this post was submitted on 14 Aug 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🇺🇸

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Its you guys fault. (ani.social)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by MiRRoRMaN@ani.social to c/linuxphones@lemmy.ca

34 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I blame you guys, no really. I’ve been trying out Linux for 2 days now, just testing it on an old HP Elitebook laptop and now a Poco X3 Pro. There wasn’t an official distro for it but I kinda put a frankenstein version together based on an old guide online. Its hilarious. I predict that by this time next year I’ll be running Linux on everything. Its like finally getting my freedom back after having used Windows for almost 30 years. Before that I used Commodore Amiga (a 1200) exclusively, but had to hop over back then due to work creating some games for the PC and releasing those on CD-Rom.

Windows gets shittier every day and I kinda saw this day coming a mile away. I’ve never truly been a Windows fan but you know I mean you wanna use computers you kinda have to and I’d hate the other alternative even more. I’ve been overjoyed with Linux so far though, despite having some major run-ins due to it having a big learning curve, but thats ok, because I can see its totally worth it.

I dunno when Linux started becoming this good, I mean the last time I touched it was 26 years ago and it crashed under my clumsy hands back then right away. (lol)

However, today, I love what I’m seeing. Its like having my old Amiga back (my real Amiga is being fixed right now, coincidentally) With that phone OS I love that you can just control it trough ADB with root access. Its pretty awesome, yet in example a banking app under waydroid will still see that phone as “not being rooted”.

I wanna mess around more with it today, specially trying to get Wine to work on that poco, and then running stuff like Winamp on it.

I’m pretty new to the Fediverse too in fact I just joined you guys last month but I love what I’m seeing, learning and the information and advice I’m getting. Thank you guys so much, and thank you too for opening my eyes to Linux. It will be real nice not needing Micro$oft anymore.

Anyway, just wanted to share this with you guys. Picture related, its Linux Touch running on one of my old Poco X3 Phones.

all 35 comments

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[–] Allero@lemmy.today 3 points 37 minutes ago

Damn you took the bull by the horns! Congrats!

So far my only attempt at converting phone to Linux ended up in bricking the device entirely, but I'll do it again with another one when I'm able. I want to experience it :)

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 54 minutes ago

So in the mid aughts after osx came out it started to get better. I very big thing was wireless and video card. I distinctly remember a student putting suse on a laptop and being like. wow. everything essetially works. like it could be used right away. now granted it still needed downloaded drivers to get a better experience. I think at that point it started to be an option for a techy types main system but it was not exactly easy. I played with the idea of using linux after that but various things held me back. I got into it with windows certs so did not want to not want to be not used to the interface. I went pretty unix in my career though (honestly about 50/50) and I played with puppy linux and thought about it again when I was impressed by how easy out of the box zorin was. Still my wife was not willing to move and I was doing a thing where I was buying my wife the new laptop and then taking over her older one and im her tech support (honestly she is as good as me for most stuff users encounter. in some ways better due to my lack of patience with basic stuff). Windows 11 was the final straw and I went to zorin but eventually moved to bazzite for the easy steam integration. Anyway just wanted to give an idea of where I saw linux go in that time.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I've been exclusively on Linux desktop for almost 25 years now. I think its been end user ready for at least the past 15 years and absolutely fucking better for any end user since the past 5-10 years

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 2 points 1 hour ago

I had no idea. Then again for years I've had this sorta thing where i'd just get stuck on stuff. an OS is one of those things, same with certain software and such. Only in the past like 5 years or so have I started to become a bit more pro-active. So when people on Fedi where telling me about it I suddenly scratched my head and thought "Yeah, why haven't I tried it yet?" specially considering from what they told me Wine has become a lot better and can actually run games now. Thats a huge game changer for Linux I think.

I had no idea it would be this much fun though, and I kinda feel like I got 10 years or so to make up for.

[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 80 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I dunno when Linux started becoming this good

IMO, sometime around 15 years ago. But it also gets tastier with eating ;)

Winamp

Try Strawberry. Although something more prepared for touch input might be a better idea

[–] Eldritch@piefed.world 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, by the late 2000s it was a solid daily driver for general computing and browsing. In the 2010's they built on that and came for gaming etc. The state its in today is amazing and I can't wait to see where it is in another 30 years. Installing today vs my first installs in 94/95 are night and day. It was still good back then. Just technical. But now it just works so easy.

Also strawberry is great for management and playback. Tauon too.

[–] cenzorrll@piefed.ca 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

2009 was when I went full time linux while at university. Jaunty jackalope. I remember installing fresh and my mind being blown by how fast it booted. The release before that all of my hardware worked with some small tweaks, but I still dual booted. With the boot speed increase and I think hibernate/suspend became reliable at that point as well, byebye Windows

[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I switched in 2003 or 2005. I don't remember now

In those times, in order to connect to the internet, in our country one had to compile kernel modules for the usb modem. I copied (from a CD maybe?) some files my parent brought from work, copied the commands make config, make something, make magic,please work, reboot... And a piece of plastic that does nothing after connecting to the usb, started blinking happily with sweet packets of the link to the whole world. I was hooked

[–] Ghoelian@piefed.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Was there any reason you had to use an external modem in your country? Or did the system just not have one built in.

