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:
- Sailfish🇫🇮
- FuriOS🇺🇸
- Ubuntu Touch🇩🇪
- Postmarket OS🇨🇭
- Mobian
- Pure OS🇺🇸
- Plasma Mobile🇩🇪
- LuneOS
- openSUSE Mobile🇩🇪
- Nemomobile
- Droidian
- Mobile NixOS
- ExpidusOS
- Maemo Leste
- Manjaro Arm
- Tizen
- WebOS
Linux Mobile Hardware:
- Jolla Phone🇫🇮
- Shift Phone🇩🇪
- FLX1🇺🇸
- Fairphone 5🇳🇱
- Volla Phone🇩🇪
- Librem 5🇺🇸
⚙️Contribute
🧼Go Clean From the Duopoly:
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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.
Friend had a fairphone (no google version) worked well, with like a quirk or so. Sounds quite close to a really good phone.
Fairphone uses stock Android, or /e/os, which is degoogled Android.
Fairphone 5 and 4 have support for SailfishOS, which is Linux. Some closed parts, but nothing from Google.
I have FP6, will try Sailfish when available.
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.
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
Your research: "Linux subs and communities". You LiGNUts should stay out of tech conversations because all you know is propaganda. "All Eyes on Code" finally died. -the rest needs to too.
what are you saying right now? you're not making sense. i work in securing networks for children's data though. and there's nothing we can do to get the kids' data safe if they access our systems on our phones so we recommend chrome on a desktop computer because we presume they won't have the technical knowledge to harden a browser and chrome is set up, by default, a little more securely (though not as privately) as firefox
You didn't try a search engine did you? -Why didn't they test you for that before hiring you?
first result, specific to banking, i got from a forensic expert:
this is pretty in alignment with our forensic research for network hardening when it comes to kid data, too. a phone is just a snitch that lives in your pocket. the less you do from it, the more secure you'll be. you should really only be doing critical things, like banking and logging into your labor or educational institution, from trusted hardware on a trusted network. phones are fine for looking up business hours, interesting tidbits, and the like, but you shouldn't do anything you specific that matters to your life if you can help it.
Lol, pick out why tiny possible scenario where it's clearly user fault, and ignore the mountain of other issues with full blown browsers. Browsers don't even safely save passwords by default in Linux. -They're stored as plain text files.
NEVER SAVE YOUR PASSWORD IN BROWSER REGARDLESS!! holy shit!! it's like you actively seek bad behavior patterns to prove your point. you should disable saving passwords as one of the first things you do when you install a browser, regardless of OS. i recommend using keepass for users who really care about privacy and security and 1password for users who can't be arsed to learn this stuff
Conspiracy theorist crap that most people aren't using or need. -But it does go back to what I said about apps on smart phones being safer huh? -I am addressing the normies you LiGNUts try to recruit, and not the paranoid hacks that Linux users are.
Huh?
Can you elaborate on how banking is “safer” on smart phones than Windows and Linux?
Apps are more locked down than a browser that does everything. 2 factor authentication automatically. There's more but you should learn to use a search engine especially if you use Linux.
you've misunderstood the research and shouldn't be admonishing people for not using a search engine when clearly you didn't. an app is more secure than a mobile browser, but neither are more secure than a workstation browser. you are spreading misinformation when you pronounce stuff like this that you clearly didn't put the work in to understand
Loonix propaganda. -It's like getting all your information from a conspiracy theorist site. -It's why Linux evangelists are called conspiracy theorists.
i haven't said shit about linux, and you will even note i said my company's official position is to recommend proprietary software like chrome. i'm saying to use a desktop, not a phone, regardless of phone os and desktop os.
you're just saying stuff at this point and if you keep it up i'll be blocking you because none of what you're saying has anything to do with what i'm saying
Oh, please block me if you can't manage an actual tech discussion.
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.
Hence why I specified OSM being better in densely populated regions! It is a good point that, depending where you live, OSM could be a pretty inaccurate mapping tool. If you want, you could help contribute to OSM for your region! (There's a few apps available that gameifies it if you're into that)
In Hong Kong, where I grew up in, everything is well mapped and all the MTR stations are labeled. And during my short trip to Germany, I was able to find a relatively obscure restaurant in Munich.
I live in a 20M city, it's pretty densely populated :)
Yeah, I did make some contributions to OSM but eventually dropped out due to not actually using it myself.
That might actually be a good bot project; just slowly going through Google maps and trying to update missing information from OSM like road type, lane width, etc.
Doesn't mean it still sucks. I want it to be better and use it occasionally and try to help. It still sucks needs a long way to improve and realistically probably never well.