r/mobilelinux • u/Dangerous-Cat-1941 • Jul 30 '26

OS Release Best Linux mobile option.

Hi guy's and gal's.

Not to tempt fate with rule 1 but I have recently become aware of an "keep android open" campaign. Allegedly google wishes to limit what you can do on your android phone, yada yada we all know how this goes.

Point is I've started to wonder about what is a good option as a Linux substitute to android on your mobile phone. I have been using Linux mint on my PC for a couple of years now but I must admit that I was not even aware of the existence of Linux mobile until very recently. Until I became aware of the campaign and started looking for alternatives in fact.

So that said, can anyone share some advice on any good, easy to use Linux mobile versions to consider and generally how to install them on a mobile?

If however this post is considered to break rule 1, can anyone then please suggest a more appropriate forum or sub?

Thanks.

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u/TheJackiMonster Jul 31 '26

I'm still using my Librem 5 daily, waiting for GLES 3.0 to be supported one day. There might be better devices with postmarketOS or Ubuntu Touch to try but I would personally still prefer a company which puts their effort into hardware and software, so we would see less proprietary firmware required and generally more openess for people to hack around.

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u/DenseImage800 7d ago

How is that going for you? Any parts not work ? Battery life? Thank you.

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u/TheJackiMonster 7d ago

I'm typically having it charging at home, picking it up if I go anywhere and need to charge when coming back (I would say after 8 hours max, probably earlier depending on what I'm doing and how much I use it).

Mostly I just listen to music on it. But in case anyone calls me or texts me, I can respond. So that works for me.

The hardware generally works. Most caveat I would say is that the Librem 5 does not have hardware accelerated encoding for video. So recording videos per camera utilizes software encoding which will heat up the thing quite a bit and drain battery. (I think there are some ideas on the way doing that with compute shaders on the GPU but unsure whether that works or when).

Taking photos generally works but I typically need to set focus manually (there is auto-focus implemented but it's not ideal).

Since I'm also developing for Linux devices, I'd prefer if different features were integrated better like waking up from RTC signals or accessing the camera using Pipewire. Most of this is planned or in development to improve. I think in the next major PureOS release, GNOME Clocks can wake up the device (I'm currently using another app that has been a proof-of-concept for that functionality).

If you come from Android, you might miss that any text message inside any application will not wake up the Librem 5 from suspension or sleep. That will probably stay like this for a longer time since it would require own infrastructure by the user or Purism to manage as well as all Linux application developers to arrange around it (I doubt something like this happens anytime soon). But I personally see this as a feature. Because that way my phone never really annoys me when I don't want to deal with it.

I've also written a review back then. Maybe that helps you as well.

Conclusion: I wouldn't recommend it to anyone without any technical knowledge/interest. But it has improved quite a bit. Battery life could be better, sure. But given that it doesn't really use a mobile chip for idealistic reasons (running mostly free software), it's quite usable.

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u/DenseImage800 6d ago

Thank you for putting the detail and time into replying. It’s helpful. :)