And yeah, you can even buy phones with a non-android linux pre-installed, e.g. from pine64. But they come with all kinds of "for early adopters" warning labels. Deservedly so, in my opinion.
Hope there's a timeline in which banking and corporate apps can run/be enrolled on that. If the current geopolitical mess from the USA isn't a good-enough reason to make it happen, I don't know what is.
Why are all commenters on HN ignoring the only smartphone running an FSF-endorsed [0] operating system, Librem 5, and only list everything else? I just can't get it.
Because it was a kickstarter that was run like a scam, was years late to deliver the first device, the hardware was already not good at the start due picking an automotive SOC, the form factor was bulky, and the software was really buggy.
GrapheneOS is a much more practical open source OS to use Linux on a phone.
GrapheneOS is not solving the actual interesting problem (running on an entirely mainline kernel, just like on x86). It's effectively a hardened variety of LineageOS/AOSP, hence entirely reliant on device-specific downstream kernels/BSPs that will never see a feature update.
BTW, hardware support on postmarketOS "community" class devices has seen some nice improvements as of late. Once these improvements meaningfully stabilize (avoiding the risk of regression/breakage; there's been some of that even in the recent testing for the 2025-12 stable release) it's quite possible that some "community" devices might finally reach "main" class, marking them as OK for daily-driver use. Something to watch for as we approach 2026-06.
>GrapheneOS is not solving the actual interesting problem
Consumers don't care how interesting the developer's problems are. They want their own problems to be solved and GrapheneOS does a better job of that.
>running on an entirely mainline kernel
Google already did that work years ago. Android will work on a mainline kernel. Just like with x86 the mainline kernel needs to support the hardware e you want to use though.
And while Linus allows Linux to be open source. A benefit of open source is that you can fork it if upstream decides to stop development or go closed source.
>This doesn't work with GrapheneOS.
GrapheneOS can use free drivers too. It literally is using Linux.
Because it's prohibitively expensive for something that isn't guaranteed to be a usable daily-driver for most people. Also IIRC the hardware isn't quite worth the price tag in-and-of-itself.
> We need a third alternative, based on freedom with your device.
We does not refer only to HN users, and there is no implication as such.
The default assumption is that 'we' refers to the general population.
However, even if I'm charitable and go with your assumption that 'we' referred to HN users, I will confidently say most HN users also don't care about FSF approval.
You like to post a lot of HN links without ever giving an indication of what they point to. As a habit, I don't waste my time clicking random links that people post without context.
And yeah, you can even buy phones with a non-android linux pre-installed, e.g. from pine64. But they come with all kinds of "for early adopters" warning labels. Deservedly so, in my opinion.