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Comment by rusk | Hacker News Reader

There really needs to be a third way … how are Linux smart phones looking? No hope of getting WhatsApp etc presumably but at the very least a fairly solid browser should be possible …

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Work on PinePhones and Librem 5 is going well. There are still issues of course but I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues. You can get Linux Signal and you’d still need to have it connected to an android or iOS device too, but that would at least give you messaging.

The other caveat being that there are still many apps that are not designed for mobile form factor, and while there is strong work on libhandy and many apps use it for responsive GTK apps, there are many great apps were work hasn’t yet started for mobile sizing/touch input/virtual keyboard

> I’ve been blown away by the community efforts to iron out the issues.

What’s the best way to get involved?

Well, contributing apps that do stuff you want a Linux phone to do, working on the existing apps you want to bring to the mobile form factor.

Also submitting issues and spreading the word help. Mastodon is where many of the developers in open source world hang out so follow @linmob@fosstodon and Librem folks and you’ll find the community.

Testing, sponsoring, buying the hardware all great options too.

I think a "de-Googled Android" like "/e/" is a more realistic alternative currently if you actually want to use the phone...

or GrapheneOS

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