I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

I've tried a few times over the years to make Ubuntu Touch work. God how bad I wanted it to work here in the US. The lack of apps and VoLTE support really soured me on it ever working here.

If you're outside of the US, the availability of useable mobile OS's outside of Android and iOS is pretty abundant compared to the situation here in the US.

Google Play Services ruins dream of this. I've noticed that automotive digital keys don't work with Graphine OS due to how Google Wallet works.

Not to mention that your android/ios device is still shipping a bunch of bluetooth tokens for "track and trace" system. Cryptographically signed to you.

https://covid19.apple.com/contacttracing

May as well just get an old school Nokia and skip the smartphone technology all together. Get yourself a nice flip phone and go back to the early 2000's. If you need to do something online, just bring your laptop with you - some are so small that they're easy to carry around in a backpack or side bag.

> If I have an issue or something I want to tinker with I can just ssh over from my PC either wirelessly or via USB.

FWIW one can also do that on stock Android or its GrapheneOS variant pretty conveniently, including storage access, am, boot background processes, etc. It is not as complete as being root on Linux proper but still.

Switching from Android style Linux HAL to FreeDesktop style Linux HAL… I honestly think we need more Linux HAL options than just those two, when one is threatening to self-destruct and the other is arguably the single worst interface design ever conceived, by all measurements.

Mobian is where my hope is...

Shoutout to Purism... if you got the loot.

https://puri.sm/products/liberty-phone/

"I'm switching my phone from <free software> to <proprietary software>"

Why not just use an Android AOSP distribution? SailfishOS is proprietary. It will be a lot more "locked down" than LineageOS/GrapheneOS.

>I've become more and more dissatisfied with the path Google has taken with the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Be it the dependency and insane tracking of Google Play Services

AOSP does not include nor depend on Play Services.

>locking down of device trees to hinder custom ROM development

Most manufacturers do not distribute these either. The user doesn't even have a pixel so it is not relevant.

>all the AI stuff being put into the system

The AI stuff is not part of AOSP.

>or most recently (and perhaps worst), removing the ability of installing apps per your own wishing - it's become sort of like a "death by a thousand papercuts" situation.

Again that is not a feature of AOSP, but one bolted in on top of it.

I think the author would benefit much more by using a different distribution of AOSP.

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Did you consider postmarketOS? https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_4_(fairphone-fp...