There are phones like Pine64 which explicitly allow running Linux ARM OS. But it's a niche device.
As @littlephone
said, ARM drivers are a mess. That's like scratching the surface.
Most phones lock the bootloader and it's abysmally tough to circumvent unless the manufacturers allow it explicitly. So even if you make an OS, you won't be able to install it on phone. Bluntly put, you have to compile an individual kernel for an individual device. Due to driver restrictions, you can't have a kernel-OS which can be installed anywhere
Now talking about the aftermarket OS community.
You can chroot any ARM distro on android.
There is project sandcastle for iPhones which allows you to run Linux on the iPhone.
There are a sizeable custom ROM community withe projects like LineageOS/OmniROM which provide alternative android experience.
Yes, the locked bootloader, the requirement of unique kernels to be run on each devices, as well as the issue of out-of-tree driver, all adds up to the reason why a custom OS for phones isn't available in the market.
I think I kind of accepted that because that's how ARM devices are made and it won't be changed easily. Instead of spending time on that, I think we should move forward and look the other way on customising the existing OS to make the user-experience different.
However, I think the OEM is the one to blame. But no-one is actually doing that possibly due to the reason of money. If Bill Gates does so, I think that will be possible.
I guess it is just a moment when one company will release dual boot mobile phones, everyone else will start. Pine64 does look interesting and even Huawei is planning to lanuch its own OS but I guess it will make copy of Google Android.
No they won't.
In past Samsung had a dual OS phone which booted Windows and Android. It didn't work and they scrapped the project.
Huawei is such a bad example. They lock down their phones to such an extent that it's difficult to install anything else. And don't even get me started on their SDKs. I needed to access the data on one of their fitness devices. There is no documentation to do that and even their "standard" app requires signing up for their custom Huawei account.
There were attempts in alternative OS with Sailfish (which is now niche), FirefoxOS(scrapped) ,UbuntuTouch(scrapped but Halium lives on) .
Pine64 is actually a phone vendor which makes sort of open hardware.
LineageOS/ Omni / BlissOS / AEX are custom android ROMs (or custom Android distros). Yes you can create your own ROM after forking.
You can check XDA to see ROMs for various devices.
There are phones like Pine64 which explicitly allow running Linux ARM OS. But it's a niche device.
As @littlephone said, ARM drivers are a mess. That's like scratching the surface.
Most phones lock the bootloader and it's abysmally tough to circumvent unless the manufacturers allow it explicitly. So even if you make an OS, you won't be able to install it on phone. Bluntly put, you have to compile an individual kernel for an individual device. Due to driver restrictions, you can't have a kernel-OS which can be installed anywhere
Now talking about the aftermarket OS community.
You can chroot any ARM distro on android.
There is project sandcastle for iPhones which allows you to run Linux on the iPhone.
There are a sizeable custom ROM community withe projects like LineageOS/OmniROM which provide alternative android experience.
Yes, the locked bootloader, the requirement of unique kernels to be run on each devices, as well as the issue of out-of-tree driver, all adds up to the reason why a custom OS for phones isn't available in the market.
I think I kind of accepted that because that's how ARM devices are made and it won't be changed easily. Instead of spending time on that, I think we should move forward and look the other way on customising the existing OS to make the user-experience different.
However, I think the OEM is the one to blame. But no-one is actually doing that possibly due to the reason of money. If Bill Gates does so, I think that will be possible.
I guess it is just a moment when one company will release dual boot mobile phones, everyone else will start. Pine64 does look interesting and even Huawei is planning to lanuch its own OS but I guess it will make copy of Google Android.
No they won't.
In past Samsung had a dual OS phone which booted Windows and Android. It didn't work and they scrapped the project.
Huawei is such a bad example. They lock down their phones to such an extent that it's difficult to install anything else. And don't even get me started on their SDKs. I needed to access the data on one of their fitness devices. There is no documentation to do that and even their "standard" app requires signing up for their custom Huawei account.
There were attempts in alternative OS with Sailfish (which is now niche), FirefoxOS(scrapped) ,UbuntuTouch(scrapped but Halium lives on) .
Pine64 is Android distro or is it independent of Android, is it pure Linux distro? Also can it be customized? Like can we have our own distro?
Pine64 is actually a phone vendor which makes sort of open hardware.
LineageOS/ Omni / BlissOS / AEX are custom android ROMs (or custom Android distros). Yes you can create your own ROM after forking.
You can check XDA to see ROMs for various devices.
Oh, so in order to run OS on Pine64, OS has to be Android fork or it can be linux fork?
Ummm. PinePhone is pretty open. You can run Android and Linux on it. IIRC, it coms with Manjaro-ARM preinstalled.