[Hostage]

There are Linux smartphone alternatives to Android and iOS.

For users of Linux phones, please share your experiences.

[GOP Poet]

interested as well.

[PGR88]

I’m not a techie - will these OS work even if carriers like Verizon and AT&T “ban” them?

Because you know it’s coming. China’s internet and social-media controls are the model.

[Fai Mao]

Lower video resolution but if all you do is talk and text it is ok. A burner phone rom Walmart is cheaper.

[John S Mosby]

Very helpful. So no longer hostage to Androids (and their only competition iOS).

Thank you.

[Pez149]

I’ve read of Linux running on a smartphone but a true Linux cellphone would be a step in the right direction for sure.

[dayglored]

** TECH PING **

[ShadowAce]

Tech Ping

[dadfly]

bookmark

[Phillyred]

Everyone needs to watch Black Mirror episode “Nosedive”. We are about to live it.

[Paal Gulli]

Android is Linux, albeit a a heavily-modified fork, but such modification was always going to be necessary because of smartphones' "miniaturized" hardware.

There's been so much in-breeding in the *NIX world since Torvalds created Linux (as a fork [derivative] of UNIX) that the differences often are very subtle and indistinct so now they're all in general referred to as "UNIX-Like." So now that covers UNIX, Linux, Android, OSX. and a bunch of others.

And like all 'true' Linux, Android is open-source. Its kernel is covered by the GNU (say: Guh-Noo) General Purpose Licensing agreement (GNU GPL), which lets anybody do anything they want to with it, provided they give credit to whoever they stole it from.

It's been several years since I've had a smartphone with Android on it because I started replacing the factory Android with a fork called CyanogenMod, which by design has been stripped of all the G**gle spyware and comes "rooted" by default. Four years ago a corporate kerfuffle caused CyanogenMod to be re-named LineageOS (LOS), and they currently make LOS ROMS for 109 different smartphone models.

I recently bought an LG Classic fliphone (for $30 @WW) running an Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) ROM as a cheap back-up phone. The LineageOS ROM isn't available (as a rule) for low-end phones, and I didn't want to invest the time on an occasional-use phone in switching to LOS anyway, so imagine my delight when I discovered that LG was selling cheap phones running (G**gle-free) AOSP.

Anyhow, good luck to PureOS. The added competition can only improve the breed in general but LineageOS has been creating G**gle-free ROMs for Android phones since 2009 (currently approaching 2 million active users), so they've got some catching up to do.

[for-q-clinton]

need the critical apps but i hope this takes off.