[HN Gopher] Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?
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Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?
Author : ingve
Score : 115 points
Date : 2025-04-24 06:13 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thefoggiest.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (thefoggiest.dev)
| Animats wrote:
| I run an older Android phone without a Google account. All apps
| are from F-Droid. Google services are all turned off. Mail is
| Thunderbird, browser is Fennec.
|
| Is it still possible to initialize an Android phone without a
| Google account?
| codethief wrote:
| Yes, it is.
| Nux wrote:
| Yes, I do this routinely.
|
| Check devices supported by 3rd party distros like LineageOS
| which out of the box have no Google services. Ironically Pixel
| phones are very well supported. Xiaomi, OnePlus, too. There are
| quite a few:
|
| https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
| amaccuish wrote:
| It should be said though that only Pixel, Fairphone, and
| maybe some Motorolas support relocking the bootloader with a
| custom OS.
|
| Without that ability, anyone can plug in to your phone and
| write whatever they want to the internal flash and your phone
| will be none the wiser.
| lucb1e wrote:
| Happens to me all the time. Also on laptops, secureboot is
| such a life saver any time you're out and about
|
| ...it's sure nice this exists and is available to anyone
| but it's not seriously a risk if you're not of interest to
| people who are willing to physically show up and bug your
| hardware in a way that requires quite a bit of preparation
| Klonoar wrote:
| Some Sony models (not the Verizon one last sold in the USA)
| should too, no?
| JCattheATM wrote:
| The OnePlus6T supports it, it will still display a warning
| but it will be locked.
| amelius wrote:
| Routinely? How often do you buy a new phone? :)
|
| Or maybe it is because mobile computing is just stuck, and it
| won't move even in decades ...
| Nux wrote:
| Alright, perhaps "routinely" is a strong word, but all my
| phones run non-stock and I don't buy devices I can't do
| this on.
|
| All in all I must have installed 3rd party roms on 6-7
| devices with good results.
| lawn wrote:
| Lookup LineageOS and CalyxOS. I use CalyxOS with MicroG and can
| download apps from the app store without a Google account or
| Google services (although some apps won't work without them of
| course).
| blackbear_ wrote:
| > Is it still possible to initialize an Android phone without a
| Google account?
|
| Totally, get a Pixel phone and put GrapheneOS on it. You get
| state of the art hardware and the latest Android hardened for
| privacy and with optional Google services. That is, you can
| install and remove them anytime like any other app.
| Animats wrote:
| Do you have to install a whole new distro? I just managed to
| get past the signup screen, then deleted the "first use" app
| and disabled Google's apps.
| wishfish wrote:
| Recently picked up a Moto G Power 2024 as a cheap way to play
| around with Android. Never signed in with Google. Use
| Thunderbird / Firefox. Mixplorer for files. Most Google
| services & apps disabled. Use Obtanium as my main way to
| install apps, with a few from F-droid too. Have Aurora for
| anonymous Play if I need it but so far have just used it for
| Dropbox.
|
| At the heart of this is Netguard. I'm using this firewall as a
| whitelist. Blocking network for everything except for the
| things I approve. So far, this seems to be working well.
|
| It's been a great experience. Have ended up using this device
| more than my iPhone. Still has the stock ROM but, with the bad
| stuff disabled, it hasn't gotten in my way. This feels like
| it's truly my own device in a way that's rare these days. Main
| drawback is the lack of future updates.
| OsrsNeedsf2P wrote:
| This website is hostile to scrolling on mobile, I've never seen a
| worse UX pattern in my life.
|
| But for me, I see so much potential in Linux phones, but after
| waiting decades for the Linux desktop to pickup, I won't hold my
| breath.
| godelski wrote:
| I blocked reader mode and it worked fine. Not an excuse, but it
| is common for sites to not work well for phones. I find it a
| bit surprising these days but hey, Wikipedia knows how to
| redirect desktop links to mobile versions but not the reverse
| and they have the great foresight to add an automatic option to
| dark mode settings but wild idiocy to set the default
| configuration to light mode.
|
| I guess I'm with you man. I'm often baffled at how much low
| hanging fruit never gets fixed
| ozgrakkurt wrote:
| Linux desktop is very pleasant to use now compared to 5 years
| before. I tried a lot of times to switch to linux before but it
| never stuck, now I use only linux on my desktop.
|
| But need all that software for phones, make it compatible,
| stable, easy to install etc. maybe it will happen if some
| company invests in it. Like gaming on linux and valve
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| > _after waiting decades for the Linux desktop to pickup_
|
| Linux desktops are very much usable now, especially if you
| choose a competent DE like KDE, and a decent distro (ie, not
| Ubuntu).
|
| Is there anything particular you find the Linux desktop still
| lacks majorly, preventing you from switching?
| staunton wrote:
| What's wrong with Ubuntu?
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| Canonical keeps doing stupid, anti-user, anti-community
| stuff constantly, to the point that many people consider
| them to be the Microsoft of the Linux world.
|
| For instance, not long ago, they were including ads/Amazon
| results in the Apps menu[1], similar to what Microsoft did
| with the Start menu. They also keep sneaking in suggestions
| (aka ads) for their Ubuntu Pro subscription in various
| places like the MOTD, or when you run apt[2], which isn't
| cool.
|
| Most recently, the biggest annoyance is with the way
| they've been aggressively pushing their Snap store, to the
| point of even hijacking regular "apt install" commands -
| normally, you'd expect an "apt install" to fetch a regular
| .deb from the distro's repos, but they silently hijack the
| command to fetch apps from their Snap store instead[3].
| Now, you may think that normal, non-technical users don't
| need to care about Snaps - and you'd be right, if they
| actually worked well. Snaps are slow and buggy and have
| been a constant source of pain for many users[4].
|
| A major issue is with how buggy Ubuntu has become,
| especially OS upgrades, which may result in anything from
| minor issues like broken shortcuts, to complete
| breakage[5]. This might lead you to think that it's better
| to do a fresh install, but of late, new ISO releases have
| been incredibly buggy - like the 24.04 LTS installer, which
| kept crashing for many users[6] - and considering that LTS
| is supposed to be the super-stable version, that is not a
| good user experience.
|
| Finally, my pet peeve is with how commercial Canonical have
| become, like with pushing their Pro subscriptions to
| targeting enterprises over end users. A couple of months
| ago, someone was complaining about how confusing the
| website had become, where the first "download" button you
| saw wasn't for the Ubuntu ISO, but some enterprise crap.
| Everything on the website just screamed "corporate"[7].
|
| It feels like Canonical has long shed it's newbie-friendly
| image and turned into a soulless corporation, not unlike
| Microsoft.
|
| [1] https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/mark-shuttleworth-
| explai...
|
| [2] https://linuxiac.com/ubuntu-once-again-angered-users-
| by-plac...
|
| [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLDQA2f1GM4
|
| [4] https://rl.bloat.cat/r/linux4noobs/comments/1cgw11u/sna
| ps_ar...
