Is there a "Linux friendly" handset manufacturer for Android phones? My current situation is this: I use Mac OS X at home and Ubuntu Linux at work. My phone is a Samsung Galaxy S. Whenever I want to update my firmware the intended way (i.e. using Kies, I am aware of Odin), I have to boot into an old Windows XP installation that I have lying around.

I was wondering if there is a handset manufacturer that embraces Linux. The Samsung phone seems to be just the wrongest choice I could have made with the windows-centric Kies software.

Edit: I should probably point out, that I live in Germany and I want to use a prepaid phone service without contract. Also, I am looking for a great "out-of-the-box" experience without too much hackery (i.e. without voiding the warranty).

Edit2: I was hoping to learn about brands which support Linux (like NVidia does with their proprietary drivers) or maybe learn about tools and techniques:


Heimdall is a nice tool, but I don't feel that it has Samsungs approval, and I feel that using it might void the warranty.
Over-The-Air Updates is something, that seems to be useful, but it won't work for me, as I don't have a contract with a cell phone provider. (Edit 3: This line is just non-sense, I receive OTA updates over wi-fi.)


Therefore I am still looking for some enlightenment about which direction I should go with my next phone.

Edit 3: After my recent purchase of the Samsung Galaxy S3 (I know... fool me once...), I would like to reopen the issue. My setup (except for the phone) is still the same (Mac OS X at home and Ubuntu Linux at home and at work).

In order to access the file system I either connect to an Ubuntu machine via USB. This is not ideal, because the drive size of the external sd card is not reported correctly, which makes me a little less confident in this solution.

On the Mac, I can only get iPhoto recognize the device in PTP mode. Android file transfer does not recognize the device after the latest OTA firmware update.

As an alternative to the USB connection, I found DigiSSHD as a workaround to transfer files wirelessly.

After spending hours of looking for a better solution and adjusting my workflow to workarounds, I would like to ask again: Is there a there a handset manufacturer that embraces Linux and provides native tools to interact with the device?

I don't mind if the tool is proprietary or free as long as it works.
If you don't want to be tied to Windows-based Kies, Simply don't pick Samsung phones. Almost every other Android manufacturer's phones can be upgraded Over The Air without the need of an attached computer; for some reason Samsung's can't or won't do it.

Android was designed so it does not need to be attached to a computer as much as possible; Android was designed to sync data (address book, etc), installs software (market, etc), and do system updates over the air. Some manufacturer/carriers do not yet embrace this unfortunately, and is forcing your phone to be attached to a computer.