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Google's new rules could wipe out sideloading and alternative app stores, F-Droid warns
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2025
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Linux on mobile isn't really ready yet, is it?
The market really needs a third choice.
it's time for the return of Windows Phone! /s
Maybe not that one, but thanks. I guess.
😂 I’d much rather prefer Linux, but thanks for the laugh 😊
Not quite, though the Furi phone is, from the accounts I've read, fairly usable compared to most.
I'd recommend donating to PostmarketOS, if possible. They're the most promising project.
I can and I will. Thanks for the hint. I appreciate it 💖
It's close. With a big push and swell into at least a small userbase I think it can be.
Besides myself, I think I've only ever met one or two other people who know enough about technology to even be capable of using something like that.
What do you mean? We're talking about phones that run an OS that looks similar to Android/iOS but are based on Linux and more open. It's still touch screen, still have an app store and home screen like usual. Ideally a user who doesn't care would never know and never have to open a terminal or anything.
I know, I've played with postmarket os before on an old Pixel. The issue is that the usability gap between even AOSP (which is barely usable) and the latest and greatest mobile linux distro is enormous. The issues that exist right now may or may not bother you and I, but they are showstoppers for normal people.
I just don't see what there is to be gained (for end users) from creating another Linux mobile OS instead of just building on top of AOSP. In theory, having a community-driven OS is a great idea because even a GPL fork of Android wouldn't survive long due to divergence/fragmentation. If a truly community-driven OS can achieve a sustainable development process, that'd be nice. However, in practice the evil stuff Google does is on the business side, not the code side. For example, if you port Phosh to Android as a custom launcher, you'd end up with a similar user experience, except with the added benefit of a phone that actually works and a massive ecosystem of working apps. Sure, you can't
apt install blender, but nobody actually wants to run desktop apps on a smartphone.And another thing is that a lot of the freedom-restricting bullshit on Android today is the fault of device manufacturers who lock the bootloader and make it difficult/impossible to run custom operating systems. Even if you build a feature-complete alternative to Android, you're still going to be struggling hard to get it running on real devices without buy-in from OEMs. How will you convince OEMs to ship your OS over Android? Answer: you won't.
So IMO, Postmarket OS and similar projects will only ever be toys for nerds like us who want to play with e-waste devices abandoned by the manufacturer.
Want to break Google's stranglehold on Android? Write to your representatives and start voting in more than just the presidential election (If you're American). We live in a democracy, and Google is obviously breaking antitrust laws. It's just that current politicians are corrupt and incompetent boomers who don't understand tech, and are more likely to listen to the billionaire's lobbyists than us internet nerds.
I think AOSP is barely usable because basically nobody does use it unmodified, and the best Linux mobile distro is the way it is because it's a niche of a niche. Given a real community I think that could actually change faster than you expect.
LMAO I have more confidence in the possibility of a Linux OS becoming the third major mobile OS than this happening at this point. US democracy broke.