I mostly agree with you but am optimistic about the future of smartphones. We currently have some alternative operating systems like postmarketOS and Ubuntu Touch that can be used on select devices today. In 10 years I think the ecosystem will be much larger and more mature. Currently we just have iOS and Linux, but in a decade there may be OpenBSD as well, and possibly an order of magnitude more Linux distros for phones.
My dream is to have an OpenBSD phone that can be used as both a phone and normal computer. To use it as a "real computer" with an actual keyboard, mouse and screen, you could just plug those peripherals into the phone. Then take it with you and plug in someone else's mouse etc. if necessary when traveling.
Also we are still missing the "Linux" of Smartphone OSes. It may take another few decades for that to come forth, but there is always a large enough user base that is interested in a truly open operating system, which is neither of the existing two. Maybe the Ubuntu Mobile attempt can get there.
Guess it depends on what your standards are. You can have it everywhere from today to likely never.
Want just basic stuff, no apps store, no good camera, no good runtime on battery? Today, go get one.
Value security more than anything else? Available today.
Want a high end smart phone with proper open source Linux/Software and apps store, great camera, fast and great battery runtime? Likely never. Linux won’t get the required investment, nor will the hardware manufacturers provide the required support (no incentives). Even the Linux Desktop experience can’t properly get there in 2022.
But a proper Linux phone, say something like a PinePhone is great as a second phone.
The mobile phone market is already slowing down. Just like PC market did years ago.
When it gets stagnant, companies will stop innovating that hard and slowly but steadily open solutions will gain quality and feature parity.
If in 10 years I get an open phone with the features close to what I have today, I'd be pretty happy. Because I just don't think phones today are going to be that different in 10 years.
You are right that Linux Desktop barely has any market share. But it's a very viable solution and I'd personally argue that it's ahead of it's competition.
The thing is, the world still needs a genuinely open smart-phone. OK, you can pull teeth to root your Android phone and install that successor-to-Cyanogenmod-thing, but we're still far from the openness of the PC ecosystem. Remember being able to build a PC from parts bought piecemeal from ads in Computer Shopper, then install your choice of Microsoft DOS, FreeDOS, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, DragonflyBSD, Solaris x86, OS/2 Warp, BeOS, Minix, Netware, etc., etc? Sure, getting audio and accelerated graphics to work could be a PITA for some combinations, and network card drivers were kinda iffy on Linux a long time ago... but still, by and large, it was YOUR machine and you could run whatever OS you wanted on it and do whatever you wanted with it. The shortcomings w/r/t drivers and what-not were usually the result of apathy (eg, manufacturers not shipping Linux drivers or OS/2 drivers because of lack of perceived demand) rather than outright attempts to stop you from running Linux, OS/2, etc.
Sadly, it doesn't look like we'll ever be able to build our own smartphones from components, but it would be nice if we could at least get manufacturers to stop actively blocking attempts to run alternate software and what-not. :-(
Last year, I realized that the direction that smartphones have taken is not a direction that is good and useful for me, so I decided that I'd better design and build my own smartphone before I need to replace the one I have. I have it breadboarded up and fundamentally working. It should be completed this year.
One of my very first decisions was that the phone was going to run ordinary Linux, for all of the reasons you cite. I'm VERY excited about being able to ditch Android!
I can't wait till we get to the point where you can pretty much buy any phone, download your favorite Linux/Android distribution, hit install and watch it come alive.
Phones are computers these days. And this is how we deal with computers, right? We keep installing Ubuntus, Fedoras, Windows, even OS X on any x86 box. We've got decades of experience of doing that.
The current phone market resembles the 80's home computer market: there were dozens if not hundreds different computers that were incompatible with each other. In the 90's the PC architecture had won and Linux started to be usable with the most basic components. In the 00's it became commonplace to be able to install Linux on nearly any computer you could buy off the shelf and expect 99% of things to work out of the box.
