I've never really understood why we chase Android-alikes on mobile platforms instead of trying to build on mainstream Linux. I know some folks in the nix community (nix-on-droid and other projects) have tried to bring us closer to this, but projects like Graphene seem to have a lot of traction.

Seems like it's the same problem as chromium. Is it better to get off the Google controlled ecosystem? Yes. Is it easier to leverage the Google controlled ecosystem? Also yes.

People will tell you that chromium is "more up to date" as if Google wasn't the one setting the standards, making it impossible for anyone else to be similarly complete. Seems like we have a very similar problem here...

All the existing apps are on Android and iOS. Graphene lets you run them. You can't have a bank account on a Linux phone* because they won't let you, but you can on Android including on Graphene.

* before replying snarkily that Android is Linux, please take a long walk off a short pier, thanks

Yes, there's SailfishOS, there's Ubuntu Touch, and a couple more. It would be nice if one of them could gain traction so people can have a third choice.

Like others have said, it comes down to apps mostly. But there is also the fact that Google and others have spent more than a decade optimizing the OS for appliances. Android was built from the ground up for mobile devices and handles things like background apps, notifications, and charging as expected on a phone. All of this could be ported or rebuilt, but the work has already been done for Android and billions of devices prove that it works.

Everyone else mentioned the app support which is true, but for graphene specifically, they do not like desktop Linux at all because they don't like its security. They would much rather build on AOSP than desktop linux.

Because you need app support. Not even Microsoft could pull that off.

I have a Pinephone Pro. It's nowhere near usable as a daily driver.

GOS is broadly compatible with most phone use cases out of the box--chat, mail, browsing. A Google Play profile lets me use almost all apps (including my bank apps, but I understand that's not true for everyone).

In principle I agree about a Linux phone, but the gaps are much greater. I am also sympathetic to the GOS team's arguments that sandboxing on Android is better, and important on a device that allows control of essentially my whole life (2FA apps etc.)

once Huawei was forbidden from using Android - that's when people ie western markets & the world at large should've shifted. look at HarmonyOS.

in China - there's no google apps available on their 'android' versions.

their platforms are already performant and fluid - so people should build on that.

Because Android is miles ahead in terms of security, permission management, app separation, power management, privacy...

Linux crowd can not even agree on compositor, and if systemd or sudo is a good idea.

i recently put debian (mobian) on a pixel 3a and it's pretty solid, though i haven't tried it out as daily driver yet.

claude code makes stuff like that super accessible to do in your spare time. another example is installing debian on a synology 918+, there's no way i would've had the grit to do that without ai. it's open season for any gadget that's got a debug uart port.

Because it's a mobile platform and "GNU+Linux" is laughably terrible in this space.

It's almost like Android has put millions of expert dev hours into making it the most used OS in the world. Like GNU+linux on laptops only works the way it does because of android-upstreamed battery saver kernel features.

But a mobile is also people's most used devices with all of their data, bank accounts etc there - it has to be safe. And GNU+linux has not even a single thought about security, while android just has it worked out (every app runs as its own user, so it's even built on standard UNIX security).

A mobile OS also has to race to suspend and for that it needs cooperation from "apps" -- desktop apps just run, they don't care about anything besides SIGKILL. That's not a workable model on a mobile and android solves it.

And I say all that as someone who runs linux everywhere I can and I absolutely love it. It's imo the best kernel out there -- but the userspace is not where it should be and if anything, the correct question would be what can we take from Android and add to GNU+Linux. (And nix is fantastic, but it's a packaging solution, I don't really see how it comes into question here. I can run nix on my android phone just fine by the way)

Because without Android I can't run WhatsApp and my bank's app on my phone, which promptly reduces it to a paperweight. I wish it wasn't so, but reality refuses to cooperate, so let's just be happy that we've got GrapheneOS which is so good it has its own column in Cellebrite's support matrix.

Apps. We'd love a completely different OS and it is viable on desktop because web almost does everything but on mobile you're basically locked out of very essential functionality like banking, transit, messaging etc. The compatibility layers aren't good enough (yet) to offer a seamless experience.

Your point is valid for every flavor of Android except GrapheneOS.

GrapheneOS’ security model makes that of desktop Linux look like a joke.

This is an objective analysis based on x86 security, GrapheneOS hardening (including isolation and hardened mem allocator), Pixel hardware security.

AOSP has way better security and therefore privacy than desktop linux.

Because the Android Runtime (ART) is very necessary to run APKs, and APKs are the only non-iOS standard for packaging mobile apps that is supported enough to be viable. Without it, you might get some open source apps to run on a linux phone, but you won't have banking apps, clash of clans, or a million other things people really would like to have on their phones.

I don't either. Don't we have free market capitalism? Why don't I have a Linux phone? And why do I need to worry that my government and banking apps won't work if I get a Linux phone?

All we had to do was build PWAs instead of native apps and instead all we did was build PWAs into bad browser wrappers.

AOSP is Linux.

If by "mainstream" Linux you mean something like postmarketOS, I'd suggest you look up reviews or give it a try yourself. A few months ago, people were reporting a hard time placing a call, taking a photo, etc.