6 ms·

Yes I want a Linux phone. But I also want one that has similar app support to Android and iOS. The problem is not with the Linux phones that are out there, it

by kokx 6y ago

Yes I want a Linux phone. But I also want one that has similar app support to Android and iOS. The problem is not with the Linux phones that are out there, it is that no apps are and likely never will be compatible with (non-Android) Linux phones. Until that is solved, most people (like me) could not switch out their phone for a Linux phone as a daily driver, however much they would like. Having Linux as an alternative for Windows is a lot easier than having Linux as an alternative for Android/iOS. A lot of the Windows applications we use can be replaced by opensource applications on Linux. And browser based applications already work on both. However, apps on Android/iOS are mostly tied to cloud services. Unfortunately services that most people need in this age. Messaging systems like WhatsApp and Signal are usually tied to your phone, and going without them would result in social isolation for a lot of people. But also for banking and sometimes government services, you likely need to use their apps. And there will never be opensource alternatives for such apps.

justaguy88 6y ago
Why can't linux run android apps? https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/ exists, I'm sure it could become a more integrated thing on a linux phone
- Ardon 6y ago
  Some distros on the pinephone can run android apps with anbox!
- kokx 6y ago
  Yes, Anbox exists, and has done some amazing things. But can this run apps that require Google Play Services, such as WhatsApp, most banking apps, and governmental apps? It is very unfortunate that so much of the Android ecosystem relies on a very proprietary and cloud-connected piece of software. Without it, most apps simply refuse to work. MicroG has done amazing things here, but unfortunately a lot of things still break when using it, to no fault of the MicroG developers.
  - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
    WhatsApp doesn't actually require Google Play Services, as everyone running LineageOS can tell you. Even if you don’t have Play Services and the Google Play Store, you can install Whatsapp from Aurora Store (off F-Droid) and then Whatsapp runs just fine on your vanilla Android.
    - hda2 6y ago
      Okay, but what about the apps that do? Some governments and banks require you to use their apps to get certain things done.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        Currently the only option is to either help with the efforts to run and emulate Google Play Services or switch to a different bank - much like requiring in-person visitors wear a mask, they're legally allowed to require you to use certain software or certain mechanisms to access your bank account.
        Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        > help with the efforts to run and emulate Google Play Services Modern bank apps require not just Google Play Services, they also require the phone to pass Safety Net. Play Services substitutes like MicroG aren’t capable of that.
  - toyg 6y ago
    This is a classic scenario that Linux also faced. Some people might be too young to remember, but a lot of services used to rely on Internet Explorer 6- and ActiveX when there was no chance whatsoever of getting those running properly on Linux. Later we had issues with DRM for streaming sites, which have probably not been fully solved yet. The truth is that service and app developers only care about one thing: audience size, which translates to actual money. And it takes a long time to build that audience, even more so in the mobile world where all metrics are orders of magnitude bigger than on the desktop. Until Linux phones can show they have sizeable audiences, developers will ignore them. Tens of thousands is nothing, we’ll need millions. Realistically, this is not going to change in 12 months or even 2 years. But, something can be done in the meantime: making all popular app-development frameworks run on mobile Linux, and then putting pressure on developers to produce app builds. When portability comes essentially for free, it becomes easy to support an additional platform just for the brownie points.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Let's not pretend that Anbox is some kind of magical drop in solution. I tried it many times and it's completely hit-and-miss at this stage, and development is very slow. Relying on Anbox for the future would be foolish unless someone steps in to massively increase the funding and resources on this project.
kome 6y ago
> Yes I want a Linux phone. But I also want one that has similar app support to Android and iOS. Replicant? https://replicant.us/ https://replicant.us/ LineageOS? https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/
- SilverRed 6y ago
  The recommended phone for replicant is a samsung s3 which is almost a decade old now.
- kokx 6y ago
  Which are both Android ROMs/distributions. Still requiring Google Play Services to do any of the things I want Android for. And they definitely do not have the same kind of hackability that full on Linux phones have. LineageOS is what I'm currently using on my daily driver, as a compromise. I would very much prefer a Linux phone, but in the current state it can't even fulfill half my needs in a smartphone.
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    >Still requiring Google Play Services to do any of the things I want Android for. If that's a problem, are you aware of microG? https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/
    - kokx 6y ago
      I'm very aware of microG. They have done some amazing work. But unfortunately apps like banking apps require that you pass Google's SafetyNet. Which (understandably) is a lot more complicated to support in microG.
toastal 6y ago
It's a shame Mozilla just cut SSB support or at least you could easy make some web apps into lightweight apps on this sort of platform where Electron apps aren't small-screen-optimized but the website is.
rabuse 6y ago
This is why I'm all for the future of apps being web-based. Write once, and able to run everywhere.
- earthscienceman 6y ago
  Sounds a little like what Firefox OS was trying to do. They had a great idea, they were just too far ahead of their time.
  - chacha2 6y ago
    Not really, the iPhone planned to do the same thing.
- tsimionescu 6y ago
  Gradually making Chrome the only OS that really matters. The web is already almost as closed (for apps) as phones are - you can choose Chrome, Safari if you're on Mac, or Firefox. Everything else is just repackaged Chrome. Edit: forgot Opera Mini, for what it's worth. Firefox is dying out, and Google is pushing for less and less user freedom in Chrome, while Apple is extremely reluctant to implement new features that make Safari a better app platform.
  - isolli 6y ago
    Can you expand on which features Apple is reluctant to implement in Safari?
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      These ones: Web Bluetooth Web MIDI API Magnetometer API Web NFC API Device Memory API Network Information API Battery Status API Ambient Light Sensor HDCP Policy Check extension for EME Proximity Sensor WebHID Serial API Web USB Geolocation Sensor (background geolocation) User Idle Detection Note: I do understand Apple's privacy concerns with some or even most of them. But most of these are obviously necessary if you want to turn the browser into the main application platform, for better and for worse.
andagainagain 6y ago
This is true for some people, but not for others, which is why this is so hard to generalize. a "linux phone" means different things to different people. In a perfect world I'd have a phone that is analogous. As iPhone is to Apple, and android is to windows, my phone would be to whatever linux I use. Well, that's a tall order. And because it's a tall order, the most efficient way to go through features is to start off with easy highly requested features and very slowly move toward the less important features that are harder to implement. Phones with linux hits both sides of this equation. On one hand it turns out EVEN THOSE things are hard. On the other hand, people don't WANT to work on those things as much because free developers rarely want to work on other people's problems. I mean, some will, and those people are simply better people IMO, but rarely do they WANT to.
wly_cdgr 6y ago
There are some apps that are really necessary....a good messaging app, a ride hailing app, a map app, a decent browser, a notepad, a money sending app, maybe a couple others. The others are just a waste of time and I would actively prefer a phone ecosystem that does not support them. It's what I loved about Windows phones.

