Forget the pinephone as a daily driver. It is nice to play around with and having linux on your phone is awesome. But you can’t really use it as a daily driver. You’ll try it and it’s going to end up in the drawer of unfinished projects. Trust me, I own a pinephone and I know other people who do.
There’s nothing wrong with it. Just like 50 mild annoyances with anything you’re trying to do with it and on top it’s super slow, compared to any other smartphone.
As I read, the phone by Purism isn’t much better and it’s really expensive.
Yeah, I think so, too. It doesn’t have to be this way. I mean this is mainly due to the way ARM hardware works, lack of good drivers, maintenance and dedication by the manufacturers of that hardware. And everything is quite fragmented. In theory we could have a hardware platform that has good open-source drivers and is well-supported. The Pinephone was an attempt to establish one platform that people could focus on. But it has quite some limitations and also hardware/design issues.
And Linux isn’t quite there yet. I mean I love Linux and it can run on embedded devices very well. But things like connected standby (for example receiving chat messages while the hardware sleeps and saves power) just isn’t implemented in a desktop environment that was made for computers. And also not in a chat application that was made for computers. So, set aside the hardware and driver issues, we have another issue with Linux software that wasn’t made to run on smartphones.
There is a way around that and that is to add those capabilities to the Linux kernel. And also give applications means to stay connected in the background, adapt to different screen sizes, rotate the screen and evict themselves from RAM. It’s kind of what Android is. It builds upon the Linux kernel and adds lots of stuff that is specifically useful on smartphones.
I hope someday some of those techniques get adopted into the mainline Linux kernel and also the frameworks the desktop software uses.
I hope so too. I wouldn’t be as mad if Android was open and we could put it on different devices, but we can’t. Manufacturers lock their devices in so many ways.
The problem is not Android. It is as open as any other Linux distribution. The problem is that manufacturers make the drivers for their hardware proprietary.
Thank you. I completely agree. We can’t do stuff ourselves, my Pixel 4a is End of Life now and all the proprietary parts of the system won’t be updated anymore, which is a shame because the hardware is still perfectly fine.
And I hate the business decisions Google makes. Android is built upon Linux and the core is supposed to be free software. But then they move more and more stuff into their proprietary Google services packages. Like the proper keyboard with swipe typing, the better calendar app, text to speech, push notifications and all of the payment stuff. I personally replaced everything on the phone with a custom ROM, and did not install the google services. But I had to find alternatives to all of that and some things really don’t work as well. It’s a hassle and some things just don’t work at all. Like some stuff that requires in-app payment. I don’t care too much, because I get most of my Apps from F-Droid anyways and they’re open-source. But I can’t pay with my phone in the supermarket, can’t rent those silly electric scooters and a few other things.
I tend to use my credit card for most of my purchases, online or in-person. In doing so, I haven’t come across the problem of payments you describe, although I’m unaware if the apps I use utilise Google’s API in the back-end to do this (for example, does the Amazon app use some Android API to process my payment using a credit card?).
I think I’d be fine without most Google apps except for Maps, where OpenStreetMap has not served me well so fat (unfortunate, since I would like to use it but it is not as reliable in my experience). I can do my banking in the browser, and consume my video content (YouTube/Peertube/LBRY) in the browser anyway.
I’m going to revisit the Murena mobiles again, and I’ll reiterate how disappointed I am that the FP5 is not available in the US. At this point, I’ll pin my hopes on KernelSU for the next few years (hoping I don’t have to compile my own kernel, I’d like to get a cheap device running the 5.10 kernel or those after it), but consumer devices don’t have hardware killswitches or privacy features or replaceable parts either (and iFixit doesn’t cover every device).
This was a long comment, and I appreciate this discourse with you. Thanks again.
Yeah, paying with credit card also works for me. And I use the browser a lot for stuff like that. Just the added layers in the apps sometimes don’t work. Like when I tried riding one of those electric scooters. I was able to put in my credit card details and they got accepted, and I know my phone is capable of doing NFC, but somehow there is something else in that app that prevents me from doing the actual transaction and rent the scooter. Online-shopping and things like that work fine. I don’t need an App to use Amazon or PayPal… So I wouldn’t know either.
Thx. I’m going to look up the de-googled phones you mentioned. I think I will try to use my Pixel as long as it works, but in theory it isn’t supported anymore and I’m supposed to buy a new one now. At least that’s what Google and GrapheneOS tell me.
