• cm0002@lemmy.world
    30·
    9 days ago

    It’s never going to be the year of the Linux phone until there’s one that actually has specs to do the things the majority of people want

    Thus far, all the Linux phones I’ve seen had laughable specs. There’s the Liberux NEXX, but it’s still at the concept stage

      • otacon239@lemmy.world
        10·
        9 days ago

        Step one is making it exist, step 2 is making it marketable and scalable. Expecting this for competitive pricing in the early stages is unrealistic. Until there’s a real market for truly open phones pushed with millions in marketing to go along with competitive hardware that takes ages to develop, the well-priced phone will remain laden with unauthorized changes, tracking and advertising. This is all before you get software developers on board before it actually sells to people.

        Unless all you need are phone calls or text messaging. That could probably be done at a reasonable price. There’s probably already several decent projects out there to homebrew that.

          • otacon239@lemmy.world
            7·
            9 days ago

            Great example. But if you’ve seen videos on them, most people wouldn’t be willing to use it. It’s not about getting nerds like us to buy one, it’s about getting someone used to the latest iPhone to use it.

            • pastermil@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              9 days ago

              Where are this video? I’d like to see it, honestly.

              I’ve tried searching for it, and I couldn’t even find any real person (outside of ads) actually getting their hands on it.

              • otacon239@lemmy.world
                2·
                9 days ago

                Many come up when searching Pinephone Pro on YouTube. I don’t want to link any in particular because I can’t vouch for them, but they’re definitely out there. And they’re all about 3 years old.

                I watched a few when it was new and it was clear it was for geeks. The killer for me is banking. Until banks are onboard with mobile check deposit, I probably can’t see them fully taking off.

  • Kokesh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    292·
    8 days ago

    When I first saw this… This is like a very very bad free Android icon pack. Makes the phone straight unusable. Can you actually switch to the normal “theme”? My wife unfortunately has an iPhone and I, as an IT guy in the family, usually get blamed for OS updates on her phone, whenever something becomes different. This won’t go down easily :)

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
    271·
    8 days ago

    I’m very open to being an early adopter of mobile Linux phones. I’ve been unable to because of a couple of factors. I last seriously checked about half a year ago so take this with a pinch of salt.

    • Limited support for specific models. This means that the phone will work as a computer but won’t have the correct drivers for gyro, sim and whatnot.
    • Lack of extensive driver support. Phones turn off components to save power, this was not supported the last time I checked and halves the battery life compared to stock android.
    • Waydroid support incomplete. Many apps will work but some apps will bug out. Waydroid also has performance issues so it’s not as good as WINE for example.
    • Not big enough community. A lot of models are maintained by a single dev that checks in every blue moon.

    To get a Linux phone to be competitive on performance we’ll need to get driver APIs and component lists open sourced so it’ll be easier to gather the appropriate info and make drivers.

    There has been tons of progress though, Gnome and KDE have really strong touch support now and the apps scale decently.

    It’s coming but now fairphone is the only phone that openly supports Linux mobile distros and is open sourced.

    • squaresinger@lemmy.world
      5·
      7 days ago

      I’m very open to being an early adopter of mobile Linux phones.

      vs

      the rest of your post

      What you are trying to say is you are very open to be a late adopter of mobile Linux phones, adopting a Linux phone when it actually works.

      Early adopters are those who tough out the crap. The issue with Linux phones is they’ve been stuck in early adopter land for the last 20 years.

      • Caveman@lemmy.world
        1·
        7 days ago

        I’m up for installing Linux on my last phone when it’s added to the list of devices that have official/unofficial support. I’m not going to install anything until WiFi and mobile data is supported tbh.

        I tried installing Ubuntu touch for fun a couple of years ago but it didn’t boot. I just want to get to a point where I can install the OS and send bug reports.

        • squaresinger@lemmy.world
          2·
          7 days ago

          I get what you are saying, but unless you buy a specific linux phone with some semblance of professional support (e.g. Pinephone) this won’t really get better. The best time to buy a Linux phone was a bit over 10 years ago when Canonical still actually supported Ubuntu Touch. That was pretty much the last time there was any serious effort in that regard. Since then it’s just been hobbyists doing hobby things in hobby quality.

    • ludicolo@lemmy.mlEnglish
      13·
      8 days ago

      Are you just using web login for everything then? Like for banking and such?

      How do you navigate Incompatibilities?

      • RachelRodent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        1·
        6 days ago

        My banking app works just fine but probs specific to mine. android apps run just well. I don’t have much problems to navigate

    • Turret3857@infosec.pubEnglish
      4·
      7 days ago

      Are you in the US? If yes, which band (GSM/CDMA) and which phone? Ive been wanting to get off of pixels & Android for ages but I’m scared of not being able to actually use my phone as a phone.

  • Kronusdark@lemmy.worldEnglish
    212·
    9 days ago

    iOS developer here and I would switch in a heartbeat but unfortunately it’s not about the OS, it’s about the software that runs on the OS.

    Most devs wont build for an OS that doesn’t have an audience. And users will put up with a lot of OS junk for their apps.

    So it’s gonna be up to someone to make a linux phone and use their wallet to kickstart a software ecosystem. One won’t happen without the other, at least not at the scale of Google or Apple.

