I think you already missed that boat:

https://www.techradar.com/news/canonicals-dream-for-an-ubunt...

Canonical only gave this a very half-assed attempt though. The purism 5 should be coming out relatively soon, and it looks like they work hard to make their laptops work decently. I hope that translates over well to the phone.

This project send seems promising...

https://puri.sm/posts/librem5-smartphone-makes-major-strides...

And OpenMoko before that.

Turns out the number of people that actually want a phone with a terminal interface is in the dozens.

Don’t strawman. No-one wants a phone with a terminal interface, and linux phones did not have terminal interfaces.

I recognize that I'm in the minority, but I want a terminal interface on my phone. I have my qualms with Android, but one of my favorite things about it is that I can drop into a terminal and have what is essentially a full Linux distro at my disposal. I often leave my main laptop at the office instead of lugging it around, and it's great being able to use a bluetooth keyboard with my phone to get real work done sometimes.

I use termux [1] which allows me to install whatever software I want with APT. I can use vim, ssh into servers, and mostly do whatever else I would do on a computer. It's not a strawman, it's just a developer-centric niche.

1 - https://wiki.termux.com/wiki/Main_Page

There’s a difference between a phone with a terminal and a phone with a terminal interface.

you can get phones that allow AOSP. Most xiaomi phones do. I have one running exclusively FOSS apps. If you don't mind the form factor, the Pyra is coming out this year

The Pyra doesn't have a microphone. However, since the headset port supports all TRRS standards, you could use a headset with a microphone.

Although I still don't think it'll make for a very good phone, and I say this as a backer that's quite excited to get his hands on the Pyra. I'd look towards the Librem 5 for a more realistic phone experience.