I am also looking for a linux smart phone at the moment. I have not found many that don't seem to be sold out, or aren't quite there yet.
If I find anything promising I will edit.
I intend to get a Fairphone 5 or 6 and test-drive Ubuntu Touch on it, hoping to daily drive it... but it's all theoretical at this point. If I can't get a real Linux distro to do everything I want reliably, Lineage OS is my fallback plan. I believe in the Fairphone mission, so that'll be my next hardware purchase either way
What sucks is in the USA you need VOLTE for the phone to work, and I’ve not found a phone that clearly supports it
Looks like BM818 in Librem5 supports VoLTE, but might have issues with some networks.
PinePhone's (and one of Mudita's phone's) EG25 modem technically supports VoLTE, but was very flaky for me (in a mid-low signal area)
FuriLabs (FLX1) seems to have VoLTE working.
Ubuntu Touch explicitly states that it does not support VoLTE.
Ubuntu Touch doesn't officially support it yet, but it is working reliably for several phones now.
FuriLabs was looking promising, but the new version of the phone is a downgrade in a lot of categories, and the old phone is not available anymore. Disappointing at the moment, hopefully more hardware options in future from them.
Wtf is this?
Voice over LTE, meaning in the USA we don’t have 3g anymore so the phone has to support voice over LTE
Or just use WiFi?
Not exactly useful if you're not in an area with WiFi.
Can you use Signal on a Linux phone? I know there's a desktop Linux client, but it relies on being activated from an Android or iPhone app to function, in my experience.
https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/apps/ can run Android apps with Waydroid. I don't know if Signal works with this, but Android apps run with good performance using Waydroid (I just read about it, never used it myself).
I don't have experience with mobile Linux (still on Android), but you can emulate Android apps through Waydroid and that would (probably) work. Granted, Idk if notifications would work, but that's an option if mobile Linux can handle Waydroid. There's also Molly, which is a signal client that doesn't rely on Google Play Services for notifications.
Better not to use Signal. It's intentionally made less secure by requiring a phone number.
Wire is better. Native Linux app. No phone number needed.
Signal is important to some of my contacts and its E2E encryption is excellent. The only thing the phone number gives away to the outside is "has this person used Signal in the past?". Since it is not illegal to use Signal in my country, I'm not worried.
I have a pinephone for wifi and my SIM is in a CatB40 that only does calls/sms.
Surprised no mention here yet of a Pixel 3a? Both Ubuntu Touch and PostmarketOS seem to run best on it, so I've had it on my eBay search notifications for a while hoping to be able to toy with one. I really don't expect it to be daily driver material though.
I wouldn't do Ubuntu Touch on the P3a if you're in an area where VoLTE is required. It seems this model is too old to get the treatment it needs.
What about swappa? I just replaced my 3a with a 7a. I would consider donating it to the cause but had thought about doing something with it.
This, but Pixel 4a. Nearly identical phones, except one has more RAM.
I just bought like five of them. Best Pixel on the market, imho.
I used a Nokia N800 and later an N9. Both were painfully slow though otherwise pretty cool. Neither is usable now, due to the 3G mobile networks having been phased out in the US.
Worldwide. The whole world is on the process of killing 3g.
WiFi works fine, tho
Yeah there just isn't much attraction to using those old phones over wifi though. The N800 is basically a tiny Debian box and maybe I could think of a cool use for that, but tmux, raspberry pi, meshtastic gizmos, etc all compete too. Neither phone is able to usefully run a web browser. I used to be on talk.maemo.org which is where users of those phones hung out, but that site shut down some years ago.
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