It would take till 2040 to reach this on phones if it took the same time. However, given the faster development and evolution of the phone ecosystems I would expect that we'll hit that target in 2020's or so. By then, the cpu+gpu+modem variations have converged to a few well-known architectures for which open source drivers are available. They might be slower or consume a little more power than the original drivers but nevertheless at least you can boot your phone with your own software that you downloaded somewhere.
Of course i do. Phone hardware has evolved tremendously and my old android can run games that mere decade ago required full desktop computer plugged to a wall socket. It's no longer a phone, but a handheld computer with a modem that can make calls.
Current popular OSes are garbage - they lock the computer, turning it into an ad platform useful only for selfies and social media. You don't even own the device - you merely rent and are at the complete mercy of the vendor.
It's just about about linux. I'd take anything that gives me control over the device and turns into a real computer that i can plug to a monitor or two and use it as a desktop. Hardware is here, software isn't.
I'm imagining a world where PCs evolved like Smartphones, with every company holding onto its stack and only modest amounts of standardization between them.
There's no good reason smartphones couldn't support booting generic OS images today, except that all of the manufacturers want to lock you into their platform. I feel like we're being robbed of the chance to have a "Linux for Smartphones" that just boots on everything and has drivers for all common hardware and none of the vendor added garbage. Stuff like LineageOS is kind of a start, but they're constantly fighting to get a toehold on each new smartphone generation.
Man, this would be my absolute dream. It would be so nice to have a totally declarative and identical environment across my desktop, laptop, and phone (maybe not totally identical given hardware differences, but almost). With Nix I can get close to that on my desktop and laptop, but my phone is still a 100% proprietary walled garden that's shoving upgrades and pre-installed bloatware down my throat whenever it feels the need.
I'd bet mobile Linux is still a few years away in the real world though. I got a PinePhone a couple weeks ago for tinkering and the user experience is nowhere near my Samsung Galaxy. Still hesitantly optimistic about the future of mobile though.
Sure, eventually. But Ubuntu is blazing the trail here, and that counts for a lot. Right now, the Android is the only Linux "distro" (actually a completely different OS from regular GNU/Linux) that runs on phones.
After Ubuntu, I can imagine a Debian phone, or an Arch phone, or even an LFS phone. But right now, I can't. (Unfortunately, I don't think Pat Volkerding can ever support a Slackware phone. So we'll see if I ever move away from Ubuntu on mobile. Right now that's all moot though because none of it exists yet.)
Yes, I sure hope we can use GNU/Linux on phone one day. It wouldn't be that hard to make, given an unlocked hardware platform and open source drivers for baseband and graphics module. Actually, I have done a device very similar to smartphone in its hardware capabilities, but it was a commercial product limited in functionality. If I could get such hardware at home, I would definitely make some crude, hackish GNU/Linux smartphone.
I definitely want an open-source phone for all the reasons you mentioned, but I absolutely also want a Linux phone.
I'd love to live in a world where BSD or Minix became The Thing™, but since it didn't I basically live and breath Linux for work and that spills over into my personal usage too. Interoperability between my phone and my laptop is huge. I recently started using KDE Connect (and okay - that doesn't have to be Linux-specific) and being able to seamlessly copy / paste between devices, etc. is a game changer for me.
I don't understand why it would be too late for "the community" to get an alternative OS for their smartphone to tinker with. Especially since there aren't any open-source and free alternatives yet (notwithstanding Android maybe ?).
I own an iphone 3GS and Samsung ??1500 and I really don't like them (I am not using them, their were dropped on my lap by some friends who took pity on me). My old sony-erricson Naite suits me better but I can't help waiting for something like the upcoming Ubuntu phone or a Jolla phone (or a clone ?) to get on board.
PS: I might have missed it but my comment falls flat if you consider Android the only tinkering smartphone OS (I don't have any opinions regarding that statement though).
My dream is to have an OpenBSD phone that can be used as both a phone and normal computer. To use it as a "real computer" with an actual keyboard, mouse and screen, you could just plug those peripherals into the phone. Then take it with you and plug in someone else's mouse etc. if necessary when traveling.
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