First time I spotted this forum post on GOL. I have been testing and using a multitude of degoogled and Linux phones over the years, and I can advise on what works and what has issues.

My Linux PDA experiences kicked off with the Sharp Zaurus devices. I tinkered with Palm Treo smartphones, and early Symbian smartphones (e.g. Sendo X) and many more besides.

The decent Linux phones were released by Nokia - and I own the N900 and the N9 by them. The N900 runs Maemo Linux, the N9 runs Meego Linux. Steve Elop messed up Nokia company just as these Linux phones were kicking off, and they were awesome compared to Apple and Android smartphones at the time. Nokia stopped developing them further. Nokia fractured some developers who went away and formed Jolla company. Jolla releases SailfishOS Linux for some in-house mobiles, but also for a selection of Sony Xperia phones.

For SailfishOS, you can use Xperia 10, Xperia 10 ii, Xperia 10 iii, Xperia XA2 Android phones and overwrite with SailfishOS. The Xperia 10 iii is the one to go for, because more hardware (e.g. camera) works on it. Avoid the Xperia 10 v because camera doesn't work (yet) and hasn't for the past 2 years. SailfishOS has quite bad battery drain on the Xperia 10 iii (and others) because it doesn't handle idling the cellular modem as well as Android OSes do. I tested drain to be approx 4.5% battery capacity per hour, versus 1% drain for degoogled LineageOS Android. As soon as the cellular modem isn't used i.e. If you put into Flight Mode or use the phone without a SIM, the problem goes away and it can last a long time on battery.

I find SailfishOS to be fairly polished and pleasant to use, with good selection of Jolla company default Apps as well as plenty of community Linux Apps. Additionally, if you pay Jolla for the OS license (you can use the OS without a paid licence) then you get Android App support added. I find that SailfishOS with Community (Linux) Apps can handle most smartphone needs (play music, browse web, photos, image gallery, torch, document viewer, Linux console, play videos, GPS navigation, basic games, password manager, etc) WITHOUT needing Android Apps to compensate.

In terms of other Linux Mobile OSes - These are available: Droidian (Debian based), Mobian (Debian based), Ubuntu Touch (community Linux, not controlled by Ubuntu company), PostmarketOS, (SailfishOS), probably a couple more.

I particularly like Droidian, and it is very close to Daily Driver status. With Droidian you can easily enable Waydroid which gives you a convenient way to access Android Apps. Droidian gives you a convenient toggle to switch Waydroid on or off, so you can ensure pesky apps are not running without your permission. The main drawback of Droidian is the lack of a good selection of mobile Linux Apps (i.e. where SailfishOS excels). The other problem is that cellular modem idling battery drain (which affects nearly ALL Linux mobile phones). I don't want to run a phone I have to charge DAILY, when it would last 5 days on battery running LineageOS (degoogled Android).

Ubuntu Touch is pretty decent too, and you can get Waydroid running on that (and then Android Apps work too).

In each case, you need to find a suitable phone, you need to ensure that features of the phone work on your chosen OS (or you have to manage without them). For instance, Linux OS on one phone might not support the fingerprint scanner, on another phone the camera might not work, etc. I like to choose a phone which is supported by *multiple* OSes - and I have a recommendation to share:

Get a secondhand Pixel 3A phone, and you can run LineageOS, PostmarketOS, Droidian, Ubuntu Touch, e/OS, and other OSes on it. The Pixel 3A doesn't have the battery problem plaguing the Pixel 4A (and higher).

Quoting: g000hSailfishOS has quite bad battery drain on the Xperia 10 iii (and others) because it doesn't handle idling the cellular modem as well as Android OSes do. I tested drain to be approx 4.5% battery capacity per hour, versus 1% drain for degoogled LineageOS Android.

Your information must be outdated, or there must have been something else going on. I've been using my 10 III for a couple of years now, and it's never been that bad. I lose just slightly over 1% per hour when the device is idle. Same with my wife's identical phone. Drain was similar on my old, first-gen Xperia 10.

Get a secondhand Pixel 3A phone

I'm surprised Pixel 3 / OnePlus 6 phones are after all the years still the gold standard for non android linux on a phone.

Although %1 per hour is manageable (with LTE on, right??) I'd panic over that because my regular android phone can use below %1 per hour, I'd say %1 per 2 or 3 hours with cellular on, way less with Wi-Fi on and cellular off but still with cellular signal. I'd worry the %1 per hour may became %2, %3 in a few months. Not sure how realistic my concern is.

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: g000hSailfishOS has quite bad battery drain on the Xperia 10 iii (and others) because it doesn't handle idling the cellular modem as well as Android OSes do. I tested drain to be approx 4.5% battery capacity per hour, versus 1% drain for degoogled LineageOS Android.

Your information must be outdated, or there must have been something else going on. I've been using my 10 III for a couple of years now, and it's never been that bad. I lose just slightly over 1% per hour when the device is idle. Same with my wife's identical phone. Drain was similar on my old, first-gen Xperia 10.

Rather than imply that *I* must be wrong, consider that it could be a number of possible things, including potentially that you are mistaken. I did these tests *recently* using the latest available SailfishOS 'Linux' (compared with the latest LineageOS 'Android') on the exact same device, using the exact same SIM card - and in my country I am forced to use the 4G or 5G network, because 3G network has been switched off.

