The most important thing fo me is not to fix a new Linux phone or linux compatible phone. It is to pressure the banks and digital ID providers here in Sweden and EU to support Linux.
I wanted a Linux phone, I was open and prepared to have a worse camera, battery, stability, user experience. You name it. Just to break free from the duopoly. But then I wouldn’t be able to use my bank, healthcare services, insurance, file my taxes, etc. Cause there is no support for Linux only Android and iOS, windows, Mac OS.
Services needed to exist in a modern society locked to platforms owned by private corporations. Even if ASOP gets a fork that continues without Google’s version of ASOP for future version’s, there is a good chance none of the bank apps would function without integration of google services.
I’m running /e/OS on a fairphone, that was the best option out there for my requirements. But with the latest developments around ASOP I’m not sure about how long this will be an option.
This
I would have been in Linux for my phone years ago if it wasn’t that so many companies are
conspiringworking together to lock down every service just to make sure that spyware phones are the only option to citizens.Fuck. That. Shit.
I want to be able to make payments with my phone. THROUGH LINUX. MY PHONE, MY RULES.
I hate BankID with a fiery passion. I complain to all my Swedish colleagues how messed up it is that government services are locked behind a private company that only supports American big-tech operating systems. They are finally coming around to my way of thinking now.
I’m one of the only people I know in Sweden without a smartphone, just a dumbphone.
I couldn’t get BankID to work with Wine or Waydroid so I just use an old Windows laptop when I need to access government services with the physical dongle. But I hate going back to Windows so it’s always a pain.
BankID is so ass, the one we have here in Finland is a bit better, but the one we have in Estonia is the best.
The Estonian one is by far the most comfortable to use of the three, with even a working and maintained Linux version. It is also tied to the PCKS#11 certificate stored in your ID card, instead of a corporate bank account.
I know some people on the internet is against the whole idea behind digital identification. But if its only used for things that would normally require identification in the physical world. Like banks and government interactions. I don’t have anything against it per say. It can even be administered and handed out by a company (although that is against my personal ideology) but they have to then be forced to either release the source code or support at least one distro of Linux, or flatpack works too. Let’s not get in to snap packages, it opens a whole other can of worms.
‘per se’ is a latin phrase.
I misspelled it and didn’t see my mistake, but you understood what I meant. And that’s what’s important.
This is why I prefer websites, and try to avoid apps. I can use them across any device.
Sure, there are some things I may not be able to do, like pay by phone, but I have a little card to do that.
The problem isn’t really the app, it’s that a private organisation is controlling the default digital identification system, and how it is accessed. Until 2014 they had a Linux client for it, but it was discontinued. BankID has been around for a long time, so it’s absolutely engrained in so many aspects of society here.
Past few weeks, these are instances I’ve used BankID, off the top of my head
- Had to pick up a DHL parcel in person, authenticated with BankID
- Picked up a parcel from a PostNord locker, BankID required
- Called my mobile phone provider many times (fuck telenor), authenticated with BankID
- Paid my bills, BankID to log in, as well as authenticate payment
- Bought a game expansion, BankID required to use my debit card
- Bought groceries (online, I struggle going out to groups of people), BankID at checkout
- Updated my dog’s food subscription, BankID at checkout
- Checked in at dentist office, BankID to authenticate that I was present
- Digital mailbox to get a bill, BankID
Honestly I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch. In general though, doing something digitally and authenticating with BankID is the primary way of getting things done here. The “old fashioned way” is unconventional, and tends to be woefully slow. When my previous roomie didn’t have a social security number (and subsequently not access to BankID) every single administrative thing they needed doing took forever, registering for school, doing tests, updating licenses, registering your address, even just plain buying things can be tricky.
Yeah you are basically soft-locked out of society without a phone with bank ID here in Sweden.
Aye. The amount of phone calls my friend had to do to get things done, and people generally had no idea how to go about things if you didn’t have BankID. Things were slow and unreliable.
please make something affordable. I want to be able to make mobile apps without being forced to the Java/swift shit duo.
The app ecosystem will be wild, if this succeeds.
I hate Java so much, and so deeply, that I do not develop quick handy little Android apps.
But if I can use a less obnoxious language, the world is going to see some mobile apps for tracking all the push-ups I’m not doing, and all the salads I intend to eat.
Edit: Android is already a huge success, by any meaure, of course. But it can get better without Java.
Edit 2: I do know that cross compilers exist. They still smell like Java, though.
Isn’t the default for Android nowadays Kotlin? Which, yes, still runs on the JVM, but the language itself is much nicer designed.
Yes. I have heard it is much nicer since last time I tried it.
I might give it another try sometime, if AOSP survives what Google is doing to it, and my dream Linux phone still isn’t ready yet.
Here’s the split.
Either Linux on mobile needs to specialize to vertical screens, smooth out controls and usability, grow an app ecosystem for mobile and not just desktop apps squeezed, harden the network stack so 4G and 5G don’t shit the bed, or…
There’s also the concept of a fully FOSS Android, which personally, I believe is the lesser of two hills to climb, but I believe both could be used in tandem using Waydroid if both succeed in the end. If you have Android apps, made for Android, they can run on Linux mobile OSes right now through a compatibility layer.
Used in tandem, both could be more than the sum of either-or, at least on the short-term while Linux mobile development gets a bit more gas under its ass.
Talk is cheap. Contribute to postmarketOS. You can translate, code, test-drive or donate. The more people realise this the quicker we’ll have a properly FLOSS mobile landscape and an alternative upon which to build apps and other things.
Why PostmarketOS and not Mobian, Sailfish, or Ubuntu Touch?
Why not fork Android?
What hardware deals are being made between Postmarket and phone manufacturers? Do they have a development timeline? How far are you guys from 1.0? Come on, action speaks.
Given googles latest updates might need to be a hard fork. The issue is who will build the phone if android based they can’t make any other “authorized” android devices, since that is part of the play services ToS. (This actually has had me annoyed with Google+android for a 5-8 years now…)
So like, in the interest of our whole ideology, is there anything folks can do, other than money, to help? I can solder.
I can solder.
Great - you can build all the phones then. I can program, so I think we’re most of the way there. We need one more person to write the manual.
