If you run something like Debian Bookworm, or based on it, you can apt install plasma-bigscreen to run the older version. New version you likely need to compile depending on your distro

Steam could make this happen faster if more of their user base requested the ability to play (x86 compatible) Android games on their Deck.

Oh good to know! If you’ve tried it with any specific apps this way, would love to hear which ones work well and in what ways.

FYI, as well if you’re looking for a good remote for a GNU/Linux TV box (or Android, Windows, etc), this remote is the best one I’ve tried from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.ca/Backlit-Keyboard-Backlight-Learning-Voogoo/dp/B09Z2X4WGB

I’m currently using a Raspberry Pi with their Debian based OS. It is on Bookworm, but there are major improvements to Plasma Bigscreen on QT6. They didn’t make the updates before it was removed for Trixie, and Trixie is still in beta for Raspberry Pi, so doing an in place upgrade for the OS and compiling Plasma Bigscreen for it to see the improvements.

I think Manjaro (which works well on mobile too) has the latest one in their repos, and the KDE ARM OS may have it too if you want to try it without compiling it.

I want to see how difficult it is to drop in OVOS/Neon modules to replace Mycroft ones for voice control too.

It works well enough to use as a daily driver on Bookworm and Trixie (and some other distros) but would only recommend if you’re ok with Linux, and either are a developer or don’t mind some rough parts around the edges.

E.g. some carriers uses 2 APNs, one for internet and one for MMS. You can send/receive on both, but the router is not yet complete, so if you send/receive media or use a group chat via text, need to switch to MMS mode in settings to do so first, then switch back to internet. Not an issue on most carriers as they only have 1 APN, but an edge case for the ones that do have this configuration.

You’re not being honest. They struggled to deliver their ambitious mainline Linux phone on time during Covid yes, but they eventually delivered. The fact that they did is a huge win for the mobile Linux ecosystem becoming a real contender just when we need it. All their other products are just fine.

NXP i.MX family debuted in 2013; Intel i7 family in 2008. Their phone uses a 2017 i.MX 8M Quad, the same year they crowdfunded their phone. 2017 i7 computers are equally not from 2008…

It still today remains one of the best ARM processors with open source drivers without an integrated baseband. It means basically any flavour of Linux can install on the device, with a significant layer of protection from carrier conduited attacks. Other modules have similar tradeoffs between performance and interoperability/security.

Want better specs? We either need SoC companies to release more of their drivers open source, or more people to patiently reverse engineer closed source ones.

Use Briar

There are Google Play Android bank apps (mine works fine), and you can use mobile sites as dedicated app drawer icons. Their mobile site is top notch.

NFC payments won’t come anytime soon to native GNU/Linux, but I don’t use them. Maybe Google Wallet works, I haven’t tried and don’t know if NFC can be passed through to Waydroid. OnePlus 6 is the best supported originally Android phone for GNU/Linux, someone with that would need to test.

I just have my card in a silicon sleeve on the back of the phone and I get the same effect. I’d rather Google not have my purchase history anyways.

Satnav there is Pure Maps (OSM client), which can connect to sources like HERE to get traffic data to provide voiced guided turn-by-turn instructions. Of course there is also all the Android apps like Google Maps available, and their mobile site works fine.

On the topic of mobile sites, you can also install them as dedicated app drawer icons via Gnome Web & Firefox PWA for any site.

This means if your bank app doesn’t like vanilla Android, GApps, you can use a comparable dedicated web app.

For parking, I’ve found a surprising amount have mobile sites, so I don’t need to install their bloaty Android app onto my GNU/Linux phone.

Waydroid, Anbox, etc

Mobile GNU/Linux is getting better, but I think it is 5-10 years out from what’s needed. I suppose people need to adopt Desktop first. The nice thing is you can install Android apps including Google Play on it natively, and they appear in your app drawer like a regular app

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Consider PikaOS if you like to game, which is based on Debian and provides an easy way to pick you desktop environment. Bazzite may shut down if Fedora gets rid of 32-bit libraries as planned https://wiki.pika-os.com/en/home

Debian with KDE.

Debian because it is (one of) the most established distro(s), stable releases, most distros are based off of it for a reason, you’re not forced to deal with Snap packages (I recommend Flatpak via Flathub, but Appimages and .Deb files are common options too).

KDE gives you that Windows look (other popular one is GNOME if you prefer the MacOS look). It’s the desktop environment people often confuse with as the distro, so don’t go necessarily by how it looks as you can easily change that.

When I was considering what to run, I found LineageOS TV provided the best experience for being able to get all the other TV apps, and even Jackbox Games. Many TV apps offer some content free with ads, which can be taken care of. Android TV interface only shows Android TV apps in the main app drawer though.

I loved Debian with KDE Big Screen on the pi for the customizability. You can run scripts like fetching tv schedules right on it (or you can just do this on your jellyfin server), and generally you have more customizability. I run PWAs as well via Firefox. I found Steam Link difficult to get working unless on Buster or earlier.

For remote, I tried out all the ones on Amazon, and found USB connection to be most reliable, and there’s one that has a keyboard on the reverse, and an option to do voice control from the remote that’s a major 🔑

Never had an issue with them. Writing from my Librem 5

I do this today with my Librem 5 and a 1 TB uSD

Jet Moto series on PS1

Been happy with my Purism Librem 14, and soon they’ll have a 16". I think today, I’d probably buy their 11" tablet. Perfect travel size and you don’t need to put it away during takeoff and landing of flights.