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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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There's never been a more urgent time to switch to Linux on pretty much every device.
The mobile options for Linux are years out from being ready and the hardware vendors are locking them out as fast as possible.
There's generally been positive reviews for FuriLab's FLX1 model:
Their new one, the FLX1s has 2GiB more RAM (for 8GiB, in total). I've heard battery gets 2 days without charge even with Android emulation.
It's still Android kernel and drivers :/ but it is private. For Linux you'd need postmarket or one of their derivatives and they are fighting to get cameras and power under control.
prob the best we have at the moment.
edit: to be clear, I'm saying Halium is the best we have at the moment, real linux is trucking along but it's still a long way out.
and what's the problem with android other than google's fuckery?
Assuming google's fuckery doesn't affect them, nothing.
But we're relying on google to keep up that code and not see them as a threat. Right now AOK, but in the future that makes longevity questionable.
It's something to be noticed and understood so there's no surprises when the company that did no evil now does all the evil.
they can take down the code today and not much will happen, as the code is mirrored elsewhere.
Obv, they can't take what we have, which is why for now we're OK. The winds are shifting, though. I expect at some point, I expect android will require a deal with the devil from manufacturers. Start actively combatting linux phones.
For now, it's a quick path to privacy, long term, we're going to need friendly hardware
I think the big problem with this, as far as I know, is that this code needs pretty rapid security updates that require a fairly huge and experienced team of people to both find, understand and implement the security changes. Otherwise it becomes very insecure very quickly. So yeah we can always use 2019 Android, etc. But it would just put you at a huge security risk.
doesn't the same apply to any operating system, including the linux phone distributions? android has security measures that may be breached, but mobile linux has much fewer security measures at all
Yes, it does apply to every operating system - hence, the differentiator becomes whether the operating system has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on dedicated security development. This is why a lot of companies now don't even let you use Android devices for BYOD aside from Google or Samsung, because they're the only companies with the resources to keep their security really up to date.
my point is that if the open source community cannot figure out just maintenance of an android system, there's no chance of creating a real mobile linux distribution, as it would need the aforementioned maintenance and the development of additional features
Ahhh I see, I was confused about what you were getting at. My mistake. And yes that's very true...hmm. More dire than I was even thinking then..
Honestly this is exactly the kind of thing that taxes and governments are supposed to be good for handling. Failures within failures I suppose!
no worries. but that's why I think android would be a much better base for a free software mobile operating system than a current linux distribution. lots of engineering work and experience went into making it, both on the technical sides and in the UX, with lots and lots of feedback. it has largely solved permissions, inter-app communication, power saving, things like these, and I mean all in the AOSP project, forgetting about the proprietary google mobile services.
not everything is perfect, lots could be improved, and there are things we don't like, like how app background activity is handled is not too transparent and neither customizable, etc, but those would be much easier to fix and maintain then reimplementing everything. hardware drivers are a problem, but it is anyway, and with android we at least have a working system with which reverse engineers can analyze the drivers in operation. certainly android is not the cleanest codebase but its not so bad either to warrant throwing it away. in the parts of the code I looked over the years, it's quite organized, but of course I have only seen very little.
i don't think niche devices can save us though.
we need banking, government apps, all sort of garbage that won't be allowed with a ten foot pole on these. rooted androids are barely allowed as it is.
Sure; but we won't close that gap immediately. Intermediate progress can be helpful for further progress.
sure, but ownership is something they are actively trying to block. i say that as a linux nerd.
and they won't be available in my country for a while i bet.
So it would seem.
The stepping-stone would be de-googled Android like LineageOS or GrapheneOS. I think Linux is the end-game though.
Ubuntu Touch works well on my fairphone.
Very cool! I'm thinking of going for ubuntu touch, seeing as Android has proven that it's no longer worth the time investment. Also, Fairphone 5 is my next phone if the current one dies, so it works out.
Could you share what do you really like about it? And what is your biggest gripe or letdown with it? Thanks!
It's using Hallium, which is still using Android kernel and drivers, hopefully they can keep that up while vendors are getting increasingly antagonistic.
It is private.
If you want to run some android apps you can use waydroid, but it torches the battery.
If you want to run arm linux apps, you need to dork around with containers as the root os is RO.
I'm sitting on the fence of shelling out for a decen FP
Beats me! I'm in the process of moving banking and payment off my phone in preparation for a Linux one. These things will very likely not work on non-proprietary devices.
Depends on your bank. Most work on alternate OS (like GrapheneOS), and of course some don't. https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
If an app (especially bank) doesn't work, I forward them this and try to ELI5 that their current method is flawed and less secure: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide
Which is fine and all, but then you still have to run a release built and signed by the grapheneos devs.
Reverse the question:
Which bank can be used with a linux phone?
Go on... How are you doing so?
Going for plastic when paying instead of using a digital wallet, using the banks' websites for transactions instead of the app.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Mobile apps should only ever be used for check-scanning or for features that the online banking simply doesn't allow (which would be messed up of the bank to do); same with mobile wallets.
wish it would have support