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Ask HN: What are the OSS alternatives to iOS/Android?

248 pointsby benevolabout 8 years ago

41 comments

i336_about 8 years ago
Long-term (1-2 years or so), keep an eye on Fuchsia. Nobody yet knows what Google&#x27;s intentions are with this project relative to Android (which has a staggering installed base, btw, and is going to stubbornly stick around like a slightly less terrible Windows Mobile 6); right now it&#x27;s just a research project. But it can apparently scale from tiny IoT sensors to ARM phones to x86 PCs.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lwn.net&#x2F;Articles&#x2F;718267&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;lwn.net&#x2F;Articles&#x2F;718267&#x2F;</a> &#x2F; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14002386" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=14002386</a><p>EDIT: This just got downvoted to 0, unsure why...
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darrmitabout 8 years ago
Am I the only one who has decided that I&#x27;m more comfortable with iOS and an AppleID than I am with something like LineageOS and still having to have a Google account - even though I prefer Android?<p>I&#x27;m operating under the assumption that Apple is more privacy friendly than Google under pretty much any circumstance.<p>I&#x27;ve done the Cyanogen + F-Droid thing and it&#x27;s just miserably inconvenient, and none of the &quot;proprietary&quot; alternative app stores have any sort of catalog to write home about.
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heullerabout 8 years ago
We need hardware that doesn&#x27;t need to get upgraded every two years. AOSP doesn&#x27;t cut it since Google inevitably stops building isos for their hardware and the community can&#x27;t support a million devices. The whole market is sorely in need of generic drivers. The fact that I can pick up a PC from the nineties and install an up to date Linux proves that we&#x27;re not there yet in the mobile world.<p>Is there a way currently to install baremetal Linux on a phone without emulating it? A small Linux, usb microphone and VoIP would get me 90% there.
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Nutomicabout 8 years ago
I&#x27;m personally using LinageOS together with microG and F-Droid. MicroG is necessary if you don&#x27;t have Google apps installed, to get push notifications. Unfortunately, it is still rather complicated to install.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lineageos.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lineageos.org&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;microg.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;microg.org&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;f-droid.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;f-droid.org&#x2F;</a>
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hannobabout 8 years ago
The alternative is Android. Unfortunately the &quot;alternative android&quot; ecosystem isn&#x27;t very good.<p>My dream would be an android &quot;distribution&quot;, that doesn&#x27;t rely on some murky &quot;update by getting a new image somewhere if you&#x27;re lucky enough that someone built one for your device&quot;. WOuld work more like a linux distribution (packages and updating) and is generic over a variety of phones. Challenge is probably how to handle drivers.
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jumasheffabout 8 years ago
SailfishOS <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sailfishos.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sailfishos.org&#x2F;</a><p>UPD:<p>Jolla -- company behind SailfishOS (ex-Nokia people) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jolla.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jolla.com&#x2F;about&#x2F;</a>
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koehrabout 8 years ago
The problem is that most of the hardware is not open. It is hard to get fully open software running in proprietary environments like mobile phones and networks. The fairphone might be worth a look though: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fairphone.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fairphone.com&#x2F;en&#x2F;</a>
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jhasseabout 8 years ago
Android (without Google Services) is FOSS. Check out <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lineageos.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lineageos.org&#x2F;</a> (successor of CyanogenMod).<p>As a replacement for the Play Store, check out <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;f-droid.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;f-droid.org&#x2F;</a>
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Jonnaxabout 8 years ago
There is Tizen which is being led by Samsung<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tizen.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tizen.org</a><p>However news that one researcher has found 40 0-days for it doesn&#x27;t really sound good:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;motherboard.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;samsung-tizen-operating-system-bugs-vulnerabilities" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;motherboard.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;samsung-tizen-ope...</a><p>I remember reading about Plasma Mobile<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plasma-mobile.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plasma-mobile.org</a><p>But it looks like the latest phone they use as a Dev device is a Nexus 5x so it may be stalled&#x2F;dead
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hcalabout 8 years ago
The <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;puri.sm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;puri.sm</a> people are trying to make an open source phone running their distro PureOS (based on debian). They even said on a podcast that they have removed or mitigated the binary blob issues. Apparently they are already working with Gnome developers to make Gnome work on a small screen and build the specialized phone software like a dialer.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.omgubuntu.co.uk&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;purism-wants-make-truly-open-source-linux-phone" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.omgubuntu.co.uk&#x2F;2016&#x2F;10&#x2F;purism-wants-make-truly-o...</a>
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demarqabout 8 years ago
Jolla on a Sony Experia?<p>Sony put everything you need to run your OS on some of their Xperia phones on GitHub as part of their Open Device Program. Jolla which is going to become open source sometime has been successfully (in feburary 2017) run on one of the devices.<p>So in the near future, there is hope in that direction.