|
| [5] https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/02/05/done-with-ubuntu/
|
| [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1__qfYXtv0
|
| [7] https://bsky.app/profile/mary.my.id/post/3lghc4rjqg2vd
| hnlmorg wrote:
| "The year of the Linux desktop" has always been a stupid
| statement because it never quantifies what the success criteria
| is.
|
| For example, we now have first class games support via Proton.
| First class application support via Electron and other web
| technologies. Linux used in schools via Chromebooks. Etc
|
| Linux was never going to be Windows-killer but I'm constantly
| amazed at just how easy it is to use vanilla GNU Linux in a
| variety of previously closed domains and how Linux has taken
| over as the _de facto_ base for many commercial systems too
| (phones, tablets, Chromebooks, smart TVs, set top boxes, etc.
|
| There's also plenty of OEMs that support and even ship Linux
| systems. And that would have been unthinkable to anyone who
| lived through the 90s and saw how MS penalised OEMs and
| retailers for shipping non-MS OSs.
|
| So at what stage do people say "Linux desktop has picked up"?
| genewitch wrote:
| Do people still use desktops?
|
| To answer your question.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| "Desktop Linux" includes laptops, so yes.
| gf000 wrote:
| The Linux kernel is a beast of an engine at the heart of all
| sorts of things, from small to large.
|
| But the "desktop" itself refers to the GNU Linux userspace,
| which has plenty to criticize it for (with that said, I
| personally find windows to be worse on many counts). Desktop
| OSs are a generation behind mobile OSs, and they have a
| really hard time making that jump, with possibly OSX being
| the closest to it. They have a terribly insecure "security"
| model (compare the number of vulnerabilities per user for a
| desktop OS vs mobile - especially considering that they
| something like Linux desktop is barely targeted compared to
| the billions of android users) where your user usually runs
| your applications - this worked in the age of huge servers
| with lots of terminal users connected, where the number of
| processes running for=as the user were readily inspectable
| (due to their low number and being directly started by the
| user). But with applications we have tens of thousands of
| threads/processes running simultaneously. The processes are
| running _by_ me (and thus can do everything I can), but not
| directly _for_ me. The sane thing to do would be to run them
| in a sandbox, basically what android does (runs them as
| generated "system" users, and has a well-defined IPC
| architecture to cut holes only where necessary).
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| The year of Linux desktop already happened in 2006.
|
| That's when I switched to it full-time on my desktop and
| never looked back. It's the only success criteria I care
| about :)
| fsflover wrote:
| I'm already using Librem 5 as a daily driver. It challenging
| sometimes but also brings a lot of nice features like running
| desktop apps (Firefox with all plugins!) or native terminal.
| asdff wrote:
| I've been daily driving a posix compliant unix desktop since
| mac os 10.4. It has _been_ picked up my friend. Somehow people
| forget that mac os is the most polished desktop unix distro.
| Tepix wrote:
| Isn't every Android phone a Linux phone? OK, i guess we want
| something that is less encumbered and more transparent with more
| digital sovereignty for the user than the Android that we get
| from the various big phone vendors.
|
| What's the difference between an AOSP Android phone and a Linux
| phone? For me, there is no substantial difference. The Android
| based phone is likely to be way more usable the various "Linux
| phones". The linked article states " _Linux phones and their apps
| are all open-source and do not depend on ads or surveillance to
| sustain some nefarious business model, which means there is much
| privacy to be won._ " but this also applies to AOSP Android
| devices with open source apps.
|
| In other words: If you seek a Linux phone, why aren't you picking
| GrapheneOS or LineageOS? Is there anything else that's missing?
| forty wrote:
| GrapheneOS only supports a few specific Google phones, so it's
| not an option for most cases
| quotemstr wrote:
| It still makes zero sense to take the XDG/dbus/whatever stack
| and make it run on a phone, suboptimally, when AOSP is _right
| there_ and has _already solved_ all the thousands of
| integration issues you 'll run into --- plus, it's already
| free software.
|
| NIH is the only rationale for the "Linux" phone thing and
| it's why it will be forever fringe. People working on "Linux"
| phones as anything more than a diversion (why not play
| Factorio instead?) are wasting their time.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I agree with your overall point but the following comment
| is unnecessary:
|
| > People working on "Linux" phones as anything more than a
| diversion (why not play Factorio instead?) are wasting
| their time.
|
| People are free to spent their free time however they want.
| Some people view building things, whether it's furniture or
| software, more enjoyable than playing computer games or
| watching TV.
| aragilar wrote:
| One could ask why AOSP was created when there was an
| existing userland on linux that could be used (and was, by
| Nokia).
|
| More seriously, I think the reason people want to do this
| is threefold: 1. Android vendors almost universally seem to
| make it hard to run stock AOSP (and do the Windows
| bloatware thing that Windows vendors were known for), so a
| "linux phone" lets people run what they want and remove
| what they do not 2. AOSP, while open source, is not
| developed in any way like a community open source project,
| so their ability to change anything, especially anything
| Google does not want to change, is limited and means
| constant rebasing 3. AOSP doesn't really solve the "run a
| modern/non-buggy kernel" issue on existing vendor hardware
| (as far as I know), so if you're going to spend time on
| getting the kernel to work, you probably want to have a
| userland that is amenable for getting the kernel working,
| so AOSP isn't helpful there, and by the time you've done
| all this, you can probably just run the rest of the
| standard setup with a distro and tooling you are already
| familiar with
|
| I think the interesting thing would be if the modern kernel
| work from (3) could be used by an AOSP build and get the
| best of both worlds, or if by the time you do all this AOSP
| is too resource intensive to run on the device, and so
| running the alternative is the only option.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Not just Nokia - at least Trolltech and Motorola had
| their own stacks, and Openmoko predates Android release
| too.
|
| In fact, it was Nokia's stack that was the youngest one
| out of all these, as Maemo had no telephony capabilities
| pre-Android.
| guappa wrote:
| Try getting a patch into android vs getting a patch into a
| debian package and tell me how it's the same thing :D
| JCattheATM wrote:
| It makes sense because it gives you _complete_ control over
| your device, to a level even AOSP can 't touch.
| carpenecopinum wrote:
| For me personally at least a few aspects about this are
| efficiency and control:
|
| The number of CPU cycles my current android phone burns through
| just to boot and get ready to accept my "first useful input" is
| probably in the same order of magnitude as or higher than my
| old N900 would use for the entire day (600MHz single core vs. 8
| cores at several GHz). Yet somehow the N900 could easily run
| quite a lot of things in parallel and would still react quickly
| to inputs, while I decided to get rid of my previous (still
| several times more powerful) phone because it would regularly
| hang for 10 more seconds without any good reason (also there
| were no more OS updates).
|
| Also with the N900, I had control over every aspect of the
| system, I could easily script things in python without
| installing a huge app for it, which the OS would decide to
| randomly kill to save battery, etc.. Closest thing you can do
| on Android is root your phone and now every second app
| complains what a horrible person you are for wanting a bit more
| control over your own hardware.
