Oh, wow, announcing an initiative to develop a fully free and open source smartphone. That's a great idea! No one has announced such a thing before. Because if they had obviously it would have come to fruition by now.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
603 points (99.8% liked)
Linux Phones
1439 readers
310 users here now
The Discussion on Linux-based Phones.
Benefits:
- Hardware freedom.
- Perfect operating-system competition.
- Full utilization of specs.
- Phone lifespan raises to 10+ years.
- Less e-waste.
Linux Mobile Distros:
- Ubuntu Touch
- Sailfish
- FuriOS
- Postmarket OS
- Mobian
- Pure OS
- Plasma Mobile
- LuneOS
- Nemomobile
- Droidian
- Mobile NixOS
- ExpidusOS
- Maemo Leste
- Manjaro Arm
- Tizen
- WebOS
Linux Mobile Hardware:
- Fairphone 5
- Volla Phone
- PinePhone
- FLX1
- Librem 5
⚙️Contribute
🧼Go Clean From the Duopoly:
💻Related Communities:
📰News:
💬Messager:
⌚️Watch:
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Oh so now they get this bright idea. Better late than never I guess.
They're not the first.
Was talking about FSF specifically
I know. Sadly. I've joined them. I have a Puri.sm Librem 5 I bought when it was in design.
Here's the split.
Either Linux on mobile needs to specialize to vertical screens, smooth out controls and usability, grow an app ecosystem for mobile and not just desktop apps squeezed, harden the network stack so 4G and 5G don't shit the bed, or...
There's also the concept of a fully FOSS Android, which personally, I believe is the lesser of two hills to climb, but I believe both could be used in tandem using Waydroid if both succeed in the end. If you have Android apps, made for Android, they can run on Linux mobile OSes right now through a compatibility layer.
Used in tandem, both could be more than the sum of either-or, at least on the short-term while Linux mobile development gets a bit more gas under its ass.
Talk is cheap. Contribute to postmarketOS. You can translate, code, test-drive or donate. The more people realise this the quicker we'll have a properly FLOSS mobile landscape and an alternative upon which to build apps and other things.
Why PostmarketOS and not Mobian, Sailfish, or Ubuntu Touch?
Why not fork Android?
What hardware deals are being made between Postmarket and phone manufacturers? Do they have a development timeline? How far are you guys from 1.0? Come on, action speaks.
Given googles latest updates might need to be a hard fork. The issue is who will build the phone if android based they can't make any other "authorized" android devices, since that is part of the play services ToS. (This actually has had me annoyed with Google+android for a 5-8 years now..)
& battery life
The most important thing fo me is not to fix a new Linux phone or linux compatible phone. It is to pressure the banks and digital ID providers here in Sweden and EU to support Linux.
I wanted a Linux phone, I was open and prepared to have a worse camera, battery, stability, user experience. You name it. Just to break free from the duopoly. But then I wouldn't be able to use my bank, healthcare services, insurance, file my taxes, etc. Cause there is no support for Linux only Android and iOS, windows, Mac OS.
Services needed to exist in a modern society locked to platforms owned by private corporations. Even if ASOP gets a fork that continues without Google's version of ASOP for future version's, there is a good chance none of the bank apps would function without integration of google services.
I'm running /e/OS on a fairphone, that was the best option out there for my requirements. But with the latest developments around ASOP I'm not sure about how long this will be an option.
I hate BankID with a fiery passion. I complain to all my Swedish colleagues how messed up it is that government services are locked behind a private company that only supports American big-tech operating systems. They are finally coming around to my way of thinking now.
I'm one of the only people I know in Sweden without a smartphone, just a dumbphone.
I couldn't get BankID to work with Wine or Waydroid so I just use an old Windows laptop when I need to access government services with the physical dongle. But I hate going back to Windows so it's always a pain.
BankID is so ass, the one we have here in Finland is a bit better, but the one we have in Estonia is the best.
The Estonian one is by far the most comfortable to use of the three, with even a working and maintained Linux version. It is also tied to the PCKS#11 certificate stored in your ID card, instead of a corporate bank account.
Back when BankID was young, in the wee 00s, it was actually just a certificate on your computer. The management software for this is still around I believe, it's called BankID Säkerhetsprogram. The Linux support for it was dropped in 2014.
