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Linux Phones have a few software hurdles to pass through to get usable.
The biggest problem right now is adoption and contribution to the ecosystem, but there’s a few things in the way of outright using Linux apps on a phone. One is that most Linux apps aren’t made to be verical. Some newer ones can adapt to it, but many of the apps you likely would depend on using a Linux laptop are almost unusable on a Linux phone, like… vlc, for instance.
The network stack isn’t as beaten to death for 4G and 5G as Android’s is. I work in a slightly iffy area, and on Android I’d have times where I’d lose signal, but it would always come back within 5-10 minutes or so. There’d be times on Linux when it wouldn’t until I’d missed two calls and three texts and an hour and a half had gone by because the system was choking on a comma or a misplaced semicolon it found somewhere in the background and wouldn’t reset until I forced airplane mode off and on. If I was at home, or in the city, I’d never notice this problem, but the second I hit a road trip or went to work, boy.
Also, and this is just my phone, my OP6T had iffy microphone and earpiece settings. Pulse Audio was at the forefront of this audio stack almost entirely unchanged from its appearance on gnome or kde and on a phone it’s just confusing and obtuse as to what app is using what and what even is what. If you got it right, it was fine, then the next call it wouldn’t be, or would change back, again, probably more the 6T being a 6T than anything else.
I think right now, in this interim period, I’m going to buy a hotspot that I can just slip a sim card into and tether a Linux phone to it. I can use Conversations on Waydroid and use JMP.chat to send phone calls and texts over XMPP. I did fine on my OP6T for my actual use of a phone. I was browsin’, I was textin’, I was sendin’ messages, I was doin’ terminal stuff, administratin’ my servers, readin’, listening to musicn’. It was fine. Will do some experimenting.
Very insightful and interesting. Thanks. I am using GrapheneOS at the moment and only have read about the Linux phones. Of course an open android system that is decoupled from Google and their shenanigans would be great as well. But I am not very hopeful as Google has started a battle on several fronts…
Linux Phones have a few software hurdles to pass through to get usable.
The biggest problem right now is adoption and contribution to the ecosystem, but there’s a few things in the way of outright using Linux apps on a phone. One is that most Linux apps aren’t made to be verical. Some newer ones can adapt to it, but many of the apps you likely would depend on using a Linux laptop are almost unusable on a Linux phone, like… vlc, for instance.
The network stack isn’t as beaten to death for 4G and 5G as Android’s is. I work in a slightly iffy area, and on Android I’d have times where I’d lose signal, but it would always come back within 5-10 minutes or so. There’d be times on Linux when it wouldn’t until I’d missed two calls and three texts and an hour and a half had gone by because the system was choking on a comma or a misplaced semicolon it found somewhere in the background and wouldn’t reset until I forced airplane mode off and on. If I was at home, or in the city, I’d never notice this problem, but the second I hit a road trip or went to work, boy.
Also, and this is just my phone, my OP6T had iffy microphone and earpiece settings. Pulse Audio was at the forefront of this audio stack almost entirely unchanged from its appearance on gnome or kde and on a phone it’s just confusing and obtuse as to what app is using what and what even is what. If you got it right, it was fine, then the next call it wouldn’t be, or would change back, again, probably more the 6T being a 6T than anything else.
I think right now, in this interim period, I’m going to buy a hotspot that I can just slip a sim card into and tether a Linux phone to it. I can use Conversations on Waydroid and use JMP.chat to send phone calls and texts over XMPP. I did fine on my OP6T for my actual use of a phone. I was browsin’, I was textin’, I was sendin’ messages, I was doin’ terminal stuff, administratin’ my servers, readin’, listening to musicn’. It was fine. Will do some experimenting.
Very insightful and interesting. Thanks. I am using GrapheneOS at the moment and only have read about the Linux phones. Of course an open android system that is decoupled from Google and their shenanigans would be great as well. But I am not very hopeful as Google has started a battle on several fronts…