How many of you run a Linux phone (Pine64, Librem etc) as your daily driver?

I was going through Pine64’s page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?

I’m considering purchasing the Pine but I’d like a better screen, more RAM and a better CPU. Don’t know if I should wait for a new model to be released (are they even planning to do that? Is the company active?). I will only really use it to browse the Web, and might even look to desolder a couple of parts that I know I won’t use.

Thanks.

Edit: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it’ll be fit for me?

Edit 2: overall, I am much saddened about the state of affairs regarding private computing on the go. I desperately hope that Linux on mobile takes off, even though its incubation looks disheartening at the moment. Thank you everyone for your comments.

spacemanspiffy,

Been using a Librem 5 since May, and am typing this on it now. I love it.

GustavoM,
@GustavoM@lemmy.world avatar

Does a single board computer counts as a phone? Then a Orange pi zero 3. (Not like theres anything else to do other than read/lurk online communities, code and the occasional cloud gaming nowadays, so eh.)

MigratingtoLemmy,

I completely agree with your statement (that’s how my day goes too), but I wanted a mobile device. Thanks

v81,

Can it make phone calls?

pathief, (edited )
@pathief@lemmy.world avatar

I’d love to run a system without Google but it’s hard. I tried to run LineageOS with microg for a week or two but eventually had to install Google Play Services. Lots of hurdles with push notifications and unfortunately some apps really refused to work when they detected no play services installed. It really sadden me, to be honest. Really wanted to make it work.

Never gave Linux phones a chance, I rely too much on apps that wouldn’t be available.

electro1,
@electro1@infosec.pub avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    pathief,
    @pathief@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes, that is correct.

    electro1, (edited )
    @electro1@infosec.pub avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    pathief,
    @pathief@lemmy.world avatar

    I think the apps would work without Google Play services but they refuse to boot without it. Unfortunately since these are banking and finance apps the only alternative is not to use them.

    I own a Poco F2 Pro, ROM support is somewhat limited. CalyxOS is insupported, it seems. When this phones starts dying I’ll probably give GrapheneOS a shot!

    MigratingtoLemmy,

    I’m interested in the problems you faced. I have realised that I will need GMS/MicroG for maps, and am unclear if I can get a FOSS app to host my local mail inbox without GMS. Other than that, everything else can be done in the browser (technically even maps can be used in the browser but I digress).

    Would like to know which services prevent you from leaving Google

    pathief, (edited )
    @pathief@lemmy.world avatar

    My first attempt was to flash the stock LineageOS and then install the microg packages from the fdroid store. I didn’t manage to get that fully working, the microg self-check would have a lot of fails due to version mismatches. I never figured out why. A lot of applications complained about the lack of play services and warned me they wouldn’t work, microg was clearly not installed properly.

    Then, I flashed the “LineageOS for MicroG” ROM, which is a LineageOS fork with microg already installed. I had to enable all microg services but the self-check was 100% successful out of the box. No warnings about the lack of play services, everything was mostly working. I installed all software from Fdroid when possible and Aurora Store when not possible.

    Push notifications were a bit of a struggle at first but they did work. I still didn’t get notifications to work on Telegram, but “Telegram FOSS” fork seemed to work okay. For GPS/Maps I used Waze (which is technically owned by Google) and it worked flawlessly. I assume you can use other GPS application, I just didn’t do my research on this one. For email I am using Proton Mail, which worked as expected.

    The problematic apps were banking/financial apps, which I guess most people can live without. I’m confident the apps would work with microg but simply refused to even start. In Portugal our interbank network developed an application called “MBWAY”, which is really ingrained in the portuguese population. Most people use it. It has a ton of cool functiontionality such as sending money to other people just by using the phone number (instantly and without fees), replacing your ATM/food cards for payments and generating virtual credit cards for online shopping.

    I use MBWAY way too much (pun intended), and just decided I didn’t want to live without it. I ended up flashing stock LineageOS and their GAPPS package, which contains the play services and play store app. I still install most stuff from the Aurora and Fdroid store. The banking/financial apps are now working.

    Nisaea,
    @Nisaea@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

    Never had such a problem with /e/ just with LineageOS, highly recommend!

    tanakian,

    for about one year i used exclusively motorola droid4 as mobile device. it runs maemo-leste: mobile linux distribution with nokia’s hildon desktop (revived maemo fremantle sources) on top of devuan linux.

    i also myself maintain about ten packages in maemo-leshe repository.

    but most of the people won’t use motorola droid 4 and maemo-leste.

    they won’t tolerate small screen and they need their ‘apps’ for ‘banking’ or ‘twitter’ or whatever.

    i do not use banking apps or twitter or reddit or instagram or whatever they use, so i don’t care.

    i used pidgin on that device, even connected to ‘ms teams’ for work via pidgin.

    worked more stabre than real ‘teams’ client, but of course pidgin is not the mosh usable app on a small screen.

