The part about getting authorized to test the emergency calling capabilities is cool! I should've expected that would be a thing but I didn't ever consider it.
PostmarketOS can't partner with any OEM/ODM and volunteers have to use hacks to unofficially implement basic Android 1.0 functionality years after a device was released? That's sad to see. This is just lame, drivers should be implemented by those who work on them..
We had Librem 5 which had real OS support that didn't have to rely on third-party volunteers, I wish they released something more modern..
Is there any precedent to believe that such a thing is in fact possible?
> and volunteers have to use hacks
I have terrible news for you about how the official firmware works.
> to unofficially implement basic Android 1.0 functionality years after a device was released?
Conversely, in other places it's far better than Android 1.0. But yes, if you can only start developing against the device after it's released, then your software will be released after the hardware ships plus development time.
> That's sad to see. This is just lame, drivers should be implemented by those who work on them..
My general understanding of the Android ecosystem is that they do write drivers, and you don't want those drivers. I like to imagine that somewhere that out there somebody must be making phones with high quality software, but I've never heard of them.
My advice would be to not take the frustrating and useless road of a non-profit structure for some things that you do for pleasure.
The for-profit will be simpler and give you more liberties, and if, in the end, you have the good mindset that you want your creations to be shared freely, you can do it anyway. It is a state of mind.
Uhhhhh congratulations for what would be pre-Android 1.0?
Frankly, this is similar to Pinephone Pro, which the last time I checked, couldn't even do the "phone" part of "PinePhone pro". And tons of hardware was non-functional since all they did was piece shit together and not support software in any way.
Maybe I shouldnt be as negative, but fuck, we need a competitive Linux phone comparable to Android and IPhone, and EVERY Linux phone project is, well, braindead stupid and 15 years prior to anything current. And folks making patches are ignored for weeks or months, if ever included at all.
I agree with your sentiment ; very likely the Fairphone people are restricted by NDAs from the SoC vendor who are the ultimate cause for lack of proper mainline Linux support.
The SoC vendors get Android working, get the drivers going, help do ports or modifications for major customers and hide it all behind NDAs and closed source work.
I bought a OnePlus 6 for 50 euros from eBay and I can do a ton of things with it already. Plasma is great in mobile, and what did not work I got working pretty fast together with Kimi and DeepSeek.
For example here's patches to get NFC YubiKey working in Secrets app:
I don't have any reasonable thing to add here, other than it really sucks going through forums and seeing people who go out of their way to put people down. Someone is posting about happily making contribution and getting things working on a device, literally the thing you are angry about not happening; someone is tinkering and getting stuff working and showing their tinkering, and the time is spent to put some nasty put-down so you can try and coerce them out of even trying, or make someone else feel bad if they'd use LLMs in their approach.
Genuinely, I am going to log off Hacker News and not come back here. Or any social media to be honest. The lot of social media is just doing nothing but raising my blood pressure, making me miserable, and making me more afraid to actually go talk about things with people in real life. And it sucks and I ought to know better at this point.
If someone ever sees me use this site again, and scrolls my profile, this is permission to bully me off of using this website :).
By "Linux phone", what are your expectations exactly? Because if you talk "only" about the userspace, I have been daily driving Ubuntu Touch since 2019 on a Fairphone 2 and then a Pixel 3a and it is working like a charm. But it is using halium so you still have an Android kernel. So if you also talk about the kernel then yeah Postmarket OS is the closest to this and quite good on Fairphone already, I think some people could daily drive it if they feel adventurous. Then if you talk about 100% free software then indeed, nothing with a working modem is available as far as I know. And if you talk about open hardware then we are clearly not here even if I dream about it...
You're not being negative enough when it comes to non-Android linux phones, and even when it comes to Android, there's just ONE serious project - GrapheneOS which has people working full-time and which will be officially supported on future Motorola flagships.
Unfortunately even that one is missing modern replacements of outdated unsupported AOSP sample apps (like Phone and Contacts, others can be replaced without extra privileges).
We had Librem 5 which had real OS support that didn't have to rely on third-party volunteers, I wish they released something more modern..
Is there any precedent to believe that such a thing is in fact possible?
> and volunteers have to use hacks
I have terrible news for you about how the official firmware works.
> to unofficially implement basic Android 1.0 functionality years after a device was released?
Conversely, in other places it's far better than Android 1.0. But yes, if you can only start developing against the device after it's released, then your software will be released after the hardware ships plus development time.
> That's sad to see. This is just lame, drivers should be implemented by those who work on them..
My general understanding of the Android ecosystem is that they do write drivers, and you don't want those drivers. I like to imagine that somewhere that out there somebody must be making phones with high quality software, but I've never heard of them.
My advice would be to not take the frustrating and useless road of a non-profit structure for some things that you do for pleasure.
The for-profit will be simpler and give you more liberties, and if, in the end, you have the good mindset that you want your creations to be shared freely, you can do it anyway. It is a state of mind.
Frankly, this is similar to Pinephone Pro, which the last time I checked, couldn't even do the "phone" part of "PinePhone pro". And tons of hardware was non-functional since all they did was piece shit together and not support software in any way.
Maybe I shouldnt be as negative, but fuck, we need a competitive Linux phone comparable to Android and IPhone, and EVERY Linux phone project is, well, braindead stupid and 15 years prior to anything current. And folks making patches are ignored for weeks or months, if ever included at all.
The SoC vendors get Android working, get the drivers going, help do ports or modifications for major customers and hide it all behind NDAs and closed source work.
For example here's patches to get NFC YubiKey working in Secrets app:
https://github.com/pimeys/oneplus6-yubikey-nfc
It is a work in progress but pretty easy to pick things up and fix in this age of agents...
Genuinely, I am going to log off Hacker News and not come back here. Or any social media to be honest. The lot of social media is just doing nothing but raising my blood pressure, making me miserable, and making me more afraid to actually go talk about things with people in real life. And it sucks and I ought to know better at this point.
If someone ever sees me use this site again, and scrolls my profile, this is permission to bully me off of using this website :).
Unfortunately even that one is missing modern replacements of outdated unsupported AOSP sample apps (like Phone and Contacts, others can be replaced without extra privileges).