|
| That being said, I too eventually buckled to the fact that all
| the software you need to make a smartphone useful/entertaining
| is pretty much only available for Android and iOS. And the most
| realistic way to get "Android-compatibility" to a Linux phone
| is to just ship an entire Android build with it, due to how
| interwoven things are on Android.
| holowoodman wrote:
| Fully agreed as a former N900 and now Fairphone+LineageOS
| user.
|
| Some more things to add: On the N900 updates were quick, easy
| and painless to a degree that no current phone OS matches:
| You just to "apt update && apt upgrade", reboot will only
| happen when really necessary, otherwise any small component
| (which are just .deb packages as in Debian or Ubuntu) will
| just be upgraded and restarted in place, without a big
| download, interruption and reboot. And most importantly,
| without waiting for a slow vendor to collect and package up
| all the tiny updates into a big 1GB package that can then be
| delivered weeks late...
|
| Also, Backups. The only backup solution for a non-rooted
| phone nowadays is "use our cloud, trust us", and even then
| backups are always incomplete, because an increasing number
| of apps set the "no-backup" flags and do (or not do) their
| own thing, selling you yet one more cloud subscription just
| to get your own data into "safety". And even with a rooted
| LineageOS, backups are still a huge pain and incomplete. On
| the N900, you could just run any old normal Linux backup
| software, and be done. Imagine, your phone just sending its
| stuff to your company tape library, no hassle!
|
| And (didn't try this, but should have worked): remote
| management. SSH into your users' phones to do stuff. Run
| ansible/puppet/..., manage them like any old Linux box. No
| tedious mobile device crap management that doesn't really do
| most of the useful shit, only works on half the hardware and
| in the end is just yet another cloud lock in by some vendor.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I switched from Nokia N900 to Librem 5 that I'm writing
| this from and I'm still enjoying these things. I miss the
| keyboard though.
| holowoodman wrote:
| Yes, hardware keyboards are another good thing from the
| past that got lost...
| Tepix wrote:
| All the Linux phones that i've used have felt _very_
| sluggish, even if they were pretty recent models.
|
| GrapheneOS on the other hand is very snappy.
| gf000 wrote:
| > What's the difference between an AOSP Android phone and a
| Linux phone?
|
| One is actually working without draining the battery in an hour
| and has an actually working security model.
|
| Sorry for the tongue in cheek reply, but I am in complete
| agreement with you.
| aragilar wrote:
| I know right, when will Android vendors actually release
| security patches on time?
| Tepix wrote:
| GrapheneOS is really good at this.
| guappa wrote:
| > actually working security model.
|
| ?
|
| If you use a famous and popular vendor like Samsung, if
| you're really really lucky your 0-day will take 9 months to
| be fixed.
| Tepix wrote:
| We're talking about AOSP Android here
| guappa wrote:
| It cannot be compiled as it is, so it's nothing that runs
| on any phone.
| rahen wrote:
| I definitely would switch to Lineage or /e/OS or anything
| more vanilla if I had a Samsung phone.
| immibis wrote:
| The term "Linux operating system" refers to
| Mozilla/systemd[optional]/Xorg/bash/GNU/Linux and does not
| refer to Google/Facebook/Samsung/Linux
| mrheosuper wrote:
| And who decided that ?
| immibis wrote:
| The same people who decided the meaning of words like
| "who", "decided" and "that": all of us
| fsflover wrote:
| > What's the difference between an AOSP Android phone and a
| Linux phone?
|
| The latter is:
|
| - not being developed by Google which chooses what's better for
| them,
|
| - provides convenient development tools,
|
| - runs any desktop Linux software, can serve as a desktop when
| connected to a keyboard/screen,
|
| - native terminal, including ssh, sshfs, X forwarding etc,
|
| - allows to choose the OS you run.
|
| More: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-
| wiki/-/wikis/Freque...
| rahen wrote:
| Those are very relevant for a Linux laptop, but much less so
| for a Linux smartphone. An AOSP-based distro like LineageOS,
| GrapheneOS, or /e/OS paired with Termux provides almost a all
| of this, with the added benefit of ART - quite possibly the
| most polished runtime in the Linux ecosystem.
|
| You can even plug a bluetooth keyboard and run Emacs on your
| Android / AOSP phone nowadays.
| 418tpot wrote:
| I currently run LineageOS and am constantly frustrated with
| its limitations every day.
|
| On desktop linux I can quickly write up a program to do
| most anything I want in pretty much any language, and in my
| text editor of choice. I don't know anything about android
| development and I don't really want to invest time in
| learning Google's proprietary GUI toolkit when QT/GTK, or
| even raw OpenGL is more portable. I once looked into it and
| gave up when it seemed like it was going to be very painful
| to write an app outside of android studio (why is there not
| just a CLI tool to compile these things?). On vanilla linux
| I can whip up most things in under an hour in C, Rust, or
| even Bash.
| rahen wrote:
| You absolutely can write something in C, Rust, Go, or
| whatever on Lineage. Just install Termux and the relevant
| packages (e.g., pkg install rust, etc.).
|
| AOSP is still vanilla Linux under the hood, just with a
| touch interface on top. Plus, ART is open-source and
| works great for GUI apps.
| mpol wrote:
| Anyone using PostmarketOS on a phone? And I mean as a daily
| driver, with no other phone. I have been following it for years
| and would like to switch someday, but that moment hasn't happened
| yet.
|
| Currently I use Sailfish from Jolla on a Sony phone. For a linux
| phone, it serves my needs. I would be open to change.
| carpenecopinum wrote:
| I have a OnePlus 6 becoming "free" soon and I will definitely
| give PostmarketOS a shot (I had a glance at their compatibility
| list and noticed the OP6 is on there). Thanks for bringing this
| to my attention!
| turtleyacht wrote:
| Here is one recent report after using PinePhone with
| PostmarketOS and Phosh for a few years:
|
| _Daily Driving a Linux Phone_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43750756 - 2 days ago (3
| points, 2 comments)
| vmaurin wrote:
| I do, a Oneplus 6, PMOS "edge" with OpenRC + Phosh. Everything
| is fine, except I still need to reboot the phone after each
| call to be sure to have the audio working
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| How is 4G calling (VoLTE) these days? Last I heard it needed
| quite a bit of a manual work to get it going.
| bionade24 wrote:
| Sailfish(OS) supports VoLTE in newer, supported devices.
| For community ports and other mobile Linux distros it's
| afaik still rare. Closed drivers and obtaining
| configurations for carriers in other countries are the 2
| big showstoppers.
| Piraty wrote:
| I do use a Pinephone (not pro) for 5y now. I switched to the
| "stable" branch of pmos 2y ago which made my life siginicantly
| more hassle free. Note that pmos support for pinephone (not
| pro) degraded in recent stable release, so i recommend to not
| run 24.12 but the prior version. you will still get occasional
| updates from the stable alpine branch it's based on (which
| makes 99% of available packages anyway).