    today i use dino on it for e2e encrypted xmpp messaging. in devuan chimaera dino is old and buggy. well what can i do?

    it is okay.

    but how many people are ready to give up shiny androids or ioses for this cyberpunk device?

    even camera doesn’t work on it.

    well, it is normal for mobile linux distributions that camera doesn’t work ot most devices. if it works for photos then not for videos.

    well i carry an old small point and shoot with me. i think though it is crappy it makes pdotos better than many phones do.

    but i cannot recognize qrcodes with phone.

    recently i am trying to use pinephone.

    it is more powerful and it has more recent software in postmarketos. my environment is sxmo. it is hde best phone environment ever created, i think. but how many people will agree with me? even pinephone users prefer phosh or kde plasma or something more fancy.

    what i do with pinephone?

    first of all i charge it always. it is like tamagocci, if you don’t feed it it will die. so i carry a power bank with me.

    it runs about six hours if i dont touch it (without suspend) and about two hours if i run dino.

    in best case, if dino won’t make the device unresponsive.

    i have an open source program called songrec on it, it can use shazam api and it recognizes music played around. it is a very useful app. and it is adaptive, works in both portrait and landsgape modes.

    what else do i do with it? well, browse the web sometimes. but it is often a torture. and i wondur why dont i just do the same on laptop.

    yeah and podcasts with gpodder-adaptive.

    and radio with shortwave.

    i know why i do this: i want to use mostly libre software so i am ready for inconveniences. but not many people are ready to this.

    for many years i used sailfish. it is very polished. i would recommend it to ‘regular people’ instead of android.

    but i do not like that it doesn’t run on mainline on most devices, so proprietary linux kernel is necessary, the ui framework isn’t libre so we cannot use an app we used to on other platform most of the time. so u r getting locked to sailfish. it is hard to leave it because u cannot take your apps with you. in order to port apps written with their silica classes one needs to rewrite the ui completely.

    so i am a person who only used linux phones for years asd i know it is not easy foc regular people.

    for me it is ok. i do not need much more than sxmo as environment. i only wish pinephone to not hang as often because of dino. (:

    tanakian,

    for about one year i used exclusively motorola droid4 as mobile device. it runs maemo-leste: mobile linux distribution with nokia’s hildon desktop (revived maemo fremantle sources) on top of devuan linux.

    i also myself maintain about ten packages in maemo-leshe repository.

    but most of the people won’t use motorola droid 4 and maemo-leste.

    they won’t tolerate small screen and they need their ‘apps’ for ‘banking’ or ‘twitter’ or whatever.

    i do not use banking apps or twitter or reddit or instagram or whatever they use, so i don’t care.

    i used pidgin on that device, even connected to ‘ms teams’ for work via pidgin.

    worked more stabre than real ‘teams’ client, but of course pidgin is not the mosh usable app on a small screen.

    today i use dino on it for e2e encrypted xmpp messaging. in devuan chimaera dino is old and buggy. well what can i do?

    it is okay.

    but how many people are ready to give up shiny androids or ioses for this cyberpunk device?

    even camera doesn’t work on it.

    well, it is normal for mobile linux distributions that camera doesn’t work ot most devices. if it works for photos then not for videos.

    well i carry an old small point and shoot with me. i think though it is crappy it makes pdotos better than many phones do.

    but i cannot recognize qrcodes with phone.

    recently i am trying to use pinephone.

    it is more powerful and it has more recent software in postmarketos. my environment is sxmo. it is hde best phone environment ever created, i think. but how many people will agree with me? even pinephone users prefer phosh or kde plasma or something more fancy.

    ‘’‘’‘’‘’'what i do with pinephone?

    first of all i charge it always. it is like tamagocci, if you don’t feed it it will die. so i carry a power bank with me.

    it runs about six hours if i dont touch it (without suspend) and about two hours if i run dino.

    in best case, if dino won’t make the device unresponsive.

    i have an open source program called songrec on it, it can use shazam api and it recognizes music played around. it is a very useful app. and it is adaptive, works in both portrait and landsgape modes.

    what else do i do with it? well, browse the web sometimes. but it is often a torture. and i wondur why dont i just do the same on laptop.

    yeah and podcasts with gpodder-adaptive.

    and radio with shortwave.

    i know why i do this: i want to use mostly libre software so i am ready for inconveniences. but not many people are ready to this.

    for many years i used sailfish. it is very polished. i would recommend it to ‘regular people’ instead of android.

    but i do not like that it doesn’t run on mainline on most devices, so proprietary linux kernel is necessary, the ui framework isn’t libre so we cannot use an app we used to on other platform most of the time. so u r getting locked to sailfish. it is hard to leave it because u cannot take your apps with you. in order to port apps written with their silica classes one needs to rewrite the ui completely.

    so i am a person who only used linux phones for years asd i know it is not easy foc regular people.

    for me it is ok. i do not need much more than sxmo as environment. i only wish pinephone to not hang as often because of dino. (:

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