Comment by hommelix
2 days ago
> We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device. No root access, remote control by apple and google, all wrong.
There is https://postmarketos.org/
Maybe 2026 will be the year of Linux on mobile phone.
2 days ago
> We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device. No root access, remote control by apple and google, all wrong.
There is https://postmarketos.org/
Maybe 2026 will be the year of Linux on mobile phone.
The list of devices in the highest support category hints at how likely this is. https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
And yeah, you can even buy phones with a non-android linux pre-installed, e.g. from pine64. But they come with all kinds of "for early adopters" warning labels. Deservedly so, in my opinion.
https://commerce.jolla.com/products/jolla-phone-preorder
Hope there's a timeline in which banking and corporate apps can run/be enrolled on that. If the current geopolitical mess from the USA isn't a good-enough reason to make it happen, I don't know what is.
Oh thanks for that link, I didn't know about it, pre-ordered!
Why are all commenters on HN ignoring the only smartphone running an FSF-endorsed [0] operating system, Librem 5, and only list everything else? I just can't get it.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25504641
Because it was a kickstarter that was run like a scam, was years late to deliver the first device, the hardware was already not good at the start due picking an automotive SOC, the form factor was bulky, and the software was really buggy.
GrapheneOS is a much more practical open source OS to use Linux on a phone.
GrapheneOS is not solving the actual interesting problem (running on an entirely mainline kernel, just like on x86). It's effectively a hardened variety of LineageOS/AOSP, hence entirely reliant on device-specific downstream kernels/BSPs that will never see a feature update.
BTW, hardware support on postmarketOS "community" class devices has seen some nice improvements as of late. Once these improvements meaningfully stabilize (avoiding the risk of regression/breakage; there's been some of that even in the recent testing for the 2025-12 stable release) it's quite possible that some "community" devices might finally reach "main" class, marking them as OK for daily-driver use. Something to watch for as we approach 2026-06.
4 replies →
I don't care about the problems they had many years ago. Sent from my daily driver Librem 5.
Because it's prohibitively expensive for something that isn't guaranteed to be a usable daily-driver for most people. Also IIRC the hardware isn't quite worth the price tag in-and-of-itself.
> something that isn't guaranteed to be a usable daily-driver for most people
See my other reply concerning this: > hardware isn't quite worth the price tag in-and-of-itselfJCattheATM
1 day ago
fsflover
3 hours ago
Partly because most people don't really care if something is FSF endorsed or not. Partly because it's far from a great user experience.
The original comment said "We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device"
2 replies →
> Maybe 2026 will be the year of Linux on mobile phone.
Considering the ongoing DRAM and SSD crunch, I won't hold my breath.
This could actually be a reason to work on better supporting older "Android" phones in postmarketOS, to keep the hardware people already have working.