Running Linux-based operating systems on smartphones has come a long way. We now have several Linux-powered smartphones on the market that cater to different use cases. Some pack in flagship-level performance, while others try to be a value-for-money proposition.

Sadly, these devices are out of reach for most people around the world due to excessive taxation from their countries and shipping charges. Of course, many do have an older spare Android smartphone laying around.

Why not make good use of it? In this article, we will be taking a look at a very cool project that turns an Android smartphone into a Linux machine with a simple APK file and no root access.

    • SpaceNoodle
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      1 month ago

      I can’t find a list of supported devices, which is disappointing

          • limerod@reddthat.comM
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            1 month ago

            GrapheneOS is not regular android. It disables JIT and hardens many settings. So, things like proot and others can be finicky to work. Everyone else should be fine unless its an old phone or some chinese phone with certain broken features or restrictions.

        • Carrot@lemmy.today
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          1 month ago

          I didn’t, but I didn’t look too hard. I wasn’t really expecting it to work

        • punkibas@lemmy.zip
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          1 month ago

          There’s also a native desktop mode for grapheneos now, you can activate it in dev options

          • picnic
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            1 month ago

            Yeah but dont expect feature parity with samsung’s dex. Dex’s a mile away in small quality of life features. Android’s baked in desktop is so barebones I cannot fathom it took google 9 years to get this out. Its embarrasing.

            I sold my samsung and moved to grapheneos, but I really miss dex. And gallery.

              • picnic
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                1 month ago

                Simple cropping, drawing and blurring are something I now know I used nearly daily basis earlier. Tried to find a gallery viewer that had simple pixelize and cropping, couldnt find one.

                Installed aves libre for pictures, and now using signal’s inbuilt pixelize function.

                • KryptonBlur@slrpnk.net
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                  1 month ago

                  Ah yeah the pixelize feature wasn’t something I even knew about. Personally I use Fossify gallery which is nice but I don’t think it can pixelize

        • limerod@reddthat.comM
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          1 month ago

          From a cursory search there is not. Maybe, try asking on their forums to see if you can disable some security feature.

      • picnic
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        1 month ago

        Yup, same thing with pixel8pro and grapheneos

    • Pycorax@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      Not working on One UI either it seems? That said some people have mentioned it working so I’m not sure what’s the cause here.