Apple and Google will gladly erase the works of developers to chase profits.
Please let me know viable options.
this post was submitted on 03 Oct 2025
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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
- 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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There are no realistic linux options for your phone. These memes are pipe dreams by people that haven't actually looked at how utterly incapable linux currently is at powering a smart phone for normal daily use and how these apps that they're complaining about android and apple are removing won't run on the linux phone in the first place.
Sounds like switching will mean we will lose everything we're already losing. Might as well go ahead and quit cold turkey.
That is correct, currently, moving to a linux phone will lose you more than what you're losing with Google and Apple changes.
Apps are just part of the problem. Running a full linux OS on a phone with all the normal mobile phone capabilities is also an exercise in frustration. Taking Ubuntu Touch as an example, the OS has been around since 2011, was released in 2014 and it's list of approved phones is still minuscule. If you're a person on VZW, that list grows even smaller as VoLTE is problematic enough to be considered impossible to get working reliably.
I truly hope that the linux phone landscape shapes up but in it's current form, it's actually losing ground as it's development is slower than the hardware development and at it's current rate, will never be a viable option.
At this point I'd rather keep my freedom and lose the convenience. If it means losing apps and horsepower, fine by me. I'm already half resigned to going back to a dumbphone. I'm also looking at options to assemble my own phone with off the shelf parts if that's what it takes.
When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither. - Thomas Jefferson
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Yeah... I'm rapidly approaching the point of just learning to live without a smartphone altogether as it becomes more and more frustrating to find one that has what I want.
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There's options, yes. Ubuntu Touch is getting better.
AFAIK, the main bottleneck (aside from hardware support) is a working open source IMS stack. IMS is the IP Multimedia Subsystem that is responsible for things like VoLTE/VoWIFI, SMS/MMS, etc. The last time I looked at Ubuntu Touch, it only supported baseband (not sure if that's the right term?) calls and SMS/MMS. Basically those only work in "3G" mode and won't work if your carrier requires VoLTE.
Lack of an open source IMS is also problematic for some other Android distros as well (and why flashing a newer GSI ROM to an older handset won't necessarily give you VoLTE).
And don't even get me started on the complete fustercluck that is RCS 😠
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That's funny I've had several Android apps run fine under Linux mobile OSes.
I'm not going to say they're ready for general public daily use but there's no reason they one day couldn't be? There's a foundation there. With a good enthusiast community we could get it to the point that it's at least useable for power users and grow from there.
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It's been years, and I still miss windowsphone so much. I knew we were fucked when they axed it and iPhone and android were already starting to stall out with a duopoly.
At one point, we had blackberry, some form of meego, Windowsphone, android and iOS, as well as niche things like jolla and sailfish.
Eh? Microsoft and Windowsphone basically killed the only real alternative to Android and iOS when they did their hostile takeover of Nokia, and Windowsphone itself was an atrocity that luckily died rather quickly.
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Hopping Linux phones gets a spot this decade.
We need to talk about them more. A lot of the time when developers go through the efforts of actually building apps rarely do they receive attention. It causes the feelings of “why continue this if nobody else cares.”
Artists want their works appreciated.
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So is there any mobile OS out there you could confidently recommend as a daily driver?
Nope. Go back to dumb phones and carry laptop for stuff you'd need smartphone for.
Does not work for everything.
In my country we use an app to identify ourselves online but also in a shop, e.g. when picking up packages. It is called BankID.
Many of these purposes would not work on a laptop and if they do it would require you to use their proprietary dongle, or whatever that is called, to input a certain code. So you got another extra device to carry around.
These guys won't give a fuck about making a linux compatible app for this.
Sounds pretty stupid, never underestimate humanity to fuck up swimming in the ocean and laying in the sun.
Norway? I used to have a standalone token for BankID when I lived there, but that was until 2011.
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For some people Ubuntu Touch or FuriOS (Droidian) might do it, but there is no option that covers each an every daily driver use-case, so there isn't really an answer for your question (iOS for example doesn't cover my daily driver use-case at all).
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I think that right now the best option is probably sailfish. Although I haven't tried it in years, I have just been following the topic since then. PostmarketOS is cool but I haven't tried it, would like to. UB ports is probably also worth looking into. Hardware is going to matter, these projects typically target a few devices.
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My plan going forward is to either make or buy a basic small cyberdeck type system. Using my phone as basically little more than a glorified cellular modem. Or for isolated calls or SMS.
Looking at investing in and setting up some mesh halow infrastructure at home and a couple other places to reduce the need for the cellular modem part a bit more.
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I find it amusing that I don't "sideload" at all on my linux phone, rather, basically everything I want is already in the repos.
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First of all we need a way to install linux on android phones. They're literally souped-up Raspberry-Pis with battery backups.
I'm beginning to think that my next phone will be a (relatively) dumb phone that can do bluetooth + wifi tethering to a small linux tablet.
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I want one. I wish any had great hardware. Like Snapdragon 8 gen 3 level soc
To add why I want great hardware. A Linux phone needs a mainstream draw and I think gaming can be it. What I see on Android going on with GameFusion and Winlator, with a real Linux phone, such a thing could be way more streamlined especially if such a device draws in way more interest in open source drivers for mobile GPUs - Adreno, Mali, PowerVR.
Besides that, I think there needs to be some default apps that are good even if not Libre or whatever. By default some company should come out with a phone that has Flathub(something that filters to applications that they declare they're mobile disaply and touchscreen friendly), Signal, Element (something Matrix to replace Discord), and the basic applications things come with. Gallery, dialer, SMS/MMS/RCS application, camera, calendar, email client etc. The application store needs to facilitate payments in some way. Whether it's crypto or paypal or GNU Taler or whatever. Facilitate developers to have a path to get paid for their work
Right now the only company coming close to having the software services is Proton. Company with hardware clout it missing. Don't know if Valve would ever consider doing something with Plasma Mobile seeing as SteamOS already ships with KDE Plasma. That would be the dream. Ship it with Steam configured with FEX/proton
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I still have high hopes for the Open WebOS project.
WebOS was amazing. I didn't know what performance was until I touched a WebOS phone
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"Corporate needs you to install this app on your phone..."
Then buy me a phone to install it on. No way I'm putting corporate anything on my personal.
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