There are two main issues, why a Linux phone with good specs and without tricks and with full, real Linux is impossible:
Don't forget the SoC players NEVER open source anything including APIs so community drivers are not easy either
Do you think that might change with risc-v? As in, it would be more likely to have open source code and community support for kernel updates
I don't think so, no.
What causes the situation currently is not ARM, but the companies making SoCs.
Currently, with RISC-V, we are seeing early-adopter trial runs by early-adopter companies. None of the usual suspects have any amount of serious skin in the game.
When Qualcomm is making mass-market high-performance RISC-V SoCs, they will treat them exactly the way they are treating their equivalent ARM SoCs right now.
Yeah good point, darn
Tbh, if we are unlucky, RISK-V might even get worse than ARM.
The point of RISK-V is to get rid of ARM ltd., the company that manages the ARM ISA and the reference designs, and asks for a lot of money from companies that want to use ARM.
RISK-V was made to have an ISA without such a middle man.
The issue here is that (apart from some university researchers) nobody makes freely available reference designs.
If a company wants to make their own high-performance ARM SoC, they call up ARM, pay a lot of money and get some directly usable reference designs. They maybe configure it with the features they want and then send the design to e.g. TSMC and they build it. Apart from a lot of money, not much else is necessary.
With RISC-V, there is no such instance where you can buy great reference designs from.
Instead, each company designs their own designs. Maybe some will sell their designs, but it might well be, that the top companies will just not share their designs, same as is the case currently with x64, where you can buy a ready-made AMD/Intel SoC and that's it.
Seems like Android which supports a broad range of Terminal commands is the best next thing.
Termux is the best i could get. You can run a lot of apps, compile with clang; use vim, emacs and nano; run XFCE with the help of X server(maybe running locally ny XSDL app), run proot distros like ubuntu debian arch and all, use ffmpeg, and with extension apps like Termux:API you can use more android permission to do things like initiate a call with a command. You may use termux:widget and termux:float or maybe even termux:boot and do a lot of things there
I didn't see anyone mention SailfishOS.
I bought a Jolla Mobile with SailfishOS when they came out and I LOVED it. It's a fast smooth beautiful user interface, has Android app support, and truly is Linux. Like, it comes with a Terminal, full root access is easy to unlock, uses BtrFS, Wayland, the Linux standard hierarchy... It was wonderful.
The Jolla Mobile is pretty old now, but I think there are still phones you can get it on.
Before the rise of Android and ios I'd have said it was possible, but the goal posts have shifted pretty far. Unless something backed by a corporate entity or government rises Up, it's a no. A chromeos type thing for smartphone is not going to happen for mass market, because there is already Android.
Discounting Android, the last mile of what a smartphone is capable of can not be accomplished in Foss manner, without end to end verified OS images and some kind of secure enclave for banking and "security" features, carriers and banks are not going to get on board any more. Convenience features like DRM video streaming, casting also probably are not achievable either
True, with the goalposts. Nowadays we are happy if we can root/custom ROM and are still able to access our banking apps.
I think you're totally right! It's kinda hard to use banking apps with a custom ROM already.. Unless some big corporation makes a move into something different we're gonna be stucked in the iOS and Android chains ..In that case I wish Microsoft would have been successful with their mobile OS so other companies had the guts to launch their own and compete in a more fragmented market
We do banking with general purpose computers. How do you figure banking will be a sticking point?
Things like androidpay/apple pay type functions require a chain of security checks, on Android it's levels of safety net. some banking apps require similar
PinePhone is $150. The more appealing option long term will be getting Linux running well on old Android phones though, as they are available used for $100 or less and have better specs. Often better specs than even the $400 PinePhone Pro, which is the most powerful designed-for-Linux phone I know of.
I'm typing this on a OnePlus 6T running postmarketOS. I paid somewhere around $125 for this phone, with box and accessories and in very good condition. It has an 8 core processor, 6GB RAM, Vulkan-capable Adreno 630 GPU, better WiFi/Bluetooth than either PinePhone, much better battery life, and a very nice OLED screen.
It's not all perfect yet though. It doesn't support VoLTE yet in Linux, so you have to force 2G mode to be able to receive calls and texts. Call audio is sometimes missing. No camera support. No USB host mode support. Sensors are WIP, but I'm testing the merge request for them and rotation works.
I ran a PinePhone and then a Pro for a year each. I think I prefer the OnePlus 6T experience. If they get the modem issue figured out it will be an amazing option.
I think that I would be a close to ideal candidate for a Linux phone, because I use my phone for so few things.
That being said, the few things I do use it for are absolutely essential for me, as in I must have them to function throughout the day, and I am not interested in having multiple devices I need to carry to do them. Those are as follows:
Most those have something on a Linux phone, but they are either slow, buggy, of missing features, at least as far as I know.
There are other issues too though, so far Linux phones seem to be slow and buggy from the reviews I've seen.
But the ecosystem is a bigger issue. One of the nice things about being on an unlocked android phone running GraphenOS or Lineage is that you not only have access to most of the official Android app ecosystem, but also to the thousands of apps in the unofficial fdroid ecosystem and naked APK ecosystem.
So you get overall so much more than just Android, which is already a lot.
