this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2025
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Do you dislike your dependency on Android? To the rescue comes Mobile Linux "PostmarketOS" - Funded via Donations (link to 2025 Priorities -> Focus on Reliabilty, Audi, Camera, etc) (postmarketos.org)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by juergen@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
101 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A notable mention is https://ubports.com/en/ which is different from postmarketos in a sense that ubports uses old kernels with heavy patches. That means: good support for things, but difficult future.

PostmarketOS uses the newest kernels and tries to integrate their patches into mainline kernel, so that the reliability is maintained with all kernel developers.

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[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (3 children)

It’s much less effort to have something based on Android open source project though.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's also less interesting.

Using regular Linux means you can do a ton of stuff you currently can't on Android:

  • plug in a USB hub and use it like a desktop - Steam Deck does this
  • run regular desktop/server software - want a portable Minecraft server? Go for it!
  • do things w/ btrfs snapshots so you can restore phone state if you mess something up (e.g. I accidentally uninstalled an app and lost settings)
  • keep getting security updates long past when anyone in their right mind expects to get them

Android is already FOSS, and you can get phones with minimal stuff on top of the FOSS core. That's cool I guess, and I use one such distro (GrapheneOS), but it's still Android at the end of the day. I want something different, but I still want basic phone stuff to work (calls, SMS, MMS, camera, etc).

[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think the problem is there’s just too much work that needs to be put in these things and people don’t really think about it. Android has at this point almost 2 decades of refining the experience for phones, so it’s a good starting point.

But the most important thing I guess is software. People often neglect how much time and effort is put to refine software to the point it becomes polished and bug free. Android has a mature stack to build apps that is very difficult to replicate.

But to be more clear I didn’t mean just getting a degoogled Android and settle with it. Android could also evolve in other ways that aren’t in Google’s interest, such as allowing you to have a sort of Dex that’s actually a Linux Desktop Environment.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 points 2 days ago

The thing is, I don't really care about Android apps, and honestly supporting them probably adds a bunch of limitations since they have a lot of expectations on the system.

I just want an immutable base system w/ flatpaks, a basic dialer, a robust SMS/MMS app, Firefox, and good enough battery life (15 hours w/ moderate screen on time). Basically, openSUSE Aeon or Fedora Silverblue with phone-specific apps.

I'm happy to help port the various software I want to use, but I need the phone to work as a phone first.

[–] commander@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

Realistically, I would probably try a google free Android long before I'd try a more pure linux phone

[–] mesamunefire@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Ive tried a couple of times, ended up bricking a phone and had to re-do another. Linux phones are hard to get set up (for certain models).