this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
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Linux Phones
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The Discussion on Linux-based Phones.
Benefits:
- Hardware freedom.
- Perfect operating-system competition.
- Full utilization of specs.
- Phone lifespan raises to 10+ years.
- Less e-waste.
Linux Mobile Distros:
- Sailfish🇫🇮
- FuriOS🇺🇸
- Ubuntu Touch🇩🇪
- Postmarket OS🇨🇭
- Mobian
- Pure OS🇺🇸
- Plasma Mobile🇩🇪
- LuneOS
- openSUSE Mobile🇩🇪
- Nemomobile
- Droidian
- Mobile NixOS
- ExpidusOS
- Maemo Leste
- Manjaro Arm
- Tizen
- WebOS
Linux Mobile Hardware:
- Jolla Phone🇫🇮
- Shift Phone🇩🇪
- FLX1🇺🇸
- Fairphone 5🇳🇱
- Volla Phone🇩🇪
- Librem 5🇺🇸
⚙️Contribute
🧼Go Clean From the Duopoly:
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PMOS is PostmarketOS, it is a linux distribution for mobile devices.
e/OS is a fork of LineageOS bundled with MicroG.
the difference is that PostmarketOS runs mainline linux, while e/OS and LineageOS still run android.
while degoogled, android is in the end still controlled by google, and their game plan seems to be to shift as much from AOSP to google play services, which will make degoogled android harder and harder.
using mainline linux bypasses this entirely. with the bonus of being able to use all software of the linux ecosystem.
Now I really want to upgrade my fairphone 4. It's been close to 5 years with it and the battery is dying. I'll see if I can buy a replacement battery and run PMOS on it, and have the FP5 as backup.
All the software of the Linux ecosystem with extremely poor mobile device compatibility design wise.
There's actually quite a few bits that are compatible! I tried out the OnePlus 6 with Phosh, and there are lots of good apps already! Make sure to look for apps that are labeled "adaptive" in the software store, those work the best on mobile. Firefox also works quite well with the "Add Water" app, it gives it a GTK theme (matches with Phosh) and increases padding by a bit.
As for the apps I liked (all of which adapted well in mobile): Geary (email client, GTK3 I think, so you need to enable dark mode in the mobile settings), Fractal (Matrix client), Gapless (music player), GNOME/KDE Weather, Secrets (KeePass client), Apostrophe (Markdown notes), Mimick (Immich sync client), Fotema (photo gallery), Animatch (match game with cute art and no microtransactions or ads, open-source too!), Ultimate Tic Tac Toe (actually has quite a bit of strategy involved), Pentobi (very similar to the "Blokus" board game if you've ever played that, very fun!)
And there are a lot of KDE/Qt equivalents that I have not tried (since I was running the GTK-based Phosh)
Being able to install Flathub apps was very handy actually, and it's one of the reasons why I decided to try postmarketOS over something like Ubuntu Touch.
If you want to explore other mobile apps (on Flathub): https://flathub.org/en/apps/collection/mobile/1
how does one get sth like a banking app work PMOS, installing them in containers?
For now, but why bother formatting stuff for mobile when Linux mobile wasn't used very much yet?
Now that it's picking up steam, I can see there being mobile compatible or mobile-primary programs coming out.
KDE has been really impressive with Plasma Mobile. They have me excited. :D
I'm excited too, can't wait for it to be viable. It doesn't feel there yet though, even the site says it's not recommended for your primary phone. I checked my phone model and camera and calls and SMS doesn't work for example…
Thank you! I think we may have spoken on this once before, but I didn't recognize the name. I am now following this effort with great interest.
Indeed, our last conversation was here: https://ani.social/post/33554049/17388541