What Is Linux Mobile - technical explanation of the ecosystem for Linux on smartphones previously (often previosuly android)
What Is Linux Mobile - technical explanation of the ecosystem for Linux on smartphones previously (often previosuly android)
So, you just heard the term Linux Mobile for the first time, maybe you saw a random post on social media, saw it mentioned at a conference, or maybe something else entirely. Let me explain…
I have OnePlus 6T with Droidian and must say it is this close to daily drive for me.
Everything works and there are apps for almost everything I need. As someone who uses only FOSS social media and things, there is Mastodon and Matrix client, I just lack maps with navigation (can use Organic Maps via Waydroid). Beyond that what is left is polish and tiny things, like for the performance or support for controlling media via buttons on bluetooth speaker.
I also tried PostmarketOS, that is adapting real Linux to phones (when Droidian is taking Linux kernel and drivers from Android and building on that). It is great if someone can get around lack of camera support etc., but for me now it can act like a second device or RPi alternative.
The ability to... you know, just use normal SSH and all the commands, Flatpak apps, all Pipewire tools, not fiddling with Android Studio and it's stupid SDK or customizing my UI with just CSS is magical.
Seriously, fuck Google and Qualcomm for creating such hostile drivers ecosystem. There are brands like Fairphone that I think would happly support Linux but can't because of Qualcomm only releasing their own vendor kernel prepared only for Android.
Been keeping an eye on postmarketOS, have been wanting to use it with a more modern phone in the USA, like a Pixel 4a or something. How has droidian been? Haven't really heard too much about that project, its a full Linux distro? You can apt-get stuff?
Droidian uses vendor's Linux/Android kernel and patch it a little, then uses binary-only drivers taken from Android through libhybris translation layer (something similiar to Wine or Box64). It is the same tech that Ubuntu Touch uses, but Droidian gives you root access and uses normal desktop Linux stack (Flatpak, GTK, Qt, Pulseaudio, APT, etc.). So yes, you do "sudo apt".
It is more of a mess than upstream-first PostmarketOS and the kernel do not get updates after manufacturer drop the device, but it works. On my OP6T everything hardware works (including day-long battery and reliable waking up on a call or alarm), but there is still a long list of things to polish.
I have a stack of old phones in my drawer of tech I need to go through and check which ones work on postmarketOS. I think I have an old Pixel or two as well as Nexus phones.
Pixels are good with GrapheneOS
Pixel 3a and 3a XL have some amount of support on PmOS
one of the issues I have with mobile linux is flutter has some really good apps, but when you try to use them on linux the performance plummets, this makes a whole slew of great touch primary applications unusable.
this article was pretty hard to read, but I greatly disagree with android having bad UX, maybe for some users but to me android's UX is pretty great