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Buying a phone can sometimes be more stressful for Linux users than other people. Does the phone respect your free software values? Does it let you customize it in all the ways we want? If you’re wrestling with these questions, you’ve come to the right place.
4Murena and /e/
There are no shortage of free and open source phone operating systems out there, but most of them are custom ROMs that you need to install yourself. The process is highly technical, and even as someone who has done it many times myself, I find it both tedious and a bit terrifying. One mistake, and your phone becomes a brick. There’s a reasonfewer of us are into Android moddingthese days.
Murenais one of the few ways you may buy a phone running a free and open source OS out of the box. The company sells handsets running /e/, a fork of LineageOS focused on privacy and trying not to leak any data to Google. That’s not to say that everything that ships in the phone is fully open. Some apps and bits of firmware are proprietary. These devices aren’t getting a Free Software Foundation recommendation any time soon, but they’re as close as you’re going to get in the Android world without taking matters into your own hands.
Murena is also the only official way to buy the Fairphone 6 in the US. That’s really repairable hardware that fits the Linux ethos rather well compared to other Android phones.
Murena Fairphone 6
Powered by /e/OS operating system, the Murena Fairphone (Gen. 6) protects your data at all times, while at the same time protecting the planet. Made by 50% fair and recycled materials, in fair conditions and with one of the lowest carbon footprints in the market.
3Unihertz
Unihertzmakes what feels like old-school, throwback devices for those who miss how phones used to be. Their designs resemble feature phones you may have picked up from a carrier store in the 00’s, only with screens large enough to run modern Android. Nothing about theUnihertz Jelly Maxscreams 2024, but yes, it did indeed launch last year.
Unihertz Jelly Max
The Unihertz Jelly Max is a 5G phone with a 5-inch screen and an old-school plastic, curved build designed to be more comfortable to hold than most modern phones.
Various Unihertz devices come with a physical keyboard, like the newest addition, theUnihertz Titan 2. Here is a phone whose qwerty keyboard is one of the largest you’ll find on a device that isn’t explicitly sold as a pocket PC or tech deck. Pair this with an Android terminal app, and you’re good to go.
2Google Pixel
If you want a more mainstream phone, consider the Google Pixel. I’m not saying this because Google provides what feels like a pure Android experience. That largely went away in the Nexus days. Today’s Pixel phones are more a showcase of Google apps.
No, what makes a Pixel phone compelling to certain Linux users is its role as the phone that, until very recently, virtually all custom ROMs were designed for. You can wipe Google’s version of Android and install anything from LineageOS to GrapheneOS or CalyxOS. Paired with F-Droid, you can run a fully open source software layer (there will still be some proprietary firmware underneath, not unlike most desktop Linux distributions).
That said, it’s about to getmuch harder to install custom ROMs on a Pixel. Starting with Android 16, Google is no longer providing the necessary drivers and other files, so custom developers will have to resort to reverse engineering and guesswork instead. That, sadly, is a story all too familiar to Linux users as well.
Google Pixel 9
The Google Pixel 9 features a sleek design with a powerful Tensor G4 processor, 12 GB of RAM, and a vibrant 6.3-inch Actua display, making it ideal for capturing stunning photos and videos with its advanced 50 MP main lens and 48 MP ultrawide camera. With improved durability and a fast-charging all-day battery, the Pixel 9 is built to handle daily challenges while delivering top-notch performance and AI-driven capabilities.
1Samsung Galaxy
In what is perhaps the most surprising entry on this list, Samsung actually provides the most Linux-like interface of all the major Android phone makers. That’s not to say that Samsung’s One UI found on Galaxy devices looks like Linux or is even vaguely open source. Rather, it means you’re able to tweak far more settings than you can on other phones. There are so many settings you can toggle out of the box that would require a specialized app or simply aren’t possible on other phones, such as streaming audio from one phone to two separate Bluetooth headphones simultaneously.
Samsung even provides a tool called Good Lock that lets you tweak virtually every aspect of your phone interface. No, this isn’t an exaggeration. You can hide the navigation bar and gesture hint, make status icons disappear, rearrange quick status icons, theme the notification area, and place app icons or widgets anywhere on the homescreen without answering to a grid. You can make it so that swiping from the edge of the screen diagonally does something different that swiping straight across. You can change screen timeout settings for individual apps. You can set up automated behaviors in response to virtually any type of input. If I deleted all the words I’ve typed this far and simply listed out all the things Good Lock lets you configure, this piece would still wind up way too long. Forget GNOME Tweaks—even KDE Plasma system settings have met their match.
Samsung makes phones in just about every size and price bracket, so it’s hard to recommend just one. Personally, I’m inclined to say keep an eye on the second-hand market andgrab a Galaxy Z Fold for less money than you might think. This phone is a genuine pocket PC. But if you just want to get your hands on Samsung DeX, which feels like a desktop Linux distro, the base model Galaxy S25 will get the job done, and you’re able to snag those for much less.
Samsung Galaxy S25
The Samsung Galaxy S25 is a powerful and compact smartphone with a 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display and a 120Hz refresh rate. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, 12GB of RAM, and a 4,000mAh battery with 25W Super Fast Charging.
I love Linux, but in the past couple of years, I ditched my Linux PC in favor of trying out Android desktop modes. Samsung DeX is currently the best, and I’m living the convergent dream long ago envisioned by the lines of Canonical and Ubuntu.
Google is even now working on baking this feature directly into Android. With the addition of an external monitor, picking it a phone will be more than finding the right companion to Linux—it will feel more like trying out yet another Linux distro.