by kokx 6y ago

justaguy88 6y ago

Why can't linux run android apps? https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/ exists, I'm sure it could become a more integrated thing on a linux phone

Ardon 6y ago
Some distros on the pinephone can run android apps with anbox!
kokx 6y ago
Yes, Anbox exists, and has done some amazing things. But can this run apps that require Google Play Services, such as WhatsApp, most banking apps, and governmental apps? It is very unfortunate that so much of the Android ecosystem relies on a very proprietary and cloud-connected piece of software. Without it, most apps simply refuse to work. MicroG has done amazing things here, but unfortunately a lot of things still break when using it, to no fault of the MicroG developers.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  WhatsApp doesn't actually require Google Play Services, as everyone running LineageOS can tell you. Even if you don’t have Play Services and the Google Play Store, you can install Whatsapp from Aurora Store (off F-Droid) and then Whatsapp runs just fine on your vanilla Android.
  - hda2 6y ago
    Okay, but what about the apps that do? Some governments and banks require you to use their apps to get certain things done.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Currently the only option is to either help with the efforts to run and emulate Google Play Services or switch to a different bank - much like requiring in-person visitors wear a mask, they're legally allowed to require you to use certain software or certain mechanisms to access your bank account.
      - Mediterraneo10 6y ago
        > help with the efforts to run and emulate Google Play Services Modern bank apps require not just Google Play Services, they also require the phone to pass Safety Net. Play Services substitutes like MicroG aren’t capable of that.
- toyg 6y ago
  This is a classic scenario that Linux also faced. Some people might be too young to remember, but a lot of services used to rely on Internet Explorer 6- and ActiveX when there was no chance whatsoever of getting those running properly on Linux. Later we had issues with DRM for streaming sites, which have probably not been fully solved yet. The truth is that service and app developers only care about one thing: audience size, which translates to actual money. And it takes a long time to build that audience, even more so in the mobile world where all metrics are orders of magnitude bigger than on the desktop. Until Linux phones can show they have sizeable audiences, developers will ignore them. Tens of thousands is nothing, we’ll need millions. Realistically, this is not going to change in 12 months or even 2 years. But, something can be done in the meantime: making all popular app-development frameworks run on mobile Linux, and then putting pressure on developers to produce app builds. When portability comes essentially for free, it becomes easy to support an additional platform just for the brownie points.
ekianjo 6y ago
Let's not pretend that Anbox is some kind of magical drop in solution. I tried it many times and it's completely hit-and-miss at this stage, and development is very slow. Relying on Anbox for the future would be foolish unless someone steps in to massively increase the funding and resources on this project.

