I am alaraajavamma and let’s start with this. I do not work for or receive any compensation from Furilabs. I am just a satisfied customer and Linux phone enthusiast who desperately wants to see linux mobile succeed. This is the seventh chapter in my Linux mobile journey.

The Linux mobile journey had taken me through the constrained luxury of Planet Computers, the ideological wilds of the Librem 5, and the community-fueled chaos of the Pinephones. Each device taught a valuable lesson, but all focused on new, specialized hardware.

The next realization was that to truly succeed, Linux mobile needed to reach beyond specialized niche devices and reclaim the hardware already in our pockets. This is the philosophy that birthed postmarketOS. postmarketOS is not company where I can buy phones at the moment so my solution to support their work was to donate to them – and well I also did some very little testing and tried to even commit something small but my abilities there are very limited.

The Gift of Longevity

I am absolutely compelled to praise postmarketOS for their truly marvellous job. Their mission is a profound statement against planned obsolescence: extend the life of consumer electronics by empowering users with open-source software.

What makes postmarketOS so beautiful is its core architecture, based on Alpine Linux. It treats every supported phone like a regular Linux machine, building a single distribution with only one unique package per device to handle the hardware specifics. This approach allows them to provide security updates and maintain devices indefinitely, long after manufacturers abandon them.

postmarketOS is the open-source spirit personified – it’s about reclaiming ownership and turning disposable consumer devices into long-lasting, fully controlled computers.

The New Workhorses: FP4 and OP6

My personal journey dove into two high-profile targets for postmarketOS: the Fairphone 4 (FP4) and the OnePlus 6 (OP6). (postmarketOS is also familiar for me with Pinephone, Pinephone Pro, Librem 5, Volla and Gemini PDA but I have allready written about these devices so I will focus only on these second hand devices for now)

The Fairphone 4 is a particularly exciting target because it offers user repairability and modularity, making it an ethical hardware match for FOSS software. The device, in many respects, is already very usable with postmarketOS. The desktop experience (my personal favorite Phosh) was smooth as hell.

However, the reality of porting a device built for Android remains a stubborn barrier:

• Modem Functionality: All core modem stuff does not yet work.
• Convergence: Display-out is currently not implemented (or is broken), leaving the convergence dream unrealized.
• Cameras and GPS are not in par what you would expect in modern smartphone. I know things will improve over time but as you can see for example with Librem 5 it might be bumpy and long road

The OnePlus 6 (OP6), powered by the Snapdragon 845, is one of the flagships of the postmarketOS project due to its widespread availability and solid internal components. It is surprisingly enjoyable to use, thanks to its raw speed and the clean Linux interfaces.

Yet, its daily-driver status is still a long road (I am comparing it to modern smartphone replacement not pocket computer = “how it will replace mid-level android”): core telephony functions like VoLTE, call audio, SMS, and MMS work only at a proof-of-concept level. They are not yet reliable enough to trust the phone 24/7. OP6 also does not support wired display-out. Cameras and GPS are only in proof-of-concept level at the moment. But everything else was surprisingly good – like if you wan’t to showcase mainline linux UI these are the devices for that!

The Linux Mobile Conundrum

The work by the postmarketOS community has improved things dramatically from where they started and I know many people all ready daily drive them.
But these devices highlight the great conundrum facing the entire movement:

I am pretty sure that the long-standing change in the mobile phone industry needs a device that
a. can do basic stuff out of the box just like Android/iOS
b. is easily available in new or good-as-new condition
c. has enough users or stable company behind it to sustain development and offer needed support when users face issues

It would be marvellous to see many devices achieve this level of maturity. But what I have seen in my years of Linux mobile exploration is that some critical hardware functions might take years to solve, and even then, nothing comes granted. Some issues – like the Pinephone Pro’s call audio, Librem 5 cameras or the deep integration required for VoLTE and reliable modem stuff – might prove to be unbelievably complicated, and perhaps, almost unsolvable without better vendor cooperation. And even when those issues are solved the actual spreading might be difficult if the devices are available only from the second hand.

The technical complexity of modern proprietary hardware remains the final boss. This does not mean you can’t use postmarketOS devices. They actually might serve you perfectly for many things if you find good unit from after sales.

Last words… remember to support your favorite Linux mobile project using whatever method suits you best! Since I am quite bad at coding, I try to put my money where my mouth is, so I have personally supported every project I write about financially.
I can also proudly encourage you to buy my current daily driver FLX1s – please feel free to ask me questions about it if you are curious. 2026 will be the year of Linux mobile, so jump in and enjoy the ride!