The reason it took off the way it did is because it was in early, and the banks backed it. The government has been really slow implementing their own solution. They had DIGG work on it for a while, but then transferred the assignment to Polismyndigheten.
load more comments
(5 replies)
load more comments
(6 replies)
This is why I prefer websites, and try to avoid apps. I can use them across any device.
Sure, there are some things I may not be able to do, like pay by phone, but I have a little card to do that.
The problem isn't really the app, it's that a private organisation is controlling the default digital identification system, and how it is accessed. Until 2014 they had a Linux client for it, but it was discontinued. BankID has been around for a long time, so it's absolutely engrained in so many aspects of society here.
Past few weeks, these are instances I've used BankID, off the top of my head
- Had to pick up a DHL parcel in person, authenticated with BankID
- Picked up a parcel from a PostNord locker, BankID required
- Called my mobile phone provider many times (fuck telenor), authenticated with BankID
- Paid my bills, BankID to log in, as well as authenticate payment
- Bought a game expansion, BankID required to use my debit card
- Bought groceries (online, I struggle going out to groups of people), BankID at checkout
- Updated my dog's food subscription, BankID at checkout
- Checked in at dentist office, BankID to authenticate that I was present
- Digital mailbox to get a bill, BankID
Honestly I'm sure I've missed a bunch. In general though, doing something digitally and authenticating with BankID is the primary way of getting things done here. The "old fashioned way" is unconventional, and tends to be woefully slow. When my previous roomie didn't have a social security number (and subsequently not access to BankID) every single administrative thing they needed doing took forever, registering for school, doing tests, updating licenses, registering your address, even just plain buying things can be tricky.
Yeah you are basically soft-locked out of society without a phone with bank ID here in Sweden.
Aye. The amount of phone calls my friend had to do to get things done, and people generally had no idea how to go about things if you didn’t have BankID. Things were slow and unreliable.
This is the worst part. They all have functional websites, but to login you need digital ID(bankID) so one app is acting as the gate keeper
This
I would have been in Linux for my phone years ago if it wasn't that so many companies are ~~conspiring~~ working together to lock down every service just to make sure that spyware phones are the only option to citizens.
Fuck. That. Shit.
I want to be able to make payments with my phone. THROUGH LINUX. MY PHONE, MY RULES.
Puri.sm
If they take a complete free/libre purist approach, is it possible for them to build phones that work with current generation cellular networks?
Last I checked, no. However, you can move actual radio chip off to a separate chip that is isolated by the MMU or connects through the USB bus.
I was wondering the same thing. I thought the reason this thing has never taken off is because it’s ridiculously hard to make firmware that operates these radios.
Exactly. It took Apple with their infinite resources and top engineers many years to build their own baseband.
And that's still very new. Who knows how it'll hold up.
I saw a custom smartphone used by the military - no idea what's inside but it looked like a regular one with giant battery and with some different OS. It also had a kill switch button (or so I was told).
Signal comes preinstalled.
With random journalists in the contacts.
God please yes.
Look FSF. If you want this to work you cannot just copy fairphones design and pricing. I'll be honest IDK how anyone can justify spending more than 200$ on a phone especially in this economy but the privacy nerds seem to always be in good enough financial conditions no matter what they'll happily pay 800$ for a 5 year old phone with hard kill switches and modular parts.
I just can't do it. I don't have 800$ in play money to spend on a nerd phone. If you really want to help people you need to make some deals and mass produce this shit on the cheap. IDC if its got the build quality of a tracphone from walmart, find a way to bring those priced down to something the average person can actually consider.
Mass production comes after you can make a low volume high end niche product.
load more comments
(1 replies)
please make something affordable. I want to be able to make mobile apps without being forced to the Java/swift shit duo.
The app ecosystem will be wild, if this succeeds.
I hate Java so much, and so deeply, that I do not develop quick handy little Android apps.
But if I can use a less obnoxious language, the world is going to see some mobile apps for tracking all the push-ups I'm not doing, and all the salads I intend to eat.
Edit: Android is already a huge success, by any meaure, of course. But it can get better without Java.
Edit 2: I do know that cross compilers exist. They still smell like Java, though.
load more comments
(6 replies)
I've been seeing this kind of stuff three times a year for 15 years.
Perpetual inertia.
load more comments
(8 replies)
Shut up and take my money!
view more: next ›