I sigh every time I see a comment saying phones shipping with an OS using Libhybris/Halium are a "proper Linux phone". Like, they depend on an abstraction layer with an Android kernel and drivers to make the hardware function. Adding salt to the wound, most of these devices ship some sort of Mediatek chip which is unlikely to ever see any kind of Linux mainline port.

*EDIT
Mediatek SOCs do have better mainline support these days, Mediatek is sponsoring better mainline support.

Thanks @okias for the correction.

The best performing Linux phones right now are Android phones ported to mainline and #postmarketos. Linux first devices don't compare right now, but I really hope to see more hardware in this space eventually, for the sake of our freedom to dictate what we run on our devices, including the bootloader.

Also curious to know what devices people would/currently prefer, so there's a poll at the bottom if you wanna plop down an answer as you pass by.

#linuxphone #linuxmobile #mobilelinux

Started off as a joke on the discord announcement about the PinePower "Emphasis on DONT OPEN IT. There's a tiny guy trying to sleep in there."

The tiny guy in question is the pinepecker. It has been decided that they have a spray bottle ready whenever someone tries to open their PinePower. It didn't occur me until later that there's a USB serial console called the "woodpecker". They are part of the Pine64 character roster now.

#pine64