Pay the $25 ransom little devs or else!
this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2026
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Linux Phones
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The Discussion on Linux-based Phones.
Benefits:
- Hardware freedom.
- Perfect operating-system competition.
- Full utilization of specs.
- Phone lifespan raises to 10+ years.
- Less e-waste.
Linux Mobile Distros:
- Ubuntu Touch
- Sailfish
- FuriOS
- Postmarket OS
- Mobian
- Pure OS
- Plasma Mobile
- LuneOS
- openSUSE Mobile
- Nemomobile
- Droidian
- Mobile NixOS
- ExpidusOS
- Maemo Leste
- Manjaro Arm
- Tizen
- WebOS
Linux Mobile Hardware:
- Fairphone 5
- Volla Phone
- PinePhone
- FLX1
- Librem 5
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I really want Linux phones to catch on, but even watching demos, while they are making progress, it seems like they are still very far behind.
A phone for me (and many others) is more a lifestyle utility than a tech gadget, so reliability and compatibility is paramount. Things need to just work the first time every time for me to trust relying on it for important things.
I still follow the development of some projects and contribute when I can, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be a realistic option (for my use case at least) any time soon.
Banking on smart phones is safer than banking on Windows, and far safer than banking on Linux. -That's probably never going to change, and because of 'privacy concerns', it will be as bad on the phone or worse than desktop Linux.
Open apps like Open Street Map absolutely suck. I've tried helping them out, but they made it so complicated to contribute to naming locations.
There are some FOSS apps for phone I'm fond of, but I wouldn't consider using a slap-stick repo like F-Droid especially for such volatile software that gets abandoned and forked regularly.
With all that said, there are some people claiming daily driving lately and it seems like they fixed issues of the past, but some issues aren't likely to get fixed. -Ever. (due to fundamental issues with copy left GPL and the cult around it)
If only the clamoring happened around BSD instead.
You have upset a lot of people. OSM is an awesome alternative to Google Maps, it's basically the Wikipedia equivalent for mapping where everyone can help contribute by adding locations and such. Particularly for densely populated areas, I find it to be very accurate, and there's even support for public transit!
You have somehow upset even more people. F-Droid has soooo many good open-source apps that are stable and they usually work far better (and look nicer for the most part) compared to proprietary options. CoMaps is a good client for OSM and arguably has a nicer interface than GMaps, and you can install maps offline which is super convenient! Kvaesitso is a nice search-based custom launcher that is much better than the stock one for my purposes, and Lawnchair is another good option if you want something closer to vanilla Android. More great FOSS apps:
And games on F-Droid are a bit more lacking, but here are some nice ones I found:
Plus, you don't have to use the F-Droid repos. You can use third-party repositories like IzzyOnDroid or similar with the F-Droid client!
OSM performance really depends on your location. In my entire country, there's like TWO people (not me) contributing 99% of data. As you can imagine, there's no real time info and lots of stuff lacking.
Public transport is also very dependent on location, both countries I've lived in recently didn't have integration.
Edit: I love that somebody downvoted me for stating objective verifiable facts. Dude, get a life.
this is patently false. smartphones leak all sorts of data about you on a network that desktop computers, regardless of OS, simply don't, especially if you use a hardened web browser like arkenfox, phoenix, or librewolf
Can you elaborate on how banking is “safer” on smart phones than Windows and Linux?