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.

trivial_wannabe,

I used a pinephone as my daily driver for about a month. Importantly, this was 3~4 years ago, things could be better now.

My take at the time: The battery life was bad, the phone was slow, MMS did not work, making a receiving calls was iffy at best.

I really really hope this improves/has improved over time. Android gets more and more difficult to de-google. A linux phone would solve a lot of privacy issues (not all, but some)

MigratingtoLemmy,

I hope so too. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The PinePhone Pro is still treated as a development device by PostmarketOS, for example

Pantherina,

It sucks that GrapheneOS supports only Pixels and nobody came along and ported it to other devices, although less secure.

But “Android gets harder to degoogle” is not true. Pixels are just way too expensive

MigratingtoLemmy,

I’m waiting for devices to get the 5.10 kernel or the ones after it, so I can run supported KernelSU builds and take my life into my own hands.

helenslunch,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Pixels are just way too expensive

LOL what? The A series are some of the cheapest modern phones you can buy, and an incredible value…

Pantherina,

Yup then that is pretty messed up. I was used to phones not costing over 200€, maybe 300

helenslunch,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

The only phones that cost that much are either several years old (in which case you can include used Pixels) or are riddled with bloatware and spyware and the absolute cheapest of materials that won’t last long enough to make buying it even make any financial sense.

Pantherina, (edited )

Nokia 7plus back then. Great hardware, nice materials. Still working great but nearly no software updates. An indian guy develops LineageOS for Nokia phones though

MigratingtoLemmy,

And the commenter is lamenting how greedy companies are getting and customers agreeing to get themselves bent for these corporations. Apple started the pricing model and Samsung followed suit, and now everyone just takes it as default pricing. This is a pathetic state of affairs

helenslunch,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

and now everyone just takes it as default pricing.

Who does that? There are several great phones you can buy for <$400. The phones of yore were trash.

MigratingtoLemmy, (edited )

Which ones in that range, released in 2023 have custom ROM support?

helenslunch,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

I mean I’m sure there are plenty of others, but the one that comes to mind is the P7a

MigratingtoLemmy,

Just so happens to be the only one in the USA

itsaj26744,
@itsaj26744@programming.dev avatar

I use Kaios , Another embedded linux

Helix,

Which phone?

itsaj26744,
@itsaj26744@programming.dev avatar

Jiophone F220b

MigratingtoLemmy,

Do you specifically use feature-phones?

itsaj26744,
@itsaj26744@programming.dev avatar

Life is nice this way, No bzz, Everything supposed to be done by a phone is handled perfectly by this small thing and for rest (like office,game and code) I go with PC

MigratingtoLemmy,

How do you do instant messaging? Isn’t typing with that harder than average?

itsaj26744,
@itsaj26744@programming.dev avatar

That’s also a thing but I use xmpp,matrix on pc (which I rarely do). BTW I forgot to mention I am full time student so…

MigratingtoLemmy,

Essentially, your usage of your mobile ends with calling?

Unfortunately, that won’t work for me since I need a browser to check my accounts and other needs on the move

itsaj26744,
@itsaj26744@programming.dev avatar

I have actually tied everything to my email so all updates are in my inbox. Calling + email,music,text,calendar,notes,todo and we have a brower for basic ddg searches

Chewy7324,

I’ve bought a Nexus 4 to play around with Ubuntu Touch many years ago, but I really don’t think I could daily drive even a more powerful Linux phone. Many apps from messengers to banking apps are Android/iOS only, so it’d be really inconvenient to use — not to mention problems with calling and a not-so-great camera.

Almost all things I want to do on a phone are possible with a Pixel + GrapheneOS, which also makes an open source, secure and private phone OS.

Usually ssh’ing into a server through termux is all I need, altough it’d be cool to be able to plug my phone into a monitor and have a desktop with me all the time. But it being “cool” is the problem, as it’s not useful day to fay for me. If I need a pc I’ll take my laptop. I’ll probably try it at some point, but that’s many years into the future.

MigratingtoLemmy,

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

Chewy7324,

Performance and bugs might still be a problem with these relatively young projects. But if all you need is a browser I do believe it might be worth a shot.

In the EU 2FA for banking is required by law which usually comes down to either an Android/iOS app or a chipTAN device. That’s why browser isn’t an option for me. Sadly I don’t think waydroid passes the basicIntegrity check of AOSP [1], so emulation is out of the picture too.

[1] grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps

JubilantJaguar,

Banking 2FA can be done by SMS too, which is secure enough.

A world in which banking requires us to install spyware on our mobile computers is not a world we should accept.

ritchie,
@ritchie@lemmy.world avatar

Sms is not as secure as a 2FA app or the bank’s own app. SMS verfification also costs money, so it will raise your monthly fees quite much if you wish to receive a text on every transaction.