|
| VoLTE works fine (phosh with gnome-calls)
|
| feel free to ask questions you may have
| mpol wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| Do you use Waydroid and Android apps? Apps like Whatsapp and
| Signal are things I use.
| guappa wrote:
| I used mobian for a few months, but I normally have 2 sim
| cards, and battery life was really short.
|
| Not that android with 2 SIM cards works good, but it seems no
| phones with 2 sims are supported by linux at the moment.
|
| The geniuses at google can't comprehend the concept of "call
| numbers from country X with number from country X, do the same
| for country Y" so I must manually select by myself every single
| time and I get charged some obscene amount of money if I click
| wrong.
| adornKey wrote:
| I now use PostmarketOS as a daily driver on the old standard
| Pinephone, and it looks good to me. After trying a few recent
| distributions PostmarketOS seemed to work best.
|
| Before PostmarketOS I used Arch on a Pinephone Pro for 2 years,
| but I think it finally updated itself into oblivion... The
| software never reached a really stable state, but I was
| surprised, that it worked so long.
|
| In the beginning of the PinePhone I think Mobian worked best,
| but the most recent version didn't look as good as PostmarketOS
| to me.
| Arnavion wrote:
| I maintain the PinePhone for pmOS. It's my only phone and I've
| been using it without major problems (not including temporary
| regressions) since 2021. I use it for calls, SMS, camera,
| firefox and a couple of Android applications in Waydroid
| (Element X, Doordash).
|
| Can't speak for the other user who says "degraded in recent
| stable release"; I use edge and I'm not aware of any issues,
| and latest stable is as stable as edge is.
|
| Edit: Actually, one "degraded" in the last few months is that
| GTK dropped support for hardware acceleration on the PP's
| ancient GPU (2008, GLES 2 only, gtk requires 3 now) so GNOME-
| related DEs like Phosh use the CPU for rendering now. It's
| still snappy enough for the way I use it but it might be slow
| for videos and such.
| greatgib wrote:
| If you want a Linux phone that could be your daily driver, I
| would highly recommend the furiphone of furilabs
| (https://furilabs.com/).
|
| I got one from the Fosdem and it is truly amazing! Contrary to
| previous things I tried, like the pinephone, this one is really
| totally usable for everyday with everything that you could need
| (phone, SMS, 4g/5g, ...). Especially, for one time it has a very
| good camera, on par with some Xiaomi phones, that is really ok
| when you like to take pictures.
|
| Basically, it is a kind of a debian, but there is something very
| amazing, waydroid, that allows to run Android apps like if it was
| native apps but with full control other their rights, like being
| in a sandbox.
|
| The only issue that is not really solvable is that a lot of apps
| are requiring the Google integrity verification shit, so your are
| forced to connect with your Google account to the play store or
| Google services to be able to use them. Like these shitty OpenAI
| and Mistral apps...
| genewitch wrote:
| > so your are forced to connect with your Google account
|
| Slight adjustment to your verbiage: you are forced to interact
| with Google, but I don't recall having to give a phone number
| for emulators. Then again, one didn't need a microsofr account
| to use windows until recently, so I might be wrong.
|
| Tablets and things like x86 android exist so I don't know that
| Google can enforce phone numbers anyhow, if you want a separate
| login for each device...
| greatgib wrote:
| It is not that you have to "interact" with Google the
| problem, in the sense of interacting like downloading an app.
| You can use the Aurora store, but once you try to use the
| app, the app itself will redirect you to an oauth2 login for
| your Google account, the kind that is associating your
| "phone"/Google service globally with your Google account. And
| this despite the fact that I will only use password login for
| openai and mistral, that should not be linked to Google
| anyway.
|
| In addition with integrity verification, I can easily think
| that they are using it for "push notifications" that will
| also travel through Google.
|
| So, it is not only that you will have to "interact" with
| Google, but the fact that you will be forced to let Google
| track you: which phone you use, which ip, which app with
| which account, used when, where, ...".
|
| That defects a little bit the purpose to have a "free" phone
| if you still have to give your data to Google.
|
| So the problem is the "push" not the "pull".
| notpushkin wrote:
| Aurora Store also runs a bunch of their own throwaway
| Google accounts you can use (the "anonymous" option on the
| sign-in screen). Usually works great, though sometimes
| takes a few tries to get a working account.
|
| Many apps do require passing the integrity check, though,
| but microG is getting better on that front (and IIRC you
| don't need a Google account for that).
| genewitch wrote:
| sorry, my comment didn't convey my desired inflection. You
| don't need _your_ google account. you just need _a_ google
| account. As in, you can use a throw-away "google account".
| Or, one could, a year ago, at least.
|
| I get that there's still a google profile on your usage of
| the device, and i'm sure they have a way to link it to your
| _other_ profile(s).
| jpnc wrote:
| >fur iphone
|
| Science has gone too far!
|
| Seriously, thanks for pointing this one out. I haven't heard of
| it before.
| greatgib wrote:
| Terrible auto complete, thanks for the notification, I was
| able to correct still.
|
| So furiphone (fxl1) and hopefully nothing related to
| "iphone".
| lucb1e wrote:
| Since the shop is super slow and intermittently giving a "Error
| establishing a database connection", for those having trouble:
| it's just above 600EUR (base 550$ + VAT + shipping). At 17x8cm
| it's among the largest phones you can get, competing with e.g.
| the Ulefone 18T Ultra (the one with the FLIR camera, but
| Android). It has a headphone jack (big plus) but at that size,
| I just can't use that sadly. This glowing review really made me
| reconsider whether to see if a "real Linux" phone can work for
| me given how many years I've been using Linux desktops
| exclusively now
| greatgib wrote:
| Indeed, on the bad side it is a little large (like the
| biggest iphone I guess but can still dit in a jean pocket), a
| little heavy, battery life average, and not perfect, like
| with the expectable rough edges that makes it a
| developer/tech enthousiast thing but not general public.
|
| But, compared to the pinephone and co, this is the first one
| that could be used as a daily driver, without another read
| android backup phone. And it works well out of the box,
| without firmware flashing or any console/dev operation.
| d3Xt3r wrote:
| For completeness sake, here are a couple of other decent
| alternatives to the FuriPhone:
|
| 1. The Volla Phone Quintus, with Ubuntu Touch:
| https://volla.online/de/shop/volla-phone-quintus/
|
| 2. Jolla C2 (or any other supported Xperia device), with
| SailfishOS: https://commerce.jolla.com/products/Jolla-
| community-phone
| nextos wrote:
| Jolla is really good. SFOS can even run lots of Android apps
| on an emulator, including banking apps, with zero issues. And
| the native ones are a delight to use, great indie apps. I
| wish they got funding from EU and became a completely open
| source alternative to the duopoly.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Have been running Sailfish OS on my primary phone since
| 2013 - works fine. Avoids a lot of the Android pitfalls,
| like being abble to easily SSH in and upload/backup data or
| total absence of advertizing anywhere. :)
| npodbielski wrote:
| 300 euros does not seem much. Worth a try.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| > Your purchase includes a 12-month Sailfish OS full
| license subscription valued at EUR59.88 (EUR4.99/month),
| granting access to all releases, commercial components, and
| feature upgrades. After the first year, you can choose to
| continue your subscription and support Sailfish OS
| development further. Even without renewal, your device will
| continue to function, but future software updates and
| commercial component upgrades will not be available.