Switching to a Linux phone severely limits you on that ecosystem, because many desktop Linux apps won't run at all on a Linux phone OS.
Another user here pointed out the similarity to Microsoft's Windows phones that they tried to enter the market with years ago.
I had two of them, and honestly, I absolutely loved them. The hardware was sleek and powerful, everything that made Windows 8 suck on desktop was actually awesome on mobile. The only issue was, MS didn't deliver on the app ecosystem. There were a few dozen popular apps that were ported over from Android, and many of those were buggy or had limited features. That killed the phones hardcore. Who wants to use a phone that looks nice and runs fast, but only has a few apps that you need?
Would you buy a super powerful and sexy gaming computer that could only play 10-20% of your game library?
Personally, I would prefer to see the teams that are developing Linux phone OSes stop working on those projects and switch over to fully custom and FOSS Android versions. Similar to what we have now with different companies' Android versions. But instead of the main differences being icon themes and bloatware, make them more varied like distros.
KDE Android, Ubuntu Android, Arch Droid, etc.
Have them focus on making their Android distros fast and feature-full. People could then have android powered tablets and car consoles that are compatible with Linux and other unofficial versions of Android.
I would love to have a KDE Android phone that is 100% integrated with a custom KDE Android car console. It would be a FOSS version of Android Auto. Imagine being able to remotely transfer files from my Linux PC to my car, both running KDE connect. Syncing them together to update my OSM custom maps. I could install Finamp on my car's console and stream my Jellyfin music to it while navigating using Magic Earth or OSMand on a nice big screen.
I can keep dreaming...
Linux phone plus android app support would do it
My phone runs Android, on which I run Linux in chroot, on which I run FEX, on which I run Wine x64.
That means I can run Android apps, Linux-ARM apps, Linux-x86/x64 apps and Windows x86/x64 apps.
Also I got Magic Dosbox running DOS and Win95.
And a bunch of emulators, namely C64, GB/C/A, DS, 3DS and Switch.
Yes, I might have a problem ;)
I hoped for that when PinePhone came out but now I don't know. PinePhone should be easy to clone so I hoped more similar devices will start to show up and we will see some competition and progress but as far as I know PinePhone is still the only device like that. So couple years after it was released Linux on mobile still barely works. You can get Volla Phone with Ubuntu Touch and, according to their page, you will have issues with incoming and outgoing calls. Not really what I'm looking for in a phone... And then we have the issue with apps. What I'm actually using my Android phone for:
Those features are why I have a mobile phone. Everything else I can do in my PC. None of those things will have dedicated Linux app except maybe for Signal but as of today even Signal doesn't have a mobile Linux app. GPS still have issues in most Linux phones. So as of today, years after PinePhone was release Linux phones are still useless to me. Maybe one day Android emulation will work well enough to support all those things but today it's also not a real option. I'm willing to use 'crippled' phone for some time (same as I was using Linux desktop back when it didn't have many popular apps) but as of today Linux phone would be a hobby project and I still would have to do everything on Android phone so it's not a great option. And I'm not sure this will change in the next 5 years.
Good Q. Consider you can install Ubuntu touch on fairly cheap older phones already. I know you're asking about "ready to go" phones but this is an alternate solution
"Android" phones can sometimes have "close to mainline" Linux distributions flashed onto them. You can get some of those, used, for less than 100$.
A custom Android rom would provide you with a decent chunk of the freedom you want in a mobile device.
A phone specifically built for Linux, with as much as possible FLOSS firmware, will cost a lot more. The cheapest is probably the PinePhone.
The pinephone is cheap
RAM is pretty bad thought :(
3GB, everything else is upto the mark
My big killer feature for Linux phones is running Wayland/X11 apps mostly unmodified, if AOSP added support for that I wouldn't be too disappointed about sticking with it. I've tried to make android apps before, but doing things the Android Wayβ’ basically requires you to use java and their bespoke UI primitives, and it always makes me wish I could just use the tools I'm already used to.
Being able to have intricate control over my phone is nice, but I'd rather do it with a KDE-like settings maze than a terminal because of how tiny the screen is, and if I'm doing something serious that would require a terminal I would rather do it at my desk.
I definitely think the Android ecosystem has some serious problems, but I already run a custom ROM without Google Play Services installed so I'm fairly well-insulated from that. I do plan on installing a mobile Linux system on my old phone to experiment, but I doubt it will become my system of choice.
Your expectations around price are unrealistic unfortunately.
And you can use a terminal with stock Android. Although you'll probably need to root it to do anything useful.
Unless people pay for the hardware and software development to happen, Linux phones will never be as feature complete as Android or iPhones, so people will not buy as many, so the prices will not go down.
Also, I gotta disagree reeeeaaal hard with the sentiment in the comments here that Android is Linux since you can slap a terminal on it. Excuse me, but where's the GNU?
Excuse me, but whereβs the GNU?
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.html
https://f-droid.org/packages/tech.ula/
I've had great fun using userland to put gnu into my android, ran windows, tried to use a phone as a portable dockable computer.. it's so close, but not quite ready for a daily driver
I don't want a Linux phone tho. Give me LineageOS and let me be happy.
