this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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Linux Phones

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Community about running GNU/Linux on phones. Projects like Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, PostmarketOS, Mobian etc. Either on former Android phones or hardware like the PinePhone.

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I'm toying with the idea of trying to get Linux on my Fairphone 3 running. But one thing that was lacking on my Pinephone back then was the lack of a good Signal client. There were one or two available, but they were clunky. I helped out with one or two tickets but I lacked the time to do more and now I lack the energy.

So, is there a viable way to get Signal on a Linux phone? Maybe Waydroid? Or does that suck too much energy?

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[–] wildbus8979 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

There's Flare but it's definitely not feature complete.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Nice, I will try it out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Oh yeah, this looked quite good. I've been using waydroid with kdeconnect on phosh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

There is Axolotl or Wayland, as far as I know.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are several (paid) Matrix services that allow bridges to other networks like Signal, WhatsApp, Telegram etc. Then, you can use matrix clients like nheko or matrix' web version in a browser,

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

That'd also mean breaking E2EE. I'm fine with bridges in general, but not for systems where people expect communication with me to be private.

A solution would be to run a Signal bridge at home, that way you can keep the keys somewhat secure at least.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I haven't tried it on a phone but Signal has a flatpak available so maybe try that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's their desktop client. It's x86 only because of Electron.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Ah, that makes sense. I'm curious if someone else knows, though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Officially, yes, but there's also https://elagost.com/flatpak/ Also (shameless self plug): https://linuxphoneapps.org/apps/org.signal.signal/