The PinePhone is already niche in today’s smartphone market, but did you know there are operating systems for the PinePhone that are even more niche?
Long before Android and iOS took over, there were other smartphone operating systems. Most of them slowly disappeared.
Because the PinePhone hardware is open, it can run not only modern Linux distributions but also some niche systems that have been ported over. They give us a glimpse of earlier mobile Linux efforts. They had terminals, they had package managers, and then they gradually vanished from the phone market anyway. Very Linux.
1. SailfishOS / Nemo Mobile#
This system was developed by a Finnish company and evolved in 2013 from Nokia’s “MeeGo”. There is also a more open source version called “Nemo Mobile”.
Later, the company shifted strategy toward specific government markets and specialized use cases. The Russian government, for example, purchased it, so development is still fairly active. Full usage rights require payment. The system is compatible with some Android apps, and there are also ports for a small number of Android phones.
Swipe left from the home screen to enter the multitasking view.
The input methods only include English, Russian, and Finnish.
2. WebOS / LuneOS#
Released in 2011, WebOS was originally developed by Palm, then bought by HP, then handed off to LG. It became LG’s smart TV operating system and is still used today.
LG developed plenty of video and media apps for the smart TV version, but the phone port, LuneOS, has not made much progress. The circular slide-to-unlock UI and design style feel very Android 2.3.
3. Maemo Leste#
Released by Nokia in 2011, it was called “Mameo” at the time and was a trimmed-down Debian. It later merged with Intel’s “Moblin” to become “MeeGo”.
Nokia once shipped the high-end NOKIA N900 phone with Mameo 5. It had a slide-out keyboard, and the screen was landscape by default. It genuinely worked like a tiny computer.
On today’s touch-first phones, the interface looks tiny.