There might be other reasons (i.e. you're still on 3G) why your phone behaves differently. Aside from comparing SailfishOS to LineageOS on the Xperia 10 iii, I have done similar battery drain tests on other phone models and practically every Linux mobile OS suffers fast battery drain on cellular compared with Android. I've done this testing multiple times on multiple different phones.

Anyway, saying all that I guess I will go away and test some more (because you can never do enough testing).

Quoting: g000h

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: g000hSailfishOS has quite bad battery drain on the Xperia 10 iii (and others) because it doesn't handle idling the cellular modem as well as Android OSes do. I tested drain to be approx 4.5% battery capacity per hour, versus 1% drain for degoogled LineageOS Android.

Your information must be outdated, or there must have been something else going on. I've been using my 10 III for a couple of years now, and it's never been that bad. I lose just slightly over 1% per hour when the device is idle. Same with my wife's identical phone. Drain was similar on my old, first-gen Xperia 10.

Rather than imply that *I* must be wrong, consider that it could be a number of possible things, including potentially that you are mistaken. I did these tests *recently* using the latest available SailfishOS 'Linux' (compared with the latest LineageOS 'Android') on the exact same device, using the exact same SIM card - and in my country I am forced to use the 4G or 5G network, because 3G network has been switched off.

There might be other reasons (i.e. you're still on 3G) why your phone behaves differently. Aside from comparing SailfishOS to LineageOS on the Xperia 10 iii, I have done similar battery drain tests on other phone models and practically every Linux mobile OS suffers fast battery drain on cellular compared with Android. I've done this testing multiple times on multiple different phones.

Anyway, saying all that I guess I will go away and test some more (because you can never do enough testing).

I don't dispute the results you got, but there must be something else going on as well. I'm not willing to spend time on actually measuring things right now, but surely I'd have to charge my phone more often than every two or three days if it drained 4.5% every hour even when idle, wouldn't I? I'm on 5G and mobile data is always enabled.

Granted, my phone use is pretty limited. The drain has obviously been a lot higher when I've been travelling and using GPS positioning and browsing the web more. Never bad enough to be a problem, but YMMV. Whether battery drain is worse than Android is not something I worry about at all, as I'll never even consider running Android on a personal device.

Quoting: g000hIn terms of other Linux Mobile OSes - These are available: Droidian (Debian based), Mobian (Debian based), Ubuntu Touch (community Linux, not controlled by Ubuntu company), PostmarketOS, (SailfishOS), probably a couple more.

Some corrections:
Mobian is part of the Debian project. The goal is to implement the mobile stack into Debian. So you can even install Phosh (GNOMEs mobile DE) or mobile on screen keyboards on Debian desktops. It probably does not work well there, but that is another topic. What I want to say: this was done by the Mobian team. Droidian is Mobian based plus Halium. Don't forget PureOS, it enabled a lot of the modern Linux mobile world in the late 2010s and early 2020s (and may in future again)! Phosh was a Purism project at the very begin (company behind PureOS) and they developed also libhandy, which is now (mostly?) included in GTK4. PostmarketOS is also important for the new wave of Linux phones.

Btw I agree with battery drain, it is still a far way to become better. My Librem 5 lasts 18 hours idling. But it could be worse, I'm not complaining.

Quoting: mr-victoryI'm surprised Pixel 3 / OnePlus 6 phones are after all the years still the gold standard for non android linux on a phone.

The gold standard is the Librem 5. It works best on PureOS, Mobian and PostmarketOS, even better than Pinephones. Pinephones and Librem 5 are the reason for the new wave of Linux phones in general and the raise of these GNU/Linux OSes. Pixels is the gold standard for smartphones that also can run alternative systems. But it cannot beat open hardware.

You also should give a look at FLX1 or upcoming Linuxphones (Liberux Nexx, Drumphone, ...). Not sure how they all will perform, but they build all on top of the development of around last 8 years. They will perform all better than any Android smartphone with non Android Linux, because they are designed to do so.

That doesn't mean everything is always better. But the support is given and does not rely on Googles good will.

You also should give a look at FLX1 or upcoming Linuxphones (Liberux Nexx, Drumphone, ...).

My dream "phone" would be an x86 PC with phone call functionality and phone like idle battery life lol. My most major complaint regarding phones is not the OS but rather the form factor. Why does everything that can perform a call needs to be small enough to fit in my pocket and stop receiving OS updates after a few years?
Partly why I got hyped so much about the FW 13 Pro. Sure it can't make calls but it is also a framework and the community mods them to death sooooo

The Librem 5 can also be modded and will receive lifetime-updates (a reason I bought it). And you also can create hardware mods to it, if you have the skills (I don't). My dream however is a RISK-V open hardware CPU that is powerful and energy savvy enough. No hidden blobs, but great driver support.

What do you want with a phone that does not fit in your pocket? On Laptop and PC I can also plug in external microphones. But it sounds very unpractical to travel everywhere with it.

Quoting: PlayingOnLinuxphoneWhat do you want with a phone that does not fit in your pocket? On Laptop and PC I can also plug in external microphones. But it sounds very unpractical to travel everywhere with it.

All phone things😆 YouTube mostly, I don't like using a small screen
EDIT: Almost all the time I'm out, I carry a backpack and a laptop

Last edited by mr-victory on 13 May 2026 at 6:12 pm UTC