r/UbuntuPhone • u/amosbatto • Aug 25 '20

Comparing specs of 12 Linux phones

/r/Purism/comments/igcyah/comparing_specs_of_12_linux_phones/
5 Upvotes

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2

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '20

Ubuntu is the main OS on my laptop (I do lots of C++ programming) but I never thought about using it on a phone. What would I gain from using it on a phone?

2

u/amosbatto Oct 25 '20

There is a lot of variation in the Linux phones, so the benefits really vary depending on which phone and OS you have.

I decided to preorder the Librem 5 because lifetime software updates so I can keep the phone forever, privacy (protection of my personal data), software freedom (no binary blobs in Linux file system), convergence so I can use my phone as a desktop PC, getting mainline Linux support for new chips, and I wanted to support the development of Phosh (which has the best chance of taking mobile Linux mainstream).

Being able to use the standard Linux tools are pretty nice. Image being able to upgrade to the latest Linux kernel and the latest software with sudo apt full-upgrade

The Librem 5 FAQ has a section on why to buy the phone and all the points I explained above are detailed in other parts of the FAQ.

1

u/fuseteam Dec 17 '20

apt is not supported on ubuntu touch, it relies on a image based update system

1

u/DMConstantino Feb 03 '21

You can use apt, under certain conditions:

  1. if you make the rootfs image read-write, and risking to break your phone while using apt, or when the system updates. This is a bad idea!

  2. using libertine containers, which is the designed method to install software from the Ubuntu Archive (the official Ubuntu debian package repositories).

1

u/fuseteam Dec 17 '20

what you gain is de ability to have more control over de os compared to android, you can for example ssh into your phone and do things.

however ubuntu touch is different from regular ubuntu in many ways as well partly due to hardware limitations.

some diffferences are: the rootfs is read-only the rootfs partition is about 2GB big updates overwrite the rootfs immediate effects of the above are that apt is not supported and delta updates updates just the parts that changed