Linux

I wish... and I did try. You can see my post history but basically PinePhone and PinePhone Pro sitting neatly on the shelf.

They work. Sure, but between battery life or rather power management, lack of camera on the Pro, lack of MIPS on the base model to use Android apps via Waydroid, I had a lot of fun tinkering, but for me these are not daily drives.

For now I'm stuck with deGoogle Android thanks to /e/OS pre-installed by Murena on a CMF Nothing 1. It's neat thanks to F-Droid, Termux, KDE Connect, GadgetBridge, etc but overall I'd much rather be on Linux proper. If there is a path please do share.

I daily drive Ubuntu Touch on a Fairphone 5. It's not without quirks, but I like the experience. Many practical and nice native apps, Android app support through Waydroid, banking and things that would require Google Play verification I solve through the browser. Fairly good battery life, VoLTE is solved for the FP5 and some other models (which has been an issue with many Linux phones) and the community is very active solving issues and helping each other day and night.

oneplus 6T and poco F1 on mobian and postmarketOS. SDM845 devices with 8 GB RAM and fast storage, about the peak of performance you can have nowadays for about $50 apiece. I'd encourage anyone to get a cheap device, fun to play around with and prepare for the day when it becomes viable. ubuntu touch is also possible, but since it's halium (like android + linux VM) it wants me to downgrade to Android 9 which is virtually impossible for me; the former two run full linux kernels and don't have that limitation - spotty hardware support, though.

performance is acceptable, the power to do almost anything you want, access whatever and whenever you want. I run it without broadband, just wifi. the cameras are unusable. since I keep the modem off, GPS doesn't work either. so it's a linux laptop with touch, basically. the apps are a shitshow, rarely will you find one that supports touch and adapts to the vertical zoomed-in screen.

but it's getting better, shit's way better now than it was only a year ago and eventually it'll get there.

as long as you're aware it's not an android alternative, you'll have a good time.

FYI there's !linuxphones@lemmy.ml and !linuxphones@lemmy.ca if you're looking for more enthusiasts

I daily drive a Librem 5. First thing to note is do not expect a well polished experience. Battery life is bad, only about 4 hours of light use, and 8 or so hours if left in suspend. It can do VoLTE, send SMS, use web apps and any apps coded with libadwaita or kirigami. Other desktop apps can be forced to scale on the display, but it won't be perfect.

I use Signal desktop as my main means of communication on the Librem 5. I have a spare normie phone for setup, but Waydroid is an option. I do use Waydroid for a few apps that have no web browser equivalent.

Idk, all I can say is, you have to really want it to live with it. I don't do gaming or heavy social media use or anything removed that, so it is just fine for me. But it's definitely not for everyone.

I have a pinephone for wifi and my SIM is in a CatB40 that only does calls/sms.

Yes, running OnePlus 6 with Mobile NixOS (actually mostly just NixOS with a couple modules from mobile NixOS). I will try to make the config public when I get it into a less rough state. It's... useable as a daily phone, but you have to be really into it to do it.

It's not like desktop Linux where if you're a tech enthusiast you can ignore a few rough edges and just use it like you would a more mainstream OS.

I had to flash a specific old version of OxygenOS, using almost undocumented tools, which could easily brick the phone if something went wrong, just for GPS to work. I have to recompile my kernel every time it updates. I had to write my own scripts for the hardware slider thing to work (which has a nice benefit of letting me use it for whatever I want; I want to make it switch between NORMAL and INSERT in my editor just as a laugh).

I just fat-fingered myself into a need for a new phone. I'd really like to get away from Android, but I've yet to hear anyone say any smartphone running Linux is ready for daily driving.

😢

I wanted PinePhone to work decently so I could daily drive it but when I got it it was already far behind from my old phone hardware-wise. PostmarketOS had run roughly. It was kinda usable but I couldn't manage to use Signal on it (it was a desktop app that time). GPS wasn't working either. 2 most important things for me. Battery life was also abysmal.

This was years ago though, PostmarketOS is probably much much better now. I sold that PinePhone so I don't know its current state. I wouldn't expect more from what I tried.

If I'm gonna get a Linux phone now, I want to see a good Android app emulation. At least until we get real alternatives. I still need a couple apps from Aurora Store. F-Droid apps have a better chance to be ported to Linux from Google Play ones anyway.

I'm using Sailfish OS on a Jolla C2 phone. The OS is great, very good native software and it also runs Android apps.

If you are, you’re usually limited to progressive web apps. Not a bad thing, just something to be aware of. That’s the reason I had to give up when I tried. Not having a decent navigation software was really hard.

I have a Xiaomi Mi A2 that I ran ubuntu touch on. The camera didn't work, and it was based on ubuntu 16.04. They've dropped support for it now. It was not ready to be a daily driver.

I should be getting a poco x3 nfc in the mail tomorrow. It should have excellent support on both postmarketos and ubuntu touch. I don't expect it to be a daily driver, but I can't get the idea out of my head. I don't like where iOS and Android are headed.

I just got myself a fairphone gen 6. I want to put postmarket OS on it, but had a kind of rough start. Haven't gotten it working yet :(

I intend to get a Fairphone 5 or 6 and test-drive Ubuntu Touch on it, hoping to daily drive it... but it's all theoretical at this point. If I can't get a real Linux distro to do everything I want reliably, Lineage OS is my fallback plan. I believe in the Fairphone mission, so that'll be my next hardware purchase either way

Can you use Signal on a Linux phone? I know there's a desktop Linux client, but it relies on being activated from an Android or iPhone app to function, in my experience.

What sucks is in the USA you need VOLTE for the phone to work, and I’ve not found a phone that clearly supports it

I am also looking for a linux smart phone at the moment. I have not found many that don't seem to be sold out, or aren't quite there yet.

If I find anything promising I will edit.