Oh, right. Sorry, easy to confuse the meaning in this particular case 😅

I still think that it is important to standarize a canonical Linux core

If you’re not aware, Ubuntu Touch is no longer operated or developed by Canonical, they abandoned the project in 2017. UT was then picked up by UBPorts, a community effort to keep alive what Canonical left behind.

Personally, I don’t have a very high opinion of Canonical due to their use of CLAs, which also appear to be present in some fashion with UT and UBPorts as well:

I agree that some standardization would likely be beneficial in some areas (such as focusing on a single Phone UI and polishing it up). PostmarketOS is making the most progress on getting real Linux on mobile, so if I had to pick one project to support monetarily, and one that could become mainstream, or partner with a manufacturer like GrapheneOS did with Motorola, I think that would be the project to back, IMHO.

It is certainly not usable for the average person in it’s current state, hence why I suggest donating to it to help with developing it.

With proper funding and full-time devs, it would be able to focus on adding proper support to more phones, or potentially partner with a manufacturer like GrapheneOS just did with Motorola to get first-class support on a smaller handful of devices.

Postmarket is our only long-term mobile option that will remain FLOSS and in the users best interest, we just have to support it and help build it up into something we can all use :)

The issue with Ubuntu Touch is that unfortunately it’s not a genuine alternative to Android, as it actually relies on Android quite a lot to function as well as it does.

It generally uses an outdated Android kernel (which is also usually not receiving security updates) and a Halium abstraction layer to access the closed source binary blob Android drivers for the phone’s hardware. It also requires that it be installed on top of an existing Android install, so in all it’s more of Linuxified layer on top of Android, which means it’s not truly escaping the control of the Android/Google ecosystem.

PostmarketOS and Mobian are genuinely Mobile focused Linux distros that run the mainline up-to-date Linux kernel, right on the bare metal, meaning they are not subject to any influence from Google.

Both projects often collaborate and benefit from each other, they just use a different base distro (Alpine for PostmarketOS, Debian for Mobian), but that doesn’t result in any wasted effort, as ultimately any new developments, drivers, or new phone support are mainlined into the kernel itself, so both projects benefit.

They’re not as usable as Ubuntu Touch is right now, but they are ultimately the better solutions long-term to ensure that all the code is under community control so we aren’t reliant on outdated unsecure Android components.

For anyone reading this, please consider donating to PostmarketOS or Mobian if you have the means, as it will help us escape the Android ecosystem which is getting more and more anti-user due to google controlling it.