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Comment by fsflover | Hacker News Reader

> i agree that if you are serious about de-Googling that GrapehenOS is a much better fit

A GNU/Linux smartphone is an even better fit for this. GrapheneOS uses Google hardware and AOSP written by Google.

I would absolutely LOVE to have a linux smartphone, but as far as I'm aware, there really isn't one that can be used as a competent daily driver. Has that changed recently? For me, a competent daily driver is a device that can last all day on a single charge, do gps mapping, reliably make and receive calls/texts, and install a handful of apps such as Signal and a banking app.

https://forums.puri.sm/t/librem-5-phone-review/21085

https://forums.puri.sm/t/the-current-state-of-the-librem-5-i...

https://forums.puri.sm/t/nine-months-librem-5-as-my-only-pho...

> such as Signal

I saw people using Signal on the forums, but Signal intentionally doesn't directly support ARM desktop GNU/Linux, so it's not straightforward AFAIK.

> and a banking app

This depends on the bank. Some banks allow to use their apps with Waydroid.

I love my L5, but would never suggest or even imply to anyone that it's usable as a daily driven phone.

The battery life is terrible and the software still buggy as hell.

It's a great host for Linux phone development though. I haven't had any major problems with the hardware being unstable or anything along those lines.

But once you start expecting the whole package to function more as a primary phone than a portable devkit you're using to further the state of Linux phones, it gets ugly pretty quick IME.

It all depends on your specific usage patterns. I can replace the battery during the day if I need (I don't do it every day). I find software sometimes buggy but usable as a daily driver.

I wish I could support Purism, but they've got a bad rap for not shipping devices when promised. Also, there's no way I'm paying $1K for a phone that has just 3GB RAM and 32GB storage in 2024.

The Furi Labs FLX1 sounds like a much better option: https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1/

> they've got a bad rap for not shipping devices when promised

The development of their phone was extremely slow, but today they ship within 10 days.

> there's no way I'm paying $1K for a phone that has just 3GB RAM and 32GB storage in 2024

Fair enough, although I don't know about any other GNU/Linux phone with all free drivers and mainstream Linux support (which effectively means lifetime updates).

I wrote about one recently. It was posted to HN here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40805156

> A GNU/Linux smartphone is an even better fit for this.

Why GNU? Their runtime stack isn't exactly known as the best fit for constrained devices like a smartphone.

It seems you never tried Phosh or SXMo.

In what way do you consider smartphones constrained?

They have more memory and processing power than a normal computer from 20 years back, even 10 years back.

Roughly: They're not PCs. For one thing, they all have limited battery life. For another, not everyone can afford brand new flagship phones, so folks who keep cheaper phones for long enough can easily find CPU and RAM to be stretched as new app versions start to demand more of the hardware. Conserving resources is beneficial in general, and especially so on mobile devices. Every little bit helps.

Why I consider smartphones constrained is unimportant here, though. The question isn't whether GNU libs/utils can run on a smartphone. The question is why the person above said GNU specifically.

I'm trying to suss out whether they are aware of some special case that would make GNU better than e.g. musl on a phone, or were just repeating a bit of that "GNU/Linux" rant that was (incorrectly, I think) attributed to Stallman. If it's the former, it seems like information worth sharing.

Thanks for the detailed explanations. I wrote GNU because I meant it. I'm talking about running an original desktop OS on phones, which unifies the software stack and allows to have a full desktop in a pocket. It's much more convenient to have the same software running everywhere. You can connect a screen/keyboard and get a full desktop [0]. Firefox on my phone is a desktop one without a rewritten codebase. You can use all GNU utilities in a terminal on the go. If you are talking about saving resources, then why do you think we need several devices when we can have just one? All existing desktop software doesn't have to be rewritten from scratch but should "only" be made fit for both large and small screens. Doesn't it save resources?

Concerning the battery life, we need to improve it for laptops, too, anyway. Also, currently, it already allows to have a one day of use, which is mostly sufficient.

[0] https://puri.sm/posts/my-first-year-of-librem-5-convergence/

i like GNU/Linux but on smartphones they are inferior to GraphenOS security which is a integral part to privacy not to mention lacking app support.

Security depends on the threat model. I do not trust Google hardware. Also Librem 5 has a smart card and hardware kill switches.

Too bad Linux smartphones fail at the smartphone part of it.

They don't. I use one as a daily driver.

Which one? I'm a light phone user but the main reason I carry it is texting my family and (to a surprisingly lesser extent) making and receiving phone calls.

Librem 5. See my other posts in this topic.

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