I really want to get to a point I can transition to using this or another mobile Linux distro. My phone is fairly (hehe, it's a Fairphone) well supported, but my impression is that basic phone features are still not functioning properly making it more of a pocket computer and less of a phone. I still need phone features. As for mobile apps, I don't have many needs and I think Waydroid will get me far.

Fuschia? That was a Google alternative to Linux that never panned out. It was weird with streams instead of files.

That sounds nice and all but linux still is subject to exploits and the open sourced nature of it makes it an enticing target for state actors to include extremely well made obfuscated exploits. I dont know how to win here, tbh.

German brand Volla has phones with Ubuntu Touch. Even allows dual boot with their own degoogled Android OS. Might be worth checking out.

de-Googled android sounds even better. The story is cooler than the title!

It also says:

It is currently unknown whether these companies would aim for compatibility with existing Android apps or follow the path of Huawei's latest HarmonyOS NEXT, which removes Android app support entirely

So, it's not clear yet.

I thought android in China was already de-googled

Gurl let me spill the tea, there's word floating round in China that some bde powa playas be considering maybe kinda putting something together.

Exact! And please no bloatware!!

Oh wait, before anything else : NO, and I really mean NO AI and/or VR shit. Just none. None A T A L L

We need phones with standard Linux.

Already exists. Several iterations are active and work as a daily driver: phone, sms and mobile networking works reliably, apps exist. Just not as many as on Android, and some features are not part of the OS. This is enough for many to declare them "a failure". That and limited hardware support.

Google has coddled us for way too long, and at what price.

I don't believe that they're likely to do GNU/Linux. I bet that they're going to do a fork of Android off AOSP or something like that.

Android's had a huge amount of work put into it to make it suitable to be a consumer mobile phone OS, and the companies here aren't doing this because they want stuff that GNU/Linux does, but rather because they're Chinese companies worried about a US-China industrial decoupling and its risks for them. Like, they were okay with the technical status; what changed was that they started to worry about having the rug pulled out from them.

That being said, I can at least imagine that helping GNU/Linux phone adoption. So, think about what happened with video games. There were some major platforms out there -- MacOS, iOS, Windows, various consoles, Android, GNU/Linux. That fragmented the market. Trying to port software to all platforms became a huge pain. What a lot of game developers did was to target a more-or-less platform-agnostic engine and let the engine handle the platform abstraction.

If the mobile OS space fragments further -- like, Android splits into "Google Android" and "China Android"

my guess is that that'll help drive demand for platform-agnostic engines to help improve portability, and porting one engine to GNU/Linux is a lot easier than every individual program.

SIM still has to be tied to a name.

If you're looking at getting a new (used) phone, I would suggest GrapheneOS (the most secure/private de-googled rom afaik).

You need a Pixel phone, the newer you get the longer you will keep getting software updates for the future (if you keep the phone past these many years of support, then I believe switching to a other rom will be required for security patches etc. Each phone is supported until Google stops supporting them I believe). You said you don't care about updates because you can keep it from connecting to the internet, but it's a plus anyways.

If you plan on never touching a google service, GrapheneOS allows for that (nothing google by default), but on the other hand, if you need google play, etc for banking apps or whatnot, they have that covered with Sandboxed Google Services (which you can run solely in another user profile on your phone for added privacy).

Anyways, I think GrapheneOS in a great option & their website has much more info if you'd like to continue hearing about it:

https://grapheneos.org/

p.s. you can check their website for how long different pixels will have continued support before (if) you get one (incase anyone else is reading this).

Ironically, pixels are best for de-googling (stock android that can be easily un- and re-locked)

It depends on your definition of 'deGoogle'. You can disable the Google apps on most Android phones. They'll take up storage space, but won't run.

If you're getting a second-hand phone and want to completely deGoogle it, you can check if (1) the bootloader is unlockable and (2) custom ROMs are available online (e.g. Lineage OS compatible devices). In general, Xiaomi, Motorola and Pixel devices have unlockable bootloaders, but not all their models have custom ROMs.

You have to be careful to get a phone and model supported by one of the projects. Check all compatibility and install instructions before buying a phone. And if you need a manufacturer supplied unlock code, make sure the manufacturer still gives them out . Some will discontinue that service after a few years.

For graphene os you need one of the gogle devices - i've never tried it but i think its the one most people like.

lineageos supports more devices usually older.

I recently got lineageos working on sony experia xa2 - very happy with it. But to get there i had to go try like 6 computers before one of them sucessfully sent the bootloader unlock code over the ADB. For some reason usb is temperamental when doing stuff like that

It is a lot easier on really old stuff like samsung galaxy s3 or s4 if you can tolerate something that old. Maybe you'll lso end upon an old version of lineage.

Once you get the bootloader unlocked it is generally straightforward. but modern phones make that fist part awkward.

If you have a phone with custom ROM support, pretty easy. I've been running LineageOS without GAPPS for like 5 years now. Most stuff just works, but to be fair, I am not using any of the cool kids apps like google pay or android auto.