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I'm daily driving a Sony Xperia 10 III with SailfishOS. It works as a phone, has a small selection of native apps available and runs many Android apps using LXC

by ttkari 2y ago

I'm daily driving a Sony Xperia 10 III with SailfishOS. It works as a phone, has a small selection of native apps available and runs many Android apps using LXC based solution called Android AppSupport. It's really not bad at all.

ThatMedicIsASpy 2y ago
Until an update destroys android support and nobody can help (: (my state)
- ttkari 2y ago
  Sorry to hear that. If you are on one of the Xperias, you should be able to at least reflash the OS if nothing else really helps.
bsimpson 2y ago
Sailfish licensing is unfortunate. Unless you have one of their handful of (obsolete) blessed phones and pay them money for the privilege, you can't use their stuff. I get that they're effectively a startup spun out of Nokia, and that they'd rather sell value than give it away. Still, non-Android Linux for touchscreens is in a sad state. Having one of the only options locked up where few people can try it and nobody can contribute to it makes the ecosystem worse. There's gotta be a better solution to raise all the boats than get a handful of enthusiasts with old Sonys to pay them $30 each.
palata 2y ago
Genuinely interesting: what's the benefit of using a non-Android OS if you end up running Android apps anyway?
- ttkari 2y ago
  Instead of going all-in on Android, you get to choose the apps that are most important to you and otherwise minimize your exposure to the privacy-grab. For example, if you'd really prefer to avoid using Android but do want mobile banking on your phone, just get the app for that and skip everything else. Personally I like having Linux on the phone a lot for other reasons as well. For example, last summer I was backpacking in North America for several weeks. At some point I realized that I'd really hate to lose the photos on the memory card of my DSLR. Instead of getting another card and hiding the first one somewhere "theft-proof" in my belongings, I just went to BestBuy, got a memory card reader, plugged that into the phone, mounted the memory card filesystem and rsynced the files home over my vpn - which is exactly what I would have done if I had my laptop with me. Sure, I probably could have figured out a way to achieve something similar on Android as well, but having all the familiar tools available made it so much easier.
  - d3VwsX 2y ago
    You could probably have done something similar using Android with Termux, yes. I use rsync in Termux to move files to or from my phone all the time. Android is a complete mess when it comes to app permissions and the file system, so I would not dare to guess if it would be possible to access a USB drive from within Termux or not. I preferred SailfishOS on my Jolla Phone (and my Jolla Tablet) as the experience is much better with how you can access files on the file system etc. But for various reasons (including a cracked phone screen) I went back to Android several years ago.

by ttkari 2y ago

ThatMedicIsASpy 2y ago

Until an update destroys android support and nobody can help (: (my state)

ttkari 2y ago
Sorry to hear that. If you are on one of the Xperias, you should be able to at least reflash the OS if nothing else really helps.

bsimpson 2y ago

Sailfish licensing is unfortunate. Unless you have one of their handful of (obsolete) blessed phones and pay them money for the privilege, you can't use their stuff. I get that they're effectively a startup spun out of Nokia, and that they'd rather sell value than give it away. Still, non-Android Linux for touchscreens is in a sad state. Having one of the only options locked up where few people can try it and nobody can contribute to it makes the ecosystem worse. There's gotta be a better solution to raise all the boats than get a handful of enthusiasts with old Sonys to pay them $30 each.

palata 2y ago

Genuinely interesting: what's the benefit of using a non-Android OS if you end up running Android apps anyway?

ttkari 2y ago
Instead of going all-in on Android, you get to choose the apps that are most important to you and otherwise minimize your exposure to the privacy-grab. For example, if you'd really prefer to avoid using Android but do want mobile banking on your phone, just get the app for that and skip everything else. Personally I like having Linux on the phone a lot for other reasons as well. For example, last summer I was backpacking in North America for several weeks. At some point I realized that I'd really hate to lose the photos on the memory card of my DSLR. Instead of getting another card and hiding the first one somewhere "theft-proof" in my belongings, I just went to BestBuy, got a memory card reader, plugged that into the phone, mounted the memory card filesystem and rsynced the files home over my vpn - which is exactly what I would have done if I had my laptop with me. Sure, I probably could have figured out a way to achieve something similar on Android as well, but having all the familiar tools available made it so much easier.
- d3VwsX 2y ago
  You could probably have done something similar using Android with Termux, yes. I use rsync in Termux to move files to or from my phone all the time. Android is a complete mess when it comes to app permissions and the file system, so I would not dare to guess if it would be possible to access a USB drive from within Termux or not. I preferred SailfishOS on my Jolla Phone (and my Jolla Tablet) as the experience is much better with how you can access files on the file system etc. But for various reasons (including a cracked phone screen) I went back to Android several years ago.