Don’t say, hey android has Linux in it, yeah no, idc, I want to know how far we are from buying a Linux phone at a price point of 200 USD.
A Linux phone is one which is built completely on Linux, uses Linux apps and most important has a terminal.
I don’t want a Linux Phone for privacy, although that’s a great reason, but I want it for the freedom it provides me. Hell, I don’t care if Android itself comes with a terminal and has similar features to Linux, I just want a Terminal which can install apps, where I can write commands and it will execute it. Complete Control on my phone and how it behaves is what I want.
I want to tell it when to sleep, when not to sleep, when to boot, when to edit a file and how, when to take a screenshot and what to do with it and where to save it, etc, etc. I hope you get the idea.
But how much software is ARM compatible though? Since Android is also free and open source (Google apps are closed and has closed aspects), I don’t see Linux phone ever being cheaper than they would otherwise be running Android. A 200-400$ Android phone today is basically a year or two old or just garbage.
Honestly, I disagree about cheap android phones being shite. I have a redmi note 10 pro and it genuinly is a very impressive phone especially for the money. I bought it new when it came out and it wasn’t expensive at all.