kome 6y ago

> Yes I want a Linux phone. But I also want one that has similar app support to Android and iOS. Replicant? https://replicant.us/ https://replicant.us/ LineageOS? https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/

SilverRed 6y ago
The recommended phone for replicant is a samsung s3 which is almost a decade old now.
kokx 6y ago
Which are both Android ROMs/distributions. Still requiring Google Play Services to do any of the things I want Android for. And they definitely do not have the same kind of hackability that full on Linux phones have. LineageOS is what I'm currently using on my daily driver, as a compromise. I would very much prefer a Linux phone, but in the current state it can't even fulfill half my needs in a smartphone.
- garaetjjte 6y ago
  >Still requiring Google Play Services to do any of the things I want Android for. If that's a problem, are you aware of microG? https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/
  - kokx 6y ago
    I'm very aware of microG. They have done some amazing work. But unfortunately apps like banking apps require that you pass Google's SafetyNet. Which (understandably) is a lot more complicated to support in microG.

toastal 6y ago

It's a shame Mozilla just cut SSB support or at least you could easy make some web apps into lightweight apps on this sort of platform where Electron apps aren't small-screen-optimized but the website is.

rabuse 6y ago

This is why I'm all for the future of apps being web-based. Write once, and able to run everywhere.

earthscienceman 6y ago
Sounds a little like what Firefox OS was trying to do. They had a great idea, they were just too far ahead of their time.
- chacha2 6y ago
  Not really, the iPhone planned to do the same thing.
tsimionescu 6y ago
Gradually making Chrome the only OS that really matters. The web is already almost as closed (for apps) as phones are - you can choose Chrome, Safari if you're on Mac, or Firefox. Everything else is just repackaged Chrome. Edit: forgot Opera Mini, for what it's worth. Firefox is dying out, and Google is pushing for less and less user freedom in Chrome, while Apple is extremely reluctant to implement new features that make Safari a better app platform.
- isolli 6y ago
  Can you expand on which features Apple is reluctant to implement in Safari?
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    These ones: Web Bluetooth Web MIDI API Magnetometer API Web NFC API Device Memory API Network Information API Battery Status API Ambient Light Sensor HDCP Policy Check extension for EME Proximity Sensor WebHID Serial API Web USB Geolocation Sensor (background geolocation) User Idle Detection Note: I do understand Apple's privacy concerns with some or even most of them. But most of these are obviously necessary if you want to turn the browser into the main application platform, for better and for worse.

andagainagain 6y ago

This is true for some people, but not for others, which is why this is so hard to generalize. a "linux phone" means different things to different people. In a perfect world I'd have a phone that is analogous. As iPhone is to Apple, and android is to windows, my phone would be to whatever linux I use. Well, that's a tall order. And because it's a tall order, the most efficient way to go through features is to start off with easy highly requested features and very slowly move toward the less important features that are harder to implement. Phones with linux hits both sides of this equation. On one hand it turns out EVEN THOSE things are hard. On the other hand, people don't WANT to work on those things as much because free developers rarely want to work on other people's problems. I mean, some will, and those people are simply better people IMO, but rarely do they WANT to.

wly_cdgr 6y ago

There are some apps that are really necessary....a good messaging app, a ride hailing app, a map app, a decent browser, a notepad, a money sending app, maybe a couple others. The others are just a waste of time and I would actively prefer a phone ecosystem that does not support them. It's what I loved about Windows phones.