I want to buy a mobile phone that would be great for linux mobile (ubuntu touch or postmarket os), fairphone 4 would be almost ideal if it wasn’t so big (i’m currently using pixel 8 + GrapheneOS). What do you recommend for my desire to use a compact mobile for linux + a solid camera? Thanks for the answers.
There are almost no phones with camera that works on linux. Your best bet is phone that was specifically made for linux like pinephone or something.
I’ll correct by saying that it’s with mainline linux that those cameras don’t work. Ubuntu Touch uses libhybris to run Android drivers, meaning most supported phones’ cameras work there…
Interesting, I didn’t know that. Probably because PostmarketOS is based on Alpine (no glibc).
No, it’s just that when you use a mainline kernel, you’re just not reusing all the Android (often user-space) drivers that make cameras work on Android and due to that stuff, starting from drivers for the SoC camera interface to the camera sensor have to be re-implemented. Whether you are on glibc (e.g., on Debian/Mobian) or musl/Alpine does not really matter.
Also, Camera APIs and the whole “desktop Linux” camera stack (think of things like debayering, white-balance) is nowhere near as developed as what Android has (and that, IUC, Ubuntu Touch can reuse on Halium by plumbing things together).
Chevy thanx for your answer. Regards