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These Are the Best Alternatives to Google’s Android Operating System (Wired) (www.wired.com)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
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Interesting article from a generalist magazine. According to it:

  • Best Preinstalled Phone: Fairphone 6 With /e/OS
  • Best for Pixel Phones: GrapheneOS
  • Best for Non-Pixel Phones: /e/OS
  • For the DIY Tinkerer: LineageOS
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[–] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

why is there no initiative to get Linux mobile up to speed?

There is. It just lacks a corporate sponsor, so it is going slowly.

Edit: It is also slowed because there is very little fully open source phone hardware, today - and of what there is, very little of it is pocket sized. This means phone OS maintainers have to rely on various hardware vendors cooperating, which is rare.

Also, the owners of the phone towers also probably don't imagine much benefit of having fully independent devices join the networks they maintain. I don't know how much help is needed from phone tower owner conglomerates, but I imagine we don't see enthusiastic support there, either.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    It is also slowed because there is very little fully open source phone hardware, today - and of what there is, very little of it is pocket sized.

    What I don't understand is why, if Pixels can be unlocked and locked back up again - which is part of why Graphene only works on Pixels - why don't more alternative OSs target Pixels? Ubuntu Touch, for example, only supports the 3a. I have a 9 so I can run Graphene, but I'd love to be able to put some flavour of Linux on it.

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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago

    if Pixels can be unlocked and locked back up again - which is part of why Graphene only works on Pixels - why don't more alternative OSs target Pixels?

    I don't know, but my guess is it is just a resource challenge. Since Ubuntu isn't leveraging Android at the lowest level, they probably have to write hardware drivers for every supported phone.

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  • [–] 2 points 8 months ago

    We should have now enough interest on a political level, which can well replace or create new incentive structures for the corporate sponsorship. There are also some EU phones that come with Ubuntu Touch, or Sailfish, like Jolla and Volla phone and a couple others using Android variants (e.g Fairphone) which could cooperate too. The argument with the phone towers is not familiar to me, how exactly do they benefit from the current monopolies?

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