OS's ranked by functionality

[wibble]

Wait what?

You mean no su or sudo? What do you mean by no Linux apps? They don't have a repo?

Well...sort of. UBPorts takes a different approach to 'traditional' distros by design, at least as I understand it from outside. The intent is to have a read-only rootfs that gets monolithic OTA updates rather than using a repository to update individual packages. Apps come  from the store, packaged similarly to snaps or flatpak, again not via apt, and are separate from the rootfs, as is the user data. This is closer in many respects to the android phone experience than the linux desktop - which will suit some people and not others. It's certainly possible to remount the rootfs read-write and use apt to install or update packages, but this isn't how it's intended to work and it can break, or be broken by, OTA updates. If you're trying to use it this way for anything other than developing UBPorts then you're probably using the wrong distro.

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I don't think that the majority of users have enough experience with each OS to make a qualified judgement, myself included. I started with UBPorts but the closed door approach to user privilege, and the fact that no traditional Linux apps worked with it (what's the point of a Linux phone that doesn't run Linux apps? *cough*Android*cough*) put me off it.

I then moved to ArchARM since I love pacman/the AUR. progress lagged behind the other major distros, so then I moved to Manjaro which seems to keep pace with the other distros.

I couldn't tell you what other distros are good/useful, I can only tell you my subjective preference.

I agree about not having the level of experience required for a qualified judgement, but there's a more fundamental problem with the question - we each place different value on specific areas of functionality. I really don't care about the camera, but for others it's a deal-breaker if it doesn't work 'well enough', which again varies from person to person. MMS is vital for some and useless to others. Phone functionality may be perfect or completely broken depending on which provider you're using, and which technologies they've deployed in your part of the country. This is the sort of detail that's needed for a meaningful comparison.

On a slightly different point, you see a Linux phone where I see a Libre phone.