No thanks, I’d rather use a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS
Image transcription:
buy privacy-first community driven phone look inside closed source OS with no recovery image and outdated dependencies
I wish there was an up to date linux phone/tablet alternative. We are kind of lucky that there is still a google alternative. The closer google gets, the worse our choices get. And with the dev speed of google and apple, it is really hard to keep up with them. Even many basics are still missing on linux or a free android.
The Fairphone can run Linux, can’t it?
But not everything works. One user is regularly posting updates (I think in [email protected]) about getting all devices of their FP to work. They are making progress but it’s still tedious work and if they ever lose interest or something happens to them it can be years until someone capable can pick up the torch.
Man, I just want a pocketable device with Linux on it, with cell Bluetooth wifi gps antennas that can send and receive texts, calls and data. I don’t care about individual apps. If services can be reached via a browser, I’m good.
Ubuntu touch has a widr selection of devices that are 90% completed and at the bareminimum do what you want.
You don’t even need a shitty slow phone. Some of the oneplus phones work and they run on a snapdragon 845-865 which are the golden standard when it comes to emulation and other harder processes. I think the 845’s source code got leaked too so often projects will only work for that chip.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Commodore Callback . Looks pretty good. I would just need Android Auto with CoMaps to work and I’ll buy it.
i really hope fairphone themselves picks it up. it would be incredible if fp7 (or 8, give them time) could be 100% (or close) compatible with linux out of the box. even if it required closed source blobs for like the radios or whatever. they can still ship with the option of regular android to not scare off the normies
i put postmarket on my fp5 and it runs pretty damn well. with a little more polish it absolutly could be my daily driver. it is very close.
i know its a lot to hope for, but i think faiphone is in a unique position to do this if they ever decided to.
I love PMOS, but isn’t it AOSP under the hood?
According to Distrowatch and Wikipedia it is based on Alpine Linux.
i dont think so… you need waydroid to run android apps. i think its proper linux…
Good to know! I haven’t been able to try one yet, so I wasn’t sure.
I mean it can… but it’s not exactly in the same universe as a somewhat polished user experience
Its pretty abysmal in the way of hardware security, and software. The gOS team did a deep dive on alternative devices to the pixel. Only device even close to the pixel was Samsung, but well… Samsung hates their consumers it seems and refuses to open their devices.
Yeah. Also PinePhone and Librem Phone.
From what I’ve seen the various Linux OSes for phones are pretty poor for real use, most features missing, unstable, very poor security, and so on.
Me too. The mobile space is stuck between two dogshit OSes. Gnome is doing good work in this space which is nice to see.
KDE is doing some impressive work lately too
Also good nees :)
I keep hoping if I say it enough I can will it into existence but I really think that thr steam frame is going to usher in a community made phone/tablet that runs on arch and uses fex just like the steam frame does.
So many community projects poped up on github when the steam deck was released, and people been using proton in third party apps. Hell other distros have their own “steam deck” mode that just boots into big picture mode. I truely think that fex, and the work valve is putting into(or funding) arm64, is going to be more valuable than the steam frame itself. Gamehub app is already using the work valve put in with fex, and arm translation layers you can play red dead on a modern mid range pocco phone at 720p fps. And that’s the exe PC version not the Netflix apk.
Is /e/OS out of date?
Out of date is subjective.
It’s not only the OS itself but the ecosystem. There is no free RCS app on android.
There is no “state of the art” (or even close to it) app for free Banking, Crypto, translation, tax reporting (Germany), car navigation, social hiking/biking/sports, not even public broadcasting, free news apps are lacking features, …
I donate to many apps but it’s not enough. There are amazing people and apps and ecosystems out there but it’s hard to keep up.
Mine just updated today. Its been working out for me and my family for 6ish months now. Cant complain.
Making an operable phone would be (relatively) easy enough. The trouble comes with trying to make it compatible with all the apps and app stores out there, because people expect their phones to be able to download and run various apps that every other phone can. Sometimes they need it to.
The apps are a solved problem. It’s the other way around. Getting a phone or tablet with an soc that has mainline Linux support is hard. It takes forever for all that stuff to settle in mainline and manufacturers will not help.
The apps are far from a solved problem. Otherwise, alternative mobile OSes would not have such a hard time, even if you look beyond mainline Linux. The issue are banking and ID apps, which can work but also may not work.
They can work. They are designed not to. Because there are philosophical differences over what kind of access each should have.
Websites still work. You don’t need an app. You need a bookmark.
I know that the could work. But that is a philosophical distinction if they don’t work. You preach to the wrong guy. I removed all these banking and ID apps from my daily driver because I don’t see why I should put that kind of stuff on my phone to begin with but I am a minority. Banking apps require the app, bookmarks won’t cut it and yes they don’t work because some banks (not all mind you) don’t want them to work which makes no difference to the end user though.
We do need an open security standard and then the only way how we could break out of the duopoly is by the EU forcing companies to use that open standard, at least additionally to the US based solutions. That would break the duopoly.
The most fascinating thing is how some in the open source community go wild against a tiny player delivering one of the most daily driveable phones with an OS other than from the big-tech duopoly (besides Huawei but that’s another topic). It doesn’t help that a system that is partially closed source (with the closed parts basically being only the home screen UI and the qt implementation) is misleadingly called “closed source OS”.
Especially the frenzy within the GrapheneOS community in this regard is curious.
Why can’t everyone just choose what they prefer without firing in frenzy against other small alternative OS projects as if they were made by the devil?
