This post was inspired by Ruben’s SailfishOS journey, I recommend that one as well. He’s already covered a lot of this, so I’ll try to list what I do in a different way.
I’ve been a SailfishOS user for a long time, since mid-2014 actually, with many ups and downs with it. Right now, things are looking up. My daily driver is a Jolla C2 which I got for free from Imre.
The last time I stopped using it, it was mainly due to the old browser engine (gecko) stuck at ESR 78. Since then, David has done an amazing job upgrading it to ESR 91 and which has paved the way for future updates.
So, back to the topic, how do I use Sailfish OS?
Disclaimer: I’ve made a pact with myself not to use Android apps. Knowing I can fallback on any Android app is great, but I don’t want to rely on them for daily use. Sadly, there’s one exception: I open WhatsApp once every day or two. There’s also a native app for it, but it’s AI slop.
I use the phone to read my emails using the stock Email client, to write to my family and friends on Signal via Whishperfish, to listen podcasts on podQast, to stay up-to-date by reading RSS feeds on Fuoten, browsing Hacker News threads on SailHN, checking Lemmy threads on Dee, and following discussions on Mastodon using Tooter.
I also do trekking. I’ve offline maps in OSM Scout along GPS track recording and I do also share my live position with my relatives via Hauk.
My photos are backed up using Immich, while everything else syncs via Syncthing; I share my entire $HOME directory with this .stignore file to exclude less important stuff:
.config/signond
.config/dev.scarpino/harbour-syncthing/syncthing/index-v2
.local/share/system/privileged
.local/share/org.sailfishos/browser/.mozilla/cache2
!.config/**
!.ssh/**
!.local/share/**
!Documents/**
!Downloads/**
**
I selfhost some services on my local network for which I use my own CA, to set it up I put it on /usr/share/pki/ca-trust-source/anchors/ and execute (as root) update-ca-trust. I’m also able to access them remotely via Tailscale.
My contacts and calendars are synced with my Nextcloud instance. It didn’t work out of the box though, due to a nginx misconfiguration on my end.
A couple of apps worth mentioning are Sailfish Connect, which is a client for KDE Connect, Plants for plant identification, Books to read ebooks, Sailfin, a Jellyfin client, ShakeTorch to activate the torch/flashlight, and these share plugins: Whishperfish, SeaPrint and OpenUrl.
What do I miss?
It’s true that a lot of apps are missing, but I think I’ve filled all the essential gaps by writing my own apps or by submitting patches to those written by the community (I only use opensource apps, which are the majority). Seriously, I don’t really miss any bank app as I don’t use them on Android either. Instead I do miss stuff like ICE on lockscreen or timeouts for WiFi hotspot or bluetooth or the possibility to dismiss next alarm. From this perspective, I believe SailfishOS needs to become even more user friendly.
Hope this helps!
BTW, The SailfishOS Community Team (developers, translators, moderators, etc…) is on Liberapay:
Tags: sailfishos, floss, mobile