alt Hacker News> I've never really understood why we chase Android-alikes on mobile platforms instead of trying to build on mainstream Linux.
Because there is no such thing as "mainstream Linux" when it comes to anything related to user-facing consumer software. Not on desktops, not on tablets, not on phones.
I mean you invoked "mainstream Linux" and "Nix" in the same paragraph. That alone should clue you into why this, absolutely, does not work.
See here is the problem:
https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Software_Releases
"Linux enthusiests" would rather muck around with rewriting the same software over and over and over again because they dislike using GTK or whatever, and put monumental amount of efforts making new package managers, then, say, getting the ability to take simple photographs using a phone camera.
I mean... In that page there is no less then 25 different "Linux Phone OSes" listed.
None of them actually work.
They are all going to be slow, they are all going to burn through battery life. There is no meaningful security to speak of.
If I handed a unlocked "Linux phone" to somebody and said "take a photograph of me"... The chances of that actually working is slim to none.
Meanwhile we have Android OS that is proven to work. It is open source. It is used by, literally, billions of people. The security model is as good as it gets. It has better application support then Windows.
Taking something that works and then making it more secure and more open and more privacy focused is infinitely more productive and meaningful then trying over from scratch because you want a phone based around Nix packages or whatever.
Even if Google decided to close source Android from now on and be actively hostile to any open source kernel modules... Forking the Android that exists today and trying to make it work is exponentially more likely to yield positive results then, say, starting on a Debian-based "Linux phone OS".
And Android can still use nix-pkgs if you really wanted to.
Replies
> there is no such thing as "mainstream Linux"
Yes, there is: https://linux.org (aka mainline Linux). You can have various DEs on top of it, but the main functionality depends on the drivers in the mainline Linux, not so much on the DEs. Most of the operating systems for Pinephone listed in your link have more or less the same problems and features, because they all use the same kernel. They all depend on the upstreamed support of the device.
The whole point of Linux is that everything is open and, with enough work, can be built upon. I don't want to have to reinvent my software (I'm refusing to say app because truly, its a boogeyman term) for another form factor beyond UI. Having a not-Linux phone means I need to. I brought up nix because I'm invested in the community and know some people who care about making software truly work on other platforms.