I have a Samsung Galaxy J3 (2018) smartphone which currently has the stock Samsung Android OS installed on it. I wanted to install an Android “distro” that doesn’t spy on me, like Graphene OS, but I couldn’t find a ROM for it. Since I would probably need to compile AOSP from source code anyways, I though, why not install Gentoo on my smartphone (doing the compilation on a more powerful computer using distcc). I have already installed Gentoo on both my laptop and desktop from a stage3 tarball and I’m loving it, so I guess doing the same on my smartphone wouldn’t be too hard.
Now, the problem is that I need to use a few apps that are not available on Linux, like the proprietary app that I use to pay for my bus tickets. How well does waydroid work?
Your problem will be driver support and the lack of apps to use your phone as a smart phone. Without drivers you may be able to get a display going and maybe even use the touch screen, but expect a standby time measured in single digit hours, if that.
Your device doesn’t seem to be listed on the PostmarketOS website (https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices) but pmOS is definitely the place to start if you want to put upstream Linux on an Android phone. The phone seems to use an Exynos SoC similar to this device: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/index.php?title=Samsung_Galaxy_Xcover_4_(samsung-xcover4lte)
I’m seeing a lot of broken/untested flags in the side bar, but it’s possible the wiki just hasn’t been updated in a while.
I recommend you join the folks over at pmOS and ask there for feasibility. There’s a chance you’ll need to write your own code to get it to boot Linux, but you can become one of the elite few who run a Linux phone as a daily driver.
Many apps will work through Waydroid, but I doubt your bus app will. Other apps may or may not work as you would expect, there’s not a lot of software for Linux phones out there yet.
I don’t think any alternatives (Ubuntu Touch etc.) support your phone, either.
That is a helpful commet.