[usrn]

I get notifications on mine just fine, even with suspend.

Dino generates notifications when I get messages, mutt rings the terminal bell when I get email (if I cared I could pretty easily have it generate a toast notification too.) If you treat the thing like a desktop rather than a phone then most of the software will "just work" occasionally needing a small amount of glue to deal with things like the suspend/wake cycle to save battery life while still allowing for notifications etc.

The Pinephone is very much the "just install gentoo" of phones. Most people who actually use it are going to have radically different configurations and experiences.