|
| Just a note of something I came across when looking just
| now. Don't mind paying for continued development but worth
| knowing before you buy.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's an Android device with an old unsupported kernel that runs
| a hacked up Debian-ish userspace on top of Android layer. While
| that may be good enough for some, it's not what some of us
| want.
|
| I'll stay with my Librem 5, which is also totally usable, runs
| actual Debian, runs Waydroid too, and does not bring me Halium
| pain.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| Most of what I have read has indicated that the Librem 5 is
| NOT a great daily driver (which was a huge letdown for me).
| How do you like it?
| margalabargala wrote:
| Looking at what's missing from their roadmap here:
| https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
|
| No videos? Fine, I rarely take videos.
|
| No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the
| 3.5mm jack, I could live without it.
|
| No GPS? This one would be a deal-breaker for me.
|
| But depending on the person I can see it being usable.
| AAAAaccountAAAA wrote:
| Ouch. It seems to be even more incomplete than I thought.
| The lack of Bluetooth and GPS is kind of surprising,
| since those things have worked on Linux laptops for at
| least a couple of decades or so.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Both work fine on Librem 5 as well and have worked for
| years now.
| jasode wrote:
| _> No bluetooth? Mildly annoying, but especially with the
| 3.5mm jack, I could live without it._
|
| For most people, it can be difficult to _predict future
| scenarios for Bluetooth_ that 's unrelated to wireless
| earphones. I always use wired earphones and didn't think
| I ever needed Bluetooth and always had it disabled.
| However, I was later forced to use it to configure new
| devices. E.g.:
|
| - internet router (Eero) from ISP has no buttons or a
| status display so required Bluetooth on smartphone to
| configure it
|
| - battery backup power station (Delta Ecoflow) require
| Bluetooth to configure them
|
| The common theme is for device manufacturers to avoid
| adding elaborate LCD displays or touchscreen interfaces
| to the actual device and instead -- offload the
| configuration UI to the customers' smartphones... which
| necessitates pairing via Bluetooth.
| amlib wrote:
| > offload the configuration UI to the customers'
| smartphones... which necessitates pairing via Bluetooth.
|
| And an app that eventually gets delisted or whatever and
| your interfaceless device gets turned into a pumpkin...
| teddyh wrote:
| That image is seriously out of date. Bluetooth, GPS, and
| even recording video all work fine.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Video recording implementation could be better though,
| but other stuff works well indeed :)
|
| In fact all things from that chart are there and have
| been there for years now, including 20h battery life and
| encrypted SIP calls.
| margalabargala wrote:
| That's great to know; but Purism really ought update
| that, I'm sure they are losing sales from that being so
| out of date.
| craftkiller wrote:
| I'm just a single data point, but FWIW after the first week
| the only time I ever (literally) dust off my librem 5 is to
| show people what a joke of a phone I waited 4 years for.
| Purism had the right goals (mainline linux kernel, no run-
| time loadable closed sourced blobs, user-serviceable,
| hardware kill-switches) but the implementation is only
| worthy of a participation trophy. The phone would randomly
| drop calls (though I've heard this is finally fixed), the
| UI was terrible (UI elements rendered partially off-screen,
| a useless maps application that complained about a missing
| location service), the battery life is so terrible that
| carrying around a 2nd battery is common advice, and the
| hardware was anemic back when the phone was announced which
| made the difference even more noticeable when the phone
| finally came out half a decade later.
|
| I'm glad I own the phone for the same reason that I regret
| not holding on to my G1 (the first android phone): Its a
| neat piece of history. But alas, it will never see use as
| an actual phone.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It works fine for me, I'm typing this on one right now. I'm
| still waiting for something that could replace it as it
| gets older, but I don't see anything viable out there yet.
|
| The question is whether you're able to live without Android
| & iOS, perhaps with some limited help from Waydroid. If the
| answer is yes, as it is for me, then it's a great daily
| driver.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I have been using an Altair 8800 as my daily driver for about
| 50 years now. It's really not a big deal to enter
| instructions through the switch panel, especially with good
| gloves, and it does basically everything I want it to.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Good for you, though I prefer my device to be reasonably
| capable for real world tasks and hassle-free while
| providing me the ability to run the latest software and to
| hack on it however I want. Otherwise I would stay on N900,
| as I still miss its keyboard.
| kernal wrote:
| The lengths people go to for a horrible Ui/UX and app
| experience is bewildering. I guess they justify it by not
| caving into Google or Apple. Of course, all of their privacy
| concerns and safeguards go away when the credit cards,
| utilities and services they use all circumvent their precious
| Linux phone. But hey, at least you're running Linux on your
| phone, right?
| rixed wrote:
| It is unclear to me what alternative you are proposing,
| apart from bending to Google and Apple?
| kernal wrote:
| There is no alternative. Unless you pay by cash and have
| verified that all of the utilities and services you
| consume are not laundering your data then you're just
| wasting your time by putting up with a horrible phone OS
| experience.
| AAAAaccountAAAA wrote:
| The perfection fallacy?
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I don't use GNU/Linux on my phone for "privacy". It's an
| added benefit, but not the point.
|
| I use it because it's familiar, hackable and respectful
| to my attention. It works the way _I_ want it to work and
| it 's capable enough to fulfill all my needs. Switching
| to Android would be a downgrade on all these aspects. I'm
| aware that it would be an upgrade in some other aspects
| that I care about less.
| spencerflem wrote:
| One of these days I'll get a phone that can run Genode's Sculpt
| Movile OS.
| Uptrenda wrote:
| Good luck. Almost every service you need for a smart phone to be
| "smart" anything requires being part of the Google or Apple
| botnet. Yeah, you can install whatever crap you like on your
| phone. Maybe it will do SMS? Kewl. Want maps, mobile banking,
| 2-factor auth, different password managers, music streaming, and
| so on... good luck without one of the app stores. Also, being
| unplugged sometimes means your phone won't even work for calling
| beyond SMS. Since its baked into the ROM image and you have to
| hope that the devs have added support for your hardware. So you
| trade a smart phone (a useful device for the modern world) for a
| goofy neckbeard terminal in your pocket (too small to be used for
| any complex input.)
| immibis wrote:
| You can do a lot of this on the web.
|
| Hang on, did you just cite 2-factor auth as something that
| requires a proprietary app? And password managers?
