Yes the pinephone has an open modem firmware you can install, but in order to make the pinephone slightly usable you need to have phosh, because KDE is way to slow. It’s not a device that’s easy to use unless you are comfortable with tweaking, and are tech savvy. It also has some issues, like a small battery and heavy energy use. Mobian with phosh helps a bit here, but it’s just not really a good replacement for android phones rn. The hardware is slow because there isnt really any open hardware with documentation that exists.
There is a few android phones that you can install Linux onto that are better but you have to deal with the headache if googles bullshit and Qualcomm and mediateks bullshit in terms of bootloaders and stuff.
I’m working on my own fork of mobian for the pinephone specifically that will hopefully make it more usable as an everyday device, but it’s 4g only so it only really has a year or two left of life. In a few years we will hopefully see better open phones since there is a real market opening up for them, with the desolation of android by Google.
Mobian with phosh is a decent choice if you decide to get one. At two hours of screen off time I’ve only used over just a out 5% of battery which is good for the pinephone, but I have a large battery. The software has come a long way in recent years.
Phone with open source modem firmware?
Yes the pinephone has an open modem firmware you can install, but in order to make the pinephone slightly usable you need to have phosh, because KDE is way to slow. It’s not a device that’s easy to use unless you are comfortable with tweaking, and are tech savvy. It also has some issues, like a small battery and heavy energy use. Mobian with phosh helps a bit here, but it’s just not really a good replacement for android phones rn. The hardware is slow because there isnt really any open hardware with documentation that exists.
There is a few android phones that you can install Linux onto that are better but you have to deal with the headache if googles bullshit and Qualcomm and mediateks bullshit in terms of bootloaders and stuff.
I’m working on my own fork of mobian for the pinephone specifically that will hopefully make it more usable as an everyday device, but it’s 4g only so it only really has a year or two left of life. In a few years we will hopefully see better open phones since there is a real market opening up for them, with the desolation of android by Google.
Thank you for the reply
Mobian with phosh is a decent choice if you decide to get one. At two hours of screen off time I’ve only used over just a out 5% of battery which is good for the pinephone, but I have a large battery. The software has come a long way in recent years.