Why not just use an Android AOSP distribution? SailfishOS is proprietary. It will be a lot more "locked down" than LineageOS/GrapheneOS.
FWIW one can also do that on stock Android or its GrapheneOS variant pretty conveniently, including storage access, am, boot background processes, etc. It is not as complete as being root on Linux proper but still.
That's a bit of an oversimplification that makes this sound more concerning than it is. Not that it's 100% un-concerning, but I suggest that anyone concerned about this read the linked docs. It really was designed to be quite privacy preserving, though it's obviously a difficult challenge in this context.
Boards:
M.2 Modem Module China, inquire for USA/EU options
M.2 WiFi/BT Module India, inquire for more options
It's not going to win the market, but I applaud anyone providing more choices.
"The mobile linux space isn't exactly looking good right now, but it holds some promise. Ubuntu Touch managed to survive being abandoned by Canonical, and postmarket is still seeing good development even if not having great hardware adapation at the moment."
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..
Am I the only one who remembers the suicide nets at Foxconn?
What I would like is to take my existing iPhone 13 Pro and install a real Linux on it so I could guarantee decent hardware. You know, like we could do with pretty much any computer before smartphones.
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.
- 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 keyboards. I literally can't type a single correct sentence on any of the mobile linux keyboards that I've tried because there's so much proprietary magic needed under the hood to figure out what the user is trying to say (autocorrect mostly, but I recall something about how apple also virtually adjusted the sizes of the keys to make it easier to type) - GPS, banking, and now keys for your house and car all need to work.
There are just too many very useful services that only work with Android/iOS. Take taxi apps for example. I've used over a dozen in the past few years, many of them local to a specific country or region that made getting around much much easier.
FairPhone 4 is a pretty ancient cpu. I guess it's benching a bit above the OnePlus 6/6t that has been a go-to for a good fraction of a decade now. https://browser.geekbench.com/v7/cpu/84602 https://browser.geekbench.com/v7/cpu/5200
Motorola at least seems to be moving to unlock bootloaders. ARM gpus have some ok drivers now (thanks collabora & many others), which, a decade ago seemed like way way way more than the universe was ever going to allow.
I still think Samsung, with their new mountains of market cap, should try to do better. Exynos is right there, with an RDNA GPU just begging for the world's best drivers to take advantage of the hardware you already ship. You could make a stunner! Why not try?
Example, across the whole of my 2.8 million people city, parking is app-to-pay. No meter, no ticket box - just a sign announcing to pay by app and a QR code.
QR code points at a webpage announcing which very limited selection of apps you have for iOS and android and the backup option to ring a number.
Ringing that number means you talk to a person, make an account for only one of the apps over the phone, then use the phone menu system each time you need to park.
If you have a dumb phone(can't scan a QR code) or no phone... you're fucked. No way to pay for parking. Expect your fine and go through the bullshit processes.
The world should NOT think it is great to be so dependant on two US companies, but here we are.
If you're a technical guy and you feel like the android and ios are both pretty much destroyed by corporate overlords, then I sincerely invite you to try UBports or SailfishOS (from my research I find these two the most beginner friendly). The experience most certainly will hurt (at the beginning), but the sooner more people start using it, the sooner more people will start contributing to linux on phone and make our systems better. I was nervous that I would not survive without android and its entire app catalog and maps, or that a moment would come at work or in some critical situation that I would need android for some dumb reason and wouldn't be able to do something and spaghetti would fall out of my pockets, but for the last 4 years nothing like that happened. The most painful thing for me are probably the maps, but when I need long distance GPS with live traffic, I'll most certainly be driving with someone, so I just ask the passenger to navigate :) for less important voyages the unav is completely fine, there's also puremaps which I haven't tested.
FTA:
> The no waydroid means that I can't access some apps that I need be it for online verification for logging onto bank and government services in Norway
As 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.
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 such unreachable goal.
We would have to sacrifice bank apps but imho still worth it.
Given fair phone exists, it should now be able to get all kind of apps anyone wants.
AOSP does not include nor depend on Play Services.
>locking down of device trees to hinder custom ROM development
Most manufacturers do not distribute these either. The user doesn't even have a pixel so it is not relevant.
