Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a powerlessness to using Android. It's difficult to just do things. Even windows feels more "free." Phone OSes are built like prisons. Ideally Android would let you drop into a real shell, without having to deal with android sandboxing. Regardless, I use termux and tasker to get my automations done.
What are the main things you can do in a real shell versus termux for instance? It's a pretty big sandbox in my experience.
I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
111–120 of 539 posts
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#112I've tried a few times over the years to make Ubuntu Touch work. God how bad I wanted it to work here in the US. The lack of apps and VoLTE support really soured me on it ever working here. If you're outside of the US, the availability of useable mobile OS's outside of Android and iOS is pretty abundant compared to the situation here in the US.
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
For starters, the Librem 5 costs $799. The Liberty Phone is a version manufactured in the USA, which is not something everyone will care about. Also, PinePhone is so much slower than Librem 5, which in practice feels closer to the (now discontinued) PinePhone Pro. Their specs only seem similar on paper, and only if you don't dig into the details. Though of course, Librem 5 being a 2019 design isn't a speed demon thes…
> PinePhone is so much slower than Librem 5 They're the same specs. Pinephone Pro has more cores, ram, and storage. > Their specs only seem similar on paper, and only if you don't dig into the details. What do you mean?
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Number of devices fully supported: 0 Oh, you linked to Fairphone 4, let's see: - battery: partial - audio: partial - camera: partial - fingerprint: broken postmarketOS device support is a joke, they couldn't even get ONE vendor to support the OS..
I'd say the OnePlus 6 is fully supported so it's one device at least (the stuff that isn't on it is minor). Mainlining is very hard though so the results are expected
I highly recommend keeping an eye on postmarketOS blog. [1] It's a fun reading, and development's been really rapid lately.
What stopped me from full migration to pmOS the last time I tried it about a year ago was poor support of Magisk and Xposed in Waydroid, two things I can't imagine using Android apps without.
But! With some tricks you can get pmOS dualboot on OP6. [2] Haven't tried it, but looks amazing.
I think with the current direction and velocity, pmOS is going to get really close to Android in usability on supported hardware in the next couple of years. Except for power saving parity that never gonna happen.
[1] https://postmarketos.org/blog/
[2] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/OnePlus_6_(oneplus-enchil...
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#115Windows Phone was a great idea and worked so well. But it was killed by the fact that people didn't want to maintain apps for 3 platforms. Nowadays when most of the things runs on web/electron anyway, isn't this the time to rediscover that idea? Make something novel? RTOS like response like blackberry, secure, fully opensource and such? With the era of LLM accelerated developement (don't crucify me), this wouldn't be…
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#116I really want to love mobile Linux, and have given it multiple shots before. But I just don't see how it will catch up with iOS/Android in the same way it caught up with Windows/Mac: - OEMs have poured an enormous amount of resources into the camera software, Linux cameras are years behind from what I understand. - Android/iOS have thoroughly optimized the UX in all sorts of subtle ways, the big one being their keybo…
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#117I really want to love mobile Linux, and have given it multiple shots before. But I just don't see how it will catch up with iOS/Android in the same way it caught up with Windows/Mac: - OEMs have poured an enormous amount of resources into the camera software, Linux cameras are years behind from what I understand. - Android/iOS have thoroughly optimized the UX in all sorts of subtle ways, the big one being their keybo…
And all software is replicable.
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#118As daily driving Linux desktop/laptops, I mostly find that android(at least samsung galaxy-flavored) is next gen of Microsoft Windows, in bad ways. At least you can "hack" the Windows to customize something by your own, android does not. Performance also questionable nowadays, not for gaming but browsing purpose for me, may drain more battery than expected. Also MS acknowledges the issues and made statements to fix while I haven't seen samsung's.
Anyway, My opinion is, If you are nerd like me, I would buy one phone that 1) can unlock the bootloader 2) can root 3) at least kernel source available, some companies do not disclose until legal? actions 4) optional, linux port-able (via community) 5) optional, officially supporting linux(not aosp)
and then buy second phone, that has great security support, e.g Apple iPhone or Google Pixel, and use it like a wallet(banking/cam/gps/... I would not like to support other vendors, what if they abandon security patches, and then phone being vulnerable). I believe more android application will be more restrictive than before in the future.
For linux, you own the hardware. Because it's open source, you can audit and harden the every aspects, e.g You might able to use proprietary bluetooth codecs, which vendor disables in android ROM. When AI era, you may able to investigate and mod stuffs which you don't fully understand. This take risks, and we have right to take the risks instead banning it.
Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux
#119I really want to love mobile Linux, and have given it multiple shots before. But I just don't see how it will catch up with iOS/Android in the same way it caught up with Windows/Mac: - OEMs have poured an enormous amount of resources into the camera software, Linux cameras are years behind from what I understand. - Android/iOS have thoroughly optimized the UX in all sorts of subtle ways, the big one being their keybo…
Ive been really annoyed at my iphone keyboard recently because it seems like a slow drift of whatever optimized state it was in was getting slower and slower. It seems to freeze partway thru typing something frequently now.