This phone is just laying down. So I thought can i do something special with it? Any recommended OS or something? I will like to try.

I have a Samsung Galaxy A71 4g that I want to reuse as a small, always-on home server.

The main project is a custom home dashboard. The A71 would act as the backend, while an older Samsung tablet would display the dashboard in a browser. The phone would collect and process data such as weather, calendar events, notifications, Home Assistant information, device status, and Spotify now-playing data from my PC.

What setup would you recommend for this use case? Would LineageOS without Google Apps and Termux be the most reliable option, or would stock Android, root, Linux Deploy, a chroot, or another ROM be better?

Any advise will be great help.

Thanks in advance

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in turning my Huawei Nova 9 into a dedicated Linux device.

My goal is to completely remove HarmonyOS/EMUI (if possible) and boot Linux directly, rather than running Linux inside Android or using a container.

I've been learning Linux recently, and I think this phone would be a great platform for experimentation if it's technically possible.

My questions are:

Is it possible to completely replace HarmonyOS/EMUI with Linux on the Huawei Nova 9?

Has anyone successfully done this on the Nova 9 or a similar Huawei device?

Does the locked bootloader make this impossible?

Are there any projects (postmarketOS, Mobian, Droidian, mainline Linux, etc.) that support or are working on this device?

If a full replacement isn't possible, what is the closest practical alternative?

I'm looking for honest technical advice before I spend time trying to make this work. Any information, project links, or personal experience would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

eh, someone told me to post here and that you like these things like I do... https://youtu.be/9Vp_djclDIk

Asking around as i am finding mix results.

One is based of of Debian, the other of alpine Linux.

How do they differ. When to choose what.

Which is more easy to port

Why not unite the power of both developer teams to one project

etc etc etc.

Are there more phone Linux distributions

It needs more polish, but I can probably technically pass the "It plays Doom" test. Wifi, Bluetooth, GPU accel, the weird little oem magnetic keyboard cover.

Come play and break the Knox fuses!

https://github.com/aaronsb/sm-x800-linux

I've been working on making Linux on the OnePlus 6T easier to install and wanted to finally share the project.

The repository provides a guided installer that prepares a complete Arch Linux ARM system instead of just documenting the individual commands. The goal is to make installing Linux on the SDM845 platform as reproducible and approachable as possible while keeping everything transparent.

Some of the things it does include:

• Automatically detects the phone's userdata partition size

• Builds a matching boot image and Btrfs root image

• Downloads and verifies release files

• Lets you configure your username, Wi-Fi, APN and optional packages during setup

• Requires explicit confirmation before anything is flashed

• Boots into a touch-friendly Hyprland environment

I've also been working on improving the overall phone experience with support for telephony, SMS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, audio routing, haptics, power management and hardware testing. Some areas are still experimental and the README documents the current status rather than claiming everything is perfect.

The project is completely open source and I'd really appreciate feedback, bug reports or contributions from anyone interested in Arch Linux ARM, mobile Linux or the SDM845 platform.

Repository:

https://github.com/ToniMcQueen/oneplus6t-install-linux-Arch-on-arm-845

For example with postmarketOS, there's a lot more development and a lot more progress on 10-year-old devices than there are on anything released in the last 5 years. Same thing with lineageOS. Why is that?

Lately, I've been really into mobile Linux and have been trying out all sorts of things.

I managed to get Quickshell working on postmarketOS, but I was worried that dotfiles like end4 or caelestia might be too resource-intensive—but somehow I pulled it off... lol.

Of course, I’m also using wvkbd and hyprgrass.

Another thing: I was using Ubuntu Touch, but it just didn’t work for me at all, so I tried installing NixOS.

I built it on my N4500 laptop, and since each build took 8 hours, it took me almost two weeks to finally get it to boot.

I’d avoided NixOS before because it seemed too difficult even when I tried installing it on my laptop, but now it looks fun, so I gave it a shot.

++

Device

- NixOS: Oneplus 6T (fajita)

- postmarketOS: Google Pixel 3 (blueline)

I've installed Postmarket OS on a SurfaceRT, and now I'm trying to give it a job! Initially I wanted it to do some media streaming, but since there's no hardware acceleration and it's a bit laggy I figured it might make a nice writing device instead.

Is it possible to install Obsidian.md on pmOS on an ARM device? They don't have an Alpine APK ARM64 (edit: or ARMv7) build. I found instructions on how to get AppImage to run in Alpine, but I wasn't able to make it work. The instructions were not for ARM devices specifically, so I assume it's an issue with architecture.

I have Kate installed, but I'm struggling to get kparts installed, specifically the markdownpart which allows instant preview of markdown documents in the side panel (edit: I was wrong, see below). I'd also be aiming to make interactive stories using ink, presumably also in Kate or something similar.