| instagib wrote:
| Some countries have a high number of scams. You need to
| physically go to a bank, verify multiple forms of id, facial
| scan, get their app with facial recognition, and hope your
| face does not deviate when traveling. A relative gained 20lbs
| traveling and facial recognition failed. They had to ask a
| friend to pay their bills and go back to their home country
| to re-verify everything. Some companies require specific apps
| for authentication too.
| Arnavion wrote:
| I actually run Waydroid on my Linux phone because of 2FA. All
| my personal 2FAs are just TOTPs in a keepassxc DB synced
| between my phone and my PCs (accessed via gnome-secrets on
| the phone). But my $dayjob requires MS Authenticator in the
| "here's a 2-digit number, open MS Authenticator on your phone
| and type them in to approve" mode, so I have to run that in
| waydroid.
| INTPenis wrote:
| I was daily driving Linux phones 15 years ago! It's crazy to
| think back on the journey. I have great nostalgia for the Nokia
| N900 but god damn Maemo/Meego was a piece of shit. When you can't
| even answer phone calls it's not daily driving anymore, it's beta
| testing.
|
| After that I tried Firefox OS but it was switfly replaced by
| Android, thank the gods for Android.
| jonesjohnson wrote:
| Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. My experience with the N900 (and
| the N9 later) was pretty decent. The N900 was way ahead of its
| time. I got it in 2010. popped in a 32G uSD-card and I had
| 64GB, which was already a lot. The UI was amazing. True
| multitasking on a phone. IIRC the iPhone at that time wasn't
| able to do that. usable HW keyboard, headphone jack, two
| cameras, proper two-stage camera button, a little stand to prop
| it op, replaceable battery, IR emitter (there was a tv-b-gone
| app!), FM Transmitter to hear audio in any car...
|
| It was a (small) brick and the resistive touch display + stylus
| was not perfect, but okay.
|
| The software ecosystem was not good, though. Userbase was
| small. And when Nokia finally dropped it, it remained the first
| and last of its kind, so noone was keen on keeping developing
| for it.
|
| Meego was getting better, and Sailfish is actually really ok.
|
| I'm "temporarily" (4 years now...) using Android ("/e/os" -
| what a stupid name), but since I do not want to use any Google
| Services, I feel that it's always just whack-a-mole to get the
| app you want running on the device and have it properly
| working...
| codethief wrote:
| > Many will point out that a Linux phone is less secure than
| Android or iOS, but that highly depends on your personal threat
| model. Linux phones and their apps are all open-source and do not
| depend on ads or surveillance to sustain some nefarious business
| model, which means there is much privacy to be won.
|
| Meanwhile here I am on my Linux machine, constantly anxious that
| sooner or later one of my bazillion npm and pip dependencies will
| get compromised, and secretly praying that one day proper
| sandboxing and an Android-security model will be common on the
| Linux desktop, so that I can erect security boundaries between my
| applications and repositories.
|
| I find this quote[0] by the developer of SpectrumOS[1] rather
| telling: <qyliss> I have embarked on the
| ultimate yak shave <qyliss> it started with "I wish I
| could securely store passwords on my computer" <qyliss>
| And now I am at the "I have funding to build my own operating
| system" level
|
| [0]: https://alyssa.is/about/
|
| [1]: https://spectrum-os.org/
| guappa wrote:
| Firejail and apparmor have existed for years. If you don't use
| them maybe it's your fault?
|
| Also the very same npm backdoors have already hit android apps.
| What can sandboxing do if you backdoor a dependency of your
| banking app?
| aragilar wrote:
| Or go old-school with multiple users and chroots? You could
| even install from (and host) a trusted repository, where the
| source and binaries are vetted (and you can pay people to do
| this for you).
| xorcist wrote:
| Server software is usually compartmentalized in uid:s but
| desktop software seldom is, if ever. Package managers and
| maintainers could do a lot here to make it easier. Some
| things long time Linux users like to do, like running
| Firefox as a separate user, is still a much more involved
| process than it should be.
|
| A lot of it is probably standards and culture work, like
| where a user can expect to store files and have them
| readable by Firefox in this example. So perhaps this is
| something the GNOME/Freedesktop people could have been
| interested in and made a difference? Instead we have things
| like Flatpak, which is good but not the lowest hanging
| fruit here.
| aragilar wrote:
| For user-facing stuff, I agree it's hard because of the
| challenge of managing access to data (and I would argue
| no system does this well, Android has a different set of
| failure modes, and I've not used QubesOS but presumably
| it has it's own issues as well), but in the top-level
| comment, the concern was around using pip/npm, which to
| me is almost a solved problem if you care enough and are
| willing to put the effort (and money) in.
|
| It's also not like Linux is any different with respect to
| installing random PyPI/npm packages on any other
| desktop/laptop OS (https://xkcd.com/1200/), so I'm not
| sure anything desktop Linux does here would change the
| fact that installing random software from the internet
| may be a bad idea sometimes ;)
| taeric wrote:
| Completely agreed on this. Linux, by and large, should
| actually be far easier here? Have a "work account" for
| your machine where you do these tasks and you are
| basically there. Switching to a gaming account or your
| banking/etc. seems easy enough?
| guappa wrote:
| You're going to deal with the users who can't attach a
| file to an email because the firefox process has no
| access to it?
| taeric wrote:
| To be fair, if firefox had the intelligence to know that
| it was being asked to attach a file it didn't have access
| to, it could prompt for a password. I don't expect full
| TRAMP like smarts from Emacs, but I don't see why this
| wouldn't be doable?
|
| Granted, I'm viewing this as far easier than the sandbox
| "fake file system" approach? Firefox would be able to see
| the file exists, most likely, but just not have read
| rights to it. Yes, you can have some things it can't
| list, but I would expect that to be low on probability to
| want to attach to an email?
| tholdem wrote:
| Sandboxing should be built in and by default, not DIY and
| glued on, like with apparmor and firejail.
|
| "Your car does not come with a seatbelt? Seatbelt parts are
| easy to order online and assembled on any car, it's your
| fault for not using one."
|
| > Also the very same npm backdoors have already hit android
| apps. What can sandboxing do if you backdoor a dependency of
| your banking app?
|
| The whole point of sandboxing is that one compromised app can
| not compromise the whole system and other apps. Compromised
| dependency on my banking app on Android or iOS only
| compromises that banking app and nothing else.
| dustbunny wrote:
| Fedora Silverblue is this
| tholdem wrote:
| It may be in the future, but for now it is no different
| from Fedora Workstation in terms of security. Please
| correct me if I am wrong. AFAIK Silverblue has no
| additional sandboxing or any other improvements to
| security.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| Pretty sure Fedora, being based on Red Hat, has the
| strongest SELinux policy in place by default, and SELinux
| is pretty much the best sandboxing option available other
| than actual virtualization.
| pona-a wrote:
| How so? I'm writing this from an Fedora Sericea, which is
| Silverblue but with Sway instead of GNOME. Atomic Fedoras
| solve only package hysteresis (your package manager being
| unable to reproduce the intended system state because of
| unaccounted for changes) by generating the root file
| system with OSTree. It has nothing to do with sandboxing
| the applications themselves.
