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There are more details that make me believe that linux as mobile OS is more feasible in near future. Apart from the Valve&SteamOS push, the one notable phenomen
by nout 7mo ago
There are more details that make me believe that linux as mobile OS is more feasible in near future. Apart from the Valve&SteamOS push, the one notable phenomenon that I see happening is retrogaming. In retrogaming handhelds ecosystem there are now many devices with form factor close to phones (they often literally use screens from older iPhones, etc) that are running on Linux or in some cases provide option to easily switch between Android and Linux. For example on Anbernic RG35XX using Garlic OS there's a toggle in the UI to switch between Android and Linux. Similarly Retroid Pocket 5 allows switching in the bootloader menu.
As a separate point, it seems quite feasible to run Android apps in VM on Linux based phone and make the experience fairly seamless. Something like what Waydroid provides.
- keyringlight 7mo agoIt looks like the combination of PostmarketOS (based on Alpine linux) and Waydroid would seem to fit that.
- dpark 7mo ago> As a separate point, it seems quite feasible to run Android apps in VM on Linux based phone and make the experience fairly seamless. But why? The premise of Waydroid seems to be to bring Android apps you want to your Linux desktop. But why would you want the phone in your pocket to run Desktop Linux so that you could then run Android apps on your Desktop Linux mobile phone instead of just running Android on your phone? What desktop Linux features do you want on your phone that would justify this complexity?
- nout 7mo agoI want to use pre existing apps from the Android ecosystem, but I want the system to let me install and change anything I want. It looks like android is going to heavily restrict installing apps that are not on play store and there are now ~5 apps that I use that don't exist on Play store, but only on Obtanium or Zapstore. My hope is that installation of the Android apps on Linux phone could be made seamless.
- dpark 7mo agoIt seems like an Android fork that supports the stores you want would be a lot simpler. I’m sure Google would deny Google Play Services to any popular fork that didn’t follow their rules. But they would do the same to any Linux desktop or whatever that didn’t follow their rules, too, if it became popular.
- nout 7mo agoYeah, you have a good point that Android fork would cover a lot of what I'm asking.