Linux phones? For real?
Linux Ubuntu phones been around for awhile.
https://phone.docs.ubuntu.com/en/devices/
Linux phones? For real?
see Pinephone, they work today on most carriers, probably buying one this week myself.
https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
This one’s furthest along, meaning you can actually buy one now but they manufacture them here in the US and since it’s not a huge company, there may be a wait. https://shop.puri.sm/
There are others but I think they’re all still at the pre-order one stage.
The Librem 5 at the above link has two models. $799 and $1999. Same phone but the $1999 is made in the USA of USA components. The $799 has foreign components and most likely some parts/chips made in China.
Here’s another; https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-community-edition-kde-plasma-mobile-limited-edition-linux-smartphone/?v=0446c16e2e66
Community edition, meaning they need the community to test it and give feedback so they can perfect things. It runs Plasma/KDE which is what my laptop runs but the phone runs a Plasma mobile. Here’s the OS website; https://www.plasma-mobile.org/
Hopefully they’ll move things along because I think it would be cool to have basically the same OS on a phone as on my laptop.
General Linux phone news/info website; https://linuxsmartphones.com/
If you’re not afraid of installing an OS on a phone, here’s a database where you type in your model and it will tell you if Linux can be installed and if so, which OS. It covers over 200 models. Techie people have been putting Linux on cell phones for years. https://many.tuxphones.com/
As far as apps, I don’t think there are any 3rd party for things like social networking sites, fb, twitter, parler, instagram etc yet. The phones come with the ability to make calls and text and a few other basic things, camera etc but that’s it.
The Librem 5 runs Pure OS which is custom written from the ground up.
Here’s a list of apps for the Purism Librem, https://tracker.pureos.net/w/pureos/mobile_optimized_apps/
FAQ’s for Librem including “Will my SIM card work?” https://puri.sm/faq/
Answer, maybe/probably but there are two possible modem choices. Looks like AT&T will work which is what I have. I should try to get away from them. Only reason we chose them is because they own all the towers around here and we live in hill country so I was thinking/hoping an AT&T phone might be apt to get the best reception but that’s not so. People with iPhones get a signal where I can’t. Of course we also have a cheapo China ZTE phone which probably has more to do with it than anything. If we’d have spent several hundred dollars, we’d probably get a better signal.
My wife usually has our phone and she uses fb messenger and plays fb games so she’d hate a Linux phone. I have no interest in overpriced Apple products so that leaves Android or possibly an open source Android compatible OS. https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/ It’s not a super simple thing but I’ve installed OSs on computers for a couple of decades and all my machines are dual boot where I can choose whether to boot up to Linux or Windows.
Just getting rid of all the bundled google crap, including their ability to track you is all that’s needed. Android actually has Linux at it’s root. I think for me, the best bet is going to be grapheneOS. Very limited on devices, pretty much various models of google’s Pixel line with Pixel 4 being the newest. I’m sure it would be every bit as good as our China ZTE phone. Graphene OS is basically Android degoogled. https://grapheneos.org/
Not a super easy install process; https://grapheneos.org/install
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313&_nkw=+GrapheneOS&_sacat=0
Ebay search for grapheneOS leads to several Pixel 3, 3a phones with graphene preinstalled for $3-400. One Pixel 4 w/graphene but the seller has no feedback so they could be iffy. There are new, unblocked Pixel 3/4 phones on amazon with straight Android, no service provider bloatware and they might be a good candidate for installing graphene. I think I’ll probably get one from ebay.
They will come.