Anyone use one of those Linux phones like pine phone or librem.
I was looking at a few months ago but settled on a deggooled phone. Are there user friendly distros for them?
Purism is a fucking scam company. Look intoFairPhonre or just do what most of us do: get a Pixel and reinstall without gapps
I don’t think so. They providing GNU/Linux phone and invest money into mobile development for Linux. I would not recommend buying their Librem (better buy PinePhone Pro instead if you want GNU/Linux), but they definitely not a scam company.
I paid $2,000 for a laptop. It broke the same week it arrived. I returned it. They said they’d give me my money back.
That was about a year ago. I’m still waiting for my refund. They keep say it’s coming soon and won’t give me an ETA.
That’s not a scam?
Hows the experience with the phone? What have you noticed can be used and cant as far as app usage? (Ie games, social apps, etc)
Well this one uses replacements for all the google back end stuff and a app lounge that gives a privacy rating and promotes foss apps. Since I don’t Facebook, Instagram, twitter, and I only used reddit the website, I don;t know how well those app run it. All the app I do use run fine. It does come with a Gb of cloud storage and a private email run by the developers.
I started daily driving a PinePhone with Mobian over two years ago, upgraded to a PinePhonePro when they first came out, and then I finally got my Librem5 about a month ago. They have come a long way. The core functions you’d expect from a phone work; calls, texts (SMS and MMS), camera (pictures and video), email, web browsing, all that works perfectly fine on my Librem5. However, I understand they are not for everyone. While there are things like twitter and mastodon clients for Linux you are not going to get a banking app for a Linux phone (for example). I just use the browser for those kinds of things though.
How was your experience with Mobian? I had my install break like 3 different times with barely any usage / installing packages.
The things keeping me from fully migrating to Linux on mobile are apps like Uber/lyft. They don’t have a web ui version, but I actually use them often. Also google maps navigation doesnt have any realistic alternative in my experience.
Uber and lyft do have web versions you can use to use the service, however app notification services and more detail stuff on the driver are not available like it is on the app versions.
For lyft: https://ride.lyft.com/
For uber: https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/
As far as maps, i used this when i had ubuntu phone, it was pure maps running offline with osm scout server. I had to go on a browser to get the coordinates of where i wanted to go and input that on the puremaps. Its an extra step but once i saved the default locations it made it easier use.
Not having apps like Uber/Lyft is a problem for a lot of people. I’ve ran into issues like going to events (concerts/sporting events) where they expect you to download their app to even get in the door, which is more of a societal problem then a technical one for me. I know some apps can be emulated on Linux phones but I havent played with it much so I’m not sure how well they work.
I’ve used gnome maps with very degrees of success. Its obviously not on the level of google maps, but getting better.
my librem 5 just sits in my drawer, not usable as a primary smartphone IMHO.
Have the PinePhone and PP Pro. Partial to SailfishOS on both. It has the most smartphone feel if you will. Like with most the camera is pretty much a no go but I rarely use them anyway.
Except it is proprietary. The UI, Android compatibility layer, etc are proprietary
Just for tinkering so far. I have a habit of tossing the devices aside for long periods of time when an OS breaks badly. 😁
Technically SailfishOS handles most of the requirements to make the device a daily-driver-in-training. All but one of my Android devices are VoIP now. Getting away from carrier-based stuff (and saving money).
At the moment there isn’t really anything usable on the mobile linux side (SIP, calls via XMPP - I have JMP.chat numbers) that I am aware of. On SFOS that is. Though I can use movim via browser.
Guess it is time I took the devices seriously and try to use them more regularly.