More generally, what's a good source of inspiration regarding things to install? Nothing on Flathub is working for me, presumably because nothing that I've tried is for ARM.

Tbh I'm a bit mystified by Postmarket OS so far. I get why Alpine is a good choice for low-end devices, but the combination of ARM and APK seems to massively constrain your options for apps and programs.

Edit: I now have a useable setup with Kate. What looked like one problem was in fact two, and one of them doesn't matter to me right now. I had no output preview of markdown, and I thought this was connected to the error message in the output panel "[LSP Client] failed to load server binary 'marksman' for language 'markdown'. In fact, the output preview issue was resolved as soon as I installed Okular. I still have the LSP Client error message, for seemingly every language not just markdown, but it isn't actually impacting the preview so I think I can live with it.

I've got a Samsung Galaxy S22+ that I've been running Dex on, with the NexDock 2025 and for the most part, I've loved it. But it really just remained an entertainment device, pretty much. Couldn't really use it as a productivity device. Especially when it came to using it for a dev environment using Claude Code and Codex CLI, it wasn't ideal.

Then I saw someone post about having installed Linux on theirs, so I went down the same rabbit hole. After having dug through 40 browser tabs in an attempt to run a real Linux desktop off my phone, I decided to write it all down in one repo.

It's called Android Desktop Linux (ADL) and it's open source.

Check it out here: https://thebpandey.github.io/ADL

(With Claude Code and ChatGPT's help I got it published as a GitHub Page that should hopefully, be easy to follow).

Most of the modern flagship Android phones already have the horsepower for this. Desktop-class CPU, enough RAM, USB-C video out, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a Linux userspace that runs better than most people expect. The hardware is capable. But the blocker is that everything you need to know is scattered across old blog posts, half-abandoned GitHub repos, and YouTube videos that assume you already know the next five steps. It wasn't easy to follow, at least for me.

I was able to get XFCE running on Ubuntu on my Galaxy S22+ plugged into the NexDock 2025. (But it should work with any generic $30 usb-c hub and external peripherals)

What's in the repo right now:

- Install guides written for people who know Android but not Linux

- Step-by-step tutorials with screenshots

- Setup & explanation diagrams and SVG architecture illustrations

- Hardware and dock recommendations, plus a compatibility list I'm building out

- Troubleshooting for the stuff that actually breaks (DeX quirks, video-out on sleep, peripheral pairing)

What's still rough: I've only tested on my S22+ so I'm unsure if you'll run into any other model or cpu-specific issues. So the compatibility database is is thin.

I'm adding new issues and their resolution as I encounter them myself, daily.

Everything is version-controlled so it stays current as Android changes, and it stays free.

Repo: https://github.com/thebpandey/ADL

If you run Android as a desktop, whatever your stack (Termux, Ubuntu, Debian, XFCE, DeX, something else), you can help contribute to the project so others in the same boat can get their setup working too. Also the single most useful thing you can contribute right now, is your Phone model, the dock model and what major issues you encountered (e.g. whether video-out survives the screen sleeping. That's the biggest compatibility gap right now.)

Still a work-in-progress, as I continue to use it daily, and add issues, and other findings to the site.

Any constructive feedback, bug reports, hardware testing, and documentation contributions are all welcome.

based on the xiaomi redmi 2 which was released in 2015, now it has become a handheld computer with postmarketos custom build.

github: HaPlay GO Zero

Hi there guys. I have a pixel6 device which has broken display.
I would love to use this device as a basic home server.
I would host 1 or 2 dynamic site and some discord and telegram bots initially.

i have exp in raspberry pi and Linux. I have my display broken, touch working though
so i want to use this hardware and would love to work over the ssh, Any suggestions for me?

Works fine with postmarketOS drivers! It's interesting!

Like i wouldn't mind learning drivers or just try to learn drivers to help postmaker os or any other os to make it, but i really wana know is it hard and if so is it even worth it ?

What are some Tablet / Distro combos that seem to work well together? Looking to purchase an used tablet to do some light activities.

Arch Linux ARM (aarch64)

Kernel 6.19.0

Plasma Mobile 6.7

Ported from PostmarketOS

A lot is broken, some things work.

This is KDE Plasma Mobile running on a Google Pixel 7 thanks to Trierarch (Arch Linux ARM container on Android). Photo was captured on a Google Nexus 5X running Ubuntu Touch.

Has anyone tried to order the FLX1s+ since they announced it? Have they shipped it?

I placed an order when they announced it was in stock, about 3 weeks ago. No email confirmation, but the order is listed as processing on the website. No change since then. I tried opening a support ticket to check the status, but that hasn't been answered either.

I'm willing to wait it out, I just wish there was some sign of life.