It's a good video covering the good and bad.
I would give it a go if I could get my hands on a compatible phone here in Canada.
this post was submitted on 08 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:
- Ubuntu Touch
- Sailfish
- FuriOS
- Postmarket OS
- Mobian
- Pure OS
- Plasma Mobile
- LuneOS
- openSUSE Mobile
- Nemomobile
- Droidian
- Mobile NixOS
- ExpidusOS
- Maemo Leste
- Manjaro Arm
- Tizen
- WebOS
Linux Mobile Hardware:
- Fairphone 5
- Volla Phone
- PinePhone
- FLX1
- Librem 5
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Should be easy to get one. A couple Pixel phones are supported, for example. I bet you can get one of those.
Just go through the list and note what you like and then see what is readily available. :D
Ubtouch has around 20 well supported devices (33 supported). Of those there are probably some you can find, however they will be older phones.
I remember the attempt at that. Wasn't there supposed to be a KDE MOBILE?
Renamed plasma mobile. It is out and works, but ubtouch has its own DE.
Tldw: He mentions the new beta version of Ubuntu touch solved many problems. And he's going to use it as a daily driver going forward.
The problems he had were banking apps, photo sync, copy-paste from waydroid to Ubuntu touch, and notifications between waydroid and Ubuntu touch. He shows the waydroid to/from Linux works in KDE. So, probably a relatively quick fix for those 2 problems.
Edit: spelling.
We just need one bank with alternative attestation that uses virtual cards and we're good.
I've been wondering about wayland notifications. I still have no choice but to use WhatsApp and Outlook, and depending on notifications from those two is really the only thing keeping me stuck on (degoogled) Android.
My work has a super limiting Outlook set-up, I haven't even managed to get it working with Thunderbird. The web app is seemingly intentionally shit, so the android app is really all I've got.
Some people work around this by not using the WhatsApp app on the Linux phone and instead using XMPP and a https://slidge.im/ transport running on a Pi in the closet. :D
I personally do that to avoid using slow Matrix clients that eat up a lot of resources.
If I read the documentation correctly then the bridge uses WA Web. That means you still need an Android or iOS device to act as the primary phone. Or am I wrong?
Side note: I wonder how practical it would be to build a bridge that uses the DMA mandated interop instead. I would donate a couple of € to such a project.
Don’t banks have websites he can log into?
In Finland bank apps are used as a form of digital ID / strong 2FA. You are pretty much forced to have it
They have. But he isn't talking about the banking bit. He is talking about 2FA. Banks all over Europe have all but dropped SMSTan in favour of app based solutions. You need your banks app to authorise any transaction.
The upside for this is (other than that the communication is encryted now while SMSs are not) that you see the transaction details on your phone while authorising which prevents certain types of scam.
The problem is that this isn't a standardised solution. Instead every bank either built its own thing or bought a white label solution from a different vendor. There is some EU legislation that would allow a motivated developer to built a banking app for your phone (and if you're German then Saldo already exists) but that doesn't matter because the 2FA problem means that you still need an Android or iOS device.
In my country they kinda force you into using their apps since you must use them as 2FA to login..so even if you try to use the website, you're forced to use the freaking app..that many times does not work with custom Roms..I've been jumping around for 2 years, bank to bank app. Once it stops working I open an account at a different one and try to use the App..banking is the one thing that keeps people from leaving Google's Android IMHO
All mine do, and as some of their apps don't work on GrapheneOS, my solution has been to add links to their website to my homepage. It's not that big of an inconvenience for me personally
As a Norwegian I’m required to use an app called BankID to log into various government services and banks. And that one does not run on «non secure» OSes
Although that might change with the whole EU pushing for open source etc
Both Bank-ID and Vipps works great on eOS. As does Bulder and Nordnet. The only one I need website for is DNB.
But yeah, the biggest problem with Linux phones are defiantly Bank-ID. Closely followed by Vipps.
The DnB part is annoying, since they actively update their app to work on Graphene.
I believe he did mention that as well as other options, like having a dedicated second phone for that functionality
Banks that are platform-agnostic should be favoured by the linux enthusiasts.
They should be required, tbh
Do you know of any banks that are platform agnostic? I don't think it's a matter of the banks choosing to exclude other operating systems as much as a matter of internal resources to develop and maintain a secure app on an OS few of their users would use.
If you know of any banks that have apps that work on a Linux phone I think that'd be a great list to start and pin to the community.
This is so fucked up to read. Maybe we should all start going back to analog life for about 2 years. For the time it takes for a phone to become obsolete in features, we should just all decide to go back to analog life. Imagine how many stocks would plummet.
The compatible list would be like GrapheneOS's right? Apps that'll work with MicroG without the full Google Play service. Both banking apps I use do. Only one of those two banks will let me login without the app however, the desktop website forces use of their app as an authenticator.
edit: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
It's become easier to do many things without Play Services and even microg, as many apps have been adapted for Google-free Huawei devices :D
But we still need a lot more open APIs, then people can just build alternative software that's FOSS.
I would assume so, and that was my thought too, but I don't know for certain (just know what he says in the video).
Did he test the camera? A lot of these pmOS ports struggle with having the camera work
Of note, this is Ubuntu Touch, not postmarketOS. The cameras look fine, likely because Volla phones (what he is using) are more open compared to the big brand phones. Plus, I think Ubuntu Touch uses more of the proprietary bits left over from Android while pmOS avoids some of that, so that might be another factor
IIRC Ubuntu touch uses galium where pmOS uses mainline
Halium
Yes, the phone was taken for vacation photos.
great summary. I tried Ubuntu Touch earlier this year on my Fairphone 5; sure it works, but battery usage with Waydroid for essential apps (my banking app for example does work with it) was just abysmal.
Good video, also reinforces my decision to not install waydroid. I had it on my previous linux phone, and while it worked, it was a memory hog and quite slow. Which on the PPP made it even worse. Speed shouldn't be an issue on my new FP6, but going trough all the trouble to get a linux phone and then installing android seems counterproductive. Ofcourse if you absolutely need an android app, it is better then nothing ofcourse. but ideally you wouldn't need waydroid.
~~also am i the only one that finds the ubuntu sidebar while "fine" on desktop is even worse on phones? or am i too plasma biased?~~
I found the same experience on the pixel 3a xl UT running Wayland. It’s too much of a bother to work with. I will make use of the Openstore library as is.