>all the AI stuff being put into the system
The AI stuff is not part of AOSP.
>or most recently (and perhaps worst), removing the ability of installing apps per your own wishing - it's become sort of like a "death by a thousand papercuts" situation.
Again that is not a feature of AOSP, but one bolted in on top of it.
I think the author would benefit much more by using a different distribution of AOSP.
And all software is replicable.
keyboard text prediction is no more complex than some of free/open AIs that we already see in the wild.
If google doesn't shut things down, then just continue to use AOSP, which is a fine open source OS for most people's use cases.
The have an unlocked bootloader and are the only phones supported by GrapheneOS [1].
If you don't want to go to GrapheneOS, any Android phone should be able to use F-Droid.
In my specific case, I couldn't use Pixels because the terrible PWM on the screen was painful to me. Bought a cheap Motorola G Power 2024 with an IPS screen. Never logged into Google. Used Obtanium and FDroid for most things. Used Aurora for the one Play-only app that I needed. Running Netguard (a non-root firewall) with a whitelist so almost nothing phones home. Deleted or disabled almost all the non-essential built-in apps.
I like the Moto but wouldn't recommend it due to the lack of OS updates. But this setup could be easily duplicated on almost any Android without needing root or roms.
But app is not the hardest challenge compared to supporting all the hardware, camera, screens and the many core protocols
I don't remember all the details but I had a Mac G3 around the same time I started using Linux: I don't remember the story about installing Linux no Mac hardware as being a particularly easy one.
Now I'm not saying that years after the fact, Linux wouldn't run fine on Intel Macs. But if I recall correctly it always has been a bit of a bumpy road.
An old smartphone or tablet can do that job and stay in a drawer at home 99% of the time.
I mean, if they can force Microsoft to support other browsers than IE6, then why can't they force banks?
Rooting is important so I can mock provide fake data for: location, other sensor data, contacts, files, etc that’s what’s a a truly owned device. He does what I say.
Not what the app wants. If apps says you can work only in location X my phone takes the app side instead of mine. That’s not mine.
I can’t copy this text or take screenshot because restrictions: fucking stupid. I’ll just take a photo with my second device (or output to usbc device that can record screen) and parse the text. My phone just made me waste my time. I still can do what I want, just extra hops. Because, again, is not truly my phone. Is an adversary to my daily use.
Anyway it’s a lost cause. The only hope is for ai to bypass their security and allow owners to truly own a device.
> run a desktop Linux distribution (or Windows for that matter) that supports mobile features (calling, SMS, and data)?
The above use ARM SoCs. Palm-sized x86 with cell modem? Doubt it.
AOSP doesn't even include a functional keyboard nor a proper call manager nowadays
What diminished the day-to-day difficulty for you? Is it because the ecosystem became more mature, or did you "crack the code" for how to interface with everything you needed from your phone? Is your use-case for a phone wildly different from that of a typical user?
It's really cool to hear that someone is successfully daily driving it and making this ecosystem work for them!
Open/individually accessible APIs would have to have be a movement, like the one with open formats for interacting with eGov.
On modern Macs, it's pretty easy to install Linux with Avahi.
To be clear, I don't necessarily need it to be easy to put another OS on there. I just want it to be possible. As far as I'm aware, there's no way (officially or unofficially) to install another OS on any recent iPhones. Someone might eventually figure out how to break the bootloader on the iPhone 13, but I personally think it should be something that the owner of the phone is allowed to opt into.
Realistically nobody is developing apps for linux phones, so the options are android or no apps at all.
*(or BB, webOS, Windows Phone 7 Phone OS Phone Microsoft, Symbian, etc. if old enough)
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.
02 Aug, 2026
For the past months or even years, I've become more and more dissatisfied with the path Google has taken with the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Be it the dependency and insane tracking of Google Play Services, locking down of device trees to hinder custom ROM development, all the AI stuff being put into the system, or most recently (and perhaps worst), removing the ability of installing apps per your own wishing - it's become sort of like a "death by a thousand papercuts" situation. While the AOSP isn't exactly dead (yet), it kind of feels like it's just a question of time. Therefore, I've decided to jump ship. I'm installing linux on my phone.
