this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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Anyone got any ideas on how to force another OS onto my phone? I'm fed up with it.
The best general resource for instructions on how to unlock your phone's bootloader and flash alternate AOSP ROM's or non-Android OS's is https://xdaforums.com/
Please note that not all carriers and oem's allow you to unlock the bootloader though, so choose your device carefully for this.
You will also most likely need a PC (desktop or laptop) with adb & fastboot on it. These are apps used in the terminal, but you only need to copy and paste a few commands into them to use it.
If you have a Google Pixel then best option is Graphene - https://grapheneos.org/
For other devices you can use a "degoogled" Android ROM and get apps from the open source F-Droid app store - https://f-droid.org/
Some choices for this are:
Lineage - https://lineageos.org/
crDroid - https://crdroid.net/
/e/os - https://e.foundation/e-os/
Iode - https://iode.tech/iodeos/
OR use a a true alternative mobile OS. Options for this are:
Ubuntu Touch - https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/
Sailfish OS - https://sailfishos.org/
Mobian - https://mobian-project.org/
Postmarket OS - https://postmarketos.org/
Plasma Mobile - https://plasma-mobile.org/
Droidian - https://droidian.org/
You can also purchase devices with alternative OS's already preinstalled from:
Volla - https://volla.online/en/devices/
Jolla - https://jolla.com/
Fairphone - https://fairphone.com/
Murena - https://murena.com/
Furilabs - https://furilabs.com/
Brax - https://www.braxtech.net/
In order to load a custom OS you first must be able to unlock the bootloader ofthe device. The list of OEMs allowing that is sadly getting smaller and smaller and vendors are becoming actively hostile towards custom firmware development.
see: https://github.com/zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame
Keep in mind, that Brax uses misleading YouTube videos and their devices are as secure as my 2017 Redmi with LineageOS and a non-relockable bootloader (which I use with caution).
Also: mobile linux doesn't even offer the security of Secure boot on laptops (maybe Purism does, as they have a good track record on their laptops).
Please don't be an idiot, use GrapheneOS as it is the only security focused mobile OS.
"Don't be an idiot" - yet the big idiocy I see over & over on the Fediverse are Graphene evangelists that want to knee jerk condemn the multitudes of other mobile libre projects that are doing some good things, with its supposed (and disputable) "perfect".
Graphene is indeed the current best solution towards security hardening for mobile devices, and I would certainly recommend it as first choice especially for anyone working in truly sensitive areas (e.g. journalism, political activism, closed source design, utility maintenance, etc.), or for whom anyone for which security is their primary concern.
However - at this point Graphene is 100% dependent on Google for continuance - both to a large extent the coding of its AOSP base, for the timely security updates Graphene prides itself on, AND in ALL of the hardware it currently supports. As such, given Google's direction, with the next gen Pixel phones likely not to be easily unlockable, and with security updates possibly only provided in a timely way to an insiders list of oem's, until Graphene issues their own devices, or expands beyond only Pixel support, it faces a potential expiry date (similar to what has happened for CalyxOS).
Meanwhile there are TONS of use cases of people with devices from all kinds of oem's, that simply want an experience on these that offers better privacy and more digital sovereignty relative to what Google & Apple offer. As such one can achieve a close to an ad free & data mining free, with much less overall tracking, experience on all of the solutions I listed. And many of these solutions, unlike Graphene, do not depend on Google for their software & hardware. Do some of these solutions have flaws in their security & privacy? Absolutely. For which the thing they need is folks to join in to help fix these flaws. And I've been happy to see increased momentum across lots of these projects to do exactly that recently.
I haven't looked into it much yet but grapheneOS has apparently come a far way and has an easy installer nowadays.
Only reason I've paused is I have to use a private 2fa authenticator for work and not sure if it'd work on the OS, but it looks like they've gotten most major bank apps work on it so that's one less obstacle
which 2fa do you use for work? microsoft? authy?
Authy doesnt work so I am transferring all to Keepass Not sure about microsoft though
Unfortunately they don't support any devices besides Google's Pixel: https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
Supporting at least major Samsung models would help adoption.
Buying Samsung is never the solution to anything. Plus, Motorola will have some cutting edge devices supported by GOS in about a year or so.
Unfortunately Samsung is making it more difficult to impossible to unlock the bootloaders of their recent devices, but you can reflash some of their older models at least to ROM's like crDroid - https://crdroid.net/
Had not idea, that really sucks. Guess im in the same boat with samsung..
It's not an easy install if it literally can't be fucking installed on most devices.
You just won the most moronic phrase of the week. That's like saying there's no point to sd cards because there are devices that don't have a way ro use them.
Had no idea, no reason to get hostile about it.