I want to donate to a linux phone. I believe in linux and I want a linux phone. Maybe we can use one in very few years as a normal daily driver. It's getting closer and closer every month.
I want to donate that we get there sooner. But which project? I'm following postmarket but I'm not sure if they are the most promising. What's your stance on this? To which project would you give your money to accellerate it?
Edit: I don't want to buy a phone. I want to support the phone os devs. Sorry for the bad wording.
AOSP. Sad but true.
When first pinephone came out I really believed it's heading somewhere. It thought that it will be kind of like raspberry Pi (fun, cheap platform to play with) and that we'll quickly see copycats and it will slowly grow the way Linux on desktop did. AFAIK nothing like this happened. You still can't get a phone with decent Linux support which for me shows that we're stuck with android. I think most people that would help Linux phone happen are simply satisfied with LineageOS so there's no incentive to put as much effort into it as it requires.
The benefits are there, some of ideas out of my head:
Better networking for administrator, access to /etc/hosts file, not being tied to a single VPN slot.
Using old mobile phone as a simple server, having access to firewall tools and normal remote control.
Installing simplier graphical interface for eldery people.
Lifetime updates for many system components that are not device specific.
Simple backups and cloning with standard tools like rsync or borgbackup instead of Google Drive. Also backing up whole system.
Everyone can add a feature, you can make a difference, no need to mess with Google's Android developing pipeline.
Making native apps for mobile and desktop at the same time, no need for bloated web-like abstraction layers.
Apps made in Python, C, Rust... No need to fit into Android SDK. And no forcing Android SDK and Android Studio!
Customizations of the interface look via CSS files (Phosh have it to some sort).
Someone give more ideas?
Yes, it's all true but the issue is you can already do a lot of those things with a lot of cheap hardware that is is simply easier to support than old phones. And when it comes to phones being phones Android is really good and has a lot of apps. I think the problem with Linux phones getting more popular is that the overlap between desktop/server and mobile is very small. I mean I use my phone only for phone things and a lot of things I do on my phone I can do only on my phone (e.g. charging an electric car is basically impossible without a Android/iPhone). Having a phone that can do some things desktop/server can do but can't do a lot of things a phone can do is pretty much pointless at this point.
When we'll get a proper Linux phone with full Android apps support and convergence it will be really awesome but I just don't think there's enough interest to get there at this point.
Oof, now I am sad on the account of what could have been.
An Android phone isn't what's referred to when people say "Linux phone". What they're referring to is a phone running GNU/Linux, typically running one of the GNU/Linux phone shells/desktop environments.
I know and what I'm saying is that all those project are moving very slowly while projects like GraphneOS/LineageOS already offer open, privacy oriented phones with good hardware and lot's of apps. This is simply where more effort is going, where we're seeing more progress and our best chance at getting "Linux phones".
Apparently not.
To repeat myself: an Android phone (for example, running GrapheneOS or LineageOS) isn't a "Linux phone".