Maemo Leste

Maemo is still actively developed thanks to the fanatical/fantastic community around it. https://maemo-leste.github.io/

You probably never used Maemo, whose UI (and also Palm's WebOS UI) were ripped off for later versions of Android and iOS, which wasn't even multitasking yet. Literally hired the same people to do them. Jolla started with the FOSS parts of Maemo but went proprietary. If Nokia hadn't been intentionally destroyed by its board in a romance with Microsoft cash, through a Canadian snake, Maemo would have been a real contender. You can get an vague idea what it looked like from here: https://maemo-leste.github.io/ Also, I don't know what's motivating you to just make negative shit up from whole cloth. Where did Linux touch you?

For the N900, Maemo Leste <https://maemo-leste.github.io/> would be a good choice, if not even better.

https://maemo-leste.github.io/ > Maemo Leste continues the legacy of Maemo ... based on Devuan Beowulf (Debian Buster) and all the supported devices ship with recent mainline Linux kernels. We are currently in the development phase and we are actively searching for developers. For some devices, we have development images available - such as the Nokia N900, Motorola Droid 4, and the PinePhone. There is also a 64bit virtual machine you can use to try out Maemo Leste. Software WIP status: https://leste.maemo.org/Status

>Nokia had Linux on their smartphone until Microsoft bought them and stopped everything, they even shut down the app store. The OS was called MeeGo. There is a fork called Maemo Leste [0][1] that is actually still around and updated. I have it running on a droid 4, and it works pretty well. The UI is still the same Hildon UI. Definitely a fun OS and device to play around with, and interesting in that it's the only mobile OS I'm aware of that is running Devaun. [0] https://maemo-leste.github.io/ [1] Technically a fork of Maemo, the predecessor to MeeGo.

Nokia N900 Motorola Droid 4 For these two, see https://maemo-leste.github.io/ You can text and use gps on both of them, as well as make voice calls on the Motorola Droid 4 (calls work on N900, but you need complex audio routing and audio filtering. If anyone has experience with Linux audio, the project will appreciate their assistance) Yes, they both have non-free PowerVR GPU, but its blobs work on Linux mainline, at least

Maemo Leste continues to develop Maemo: https://maemo-leste.github.io/

I'm really looking forward to getting one of these when the non-Brave Heart editions ship later next year. Planning to run Leste[0] on mine. [0] https://maemo-leste.github.io/

You're not alone, someone else has already revived it: https://maemo-leste.github.io/

And yet that hasn't happened on macOS despite existing for two decades. The same can be said for Android and Windows, as well, with their respective lifetimes. It could also just end up that the community, or even non-profits, step up and provide great distributions methods. In fact, I'd say this is the one of the most likely outcomes based on the past, given Maemo's user-supplied apt repositories[1], webOS's Preware[2], or Android's F-Droid[3]. We can also look at the prevailing commercial app stores on platforms with multiple app distribution methods to see what's most likely. They aren't ad based platforms, like Ubuntu's Snap Store[4], Amazon's AppStore[5] for Android, and Samsung's Galaxy Store[6] for Android. Game distribution stores aren't like that, like Steam, GOG, Humble Store, Microsoft store, etc. Even on iOS, Cydia[7] wasn't an ad based platform, and you could purchase paid apps on it. [1] https://maemo-leste.github.io/maemo-leste-repositories-and-community-p… [2] https://webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware [3] https://www.f-droid.org/ [4] https://snapcraft.io/store [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Appstore [6] https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/galaxy-store/ [7] https://cydia-app.com/