JubilantJaguar,

As I said, SMS is secure enough without being the nightmare of a proprietary spyware app. As for fees, you have an American perspective, in most of the world SMS has been free to send for decades, and was always free to receive. The ideal solution is indeed a 2FA app, but those never took off.

ritchie,
@ritchie@lemmy.world avatar

I have a European perspective and here you need to pay per text message. Receiving is free, but the bank is charged and they put their charge on me, so they bill me for the messages, unfortunately. In the US SMS is free in most plans as I know.

Chewy7324,

My bank disagrees that SMS tan is secure enough 2FA and doesn’t support it.

southsamurai,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Man, the call problems are a dealbreaker for any phone at all, imo. Maybe not for a toy, but it’s bonkers that they’d release a phone OS that isn’t 100% call stable.

Chewy7324,

There has to be a device to develop support for calling. Since there’re multiple open source phone projects it’s also not simple to just write an implementation for them. Additionally carriers don’t work all the same (different bands, …), so it’s really not easy to solve with the few resources available. As far as I know much of the development on these phone OS is done by volunteers and pine64 isn’t a big established company either.

AnomalousBit,

Would really love to but have yet to see basic phone functionality covered in a way that isn’t a painful compromise. Stock Android is a privacy nightmare, which is why I left it. I had some fun with Cyanogenmod back in the day, maybe there’s another de-googled Android distribution around today but since I last checked I couldn’t find one that runs on modern mainstream hardware without really jumping through some crazy hoops to establish root.

rImITywR,

Cyanogenmod became LineageOS. It can be run fully de-googled or with Gapps.

GrapheneOS is also worth looking at.

Both run on modern hardware and are super simple to install.

AnomalousBit,

Will definitely give these a look, thank you for the updates.

Can you speak to your experience with any of these? Would love to hear a first hand account!

Extrasvhx9he,

I’m not that person but I’ve been using GrapheneOS for about 8 months now. Setting up an esim was probably the worst thing I had to do but it was still relatively easy. Lmk if you got any questions

rImITywR,

I ran Lineage on my OnePlus 5 for a few years until I replaced it with a Pixel 8 last month. The first thing I did with it was install GrapheneOS. I have not had any issues so far.

MigratingtoLemmy, (edited )

I would have to dispute your claims on this one. The only really modern mobiles running Lineage OS (by modern I mean released in this year and the previous year) are perhaps some European Xiaomi/Realme devices, maybe a couple of Samsungs, the last-gen OnePlus and some Motorola devices, and the Pixels.

As I have been complaining for a long while now, the entire custom ROM market is moving towards the Pixels, which is a dreadful move in my opinion, but what I can do

ryannathans, (edited )

Motorola edge 30 runs just fine and has done practically since it launched, typing this on it now

MigratingtoLemmy,

In Europe? AFAIK Motorola’s latest devices don’t have builds on the Lineage OS website (from 2023) but I might be wrong.

ryannathans,

Australia

MigratingtoLemmy,

Lucky

ryannathans,

Why?

MigratingtoLemmy,

You get more options

JackGreenEarth,

Yeah, my Motorola g73 isn’t supported.

MigratingtoLemmy,

Yeah

kick_out_the_jams, (edited )

It's mostly up to which manufacturers allow boot loader unlocking.

The pixels are somewhat a continuation of the nexus line which were more developer centric.

helenslunch,
@helenslunch@feddit.nl avatar

Would really love to but have yet to see basic phone functionality covered in a way that isn’t a painful compromise. Stock Android is a privacy nightmare, which is why I left it.

I’ve been using GrapheneOS for about a year now and it’s a giant leap in privacy and security (much better than iOS), with very little compromise in functionality.

MigratingtoLemmy,

iOS being secure is a farce which the population has just gobbled up without reason

atlasraven31,

Nope. I would like to but as long as android does an okay job I will stick with that.

Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug,

Yeah Linux phone is a pipedream as long as Android works well at all.

The fact that you can use Termux kind of makes Linux phones moot, especially since you need a very specific set of hardware

lemmy_user_838586, (edited )

Disclaimer: I’m an android user and would love to switch to a Linux phone.

Problem with android is updates being locked by carriers or Google themselves. To get updates after 2-3 years you basically have to buy a phone that has unlockable bootloader and supports LineageOS, AND you have to have the technical skills to Install and set up LineageOS, I do, but no one else I know does, they just happily buy a new phone because app X,Y,Z stopped working on their old phone, which is perfectly usable. And if you have a phone where bootloader is locked (I’m looking at you, Verizon, EVERY PHONE THEY SELL THEY LOCK), oops there’s an expensive paperweight, can never be running anything other than Android 8 or whatever it came with.

MigratingtoLemmy,

My problem is the lack of availability of custom ROMs on new devices like the newest OnePlus and ASUS. Not the fault of the maintainers but it is what it is. I don’t want to be locked to Pixel hardware because come what may I will never trust Google on a single thing

Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug,

Show me a linux phone that isn’t an expensive paperweight after 2 years.

MigratingtoLemmy,

What inconveniences have you faced from the software?

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

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