> We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device. No root access, remote control by apple and google, all wrong.
There is https://postmarketos.org/
Maybe 2026 will be the year of Linux on mobile phone.
There is https://postmarketos.org/
Maybe 2026 will be the year of Linux on mobile phone.
And yeah, you can even buy phones with a non-android linux pre-installed, e.g. from pine64. But they come with all kinds of "for early adopters" warning labels. Deservedly so, in my opinion.
GrapheneOS is a much more practical open source OS to use Linux on a phone.
BTW, hardware support on postmarketOS "community" class devices has seen some nice improvements as of late. Once these improvements meaningfully stabilize (avoiding the risk of regression/breakage; there's been some of that even in the recent testing for the 2025-12 stable release) it's quite possible that some "community" devices might finally reach "main" class, marking them as OK for daily-driver use. Something to watch for as we approach 2026-06.
Consumers don't care how interesting the developer's problems are. They want their own problems to be solved and GrapheneOS does a better job of that.
>running on an entirely mainline kernel
Google already did that work years ago. Android will work on a mainline kernel. Just like with x86 the mainline kernel needs to support the hardware e you want to use though.
While Google is allowing that.
> Just like with x86 the mainline kernel needs to support the hardware e you want to use though
Librem 5 runs on all free drivers. This is why it will never be tied to an old kernel. This doesn't work with GrapheneOS.
And while Linus allows Linux to be open source. A benefit of open source is that you can fork it if upstream decides to stop development or go closed source.
>This doesn't work with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS can use free drivers too. It literally is using Linux.
Linus can't close the kernel. He would need to ask all contributors for a signed agreement for that. This is the benefit of GPL.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177148
> GrapheneOS can use free drivers too. It literally is using Linux.
Except there is no device with free drivers that it supports. They just refuse to support Librem or Pinephone without a good reason. (I strongly disagree with their "security" arguments.)
> A benefit of open source is that you can fork it if upstream decides to stop development or go closed source
Android is already semi-closed (see this submission). Are GrapheneOS developers forking it? (No)
That's not how it works. GPL only prevents old versions from becoming closed source. If Linus added code to the kernel which required a $100k license to redistribute then people could no longer freely distribute the code of the kernel. People could not freely distribute compile kernels because they would need that license. GPL doesn't magically make all licensing issues go away. He could also make a required kernel module that was not GPL licensed that Linux could require to operate.
>Except there is no device with free drivers that it supports.
Having a working system providing competitive value to others is much more important.
>They just refuse to support Librem or Pinephone without a good reason.
The good reason is that those devices can't provide industry standard security.
This is false, https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingWithGPL
> Having a working system providing competitive value to others is much more important.
I don't consider dependence on Google as "working for the users".
> The good reason is that those devices can't provide industry standard security.
Obeying Google is not "security", even if it's the industry standard.
>I don't consider dependence on Google as "working for the users".
Why not? They work more for users than other organizations that you would try and replace them with.
>Obeying Google is not "security"
I don't know what you are referring to.
Linked to what? Any new change in it must become open, which is the whole point of "viral", copyleft GPL license, in contrast to permissive ones.
> They work more for users than other organizations that you would try and replace them with.
They put their users in dangerous dependence on Google. This is not what I would consider more useful than alternatives. It may be more useful in the short term, since it still works, but in the long term it's dangerous. In this sense it's not much different from good proprietary software like MacOS.
> I don't know what you are referring to.
GrapheneOS didn't completely fork Android. They still follow Google's development strategy, which only benefits Google and not users.
See my other reply concerning this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569163
> hardware isn't quite worth the price tag in-and-of-itself
> We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device.
We does not refer only to HN users, and there is no implication as such.
The default assumption is that 'we' refers to the general population.
However, even if I'm charitable and go with your assumption that 'we' referred to HN users, I will confidently say most HN users also don't care about FSF approval.
> See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46569163
You like to post a lot of HN links without ever giving an indication of what they point to. As a habit, I don't waste my time clicking random links that people post without context.
In my linked post I explain why the public doesn't matter at this point of time. Also I explain that the public doesn't need the alternative before it works flawlessly, i.e., before it becomes popular among technical users.
That's a rather ridiculous assumption on your part. As a tech-literate crowd, it's quite likely they are aware of them, if for no other reason those alternatives make the front page semi-frequently.
> If you say that those who know don't care, I will ask you for some evidence.
As soon as you provide evidence for the premises for your argument. As my position is simply saying yours is false, the onus is on you to support yours.
> "we" are aware of the problem and care about the freedom.
Sure, maybe, but caring about freedom isn't the same as caring about FSF approved software.
Even in the news related to FSF, people didn't mention the Librem phone: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45589096
> Your "evidence" is nothing more than your own personal anecdotes
Do I have to list all recent smartphone-related discussions for you? I participated in most of them. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=2&prefix=false&qu...
I see that you're not interested in further discussion and prefer to just dismiss all my arguments.
Because people don't care. It isn't good enough for most peoples needs. You only push it because of your hyperfixation on free software, but most people balance caring about free software with other concerns.
> I participated in most of them.
And you think that makes your evidence not anecdotal?
> prefer to just dismiss all my arguments.
I'm saying your evidence is poor and your reasoning is shoddy and explained why. I'm not dismissing out of hand or for no reason.
> Because people don't care.
Now, you made a statement without even anecdotal evidence. I received quite a few upvotes for that comments, indicating that people do care. Nobody said they didn't care. Yes, it's anecdotal evidence.
>> I participated in most of them.
> And you think that makes your evidence not anecdotal?
It might be anecdotal. You are free to count how many other people commented on Librem 5 yourself and disprove my claim.
Kind of...as I said rpeviosuly your evidence actually supports my point, but even if you disagreed, I'm refuting your positive claim, not making a positice claim of my own. The onus is on you alone to support your claim.
> I received quite a few upvotes for that comments, indicating that people do care. Nobody said they didn't care.
Sure - the point was most people don't care.
> You are free to count how many other people commented on Librem 5 yourself and disprove my claim.
Pretty easy, just look at the ratio of votes in the last 10 threads you advocate for those phones in, where you maybe get 2 or 3 which is very low compared to the amount of comments and commenters, and then look at the amount of comments you get expressing a negative opinion. You get more negative and neutral feedback combined than positive feedback, indicating people don't care generally or if they do, it's to disagree with you.
This is what the evidence shows.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656355
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25142405
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053872
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25504641
Even not very well-written or globally relevant articles on the topic of mobile freedom attract a lot of attention:
> I do not have a particularly strong trust for the (modern) FSF, so their validation adds nothing, IMHO,
Most upvoted reply says:
> having FSF validation doesn't prove anything but rather may be detrimental,
The second link no one is discussing the FSF certification at all, one guy mentioned it in passing and every other hit for 'fsf' is from your username.
Third link only hits for 'fsf' are from your username.
Final link 'fsf' returns no hits.
I think you are conflating interest in an open source and/or free phone with something FSF approved. My claim above was that most people don't care about an FSF approved phone, and your links here don't show otherwise.
I agree there is an interest in an open alternative to Android/iPhone, but that doesn't require FSF approval.
FSF certification is just one way to indicate freedom. People may not care about it but they do care about freedom.
You kept trying to defend that, if you had clarified earlier and asked why people were ignoring FLOSS phones, my response would have been different.
Considering the ongoing DRAM and SSD crunch, I won't hold my breath.