Don’t say, hey android has Linux in it, yeah no, idc, I want to know how far we are from buying a Linux phone at a price point of 200 USD.
A Linux phone is one which is built completely on Linux, uses Linux apps and most important has a terminal.
I don’t want a Linux Phone for privacy, although that’s a great reason, but I want it for the freedom it provides me. Hell, I don’t care if Android itself comes with a terminal and has similar features to Linux, I just want a Terminal which can install apps, where I can write commands and it will execute it. Complete Control on my phone and how it behaves is what I want.
I want to tell it when to sleep, when not to sleep, when to boot, when to edit a file and how, when to take a screenshot and what to do with it and where to save it, etc, etc. I hope you get the idea.
I didn’t see anyone mention SailfishOS.
I bought a Jolla Mobile with SailfishOS when they came out and I LOVED it. It’s a fast smooth beautiful user interface, has Android app support, and truly is Linux. Like, it comes with a Terminal, full root access is easy to unlock, uses BtrFS, Wayland, the Linux standard hierarchy… It was wonderful.
The Jolla Mobile is pretty old now, but I think there are still phones you can get it on.