linux friendly smart phones

**beastrace91** · December 8th, 2009

So I am looking around at different smart phones and was wondering if anyone had suggestions for ones that play well with Ubuntu/Linux. Currently I have a blackberry and have to run a VM to sync the thing :-/

Regards,
Jeff

**paulisdead** · December 8th, 2009

I've been really happy with my G1, though the hardware's getting kind of dated. There's some real nice newer android phones available. I'm not aware of a method to directly sync it with an email app, but it automagically syncs to gmail, and there are ways to sync gmail contacts with mail clients.

Normally, when you plug the phone in, it just exports the micro-sd card to the OS, so it just works like a normal USB mass storage device. The development tools can let you do more, and are fully supported in Linux, since android runs Linux.

I do prefer to have my phone rooted and running the cyanogen firmware, which does run on a more limited range of hardware. Plus you have to root the phone, and I'm not sure if there ways to pull that off on some of the newer ones to have come out. Root gives you access to apps that let you tether over USB, bluetooth, and wifi, and some additional customizability.

**beastrace91** · December 9th, 2009

Currently I think the Nokia N900 is my top pick... its a sweet little toy

~Jeff

**Rohan Kapoor** · December 9th, 2009

I'm using the Sony Ericcson XPERIA X1 (running Windows Mobile 6.1), it syncs perfectly with SYNCE and if that's not your style you can sync with google sync and use imap to keep evolution's mail in sync as well as sync the calendar and contacts with google.

I would highly recommend the XPERIA X1!

**paulisdead** · December 9th, 2009

Originally Posted by darth-vader

I'm using the Sony Ericcson XPERIA X1 (running Windows Mobile 6.1), it syncs perfectly with SYNCE and if that's not your style you can sync with google sync and use imap to keep evolution's mail in sync as well as sync the calendar and contacts with google.

I would highly recommend the XPERIA X1!

Not to derail the thread, but how good is synce now? It's been awhile since I used it, and with that tmobile dash with winmo 5, it was really slow. It was a real pain back then, too. There were kernel modules that had to be built, and rebuilt again if your kernel ever got upgraded. Like I said it's been a long time since I used it, so the experience could be a lot better now. Just was curious if it was still a huge headache?

Oh, I did forget to mention the Android market apps are pretty cool. I use my phone as a remote control for my computer, have an ssh/sftp client, and can remote control transmission the bittorrent client on my computer from the phone. Also, since I'm in Seattle, and all the buses have GPS, they got an app that shows you where all the buses are at. It's these small but really neat things that start to add up that make the android experience really nice. Oh ya, and it supports OGG audio playback out of the box, if that matters to you. The Cyanogen firmware even supports flac playback.

**beastrace91** · December 9th, 2009

I've gone ahead and ordered the N900 - it runs a full Linux operating system (thats built on debian) that give the user full system access. It is fully compatible with all ARM compiled .deb packages - I think you can see why it was my phone of choice

~Jeff

**Rohan Kapoor** · December 9th, 2009

Originally Posted by paulisdead

Not to derail the thread, but how good is synce now? It's been awhile since I used it, and with that tmobile dash with winmo 5, it was really slow. It was a real pain back then, too. There were kernel modules that had to be built, and rebuilt again if your kernel ever got upgraded. Like I said it's been a long time since I used it, so the experience could be a lot better now. Just was curious if it was still a huge headache?

Oh, I did forget to mention the Android market apps are pretty cool. I use my phone as a remote control for my computer, have an ssh/sftp client, and can remote control transmission the bittorrent client on my computer from the phone. Also, since I'm in Seattle, and all the buses have GPS, they got an app that shows you where all the buses are at. It's these small but really neat things that start to add up that make the android experience really nice. Oh ya, and it supports OGG audio playback out of the box, if that matters to you. The Cyanogen firmware even supports flac playback.

Synce is actually pretty good.

For a while I just used to sync all tasks, contacts, and calenders with my X1 but then I switched over to google apps and as such am only syncing tasks with Evolution through Synce. The trayicon for Ubuntu is pretty sick. The new one not the old.

I'm using it on my Jaunty install and haven't had any problems in the last 4 months.