  • lefixxx@lemmy.world
    192·
    8 days ago

    I am so considering starting to experiment with an Linux phone. But it will be a long time until it can do contactless payments, bank apps, safe biometrics and heavy apps. Now that I think about it,it shouldn’t be impossible.

    • LeTak@feddit.org
      5·
      8 days ago

      SailfishOS (on Sony Xperia 10) and UbuntuTouch exist. Also the PinePhone but that is low low end.

    • Turret3857@infosec.pubEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      I would say give up on contactless if you ever want to use a Linux phone. In addition to the fact that if youre in the US Google/Apple/Samsung are definitely selling your spending habits to the highest bidder, I see no future short of world peace where banks agree to work with FOSS devs to create a secure enough system for wireless payment to work.

      Get a thin case and put your card in it numbers facing in. It works the same :P

      • lefixxx@lemmy.world
        1·
        7 days ago

        Sorry but having to carry a wallet is a big trade-off for me. I would give up a lot of data for the convenience I have been enjoying for years of not carrying a single card.

          • lefixxx@lemmy.world
            1·
            7 days ago

            When apple pay became a thing (and gov wallet app soon after) my distilled wallet had three bank cards and 1 ID.

            My phone wallet now has 10 bank cards, gov ID, drivers license and 4 loyalty cards and 1 transit related info card.

            • Turret3857@infosec.pubEnglish
              2·
              7 days ago

              10 bank cards? how many accounts do you have 😵‍💫

              I can’t speak to living that lifestyle, but I can at least share that there are options for loyalty cards on Android/Linux. I just have my one bank card I use and my ID. I bring my wallet when I know I need something in it.

  • MynameisAllen@lemmy.zip
    14·
    9 days ago

    Unfortunately American, meaning Linux phones need to have VOLTE for them to you know, be phones. Until then I’m stuck on grapheneOS

  • Anna@lemmy.ml
    121·
    8 days ago

    Wasn’t it always the year of Linux phones like Android has huge share of market and it is running Linux kernel but with Google spyware. Now it’s just Apple Spyware.

      • Anna@lemmy.ml
        5·
        8 days ago

        I’ve been using custom ROMs since Cyanogen Mod 14. I know. But still the share of google spyware is high.

      • neketos851@sopuli.xyz
        4·
        8 days ago

        without the proprietary google services package yes, but not entirely free from google. one obv example is connectivity check that pings google is still there as far as im aware (please feel free to correct)

        • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
          7·
          8 days ago

          Yeah, I don’t care to dunk on them, but you don’t exactly need a UI design degree to see that the contrast between background and foreground is far too low…

          • accideath@feddit.org
            91·
            8 days ago

            It’s also the very first developer beta. There’s about 3 months left until release and Apple does occasionally listen to feedback. iOS has noticeably changed from dev beta to release on occasion in the past as well. I hope it does this time as well. I really like the principle of the liquid glass design but yea… this isn’t great…

          • poinck@lemm.ee
            1·
            8 days ago

            There seems to be a global option to reduce opacity, too. Anyway, I agree, contrast and readability is a problem with ideas like that.

            Now, Phosh and Gnome look even better and more usable in comparison. But without Android apps or open APIs for all major services (to build native apps), postmarketOS can never be my daily driver for now.

            At least, iOS changes like that increase the chance that the postmarketOS ecosystem will catch up. I whish I had the time or ressources to contribute in any fashion.

            • Ephera@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              8 days ago

              People here are saying that Waydroid works quite well for running Android apps on mobile Linux.

              I tried postmarketOS a few months ago on my SHIFT6mq and for me, the dealbreaker was that I couldn’t get my SIM card to connect, so no mobile internet and no calls. As I understand, this strongly varies between phone models, though.
              Aside from that, I did like what I saw a lot. I used Plasma Mobile and that was a more competent UI than stock Android, because well, it is essentially just Plasma with some tweaks. Felt a lot more like the pocket computer I never knew I wanted.

  • IsoSpandy@lemm.ee
    5·
    8 days ago

    Guys. I have a samsung m30s. The problem with it is its usb port must be kept at a specific angle… So i bought a new phone.

    Now I am thinking of installing Linux on it. How can I go about it?

    I like plasma on my desktop.

    TLDR: How to install Linux on Samsung M30s

    • Turret3857@infosec.pubEnglish
      4·
      7 days ago

      Too In-Depth; Didn’t Research (Tid;Dr) response:

      Can your bootloader be unlocked?

      if no, no linux

      if yes, is someone developing Ubuntu Touch, Manjaro Mobile, PostmarketOS etc. for it?

      if no, learn how to port linux

      if yes find their documentation and follow it

      Quality/Results may vary

    • squaresinger@lemmy.world
      2·
      7 days ago

      Tbh, unless you want to suffer A LOT, the best option is to get any Android phone, install Termux and on top install any Linux distro you like (if you want easy mode, pay for Andronix which helps with installation).

      Then you just run your Linux distro in a container on Android and view its virtual screen using a VNC viewer app.

      That way you get a fully-working Android phone that can run most Linux apps without breaking your main phone use case. The only thing you are really lacking is low-level access because it’s running in a root-less proot container. So no hardware acceleration or other fancy hardware stuff.