this post was submitted on 25 Sep 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:
- Postmarket OS
- Ubuntu Touch
- Mobian
- Sailfish
- Manjaro Arm
- Pure OS
- Plasma Mobile
- LuneOS
- FuriOS
- Nemomobile
- Droidian
- Mobile NixOS
- ExpidusOS
- Maemo Leste
- Tizen
- WebOS
Linux Mobile Hardware:
- Fairphone 5
- Volla Phone
- Librem 5
- PinePhone
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Asking the question I was wondering about too. If Google wants to kill AOSP eventually that's all fine and dandy but that doesn't stop people from forking it and continuing its development. And that way, at least, we don't end up with another Windows Phone conundrum where the OS is perfectly fine but will eventually die due to lack of app compatibility (although Windows Phone's demise was helped by some truly knuckleheaded executive decisions too to be fair).
Or, failing this, all Linux phones need a flawless Android emulation layer similar to Proton for Windows games, because I am afraid it will be a significantly steep uphill battle otherwise.
We have already tons of apps for Linux.. And soo many "apps” are already just fancy websites in a container..
FirefoxOS for phones was such a great idea
I am so sad it did mot take off, was a great concept
Tonns of apps for linux are made with PC UX in mind and thus completely unusable on the phone.
I disagree
I have a pinePhone pro, and I love using desktop UI Apps on it. But it is too slow and has too less battery for me to be usable
But I love high DPI on small screen without Zoom
I must confess, that I currently use an iPhone as daily driver, but to come back to the topic, I have a 12mini and my browser is set to 50% all the time.
Someone is trying to revive FirefoxOS: https://capyloon.org/
(and it kinda survives to this day as KaiOS on feature phones).
@poVoq @Petter1 Rather someone was trying until 2023 looking at their repos.
I’ll undust my pinePhone pro and flash it on it
🤔 maybe even worth filming it for peertube
I know most apps are just webview2 these days, but since more and more companies are forcing their consumers to use apps by either gimping their websites outright or forcing users to use 2FA based on their own app, app support is vital for any mobile platform.
I speak from experience - I kept using my Nokia Lumia 1020 Windows Phone until the bitter end, which came when the government ID app stopped being supported on my device and I had to switch to keep being able to connect to the vast majority of services (Sweden's BankID system is both a blessing and a curse this way).
But I cannot order a car on my desktop, or check my bank balance.
I don't understand why that is the case.
Do banks in your country not have net-banking? You know, when you can just login using your user account and password and then just download a pdf of your transactions report?
The likes of Razorpay (this came to mind because Steam) and other merchant payment processors can connect to this bank-provided interface for transferring money without even having to give anyone your credit/debit card information.
Can't use web ux without phone.
Oh, you mean the OTP thingy, which is probably an SMS solution (which is a pretty bad idea as is)?
Or is it that you require a smartphone to be able to open the webpage?
Neither.
emulation layer is the way to go IMO, best of all the worlds.
Absolutely 100% agree. Rosetta and Proton are great examples of how native-like emulation can be implemented to help support platform transitions.
best part is that it's also inherently a way to preserve old software, it's way easier to get ancient windows games running in proton than it is on actual native windows.