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What is the state of other operating systems on Android devices? Since Mobian is bringing Debian to phones, I am playing with the idea to try it. How easy/har

What is the state of other operating systems on Android devices? Since Mobian is bringing Debian to phones, I am playing with the idea to try it. How easy/hard is it nowadays to just go to a store, buy a nice phone, go home and put Mobian on it? I am not talking about how nice the phone experience is. Just how easy/hard the switch to Mobian would be. I'm fully aware that Mobian is brand new. But I would like to have a phone where I can play with it and watch it's progress.

ryukafalz 6y ago
>How easy/hard is it nowadays to just go to a store, buy a nice phone, go home and put Mobian on it? I don't want to say impossible, because that's not quite true, but close to. Mobian runs pretty much a stock Linux kernel, and there are only two recent devices on the market designed to do that: the PinePhone and the Librem 5. The alternative is to use libhybris to run on top of an Android kernel (including all the proprietary drivers needed for a typical Android phone), but... that's really something the distro developers would have to do, not you as a user. Some Android devices are now mostly bootable with mainline Linux or something close to it (PostmarketOS has done a lot of great work here), but these are typically devices that are several years old, not the kind of thing you'd go out and buy in a store. In short: unless the device you buy happens to be a PinePhone or Librem 5 or you are a dedicated kernel hacker or distro developer... no chance, for the vast majority of recent devices you might buy.
- TooCreative 6y ago
  Would I be able to put Mobian on the phone in the first place? How would I do that? Is there a button combination or something that tells android phones to boot from an external media?
Iolaum 6y ago
As a pinephone owner I can tell you that non android based Linux phones are years away from having a feature set that would make them acceptable for a general consumer. I d definitely recommend the pinephone for playing with it and watching it's progress though ;)
- TooCreative 6y ago
  As I said, for me it is not about the experience. I just want to run Linux on my phone and be part of the journey. If I have a working terminal, that would already be cool. The thing with the PinePhone is that it is not very easy to buy. Say I get used to the PinePhone as my daily driver for having a terminal in my pocket. And then it breaks. Then I am f*cked and have to wait weeks or months for a new one to ship from Hong Kong. If we were at the point were I can just go to a store, buy a phone and put Linux on it - I would start right now.
- tpxl 6y ago
  Years away? Nah. The PinePhone was literally useless as a phone at the start of the year, now I'm close to mainlining it. As long as calling/SMS/internet works it's good enough for me.

ryukafalz 6y ago

>How easy/hard is it nowadays to just go to a store, buy a nice phone, go home and put Mobian on it? I don't want to say impossible, because that's not quite true, but close to. Mobian runs pretty much a stock Linux kernel, and there are only two recent devices on the market designed to do that: the PinePhone and the Librem 5. The alternative is to use libhybris to run on top of an Android kernel (including all the proprietary drivers needed for a typical Android phone), but... that's really something the distro developers would have to do, not you as a user. Some Android devices are now mostly bootable with mainline Linux or something close to it (PostmarketOS has done a lot of great work here), but these are typically devices that are several years old, not the kind of thing you'd go out and buy in a store. In short: unless the device you buy happens to be a PinePhone or Librem 5 or you are a dedicated kernel hacker or distro developer... no chance, for the vast majority of recent devices you might buy.

TooCreative 6y ago
Would I be able to put Mobian on the phone in the first place? How would I do that? Is there a button combination or something that tells android phones to boot from an external media?

Iolaum 6y ago

As a pinephone owner I can tell you that non android based Linux phones are years away from having a feature set that would make them acceptable for a general consumer. I d definitely recommend the pinephone for playing with it and watching it's progress though ;)

TooCreative 6y ago
As I said, for me it is not about the experience. I just want to run Linux on my phone and be part of the journey. If I have a working terminal, that would already be cool. The thing with the PinePhone is that it is not very easy to buy. Say I get used to the PinePhone as my daily driver for having a terminal in my pocket. And then it breaks. Then I am f*cked and have to wait weeks or months for a new one to ship from Hong Kong. If we were at the point were I can just go to a store, buy a phone and put Linux on it - I would start right now.
tpxl 6y ago
Years away? Nah. The PinePhone was literally useless as a phone at the start of the year, now I'm close to mainlining it. As long as calling/SMS/internet works it's good enough for me.