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emilsedghabout 8 years ago
If you want community based FOSS mobile operating system that is actively developed [0], Plasma Mobile is the answer.<p>I think the biggest issue is still device support.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mail.kde.org&#x2F;pipermail&#x2F;plasma-devel&#x2F;2017-April&#x2F;thread.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mail.kde.org&#x2F;pipermail&#x2F;plasma-devel&#x2F;2017-April&#x2F;threa...</a>
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tannhaeuserabout 8 years ago
My best bet would be to restart&#x2F;re-instantiate a community around CyanogenMod&#x2F;Lineage OS, Android being F&#x2F;OSS after all. Though maybe the community around CM is still strong (I honestly don&#x27;t know).<p>Question is, are you willing to spend money (or testing&#x2F;integration efforts) on a community O&#x2F;S for your phone in exchange for <i>knowing</i> that you&#x27;re not being spied on all the time?<p>I could imagine a model where you pay a reasonable price for a tested&#x2F;supported third-party O&#x2F;S, but maybe CM has shown this isn&#x27;t economically feasible.
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tray5about 8 years ago
Well how about the PiPhone? :P <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.davidhunt.ie&#x2F;piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartphone&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.davidhunt.ie&#x2F;piphone-a-raspberry-pi-based-smartph...</a>
unicornpornabout 8 years ago
My vote goes to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;copperhead.co&#x2F;android&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;copperhead.co&#x2F;android&#x2F;</a><p>I&#x27;ve been running it for some time now and I like it a lot. Support for a lot of phones? No. Wide range of apps available via F-droid? Decent.<p>I&#x27;m not a very appy guy though. Most of my needs are browser based.
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lloekiabout 8 years ago
I was just reading about webOS[0] lately and it turns out LuneOS[1] exists and is supposed to work wherever cyanogenmod did.<p>[0]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openwebosproject.org" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.openwebosproject.org</a><p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;LuneOS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;LuneOS</a>
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dandelion_loverabout 8 years ago
To me the best alternative is <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neo900.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;neo900.org</a>. However, expensive it is.<p>They truly care about the privacy and redesign the hardware according to this goal.
