Linux wasn’t a viable alternative to windows in 2001 and I don’t think a Linux phone would be considered a viable alternative to google or iOS. There are 2 mobile OS’s, which admittedly is twice as many as desktop OS’s in 2001. As for hardware, there were a ton of options on 2001, probably more major brands than what phones have today, that’s not even including mom and pop custom built PCs.
Did you ever use Linspire? It had a posh, user friendly app store with a ton of useful apps, Firefox, Flash Java and most other things worked without issue. Not a bad experience in the early 2000s on a Pentium 3!
