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Petition to stop Google from blocking sideloading
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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DeGoogle Yourself
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You'll need something at least a couple generations old with an unlockable bootloader. You can run Halium and UB Touch.
It's an Android kernel with a linux VM, but most things work, and it is absolutely private.
Daily Driver real Linux is a couple of years off, probably. They're just getting drivers starting to work now and battery life is a long long way off.
I'm currently trying to figure out some kind of handheld Linux that operates reasonably well and carry a stand alone hotspot. I've even been pondering, throwing a Raspberry Pi compute module onto a 7in screen, but perf is still kinda dicey and power is still a serious issue.
Give me battery life on any of those.
Tell me which one of those can run signal.
Tell me which one of those run a processor that's from the last five years.
Tell me which one of those are still going to be available in a few years?
Tell me which one of those aren't running an Android kernel with the Linux VM inside?
The list starts looking pretty bleak after a few questions. We're not in good shape.
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The Halium ones are okayish on camera because the divers are Android. They'll perform at least as well as android 5 or so but with a high rez output. They also have decent-ish battery.
The ones with straight Linux kernels have various problems. You can go and look up a given operating system and its support level and they'll generally enumerate what the problems are. Even the ones with bigger batteries get less than 6 hours.
Signal won't run natively on any of the Linux phones. You have the option of running waydroid in a lot of cases. But when you're running it in waydroid, the phone can't go to low power. So it burns your battery to hell and back.
I think your only current option for a daily driver would be to get one of the fairphones and use UBtouch.
Pine is only dedicating another couple of years worth of phones. Fairphones is on the struggle bus but they're still in the game. Most of the newer pixels aren't supported in any of the distros.
Most of the districts won't run on any of the newer phones.
Tiny computers aren't hard, we have PI's and a dozen alterantives. Efficiency and Power are the real issues.
Android and IOS have been doing power R&D for almost 20 years. When you stop using an android app, even for a short period, it saves a snapshot in memory and stops using it. The radio drivers are on their 20th revision and do everything in their power to save power. We're just starting off where they did prior to 2010. But we know how they solved the issues, we'll catch up. It's going to take time, we need to get everything working and stable first.
The signal problem is a lack of packages for arm-linux it is possible to build it i'm reading, but cross-compiling and keeping it up to date seems like a hassle.
My first thought was to try to find a smallish x86 tablet and carry a portable hotspot. But there's not a lot of those and power seems like it'll still be a problem.
I don't know that there are good solutions just yet, but we're not alone in wants. Hoping I can eventually craft something usefull or help contribute to someone who is.
That $2,200 phone is the Trump phone. Puresim. It's made "in the usa" with 10-year-old technology. And I guarantee you they paid to be on the top of that list..