Live data from Hacker News

Will Linux phones stay around this time?

linmob.net

1–10 of 491 posts

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#5
Anyone know of any good Linux phones. Mine is going to be dead soon and for a while I liked Pixel because it didn't have all the Samsung or Motorola or anytime else bloatware, but with what Google has been doing I'd prefer a full Linux phone.

I've looked a Librem but $1500 is kind of hard to justify when I have all my other expenses that come with a young family.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#6
I enjoy the Pinephone, but it certainly has its issues. I’d kill for better performance; it’s very close to usability. I also have some issues with the hardware (it seems my battery has stopped working entirely, recently.)

On the other hand, there is one confounding software issue that I think makes it the hardest as a full replacement for a modern smartphone: push notifications. An equivalent for APNS or FCM that allows for relatively low power consumption, low latency push notifications would need to be devised, financed and actually adopted. It’s nice to imagine a world where apps on phones are like how apps on desktop are and just keep, for example, active WebSocket connections at all times, but this doesn’t appear to be something practical with current technology.

Maybe federated, E2EE push notifications could come into existence? A sort of ActivityPub of pushes... It’s a pipe dream, but one can hope.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#8
post #2

Am I missing something? Every Android phone is running Linux.

Android is not Linux any more than Chrome or Firefox is Linux just because it runs on top of it.

Android 'is linux' is the same way any linux distro 'is linux'.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#9
post #5

Anyone know of any good Linux phones. Mine is going to be dead soon and for a while I liked Pixel because it didn't have all the Samsung or Motorola or anytime else bloatware, but with what Google has been doing I'd prefer a full Linux phone. I've looked a Librem but $1500 is kind of hard to justify when I have all my other expenses that come with a young family. Anyone have any suggestions?

The Pinephone is a nice phone, but still in beta and underpowered to say the least.

Re: Will Linux phones stay around this time?

#10
post #2

Am I missing something? Every Android phone is running Linux.

Depends what is being meant by Linux. Yes they run a variant of the Linux kernel, and there is some commonality in parts of the common libraries, but there are significant differences atop that which makes it quite different to your average desktop Linux.

The overall Android environment isn't Debian, Ubuntu, RedHat, ..., or other GNU/Linux environment.

(the downvotes you currently have there given the graying text are a bit misguided IMO, your misconception is a very common one, one that people in some circles even seen to encourage)

Post reply on HN