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TheAceOfHeartsabout 8 years ago
I placed a preorder for a Pyra [0]. I&#x27;m hoping it works well enough to allow me to replace my locked down Pixel.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pyra-handheld.com&#x2F;boards&#x2F;pages&#x2F;pyra&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pyra-handheld.com&#x2F;boards&#x2F;pages&#x2F;pyra&#x2F;</a>
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phhabout 8 years ago
Ok, so Android is open-source as mentioned already by other comments.<p>Now the thing with Android is that, it is just a framework, so saying Android is Open Source is missing big points There are two major limits: 1. What about apps? 2. What about drivers?<p>Today, if you get an Android phone with Google Apps, especially Google Play Store, you have access to many tools that can be considered useful for everyday use, which you won&#x27;t have with FOSS Android. Here are some examples:<p>With Play Store, you can have (mostly?) any IM, as long as you install the app going with it. The only possibility I know to do that with FOSS Android, is to use matrix or IRC, and have server-side libpuprle connectors.<p>With FOSS Android You don&#x27;t have factorized push socket: Most apps pushing notifications on Android require GCM. But even if it doesn&#x27;t require GCM, there is nothing fully open-source an app developer can use. All they can do, is open a socket to their own server, and deal with it, which is a huge battery-killer.<p>Many people are mentioning f-droid as an alternative to Play Store. I&#x27;m sorry, but I consider this a joke. I highly respect the work done on f-droid, but this is not a usable alternative. For instance, you want to save your SMS. We call that backup, but not every knows that. Well you search for &quot;save sms&quot; on f-droid. No result. You search for &quot;save sms&quot; on Google Play Store, the second result is SMS Backup+ which is open-source! You search for SMS, the result is on the first page. Same thing happen if you just search for &quot;sms&quot;, QKSMS (an opensource SMS application) is much easier to find with Google Play Store than f-droid. Even to look for open-source apps, you&#x27;re better off with Google Play Store! Again, I totally respect F-Droid devs, this is this way because of their choice of not tracking or saving any user information at all, which is legit. But then, some people might want something intermediary. Just counting the number of installations of an app can be really useful to better sort apps (SMS Backup+ and QKSMS really deserve to be among the top in the results for SMS).<p>Now, about the drivers. Yes Android is open-source, but good luck running a phone with a FOSS Android! At the moment, you have the choice with either replicant, which is old and missing gpu acceleration, or running a mainline Linux kernel with Mesa &amp; stuff, but then you have no radio.<p>Though I have to mention that on the drivers side, Sailfish OS and Ubuntu phone have also those problems.
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gingerbread-manabout 8 years ago
It would be nice if there were a 100% free-software version of Android available, or a way to remove all of the proprietary blobs from an Android phone.
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redsummerabout 8 years ago
The ZeroPhone is based on the raspberry pi.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.io&#x2F;project&#x2F;19035-zerophone-a-raspberry-pi-smartphone&#x2F;log&#x2F;51839-project-description-and-frequently-asked-questions" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hackaday.io&#x2F;project&#x2F;19035-zerophone-a-raspberry-pi-s...</a><p>Reddit AMA: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;raspberry_pi&#x2F;comments&#x2F;5nwmfx&#x2F;im_making_a_pipowered_opensource_mobile_phone&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;raspberry_pi&#x2F;comments&#x2F;5nwmfx&#x2F;im_mak...</a><p>$50. Calling, SMS. Alarm clock, calendar, calculator, phonebook, file browser, web browser and music player. I expect these will be very simple given the screen.
klungerabout 8 years ago
Well, it isn&#x27;t Tizen <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;motherboard.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;samsung-tizen-operating-system-bugs-vulnerabilities" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;motherboard.vice.com&#x2F;en_us&#x2F;article&#x2F;samsung-tizen-ope...</a>
elchudi2about 8 years ago
This one could be an option <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pyra-handheld.com&#x2F;boards&#x2F;pages&#x2F;pyra&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pyra-handheld.com&#x2F;boards&#x2F;pages&#x2F;pyra&#x2F;</a>
sparklingabout 8 years ago
LinageOS + OpenGapps for a minimal Google Play Services installation (the &quot;nano&quot; flavour). Just make sure to buy a device that has a large userbase and good LinageOS community support [1]. I am using a $170 Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 with LineageOS and could not be happier with it.<p>[1] check out <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stats.lineageos.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stats.lineageos.org&#x2F;</a> for popular devices and also check the devices subforum on the XDA forums
SamWhitedabout 8 years ago
I&#x27;ve been using OmniROM (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;omnirom.org&#x2F;);" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;omnirom.org&#x2F;);</a> it was a fork of Cyanogenmod when they went commercial initially. Not sure what the difference is between it and LineageoOS or why the lineage people didn&#x27;t just start developing for omnirom; maybe they still have political differences or something. Regardless, it seems to work well.
