I am currently considering switching to a 3rd custom rom on my xiaomi since both of the ones I have tried while better than the stock one by miles, seem to have no activity surrounding them (one was last updated almost 2 years ago and the one I am currently on has been updated in october).

Just sucks that its notsuch a mainline phone rhat gets lota of custom ROM support.

I run SailfishOS and Australia mandates VoLTE now. It works.

GrapheneOS has been working flawlessly for me for years. Highly recommend!

I'm an /e/os user and all I can say is even though it sucks the least among its competition, it STILL SUCKS! Not to downplay the immense effort put in by the devs and maintainers of course. Providing a privacy-respecting phone OS to ordinary people isn't just a good deed, it's necessary for a vibrant and diverse digital society. But still, we can all strive for better.

Just one problem. Both are still dependent on Google and Android-based. How sustainable is that security model when a company has the say-so over whether you get to flash your custom firmware next year, or the next year, or maybe the year after that?

Check out crDroid. I do not know how it's like to daily drive it, but afaik it's highly customizable.

Yep, they put in a lot of effort into the security and open source stuff, but at least on Graphene, the bundled apps are severely outdated aosp apps, they don't even support material you, meanwhile current aosp apps do support it, as can be seen on Lineage. The calculator app looks straight from Android 5 or probably earlier.

This one right here, officer! They did it!

Yeah, like the Nexus 5. Not anything you'd want to actually use today.

If only Arch Linux ARM existed... ;(

For sure. One or two super paranoid banking apps but literally everything else works great with microg.

Sounds like OP was using an unnofficial miui port or smth like that

i maintain that my pixel running lineage with microg and magisk and some other stuff is about the best experience you can have on a phone

It works with 0 issues 97% of the time and never annoys me, and i have basically complete control over the device.

Yeah I am thinking of just don't care about phones. Just the cheapest second hand thing I can get for calls, sms, ssh, vlc.

Maps would be nice, OsmAnd crashes frequently (out of memory?) on the tablet I got second hand.

Make a /system symlink and copy the drivers over?

Came here to say the same thing. I'm very happy with sailfish OS since the first jolla phone came out (10+ years). I'm certainly not a power user though.

Costs so much though. Thinking about what a phone even needs to do for me, what other handheld devices could work instead?

Steamdeck perhaps? Then a brick phone for calls/sms. Not too sure what would work as a lower spec and cheaper alternative to a Steamdeck and runs Linux though.

achtually, every Android phone is using the Linux kernel

Yes and support for GNU/Linux applications is currently in beta.

I'm currently trying to decide between private and repairable. Pixel with Graphene or an HMD Skyline. Wish Fairphone was an option.

How's picture quality with Graphene? How big a downgrade is it from the one packed on the stock pixel?

Volla phone has unlocked bootloader and ships with android or linux, some even have nativ dualboot

https://volla.online/

I have fairphone, it comes with unlockable bootloader. Don't get the new ones tho, they suck. 3+ was the last good model before they drank the koolaid and removed the headphone jack.

Basically this. I use my phone as a tool and Linux phones don’t have the toolset for me to be satisfied. Like NFC payment, online banking and GPS tracking. Android does have the toolset but I’d like to keep my phone 5 years and longer. Currently rocking an iPhone 14 Pro and I plan on changing it with the iPhone 20 or 30 or however they call that one on 5 years.

There's also LineageOS after support. Still immutable done bad, but the toolset works.