I really like the idea of the Jolla and am seriously considering getting one. I’m also the exact target audience (Linux nerd, privacy conscious, FOSS advocate, want to own MY device fully, hate having to use a US-based duopoly in my current daily life).
That’s exactly why I don’t understand their decision to keep parts of their system closed. The overlap between people who want a Linux phone and who are OK with that Linux phone not being fully open seems to be tiny.
I can’t talk for Jolla. What I do know is that they have opened up meaningful parts in recent times. Even the one major remaining closed part, the UI, had important parts open sourced recently, with open sourcing of Lipstick.
I don’t think they will open source everything in the near future but possibly the qt environment might be on the list to come. If that were to happen the only essential part remaining would really be the home screen I think. So it is really that, are you purist and consider that a knock-out criterion or do you also have no problem with using closed source components with desktop Linux distributions?
I’m not really that purist - I’ll use closed-sourced software when necessary. For example, I have Davinci Resolve and Bitwig Studio installed. Sure I would prefer if those were open, but the target audience here are creatives, who largely won’t care.
On the other hand, Jolla is trying to sell exactly to those people that DO care, which makes the choice so hard to understand and support.
I’ve been using Linux and Graphene for a long time and welcome all third party OS phones not controlled by Google and Apple. Jolla never marketed theirs in the USA and it always seemed more like a prototype phone for hobbyists more than a daily driver (same as all of the others).
This will probably continue to be the case until someone with deep pockets in the USA does a deal with a friendly phone OEM who makes a decent quality product and a mobile OS group who can make it at least as user friendly as Android. Considering the Byzantine labyrinth that Android’s user interface is today, the last part should not be that difficult.
I did get the new Jolla Phone as a daily driver and for my use case I even manage to use it fully natively and it does what I need it for. It does have some smaller bugs and some rought edges but it doesn’t feel like a prototype. I don’t have experience with other alternative systems but if I look at the postmarket wiki and they don’t list a single phone that is not meaningfully compromised in key functions, then I don’t think that it is the same as Sailfish OS on the new Jolla Phone.
Still can’t get over the closed-source OS part. How do you know its privacy-first if you can’t verify it?
Better to support the smaller company than continue with the bigger ones until perfection is reached.
Blatant ragebait
7/10?
isn’t sailfish open source since 2016?
SailfishOS’s underlying system and applications are open source. Jolla has a proprietary UI and android compatibility layer they run on top of it. The UI can be replaced with open source community ones. Its similar to Android in its open source nature.
oh right, it’s the compat thing.
Android compatibility layer is called App Support and is a licensed version of AlienDalvik. It’s only available on officially supported phones (Jolla’s own and some Sony Experia).
They also license it to car manufacturers, which is probably why that bit is not open-source. It’s a big source of income for them.
The automotive OS is a different product called Seafarix marketed through a separate partnership.
Don’t know how it is with this phone but they usually use an Android kernel which means you are beholden to the hardware supplier for device drivers. That generally means that you are stuck with a horribly outdated kernel.
I don’t trust Google hardware. No graphene
Me neither. Feels like a fucking psyop, accounts on social media constantly pushing a phone made by the least trustworthy, least privacy-minded company on the entire planet.
Plus ~700€, you can get a used foldable Pixel for that price or brand new Pixel with the option of flashing a more secure and trusted OS then Sailfish.
Why don’t they at least try to strike deals with the EU telco companies. This is how many of phones started here.
You can do that but is it so strange to consider that some people out that don’t want Android also don’t want to stuff money into Google for hardware? Also, not everyone’s priority is a hardened phone, some might just want a tinker phone with a terminal and linux environment, that also just works as a phone.
Then install Linneage, Graphene is for those who want security and privacy, if you just want to tinker there’s plenty options.
Though, Graphene agrees with you, that’s why they’re working with Moto to get all their HW requirements in one of their phones, last I heard “2027.”
I’m more annoyed that they haven’t responded to any of my attempts to contact them since March
So I tried sailfish os on a volla s23 and I was kind of underwhelmed by it. I didn’t spend much time there, the community port didn’t support the proprietary software I would of had to use waydroid which I felt like defeated the point. So I am not sure I gave it enough time or a proper chance.
To me sailfish os felt much more like a solid phone experience, but with Ubuntu touch I felt much more comfortable, and felt more versatile. Though the experience with Ubuntu touch felt much more like a computer with a horrible gnome interface that is not intuitive, and you never get used to it.
I hear people say a lot of good things about sailfish and I wish I knew what I was looking for, because I was underwhealmed and I really really want a solid Linux phone. Graphene os is cool but in the long run I feel its best to remove ourselves from android, and also a Linux phone is already the perfect cyberdeck so its just cool.
I do prefer a Fairphone, a Librem Phone or a PinePhone with postmarketOS though. Install Niri or MauiShell and Waydroid to it and you have pretty much it.
Furiphone also looks promising
Yeayea. Shiftphone is another big promise I think.
PS: Wtf, why did my comment got deleted 😭
First time seeing shiftphone, looks promising.
I’m glad to have been able to spread the voice then. 😄 It’s a project that in particular makes me very excited.
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dont have a smart phone. get a land line. write letters. if your job requires you have a cellphone. no you dont, get a new job. or live illegally in a handmade cabin in the woods.
better yet, deny your brain oxygen until you are legally brain dead. that way the government cant read your thoughts.
i would say you can thank me later, but if you follow my advice, you likely wont be able to. so, you’re welcome.
how much is the NSA paying you
not enough :/