The mobile linux space isn't exactly looking good right now, but it holds some promise. Ubuntu Touch managed to survive being abandoned by Canonical, and postmarket is still seeing good development even if not having great hardware adapation at the moment. SailfishOS (even if it has proprietary parts) has also made great progress with strong support for android apps on official devices and what seems to be a real good launch of their Jolla 2.
Personally I'm lucky enough to own a Fairphone 4 that just so happens to support all of these. After a bit back and forth I've ultimately ended up with SailfishOS. Overall it's a good system - I like the gesture based navigation and its application framework is beautiful. It's also cool how it's very linux. If I have an issue or something I want to tinker with I can just ssh over from my PC either wirelessly or via USB. It's not without it's issues though. For some reason it ships horribly outdated versions of python and glibc making some things more difficult than needed, and waydroid and GPS is broken on the fairphone port - worth noting an unofficial port. Many of the community-built apps are also either in-part or completely slop-coded, such as a whatsapp client that I (sadly) am dependant on.
Ubuntu Touch is also an option, but isn't without it's own bag of issues. Waydroid runs there which is a huge plus, but notifications and clipboard doesn't sync across making it really hard to use ie. Bitwarden (Sailfish has an unofficial port which is almost flawless). The default and native apps are pretty lackluster compared to both Android and Sailfish. Among other things I was unable to figure out how to block phone numbers, a highly needed feature for anyone that has VIVO as their cellular provider. I'm also not a big fan of how the UI works with app navigation and with the "top bar"/"drop down menu". If you want to know more about it, The Linux Experiments has some good videos on both youtube and peertube.
Sadly, I won't be able to abandon android completely yet. The no waydroid means that I can't access some apps that I need be it for online verification for logging onto bank and government services in Norway or apps I need for my own security here in Brazil such as Uber. Luckily I've had a Galaxy A17 lying around as a backup phone for half a year now which I can carry around for these exact services. I just open up a wifi hotspot from my FP4, do the exact tasks, and close it off again. Other than that, I will try to avoid using it as much as physically possible.
As this progresses I will take note of what works and what doesn't before making either a proper writeup or video in a while. It's not gonna be easy, but hopefully it will be worth it.
Oh, and slight spoilers for what my experience with Sailfish is after some usage, but I might go ahead and buy a Jolla Phone 2 when I return to Norway.
It's a pretty big sandbox in my experience.
This will become an assailable salient soon and by 2036 we should have dozens of competing phone operating systems and vendors.
We're going to do the same for robotics and everything that gets shipped to us.
PinePhone specs on table are old. They're currently 3GB RAM and 32GB eMMC at 200 USD for package including hub.
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 these days either - but I'm still using one and it's manageable.
How easy it is to do an equivalent thing on Android?
And also malware.
What have people done with it? Some mediocre support in libcamera? :) I don't think lack of handholding is an issue here.
Not saying that's what you're doing, but I hear it often enough.
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?
I bought mobile devices that I could root over the ones that I couldn't. I favor companies that are less shitty. I preferred Linux over Windows as main OS even when Linux was harder to use (now I think in fact might be easier). But life is made of trade-offs and I did not see particularly good arguments of why Android is "that bad". You can root some devices and one can even avoid lots of services if you don't like Google (maps, mail, etc.) - which I also do.
So for me Android manages to stay in a unstable equilibrium : good for what I need, trustful enough for some stuff (money), not more spying that others (GSM towers), some levels of customization if you really want. Could it go "evil"? Sure, but considering what happens in the world, I am more worried my neighbors would have idiotic ideas than the fact that Google will be so evil.
https://xff.cz/dl/tmp/photo-20260806-013112002.mkv (I guess I try hard enough, perfectly servicable with a single core at 648 MHz, barely scratching it at 10-20% CPU time used)
It would be a bit ridiculous if it was not, given what UIs/games people run on 50MHz 486 if like 40-80x faster phone could not move some pixels around smoothly at 60fps.
That's why I don't mind carrying around plastic cards, they just go in my wallet with my ID and a small amount of cash anyway.
Even if I was willing to use GPay, I don't like the possibility of my phone dying locking me out of my apartment and preventing me from paying for things.
Moving to GrapheneOS and not having virtual cards for contactless payment has been struggle, not going go lie.