| Arnavion wrote:
| It does in the sense that all the applications you
| install will be via flatpak, so they get sandboxed that
| way. Of course it depends on how locked down the sandbox
| is configured for each of those applications.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| This is a solved problem if you trust the packaging folks for
| your distro. Most end-users will never need to install some
| random stuff from npm or pypi: these are developer-specific
| concerns.
| diggan wrote:
| > Most end-users [...] these are developer-specific concerns
|
| I'd wager a bet and say most end-users who end up using Linux
| are, by one definition or more, developers.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Meanwhile here I am on my Linux machine, constantly anxious
| that sooner or later one of my bazillion npm and pip
| dependencies will get compromised, and secretly praying that
| one day proper sandboxing and an Android-security model will be
| common on the Linux desktop, so that I can erect security
| boundaries between my applications and repositories.
|
| Why wait? You can shove your pip/npm uses into docker/podman
| and remove 90% of the attack surface today. (Provided you don't
| map your home directory into the containers)
| progbits wrote:
| Docker is not a security barrier. There have been plenty of
| container escape attacks in the past, and plenty more to
| come.
|
| But I agree it might remove the 90%.
| asdff wrote:
| Just another reason not to needlessly update dependencies. To
| say nothing about the risk of compromising legacy code. And if
| you are someone who updates your dependencies constantly just
| because, consider that for many of the packages you are
| updating into they don't even do that and use some ancient
| dependency themselves owing to legacy code issue and the fact
| everyone for some reason wants to rename all their functions
| and flags every major version change.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| - opensnitch
|
| - flatpak
|
| - docker/podman/vm, etc
|
| - /etc/shadow has been around for decades.
|
| - Boot/login with TPM / Yubikey etc around for a decade.
| nicexe wrote:
| I have a FreeBSD VM on my iPhone but I'm not using it for any
| phone-related tasks.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| You couldn't even if you wanted to, right? Doesn't apple have
| pretty crazy restrictions on VMs?
| Distilitron wrote:
| Have read this with one thought: "I don't deseve this shit"
| Distilitron wrote:
| And yes this nonencrypted shit is totally insecure
| guappa wrote:
| While the never fixed 0days on android are completely secure.
|
| And let's not forget the several noclick attacks that can root
| your iphone with a message :)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| What makes you think it's not encrypted?
| https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Full_disk_encryption seems
| to indicate that support varies a bit by device but it's
| perfectly doable.
| Arnavion wrote:
| Note that the initramfs is stored without encryption or
| signing. So while your data won't be leaked when your phone
| gets stolen, it should be considered compromised if you get
| it back.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Sure, lack of secure boot is a tradeoff. Of course, by the
| same token you can just reflash the boot partition and fix
| that.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I get that the appeal of using a Linux phone is being able to say
| "my phone is a Linux phone" but you could also just say that
| about any phone anyway. Most people will just nod when you say
| that and occasionally somebody will get incandescently angry.
| That is fine, good even. Variety is the spice of life
| Jhsto wrote:
| I have been thinking daily driving Linux phone just to manage
| smartphone addiction. My first step was to get rid of my MacBook.
| Now, a year later, I think I'm ready to get rid of the Apple
| Watch. With the watch, it has been surprising how much you think
| you _need_ to record your HR and workouts -- but it 's just
| another bogus number that you don't need. Later the year I think
| I'll be finally ready for the phone. This would happen by getting
| an iPad mini first, which would stay at home while I go to work
| with the phone only. I think the hard class of apps to get rid of
| is mainly "Travel", plus password manager (I use passage but the
| transition will take time) + Find My. But travel is very much
| planned in my life, so for those occasions I can take my iPad
| mini with me.
| saidinesh5 wrote:
| Smartphone addiction usually just means using one or more of
| the social media apps... (Twitter, YouTube, instagram, reddit
| etc...)
|
| All of them work just fine on the mobile browser on these Linux
| OSes...
|
| What you'll get stuck with is the lack of useful smartphone
| apps like bank apps, payment apps, navigation apps etc...
| nottorp wrote:
| > it has been surprising how much you think you need to record
| your HR and workouts
|
| Start a martial art instead :) Things like jewelry, fitness
| bands and watches aren't generally allowed during training and
| will only last for a few sessions even if allowed anyway.
|
| That should get you used to not monitoring everything.
| mft_ wrote:
| But why, indeed.
|
| Years ago, I met someone (through another friend) who worked in
| CS, and was _super_ into digital privacy. He was the first person
| I knew to run a Linux phone, for privacy reasons. He tried to pay
| for as much as possible by cash, and maintained his accounts
| manually on paper. The only way to contact him was by text
| message (intermittently, unreliably) or via a specific client
| using the Matrix protocol. My friend and I both installed the
| client to be able to contact him and maintain a friendship.
|
| After a few months, we both lost contact with him simultaneously:
| something was updated in the client, and it was impossible to re-
| establish contact with him without a F2F interaction
| (="privacy"). Sadly, he was also uncontactable by text message.
| For both of us, the friendship simply ceased to exist.
|
| My reflection is that such things --as with many things in life--
| are on a spectrum. At some point on the spectrum, as you head
| towards the extreme end, your position on that spectrum (be it
| voluntary or --as with disease-- involuntary) start to impair
| your ability to live (what might be considered) a normal
| functional life. I'd also hazard that moving towards that extreme
| end of the spectrum beings increasing small gains, coupled with
| increasingly large downsides.
|
| I'm not suggesting that running a pure Linux phone is extreme,
| but it's definitely in the middle zone where there are definite
| downsides.
| mac-attack wrote:
| I had a similar experience with GrapheneOS. There is a balance
| in act between continuing down the privacy rabbit hole versus
| being able to communicate effectively with your social circle
| and it is easy to double down on privacy at the cost of
| relationships if you are not aware of how it is affecting
| others.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I have my own problems with GrapheneOS, but I thought they
| made a great effort to make sure that it didn't really have
| that kind of downside. What problems did you hit?
| em-bee wrote:
| i feel you, but these downsides have nothing to do with a linux
| phone, but with your friends privacy preferences. i am trying
| to be like that friend, except that i keep more communications
| channels open. i mean, verifying contacts face to face is one
| thing, but then we ought to at least have one unverified
| channel to arrange a meeting or a video chat.
|
| also there are more safe options, like deltachat that don't
| depend on a phone at all. if we live in the same city we could
| have regular hangouts where we'd be able to meet without any
| prior arrangements. or if we know each other well enough you
| know where i live, or have contact to family members.
|
| this is a matter of priority. i keep using the chinese wechat
| despite privacy concerns because it is the only way to stay in
| touch with friends and family in china. i long refused to use
| it, but as a consequence some friends from that time are now
| lost.
|
| but outside of china matrix and deltachat are the best options
| even with android. and matrix unfortunately isn't even that
| good[1]. it still fails some times, and it is difficult to
| maintain a server and keep it spam free.