jimmiesabout 8 years ago
You are at the point of 2002-2004 of Desktop OS - if you want to use a mobile OSS OS, you&#x27;re just have to deal with lots of inconveniences. It depends on what are you looking for and what you find tolerable. I have been annoyed with the current paradigms of modern mobile OSes where I&#x27;m constantly bombarded with notifications and things that I need to keep up with. So for me, an usable OSS can have lots of drawback that I&#x27;m willing to sacrifice - I don&#x27;t need any of the notifications or apps.<p>If you don&#x27;t care about the aesthetic, your best bet is Lineage. It is Android without Google and you can still get lots of stuff done.<p>Personally, I came back to a cheap WebOS phone with a cheap plan and after I installed WebOS 2, it has been really usable. LuneOS is supposed to be the continuation of WebOS, but it&#x27;s just not that usable yet - I see no way to sync with my Google account (which syncs fine with the 10 year old WebOS instance via Exchange). So I would keep an eye on the LuneOS development. For such a niche and small dev team, they have been continuing making improvements. Totally impressed by that.
bikamonkiabout 8 years ago
I&#x27;ve faced the same dilemma and ended up stuck in Android bc of one single app: Whatsapp. A phone is (still) mostly a communications tool and 99,99% of my contacts use Whatsapp as the primary tool to chat&#x2F;call&#x2F;share. So, unless I want to be an e-hermit I need a phone that runs Whatsapp.<p>(For a little while, there was an unofficial Whatsapp API which I used to bridge chats to my Firefox OS ZTE)
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fsiefkenabout 8 years ago
* FreeRTOS Pebble (Pebble LIVES!) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ginge&#x2F;FreeRTOS-Pebble" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;ginge&#x2F;FreeRTOS-Pebble</a><p>* Tizen OS <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tizen.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.tizen.org&#x2F;</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tizen" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Tizen</a><p>Alternatively you could use Termux on Android to use the GNU&#x2F;Linux ecosystem on your phone.
webaholicabout 8 years ago
Maru OS. It installs a debian system along-side Android, not sure if it&#x27;s alternative enough though.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;maruos.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;maruos.com&#x2F;</a>
FossParrotabout 8 years ago
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.openmoko.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Main_Page" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;wiki.openmoko.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Main_Page</a><p>Project seems to be abandoned?
alinspiredabout 8 years ago
LineageOS with your choice of google apps. Easy to do with opengapps config file or &quot;aroma&quot; gapps: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;opengapps&#x2F;opengapps&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Advanced-Features-and-Options#include-or-exclude-gapps" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;opengapps&#x2F;opengapps&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Advanced-Feature...</a>
Apocryphonabout 8 years ago
Plasma Mobile: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plasma-mobile.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;plasma-mobile.org</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.kde.org&#x2F;Plasma&#x2F;Mobile" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.kde.org&#x2F;Plasma&#x2F;Mobile</a>
chrisdevereuxabout 8 years ago
Thought experiment: Say that I have a raspberry pi or similar. What hardware do I need to plug a sim card in and connect to a mobile network? Can I order it from a commodity supplier?
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beagle3about 8 years ago
Was there an official announcement on the killing of Ubuntu Phone? There was an official pause announcement, and it might as well be dead - is there an official status update?
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daccleabout 8 years ago
Ubnutu Phone just works fine on a FairPhone2
grizzlesabout 8 years ago
There is a group called Mediatek Android Developers. They make android work with some pretty low cost handsets.
d2kxabout 8 years ago
The next big OS is going to be Google Fuchsia, which runs on the Magenta kernel (not Linux) and runs apps built with Flutter.<p>Inb4 nay-sayers, but if you have followed Fuchsia for a few months and have seen the speed of development and just how many people and new technologies are involved, you will see why this isn&#x27;t even a question.
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tixocloudabout 8 years ago
How easy would it be to mod the loading screen and basic UI&#x2F;UX on Android?
unlmtdabout 8 years ago
The problem isn&#x27;t software. Let&#x27;s say I have a dozen engineers to develop a mobile UI on top of BSD. What do we use? Nothing, Nada, rien. There is no real hardware. Even Linus can make a kernel, if there is hardware to develop it on! So software isn&#x27;t the problem.
kevinSuttleabout 8 years ago
Am I the only one who misses Web OS and now Ubuntu Phone?
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ry167about 8 years ago
Android is open source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.android.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;source.android.com&#x2F;</a>
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