[capableweb]

I used to think the same thing (especially after getting a PinePhone which is nowhere near being ready for the masses) but after getting a Steam Deck, which is totally a mass-consumer ready gaming platform running (and even exposing it to the users) Linux, I think Linux Phones are just missing the right company to move forward with it. Would be much harder than building a gaming console, for sure, since hardware manufacturers of basebands/modems are really anti-OSS, but I think the time will eventually come. It'll take time though.

[revolvingocelot]

Valve has a business case to ready Linux for mass deployment -- recall Microsoft's public musing about locking down DirectX in Windows 10, forcing everyone into the Store? IIRC Steam Machines were a hedge/threat against that, but I'm pretty confident that the individual whimsy of GabeN et al is chiefly responsible for the gobs of money and polish being poured into a Linux uh Decktop experience. That's going to be hard to replicate for a Linux experience for anything else.

At the risk of sounding like a Valve exceptionalist or Great-Man historiographer, keep in mind that GabeN has untold "personal" millions to throw at weird Protean moonshots like Steam Machines-to-Proton-to-Steam Deck. I can't see a way for any extant company with the ability to build out Linux-for-a-phone to want to build out Linux-for-a-phone without baking some poisonous antifeature into it to make people look at ads.