The Discussion on Linux-based Phones.
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Ironically sourced from google trends data.
I'm currently on Graphene and see it as the only viable option, with maybe Calyx as a second if they get their shit together again. Having another viable option would make me feel a lot better. Go Linux phones.
Linux phones were close to usable some 15 years ago. I owned a device which looked like a bottle of shower gel, worked great but not very stable (forgot the name). I am wondering where the last 15 years went Edit: openmoko neo freerunner, would order one immediately
My N900 ...
<3
And about damn time.
I remember in the early 2010s, when I was still using an older brick phone and looking into smart phones I was thinking 'android or iPhone?' I immediately went on android due to its open source nature and customizability, and I did hear about alternative OSes even, but I didn't get into them.
I should also mention that that is the same argument why I never got into Macs. I am elder millennial who always had computers at home, and always IBM PCs in the 90s and early 2000s. PCs were customizable and anyone could make what they wanted for it. Unlike Macs that were very strictly controlled.
Removing that freedom to do what you want with your own stuff is unacceptable. And while spying on you has been around for a long ass time, seeing the extent that it is getting is making me want to finally be that l33t H@x0R that I envisioned myself I would be in the 90s...
the year of the linux phone is gonna hit before the year of the linux desktop
Well yeah, casual desktop computing is pretty much dead, especially among Gen Z and younger.
The only people who still own PCs these days either do so for a specialized purpose (gaming, video editing, CAD, streaming, DJing, music production, etc.), or simply own one because they're in their 30s or older and that's what they're used to.
gaming, video editing, CAD, streaming, DJing, music production
Those aren't small niche user groups, though.
The ratio of the general population vs. Those groups (with maybe the exception of gaming if we're talking all gaming and not PC gaming) is still pretty high though, enough for the Apples and Googles of the world to pay only passing attention to the Laptop/Desktop market.
That's a lot of users.
Videoconferencing while multitasking. Like online TTRPG and the like. You need the screen real estate. But once you can plug your phone on a dock with monitor, keyboard and mouse, that's gone.
Busted! That's me. Dammit.
Good luck with that. It well be is year x the year of Linux phones.
The attention other mobile platforms are receiving:
Would Linux phones be able to run APK's easily?
I don't see a phone OS beign viable unless it will work with most mobile apps
Easily for sure, but the problem is more with securely. First of all, I saw another commenter said a box is a choice, but atp anbox is dead, the repo is archived and to my knowledge, there is no big fork for it yet. Okay let move on to the next candidate, waydroid, it is good for game/simple app without account etc: things that are not important(so low security requirements). Why? Because waydroid turn off a lot of android security mechanisms in order to achieve their goal of integration android in linux. This make waydroid inherently less secure than real android. Also, if you are installing apk app with stricter requirements check like bank app, they will mostly not going to work. In fact, you don't want to install anything important anyway on waydroid because of the security issues mentioned above.
Oh no, you are right, anbox is deaded :/.
KVMing everything might get taxing.
I mean, you can run APKs on desktop Linux, so I don’t see why not. Plenty of emulators, but also other options like WayDroid, a compatibility layer, or Anbox which puts android in to a container and then merges the system services.
Makes sense, I hope it can be made to work smoothly, I would so love a Linux phone. But would only switch if I can run my banking apps etc. on there
I'm planning to get a fairphone before my current phone dies, so I can try out Linux on a phone and still have a good android phone if it doesn't work out.
I really really hope it does work out though.
Would be amazing if you could dual-boot. Could run Linux as your main, and dual boot to something else for banking apps etc.
You can, with waydroid. It runs nicely and is performant but rather underfeatured (no GPS access/emulation!)
A Linux phone would definitely benefit from being able to run Android apps but Huawei seems to be doing fine with HarmonyOS and as far as I can tell that doesn't run APKs anymore.
What about Lineage?
Don't get me wrong, LineageOS is great, I use it myself. However, LineageOS is primarily made as a way to still receive feature updates on phones no longer supported by the manufacturer. This means that they don't do things like switch DNS checks from Google to someone else, for example.
No uptick unfortunately.
Wow that's kind of cool to see such a spike in Linux mobile.
As a GrapheneOS user, the more platforms of interest, the better :) rooting for you guys!
Heck yeah!!
(I do wonder if like four people searched for it in March)
What's the scale of the graph? 1:1, thousands?
Google doesn't that information.
technically. Just find two search terms with approximate values that you know at literally any point within the graph and you can take a decent stab at it. Combing through articles could offer that information
But how would you know the value of any trend at any time?
Occasionally, articles will mention that a topic was searched “over x times”.
What could have caused the spike in interest?
My guess would be the upcoming changes to installing apps from apps on Android
It seems to correlate with a drop in graphene OS searches (after its own sudden spike)
Perhaps a lot of people read about the uncertainty in Graphene's future and started learning about alternatives