Someone told me I was fear-mongering about android…

I've been trying to get out of the Android ecosystem for some time now.

I have a Fairphone 5 loaded with UBports. It works but I don't like UBports for a variety of reasons. But I'm keeping it in good working condition if I ever need to ditch Android in a hurry and I haven't found something better.

Now I'm pinning my hopes on a Jolla phone running SailfishOS. I've pre-ordered it and I'm hoping to receive it before the end of the year.

Fuck Android.
Fuck Google.

Locked down android, book bans and threats against the media. The golden curtain is going up!

Alternative roms are the way. I'm on LineageOS with microG for some apps, but have zero Google apps. Works faster than official Android

I'm also looking around what to switch to. What worries me in Sailfish is that AFAIK the OS is not fully open-source. Jolla goes out of business and community has nothing to continue on

Murena on the other hand is still tied to AOSP

I may be very biased but i would recommend postmarketos

Sailfish is decent, but yes, tied to the company. Ubuntu Touch and Sailfish suffer from the same problem, limited app repositories, excluding waydroid, I mean linux software, but Ubuntu Touch at least has Libertine Containers with PPA support....

PostmartketOS, Mobian, PocketBlue all use mainline kernels, so that might limit your options, but have access to packaged and Flathub! (pmOS is still better for device comparability)

There are more options, niche as they may seem.... Like I was not aware of OpenSUSE mobile, NixOS for phones, were actually a thing. I had heard of Arch mobile, thanks to Arch ARM, but again, not a lot of documentation that I've seen

Also I'd check check out !linuxphones@lemmy.ca

What worries me in Sailfish is that AFAIK the OS is not fully open-source

My four biggest gripes with UBPorts - namely the lack of Swype-like keyboard, crappy native Signal and crappy Waydroid / Android Signal integration, the swipe-right thing in the UI that drives me up the wall, and the battery status hidden behind the in-screen camera - are supposedly solved by the Jolla phone.

I too am a bit concerned about the future of the company, but here's my thinking:

• If the Jolla delivers, then I'll have a phone that I can daily-drive. There's precious little choice if you want a Linux phone, and even less choice if you want a good one. So... It's not like I have much of a choice.
• I would very much prefer it if SailfishOS ran on a Fairphone. Apparently there's an ongoing project to port SailfishOS but it's not quite there yet. So I'll buy the Jolla phone for now, and if/when the Fairphone5 port of SailfishOS is mature and usable, I'll resell the Jolla phone.
• I have the disposable to buy a new phone and a SailfishOS software license. I'd rather not do that, but I'm old enough and the kids are out of the house that it's not a strain on my finances. Hell, I have FP5 loaded with UBPorts right here that's sitting unused on a shelf...
• I'll take my chances on Jolla-the-company. At some point, someone has to pony up the money and support Linux phone makers if we want Linux phone makers. If nobody pays up for fear that they'll disappear, then it'll be a self-fulfilling prophecy and they'll disappear. So let's say I'm doing my part to support a commercial non-Android outfit.
• If SailfishOS is not fully open-source but Jolla doesn't violate any of the open-source software packages' licenses, then so be it. Android isn't fully open-source either - far, FAR from it, even deGoogled AOSP variants: they all rely on proprietary kernel blobs if nothing else. So it's not really any worse.

I haven't been into the topic for long but I already recognize your nick ;) I'll keep an eye on pmOS

btw, is https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices up to date, or there are better sources? I'm asking because dd-wrt had (last time I checked) a mess in their wikis, so it might be similar case

Mainly I worry that once they get following they get bought out by Google or other Microsoft and product will be killed. Open sources would mitigate at least some of the damage

I'm already subscribed to that comm, thanks :)

limited app repositories, excluding waydroid, I mean linux software, but Ubuntu Touch at least has Libertine Containers with PPA support….

Can't apps be compiled on the phone AUR-style?

I had heard of Arch mobile, thanks to Arch ARM, but again, not a lot of documentation that I’ve seen

I've been using Arch ARM on my SBC. I'd say the project still feels very young

Mainly I worry that once they get following they get bought out by Google or other Microsoft

I'm really not worried about that 🙂 Jolla is not even a blip on any of the monopolistic players' radar, let alone a hint of a threat, and mostly likely won't ever be.

Isn't that what could have been said about discord vs slack ~ten years ago?

Okay, then I can enjoy the Jolla phone for at least 5 years. Fine by me.

I think it's fairly up to date with what you get with default pmos, like the fp6 page is very outdated if you include my patches, but for default it is accurate.

I don't even run microg on my Android phone.

But I will soon migrate to a Mobian phone. I have once ported Mobian to the Pixel 3a, but the hardware is aging, the battery doe not get any better and I cannot replace it. Luckily I also have a Fairphone 5 running Mobian and once the patches for audio are there, I will use it as my daily driver. I already have it all set up and configured.

Oh and I will have to test, once audio works, whether the alarm clock is reliable. But I know every part I need is there. Sure, the image quality of the camera isn't great without full support, but I'd rather have crappy photos than spyware.

UBPorts has some nice aspects, but some things are annoying:

• no good XMPP client (as of around a year ago, will have to re-check)
• can't simply install regular Linux apps via Flatpak and instead have to rely on the UBPorts-specific click format
• outdated downstream kernel

The first one is mildly annoying, but would be solved by the second one. But the old kernel is just not great for security.

Also, I don't like the Lomiri UI and there does not seem to be an easy way of just installing something else, like Phosh, for example.

I've daily driven Ubuntu Touch in 2015 and it was fine, but nowadays I put my hopes more into Mobian. I like to be able to just use anything from the Debian repos.

BTW, wondered for a while: What is the status of your efforts and are you going to upstream patches?

And: Do you have a blog? I'd be interested in reading a writeup of how you got some of the components to work, might learn a couple things for my own mainlining efforts.

are you going to upstream patches?

https://lore.kernel.org/all/?q=jorijnvdgraaf%40catcrafts.net

Very much in progress!

Technically i have a blog, but it's pretty much dead, my posts here are my blog pretty much.