I’m holding out hope for KernelSU, in which case I won’t need to care about custom ROMs and things like safetyNET either. A root from kernel-space + a custom launcher and I won’t miss OEM android at all. The only thing I haven’t figured out is patch management, but I’ll leave that to people more intelligent than me
I have a Mobian community edition PinePhone with postmarketOS and it is my daily driver. It suits my humble needs, but these few years have been a mixed bag. Especially with Mobian I’ve had periods of it working great, punctuated by periods with annoying issues. I stopped using the phone for a while when it suddenly stopped taking calls but I didn’t notice since there was no indication of trouble. My family reported me missing when they couldn’t reach me after a few days. Luckily that was then sorted out, but it wasn’t great. This hasn’t happened since.
postmarketOS has been pretty solid and seems to perform better than Mobian.
After a few years I’m starting to think I need a new battery, but the official store has been out of stock for a while. I’m not sure if they will ever get more parts. Communication from Pine64 has also slowed down to a crawl, which is not great. At least their official monthly blog was last updated in august. At the moment I’m somewhat skeptical of their future. We’ll see.
Be warned though: the PinePhone can browse the web and banking probably works, but watching, say, youtube is not going to be a great experience. You’re probably better off using alternative solutions like Pipeline. The PinePhone is not a powerful machine and you will have tinker every now and then.
Having said all that, if you set your expectations correctly you can probably get along with a PinePhone as your daily driver. I’m not sure if I can recommend it because there are many caveats, but in the end you know your needs and what you’re comfortable with better than I do. I like my PinePhone and I surely wish more people get Linux phones and that the ecosystem evolves.
I could not find an official support branch of postmarketOS for the PPP.
Other than that, as you say, Pine64’s interaction has waned greatly and I wonder what is going on behind the scenes. This is no FP5, certainly, but availability of parts is a requirement for me
I looked into this for myself but I was told a lot of what has already been said here and decided to go with a pixel + graphene OS .
I’m probably sticking with this type of setup until there’s a proper Linux phone that can be easily used as a daily driver.
I think the key is patience. One day I think we’ll have something that will be able to daily drive Linux that won’t feel like you’re using the alpha release of android.
I mean GrapheneOS is probably the most secure OS on the planet and also privacy friendly. Android is annoying sometimes but its pretty okay and the security standards are veeery high
True. That’s why I chose graphene in the end. Ib liked the idea of the multiple user profiles to sandbox certain activities to a disposable profile and the fact that if I need Google play I can sandbox that as well by running it as a regular system app on it’s own profile…
So far it’s been pretty good. I think my only complaint is I can’t get my Chromecast devices to connect. I got my Google TV to connect but all Chromecast devices refuse to pair for some reason but that pales in comparison to the headaches I’d get trying to daily drive a Linux phone. But I’m big on Linux (I use it as a daily driver on my computer) so I’m patiently waiting for a daily driver worthy Linux phone. 🤞
If you want to save money on a pixel I’d recommend taking a look at swappa(dot)com Even if you don’t want a used one they do have people selling pixels new sealed in the box for usually pretty good deals. I think the cheapest new in box option is a pixel 6a. Or 6 pro.
You can also find new pixel 7, 7 pro, the 8 and the 8 pro.
I’ve been buying and selling devices there for years and never had a problem as a buyer or a seller.
Graphene also is way easier to use their google play sandbox then messing around with microg and shit on lineage. I’d love to see the sandbox stuff ported to lineage or similar but I imagine its pretty baked into graphene. Since I care a little about privacy but also just want my phone to be rooted so I can do whatever I want with it. Oh well maybe someday.
You can root GrapheneOS, no problem. Its just not as secure anymore and the bootloader cant be locked, banking apps will not work anymore, Android Attestation, Safetynet etc
You can root GrapheneOS, no problem. Its just not as secure anymore and the bootloader cant be locked, banking apps will not work anymore, Android Attestation, Safetynet etc
OP, I have an entire guide for Linux/Windows computing, having been a couple decades old user of Windows. I am using Linux for the past 6+ years, and am using Debian as of now.
Start with Ubuntu LTS. Your priority is being able to search your solutions easily on AskUbuntu, StackOverflow or similar websites within the first few search results, and NOT needing to interact with and/or get harassed by the toxic evangelists in Linux community. I assume you already got a taste of that evangelism with the comments here.
Also, it is essential to require optimal corporate and community software support, and maximum stability/compatibility with WINE, without your system breaking upon automatic/random updates. This lessens the need for you to go around scrambling on the internet for solutions. Make sure to utilise whatever you need, Snaps, AppImages, regardless of what people say, to make your Linux life easier.
I recommend first switching Windows-only software to crossplatform software so you won’t have to get used to another operating system and different software at the same time.
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