The endless challenge is that a phone needs to talk to the phone network. The radio manufacturers are deeply in bed with the surveillance state and they are absolutely opposed to free communication. Which means they will never allow a cell phone radio to work with free software.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

That part works fine

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 20 hours ago

Including voicemail, and RCS? Wow I need to check out this ecosystem again, thats exciting!

[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 1 points 21 hours ago

I dont even need a phone that can make calls anymore, i guess there's a lot of sms TFA

[–] fxdave@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Calling is something that works in e.g. Postmarket OS. The trickier parts are NFC payments, lack of apps. So it comes with huge drawbacks. Some apps can even require that your device is verified by google and you have no way of hijacking it.

Proprietary camera software is also a huge thing. Software can do so much thing and you pay for the software also, not just the hardware but you lose the software when you install something other than the factory default.

And battery optimization is very young in desktop grade linux OSes, you won't get that good battery life as with android.

[–] darkangelazuarl@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

For myself I don't consider NFC payments or the few apps that require device integrity auth. Not everyone falls into this category but a good percentage are. We need more modern open hardware. To the larger software point there is a lot of good Foss software out there even for phones. What we need is a open software center like a flathub that makes them easy to find and deploy.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago

NFC and battery life are absolutely huge concerns. Cell tower stuff isn’t great either but if you absolutely had to many of us can live without cellular and just do VOIP.

Apps aren’t that big an issue, waydroid is a thing and the appification of the internet is detrimental anyway. Do it in a browser.

[–] pirate2377@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If we can get enough people to use Linux phones though, they'll be pressured to allow them. However, most people won't use Linux phones as their daily driver because of that. So it's unfortunately a circle...

[–] myszka@lemmy.ml 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

The problem is that most people are passive consumers now, but it's slowly changing. Many of my friends who used to be regular normies having absolutely zero interest in technologies have recently switched to linux or FOSS apps and are now thamsalves FOSS enthusiasts. Heck, even my 80 year old grandma uses DeltaChat now.

[–] horus_son_of_isis@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

AI chatbots eliminate 78% of the pain in the ass associated with getting a distro working in the real world. I'm off of win11 and on Mint. It wasn't plug and play and permissions and ownership pisses me off to no end, but it's working, Bottles is working, it looks great, and isn't spying on me or constantly trying to sell me shit. My SO just last night said something shitty about how nobody uses Linux and I'm not special. My response was to say that pretty much every computer that isn't a personal computer uses linux, and Microsoft has gone to absurdity in terms of restriction, spyware, and ads.

[–] myszka@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 hours ago

Congrats on beginning your Linux journey!