Huge thanks to all the people working hard to bring us Linux phones. One day I hope to be able to use one of themπ
this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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Linux Phones
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Community about running GNU/Linux on phones. Projects like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, PostmarketOS, Mobian etc. Either on former Android phones or hardware like the PinePhone.
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I'm glad you are doing this. Pinephone and Librem 5 days are surely numbered, the hardware is just too outdated. My Librem 5 is also starting to fail, some times i can't even get it to power on without restarting several times. I will never use Android or iOS, they are just too exploitative and untrustworthy, so it's a relief everyone isn't completely abandoning the idea of a free libre phone.
Adding to that, I'm not sure if it's just me, but Android, even with root, feels so restrictive compared to a Linux distro. A good example is that I tried to remove a system file the other day (notification sounds, I hated them and wanted them gone for good) but even when I found what the file was, I couldn't delete it using conventional methods aka file managers. I even tried using Zarchiver with root privileges, and it failed. The same happened when I had to deal with recent Android versions making the Android/obb dir read-only. The only way I could access these is via Termux and that is just kinda disappointing for a system that claims to be supposedly open.
Now, I'm not expecting this to be possible on mobile Linux, but the expectations there are different.
Anyways, rant aside, what I'm really saying is I'm excited for Mobile Linux, specifically Plasma Mobile (as I already tried Phosh and it was pretty good, but I haven't got a device Plasma Mobile). I hope that I can daily drive it one day, just using Waydroid for some apps like WhatsApp, Banking Apps, and other essential proprietary apps.
I mean, not being able to delete some files because they're read-only and what not doesn't mean it's less open. You can't do that on an immutable distribution either but I definitely still consider them "open".
At postmarketOS we're planning to also offer an immutable option in the future. We'll always keep a mutable option around for people that want it but by default we'll ship the immutable variant to our users because we can guarantee stability and safe updates way more. Then you won't be able to just delete system files either.
Yeah, but actual Linux, even immutable, still feels more open. I don't like the default look and feel of the system? There's only so much I can do on Android, while on mobile Linux, I can even install SXMO, which is a mobile tiling window manager.
That's great news. It seems Osmin is matured enough. I should give it an another shot soon.
Tell you what, I misread two letters in the title, and was 100% sure I clicked on an article about Dolly Parton driving a blood bank van. That's all. Carry on.