|
| [1] matrix is getting better, but the key handling is complex,
| and at least one seurity minded friend rejected it in disgust
| last year when for unknown reasons at one point the encryption
| between us failed and we could not talk to each other. it's a
| problem when even tech oriented people privacy minded people
| reject matrix.
| FredPret wrote:
| > but with your friends privacy preferences.
|
| Network effects and human nature combines to make this a
| completely insurmountable obstacle. You'll likely never
| convince even a sizable minority of your own friends & family
| to do tech things the hard way because you think it's more
| private that way.
|
| That is the argument in favour of being a bit more mainstream
| - you get to interface with the rest of humanity with much
| less friction.
| erxam wrote:
| It is kind of extreme. I personally daily drove the OG
| Pinephone for about a year-and-a-half, back in 2020. I bought
| in during the postmarketOS edition.
|
| I'm still dealing with the fallout from the choices I made in
| order to conform with that phone. And at the end of the day...
| I got nothing out of it. Nothing but issues, problems and
| inconveniences.
|
| The modem eventually stopped working for some reason, and I
| moved to an iPhone 7 that had been abandoned for quite some
| time.
|
| It felt like I had let out a breath I had been holding in for
| years.
| gehsty wrote:
| As a layman in terms of security and operating systems, is this
| actually more secure or private than using iOS in lockdown mode
| and communicating via iMessage? Feels OTT for anything you
| might talk about in a personal relationship
| MelodyUwU wrote:
| same here, i daily drive linux on my phone, ditched the
| prioprietary OSs long ago
| jonesjohnson wrote:
| How are you dealing with companies that force you to use an
| Android app? There are so many services in daily life where
| people just expect me to have an Android/iPhone device. Those
| things are increasingly difficult to achieve in a different
| way.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Because Android and iOS serve other masters.
|
| Its's not just that this is morally unsound, it's fucking
| infuriating. Imagine JD Rockefeller had arranged it so that your
| pen and paper constantly nagged you and tried to trick you into
| buying things.
|
| I'm calling it now, society is going to collapse and it's going
| to be because of software and hardware working together in tandem
| to make life miserable and expensive and only accessible through
| authorized devices and apps for the best possible experience.
|
| (I do have a PinePhone Pro, and it has its own problems, but
| they're merely inconvenient rather than life-draining.)
| hnpolicestate wrote:
| Digital fascism is the future. The majority don't care. A
| friend wanted to stream a clip from YouTube with me on discord
| and actually chose the completely DMR ridden YouTube Discord
| app instead of just streaming directly from YouTube.
|
| Why would someone make that their first choice? I don't know
| but they do.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| It's the present, for several years. And if you're connecting
| discord with youtube you've already lost. :-D
| verisimi wrote:
| Fascism is our actual governance system - if you define it as
| 'government and corporations working together', as Mussolini
| did. It is just that we are mostly under the illusion that we
| live in a democracy.
|
| It is long in the planning that software and hardware work
| together - look into technocracy. Smart anything = spy. Smart
| meters are tools to monitor resource usage. Smart phones are
| spying/reporting on you. Ai will guide you.
|
| You will be irritated and fined to death if you do not conform
| with the plan.
|
| Global warming, terrorists and child porn are the various
| justifications given to justify whatever-new-loss-of-
| privacy/resource extraction is required.
|
| Even so, individuals will be fine. You don't have to willingly
| give up your heart and soul to join the borg. That extra
| yatch/holiday/holiday home will not appease your true self. How
| many times do you need to come back?
| brbcompiling wrote:
| Anyone tried Linux phones for daily use? Not those Android ones,
| but real Linux. Just wondering how it works in real life compared
| to Android/iOS?
| m4rtink wrote:
| Sailfish OS works fine. :)
| butz wrote:
| Probably a silly question, but what is the smallest modern phone
| one could get new, to run Linux on and have at least basic phone
| and sms functionality working?
| craftkiller wrote:
| I haven't used any of these but unihertz makes some truly tiny
| android phones. I see that people have put Linux on the titan,
| but the jelly line is where the really small phones are.
| Unfortunately, afaict, those are stuck on android for now.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Many will point out that a Linux phone is less secure than
| Android or iOS, but that highly depends on your personal threat
| model.
|
| 99% of people should live their lives without a personal threat
| model.
| throwanem wrote:
| This isn't like a paper notebook at all! I carry two of those
| every day and they never, ever kernel panic.
| yndoendo wrote:
| I too am looking for a Linux phone as a daily to decouple from
| Google.
|
| Currently using a Fairphone with \e\OS. microG is prone to crash
| on the latest system update but not a big issues. Navigation work
| just fine too across the USA.
|
| Ordered the FuriPhone and tried to get it in before the Tariff
| Wars. Currently waiting for it to enter shipping limbo from the
| manufacturer.
|
| Hoping that the USA Government's treatment of foreign counties
| helps ignite the push to move away from Apple, Google, Microsoft,
| Facebook, and others. Linux and BSD are most likely to benefit in
| the tech transition. Lower cost to bring up infrastructure and
| features allow for removing larges USA corporations as daily
| drivers.
|
| I'm getting tired of all the Enshitification those companies are
| jumping on to as the new business model.
|
| P.S. We need to stop using the "Gated Community" analogy when
| speaking of Apple and Google with phones. A real gated community
| allows owners the addition of more personal security; guards,
| cameras, and security systems. Apple and Google do not allow
| owners to improve security; firewall, direct backups, and removal
| of useless applications. The closet analogy I can come up with is
| "Prison Community".
| tmtvl wrote:
| I have a Volla X22 (or whatever) with Ubuntu Touch. I can send
| SMS messages, I can call people, and I can listen to music.
| That's about 80% of what I want a smartphone for taken care of
| (and the music wouldn't be necessary if there were decent MP3/OGG
| players which support OPUS, but alas, smartphones killed portable
| music players).
|
| I did jump through some hoops to install Firefox and get it
| working with the phone's touchscreen keyboard so I can use
| digital bus tickets rather than physical ones. I also went and
| installed Waydroid so I can use WhatsApp for my kung fu club when
| it's needed.
|
| There are a couple of bike rental companies in Belgium which
| require one to install an Android/iPhone app to use their
| services, but I have decided not to give them the time of day.
| kps wrote:
| I don't want a phone, I want a pocket computer (with
| connectivity).
| neilsimp1 wrote:
| Still using my Librem 5 (2 years in).
|
| Still works.
|
| Still like it.
| johnea wrote:
| Getting it to boot is barely even a first step.
|
| If the author especially liked the camera of that phone, it was
| probably because of the custom app that interfaced to the sensor.
|
| Getting good photography on a linux phone has been one of the
| enduring problems. Akin to overcoming custom graphics drivers for
| early linux SoC development.
|
| Like the other (currently top ranked) comment, I highly recommend
| the furiphone as the current peak of linux phone development.
|
| https://furilabs.com/
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