Please consider donating to PostmarketOS to build up a pure mobile Linux alternative that is completely free of Google’s influence. It’s the best long-term option we have.
GrapheneOS is great, and it’s what I currently use, but it is ultimately a hardened Android fork. One downside of that is it is completely reliant on manufacturer updates to continue to support a phone. Once a manufacturer drops support, the Graphene team must also drop support, as they are reliant on the closed source GPU/hardware drivers that are tied to specific android kernel versions.
PostmarketOS is not based on Android whatsoever, it’s a Mobile focused Linux distro using the mainline Linux kernel. It uses open-source drivers for the GPU and hardware which can be maintained and supported for decades, and is completely independent of Google’s influence. However, it’s still currently rough enough around the edges that it isn’t ready as a daily driver, which is why it’d be so helpful for us to donate to it so they can hire more developers to polish it up, as they recently did to improve the audio support of Qualcomm devices.
Please consider donating to PostmarketOS to build up a pure mobile Linux alternative that is completely free of Google’s influence. It’s the best long-term option we have.
How does this compare to Graphene? You can also be Google free using it
GrapheneOS is great, and it’s what I currently use, but it is ultimately a hardened Android fork. One downside of that is it is completely reliant on manufacturer updates to continue to support a phone. Once a manufacturer drops support, the Graphene team must also drop support, as they are reliant on the closed source GPU/hardware drivers that are tied to specific android kernel versions.
PostmarketOS is not based on Android whatsoever, it’s a Mobile focused Linux distro using the mainline Linux kernel. It uses open-source drivers for the GPU and hardware which can be maintained and supported for decades, and is completely independent of Google’s influence. However, it’s still currently rough enough around the edges that it isn’t ready as a daily driver, which is why it’d be so helpful for us to donate to it so they can hire more developers to polish it up, as they recently did to improve the audio support of Qualcomm devices.
Awesome. That’s what we need and I donate soon.
Graphene is Pixel only and aims for privacy and security.
PMOS aims to bring Linux to the maximum amount of devices (phones, Chromebooks, tablets, QEMU) to give them a life beyond the manufacturer’s support.
I would compare PMOS to LineageOS over Graphene.
Motorola will have a GrapheneOS compatible handset. I use a Pixel 9 Pro with GrapheneOS though, and it works reasonably well.
https://9to5google.com/2026/03/01/motorola-confirms-grapheneos-partnership-for-a-future-smartphone-porting-features/
It’s still ultimately downstream of Google code, though
Technically you cannot since they basically develop Android.