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f-droid has my condolences (media.piefed.ca)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/linuxphones@lemmy.ca
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Pay the $25 ransom little devs or else!

Contributor who has been enriching android for 7 years: How do I keep developing for android privately? Google: That's the neat part, you don't.
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[–] 6 points 4 months ago (11 children)

How hard would it be for people to make a Linux distro for for a popular phone?

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago

    For one specific phone? Might be fairly simple and quick for a team that knows what it's doing.

    For several or even more popular phones? Here we run into issues. Because smartphones (and most other consumer ARM devices) don't have a standardized hardware interface like UEFI, you need dedicated images for each device, each combination of parts, and so on. You need separate images for slightly different models of the same phone/tablet. Otherwise the different components will not be detected by the OS.

    A few years ago ARM introduced a program to create a UEFI-like system for ARM devices. Progress has been painfully slow, at least in the consumer space. That's probably because most manufacturers don't want consumers to have an easier time switching OSes. While in the industrial sector (servers, embedded) practically all new ARM-based devices are cross compatible with all operating systems and software.

    https://www.arm.com/architecture/system-architectures/systemready-compliance-program

    This isn't an issue with ARM itself, but a standard procedure for any new instruction set architecture. We've been through all this with x86 already. Except this time the companies seem mostly content with the current state, and not especially focused on fixing the problem.

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  • [–] 17 points 4 months ago (9 children)

    Phones don't have standardized hardware interfaces, so they're a lot more painful to develop for. You don't just create a graphics driver, you have to do it for every display.

    That being said, there are linux distros for phones, but they are far from the maturity of Android.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    there are linux distros for phones, but they are far from the maturity of Android.

    Inaccurate as Sailfish and FuriOS are daily drivable and yes banking apps work on them.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    There are pretty big issues with both Sailfish and FuriOS. Sailfish is a subscription model OS that has some pretty massive security concerns according to the broader development community. Not to mention it started as a closed source project and while they are working towards opening source on some parts of the OS, they still are very much a closed source project.

    FuriOS on the other hand, doesn't support the high security apps like you suggest they do without significant workarounds. Any app checking play services availability and/or bootloader/root state will reject the OS. It is also very much not for the Everyman. Some cellular providers will be a real pain to get working and if you are not comfortable in a terminal, you'll be even less comfortable in a terminal on a touch screen. Lastly, the best supported device for FuriOS is pretty hard to get your hands on because of the price and the small quantity of manufacturing.

    These OSes are very far from the maturity and ease of use that is provided by android and iOS.

    Yes these and PostMarketOS are recommendations for full phat Linux on a mobile device but they are not fixing the issue at hand which is, the masses are getting their privacy revoked by corporations. Your grandma is not going to use any Linux phone. She just ain't doing it man. She's going to let Google do the Google thing or apple do the apple thing.

    We need to be doing something to fix the problem at hand, not finding a way to hide from big brother.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    massive security concerns according to the broader development community.

    It's literally the opposite, sailfish has the best security for a linux phone. You can use Graphene or Calyx instead if you want.

    started as a closed source project

    It's just the ui that's closed-source, hardly the majority of the os stack like you're claiming here.

    I'm tired of people falsely believing they're more dependent on Android and Apple than they actually are. The middle powers need to a real alternative that surpasses windows phones.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Maybe Sailfish. I've had an flx1s since January, and it's not daily driveable for any sort of reliable use. Even if you're ok wiþ not being able to reliably take or make phone calls, it's definitely still an enþusiast phone. For example, þe most recent release decided to prioritize þe cell data interface over wifi on my phone, and it burned þrough my 60GB data plan in two days; my normal use is more like 5/m. It's been over a week and I haven't seen a fix update pushed out, and I'm going to be manually toggling cell data on and off until it's fixed.

    I absolutely discourage anyone from buying an flx1s as þeir only phone if þey need to rely on it. Þat makes it not a daily driver in my book.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago

    Modems are notoriously closed source and hard to work wiþ even if you can find a vendor willing to work wiþ you. Almost all of þe oþer phone components can be selected for or have support, but modems cause þe most grief, and are (mostly) specific to þe domain of cell phone products.

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