I have been looking at Fairphone and Volla, and it feels like the Smartphone scene for Linux is going very strong right now.

Think of it like this: We got 3-4 end-user ready Ubports smartphones, made by IN Europe(Volla/Gigaset is), with recent hardware, swappable battery, very good service and repairability in various formats. You can even purchase Gigaset phones (commercial equivalents of Volla) in stores/Amazon for a very good price.

The immediate orbiters of Linux smartphones like Fxtec, Planet Computers and Jolla are also based here.

I think we reached the year of the Linux phones. Atleast it is not the niche it was in 2020. I wonder how usable ubports is. If you got any experience with these phpnes on ubports, feel free to share.

  • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world
    13·
    1 year ago

    Are these true Linux phones? Or are we talking Android loader/drivers then launching a Linux session? So far the only two devices i know to be true Linux phones are the Pinephone and the Librem.

    • HarriPotero@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      Jolla is the successor to Nokia’s Maemo/Meego OS which was proper Linux. Jolla does have seamless Android emulation. They don’t do their own phones anymore, though.

      • Ew0@slrpnk.net
        2·
        1 year ago

        This, if there’s a successor (an actual working one), it’s probably SailfishOS. Runs pretty well on my Xperia 10 III and the UI is super nice :)

    • CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml
      41·
      1 year ago

      Agreed, halium and Ubuntu Touch aren’t true Linux phones in my book. To be a true Linux phone you need to run mainline, or at least very close to it (pmOS forks, Megi kernel, etc) and do things the Linux way not the Android way (KMS/DRM/Mesa stack, ALSA/Pulse/Pipewire stack). There are some phones that are getting there thanks to postmarketOS like the OnePlus 6/6T but the ones you listed are the main true Linux phones.

      Typing this from my PinePhone Pro running postmarketOS.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        How’s that working these days? From time to time I dust off mine, try it a bit, and see that while there’s progress, it’s way too unstable for a daily driver. PPP even more so than old PP. I’m using a Pixel 7 running Graphene these days…

    • Bondrewd@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Indeed they need Halium for it. On the other hand compare them to the nexuses and oneplus ones you had to put up with a few years ago.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 year ago

        Yeah but is it a ubports with a low level android or is it a full Linux boot? As mentioned, the only two phones I know of that boot full Linux from scratch with Linux drivers are the Pinephone (and the Pinephone Pro) and the Librem 5. Both with their own set of issues.

        • CAPSLOCKFTW@lemmy.ml
          3·
          1 year ago

          It is 100% Linux with 0% Android. I had a Volla Phone X for a few weeks.

          Edit: It uses vendor blobs to communicate with the hardware. Besides that, it used some lineageOS code in Halium, which is a layer between ubuntu touch and the vendor blobs.

    • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
      61·
      1 year ago

      WhatsApp

      Though I’d rather recommend you just get out of WhatsApp entirely (it’s still owned by Meta after all), one way to go would be by using a matrix client (like element) with the WhatsApp bridge.

        • rglullis@communick.newsEnglish
          31·
          1 year ago

          The messages would still go through WhatsApp, but they are e2ee anyway. The part where it would protect you is that you wouldn’t have the app installed on your device, so Facebook won’t be able to get your location, access your contact list, etc.

    • rhys the great@mastodon.rhys.wtf
      2·
      1 year ago

      @spiritedaway @Bondrewd It depends on what you mean by ‘modified non standard’ and ‘stock Android’, but banking apps will generally work on a number of custom Android distributions providing they aren’t rooted.

      All of my (UK-based) banking apps work on Calyx, for example.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
        3·
        1 year ago

        I’ve looked into this already, contactless payment will not work on waydroid or anything that isn’t stock

    • XTornado@lemmy.ml
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yeah…if more apps were web based or have web counter parts for mobile it would help.

      In my case my main bank works exactly the same through the app than the browser mobile version, all can be done from either. That said I do not expect to be the same for all banks.

      But yeah I would still have the issue with WhatsApp, if they had a web client like the telegram one it could work aswell. Although as other pointed out you might get away with some kind of bridge.

      • cmeerw@programming.dev
        1·
        1 year ago

        In my case my main bank works exactly the same through the app than the browser mobile version

        Main issue is that the two-factor authenticator app is usually only available for Android/iOS (some are still supporting SMS, but they are trying to phase that out)

        WhatsApp

        Their web app now actually works almost stand-alone. And as projects like yowsup have shown, it’s also possible to create your own stand-alone WhatsApp client (it’s only a matter of doing the work).

        • XTornado@lemmy.ml
          1·
          1 year ago

          Oh yeah… My main bank still uses SMS. But yeah on of my secondary banks has an app notification two factor thingy… But the SMS is still there as fall back. But true that if they end up removing that it could be a problem yes.

          And good to know about the WhatsApp thing thanks for sharing.

    • NGnius@lemmy.ca
      1·
      1 year ago

      By default, Fairphone uses Android yeah. But Ubports has support for some of their models.

  • cmeerw@programming.dev
    4·
    1 year ago

    I am actually running Tizen on a Samsung A5 - bit of a shame that no one else seems to be interested in Tizen…

  • Eugenia@lemmy.ml
    4·
    1 year ago

    I use the Murena /e/ OS (developed in France). It’s android-based, but totally degoogled (more so than LineageOS). Happy with it so far. I also installed Ubuntu Touch in an older phone, but it’s definitely not ready.

  • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
    1·
    1 year ago

    TIL Volla exists. Was confusing it with Jolla, who also had a Linux phone and OS but isn’t developing either of them anymore (I think?)

    • marvin@lemmy.sdf.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      They are still developing and selling Sailfish OS. They just stopped making their own hardware.

  • kilgore@feddit.de
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve had a Fairphone for a couple years now, didn’t realize its Ubuntu ready? How if the Ubuntu smartphone OS?

  • palitu@lemmy.perthchat.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    Yeah, I’m waiting for the day that it just works.

    At the moment, MFA, hotspot and connect for lemmy are some of my requirements. I have also started with things like immich and open street map apps.

    No wait, no I think about it, there are a lot of apps!

    • Bondrewd@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Newer Gigaset phones are made in Germany. Volla phones are rebranded Gigaset devices.

      I messed up in case of Fairphones, I will fix that. Although that phone is about fair worker conditions to begin with.

    • Bondrewd@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      1 year ago

      Because words are used on basis of usefulness. Non-useful meanings die out. This community is primarily a platform and only vaguely centered around Linux.

      Neither is the BSD community closer to playstation users.