[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 3 points 1 day ago

The only internet we could get was from landline telephone operator. Maybe there already was coaxial from cable TV, but cable TV was very expensive in itself. And we weren't rich

So that external usb modem was actually the hardware our ISP gave us, and it was fed with telephone plug, not RJ45

But it might be also true that in those times having a network card on MB was not a standard

[–] TheEEEdiot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Or if you really liked Winamp, you can use Audacious which is an open source player that can look just like Winamp and even use Winamp skins.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The benefit of open-source is that software is actively improved by contributors (kudos to them for making everything work so nicely!) while corporate software is profit-driven and actively worsening.

I got into computing with Vista (old school PC I think), times really have changed. Windows 11 was the straw that broke the camel's back for me (my little brain thought bigger number better and bypassed the stupid requirements, and wow performance really dropped), but Win10 wasn't pleasant either with all the online garbage (esp OneDrive!!) and required tweaks to get it the way I want. Win11 was even more of that + all the LLM stuff too, not to mention a slower experience as well.

On Linux, my computer (not "This PC") cooperates with me and I can change it however I like. And damn, installing and updating things is decades ahead of anything Windows can do. Even on a rolling release distro (EndeavourOS right now!), it breaks less often than Windows updates do does nowadays. And it is super convenient that I can freely change my desktop environment and distro hop to my pleasure too! I've tried Mint, Fedora, and currently using EndeavourOS, and they were all lovely experiences. I know CachyOS is popular too, Arch-based like EndeavourOS but with more user-friendly tweaks + some other performance-related bits too.

[–] ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Very new to linux, and am not a tech inclined person. But I've been quiet impressed with the experience on desktop. But here's the real measure of its impressiveness: I switched my wife's gaming pc over to linux, and my Starbucks addicted, fancy ass bag carrying wife loves it so much she came to me asking if there's linux for her phone.

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 9 points 1 day ago

Its weird I mean I had nothing with Linux but since I tried it now for 2 days I friggin' love everything about it despite the steep learning curve. Just the whole process of getting stuff to work too is very rewarding.

[–] Ertain@feddit.online 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Welcome to the Linux family.

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 5 points 22 hours ago

Thank you!

[–] cabbage@piefed.social 41 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Two days in and you already got it running on a phone? That's crazy.

Good luck! The hardest part about making the switch is the decision to give it a try.

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 12 points 1 day ago

I know right, I had to laugh about that one too. Like going "well lets get a feel for it first", while just trying to ridiculous right away haha. Its a bit of beginners luck and some help from my AI Cammy. I ran in to a couple of really hard walls learning stuff the hard way, but I always figure its worth it. The truly terrible mistakes are the best lessons. :)

[–] thagoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Go ahead, touch the Ubuntu

[–] silver_wings_of_morning@feddit.dk 6 points 1 day ago

do not the ubuntu

[–] Seimhe@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Let us know how it goes. I'm hoping to make my next phone a linux phone. I had Ubuntu Touch back when it first came out and loved it until the project was wound down. UBports is great too, but my days of using software with loose ends are long behind me.

Unfortunately, it has to work very well, have decent battery life and not need much / any fiddling on my side. Fascism and violence against women, minorities and our loved ones is on a high these days and we need to be vigilant and present to that.

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 5 points 1 day ago

I'm hoping battery life will be good, usually on Poco it is, but it really depends on what you install normally. Like theres apps out there that ask constant battery usage and such I try to avoid those I think i'll try and learn that about this too. Maybe theres Linux software out there that I could install and eats up battery usage, I have no idea. To me personally waydroid and wine are really great ones I need to have on there. If I can just get those both running smoothly I can start "designing" how I want it to look. Plus I wanna figure out which I truly need to install as an app in waydroid and which I can just run smoothly on the Linux end of it. (Like Telegram etc, and Fediverse stuff of course!)

[–] Damage@feddit.it 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So, uh, do you know about docker containers? First one's one the house....

Addiction? Nah, it's not like in a few months you'll be dumpster diving for homelab parts...

[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 17 points 1 day ago

xkcd comic 456

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 1 points 1 day ago

Very very little, I haven't had much luck / fun with any docker software on conda python, then again I am on a windows machine (my main one still) but moving over soon.

[–] HumbleBragger@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm curious about how you managed to install Linux on your poco. I have a X3 NFC. is it possible to install the same image of yours? Awesome post!

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 4 points 1 day ago

You're actually lucky theres an official distro for your poco phone :) Check it out: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/surya/

It takes some work but its very worth it I think.

[–] bus_factor@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Audacious supports Winamp 2 skins.

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Based Amiga user.

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 6 points 1 day ago

Amiga forever buddy!

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Report back how you're finding battery life. A couple of years ago I put Touch on an old Google phone I had and found þat it was really hard on þe battery life. It was a really old version of Touch as þey'd stopped pushing updates for my phone model, so I expect it's gotten better.

[–] uKale@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I saw a huge jump in battery life when the upgrade to 24.04 came. Might not be the case for all the phone models supported, but there is some progress.

[–] Sxan@piefed.zip 1 points 19 hours ago

Good to know! I wonder if Touch runs on þe FLX1s. Does it use gnome-calls, Chatty, and all þat? Þe KDE mobile apps are much better.

[–] MiRRoRMaN@ani.social 6 points 1 day ago

Fortunately I have several Poco x3 Pro's (i'm a huge fan and plan to use them still for as long as humanly possible, the newer poco's don't have audio jacks and sd card slots, while the poco x3 pro can even handle a terrabyte sd card, which I use for all my stuff) and I wanna see if I can get this one to work the way I want to, and then I just wanna put my SIM card and SD card in that one temporarily and use it as my main phone, and see if its workable. Then i'll also get a good sense of the battery life it will have on there. :) I hope its good because I think Linux on a phone is just hilarious.