How Difficult is it to Daily Drive a Linux Phone?
Short Answer
It depends. If you are the type of person who is addicted to media consumption or you are glued to your phone many hours of the day, running mobile Linux may not work with your present lifestyle. As this describes the majority of individuals within contemporary society, most people will find it difficult to switch to Linux on their mobile devices. However, for those of you who have a simple understanding of how Linux functions and use their smart phone for only its core functions, I do recommend giving mobile Linux a try as it is relatively easy to use! In this post, I will go over my own journey using a Linux phone as a daily driver.
Brief History
I have been daily driving Linux as my primary mobile operating system since I purchased my Pinephone 6 months ago. On the desktop side, I have been using Linux for approximately 3 years. Thus far, I have tried PostMarketOS, Manjaro, and Mobian using SXMO, Gnome, Plasma Mobile, and Phosh. After cycling through distros a few times, I eventually landed on PostMarketOS with SXMO. I chose this configuration because it was the most stable and feature-complete I could find, not because it was the easiest to use.
Advantages
I'll start with things that having a Linux mobile device has been helpful with. First and foremost, my mental health; I won't divulge too much about this point as I would like to make a blog post about it in the future where I can go into more detail, but I have an overall problem with integration with society more broadly. Using tools built by and for people I fundamentally don't understand gives me feelings of loneliness and despair. Using an operating system built by like-minded individuals mitigates those feelings.
Using Linux on my mobile device has also has various technical advantages. As someone who is deeply interested in and works with technology daily, I have found various use cases where Linux has made my life easier and more accessible. For example, I can very easily develop software, manage servers, access my desktop, use formats I'm familiar with, and more in places where it would typically be difficult to do so. It makes doing system administration tasks easy, and I've found myself frequently using my phone for such both at home and at my workplace.
Privacy is a major advantage as well. You choose what software is on your device. You aren't being constantly monitored by large corporations who (obviously) do not have your best interests in mind. My Pinephone has the added benefit of hardware switches to turn off the modem, wifi, microphone, and cameras at a hardware level. With Linux you can also turn these off at a software level. Especially with SXMO, I truly feel I have full control over my privacy; All of these controls are easily accessible to the user through the system menu.
Finally, using a Linux phone is just plain fun! If you enjoy learning about technology like I do, then I highly recommend trying it out. I feel like I learn about new and efficient workflows and applications constantly when I'm using it. For example, I had been procrastinating learning how to use vim for the longest time on my desktop system, but because the default text editor on my current phone configuration is vim, I was put into a situation where learning the software felt natural without disrupting my core workflow. I've also had loads of fun learning how to tailor and customize my system to better fit my needs and aesthetic desires.
Disadvantages
The first major disadvantage of using Linux as your mobile operating system is the lack of applications you require for your daily life. For me personally, the only issue I have run into is that a couple work-specific applications aren't available on Linux. As a solution, I have a separate phone, which I only use at work. I have also heard concerns from others that their banking, chat, or other apps are not available on Linux. I haven't had any problems in those spaces however, as all of the non-native applications I need to use are also available via a web interface.
Another disadvantage is battery life. No matter which configuration I use, battery life seems to be incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes it lasts for many days, however other times it only lasts a couple hours. This may be a hardware specific issue; however, I haven't looked into it too deeply.
The final major disadvantage I've encountered is occasional bugs. Depending on which distro you're running, the entire system may crash periodically. However, on my current configuration, this doesn't happen. What does happen with my current setup is occasional audio issues, duplicate texts, and call dropping. It is rare enough that it doesn't irritate me too much, but it does seem to irritate those who are attempting to contact me at those times.
The Future
I plan on continuing to use Linux phones into the future as I feel the benefits mostly outweigh the drawbacks and with frequent development of mobile Linux from the community, things can only get better from here. I recommend trying it out for those who don't use their phone very often, like learning, and are more privacy conscious. In the future I plan on making additional posts detailing how I have configured my phone as well as modifications I've been working on for it. Stay tuned!