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There's (finally) starting to be a move towards "phones as portable desktops." I'm surprised it's taken this long. The basic idea is that phones are powerful enough to run full software and operating systems, so why not just give them a toggleable "desktop mode" where you can dock the phone with a full size keyboard, mouse and monitor and use it as you would a normal desktop.

But this being the case, i would like to have full control over the phone in the same way that i have full control over an arch desktop.

So i was wondering, is there a linux DE which is touch oriented/designed for phones? Would it perhaps be possible to use the android or lineage OS DE on top of an arch system? It would be nice to have a phone running arch with a mobile DE, and when docking it as a desktop i can boot up GNOME or KDE.

At this stage im fairly sure noone has actually done this, so my question is more "what moves have been made so far towards this vision?"

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  • I totally agree that closing the gap between desktop and mobile is an interesting topic, but as it stands this Q seems to lack a bit of focus: one thing is listing available mobile DE or OS (e.g. Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch); one thing is how to run GNU/Linux (e.g. Arch) on mobile devices; one thing is how to have a GNU/Linux-like DE running on top of an existing mobile OS.
    – fra-san
    Commented Sep 25, 2020 at 10:54

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As for now, most of the DE available on Arch are not made to work on Phones.

The most advanced DE for phones at this time (in a sense) is Phosh which is based on Gnome (and now available in the AUR).
However, lots of 'regular' DE (like XFCE4 for instance) will still work with a touchscreen but will not be adapted to a small screen of a mobile phone as they do not scale elements for very small screens.

Please keep in mind that most of Linux distros are not made with mobile phones in mind so some features can be missing (like calls or SMS/MMS).

If you are looking for a distro specifically made for mobile phones you should take a look at PostmarketOS (which is still very experimental at this time on most devices).

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...so my question is more "what moves have been made so far towards this vision?"

That "vision" was alive and well about seven or eight years ago, and things were looking good. Back then I was able to install Debian on my old Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

Unfortunately, ever since then things have been doing in a terribly wrong direction: manufacturers started making more and more phones that are locked in ways that can't even be unlocked. Nowadays you can't even buy (at least here in the US) a phone that can be rooted, and believe me, I've tried. Honestly, I have no idea how they get away with that -- you pay good money to own that little machine, and yet, you can't have full control of it? I am hoping that at some point this will all boil over into lawsuites, like we had in the past, when some manufacturers tried to lock down personal computers. (Not much hope though, as the years go by, and people seem to care less and less.)

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ArchlinuxARM with Phosh on Pinephone with convergence package (HDMI for external display, keyboard/mouse - either USB or bluetooth) seems to fully satisfy your stated requirements.

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