The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone(jleightcap.srht.site) |
The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone(jleightcap.srht.site) |
My dream would be a phone that has Android on the handset but I can plug it into a USBC dock with connected displays, keyboard, mouse and a Linux desktop environment would be displayed on the external displays.
No? Twice, and both were upgrades for new hardware features, not required replacement due to parts failure or loss of software support.
Apple; my iphone 6S (released 2015) runs iOS 15 just fine. https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/supported-models-iphe...
7+ years of support certainly permits a phone every 5 for a nicer camera...
It's a more integrated, user-friendly LineageOS fork that uses microG to replace Google services.
edit: Looks like the maintainer also plans to go official with LineageOS 19 again, so that’s even better.
The Nokia N9 is the only phone I've ever wanted and M$ killed it.
> This is not something I'd recommend unless you're truly dedicated to open source and want to be early to the first generation of open source telephony.
The OpenMoko was the first generation of open source telephony :)
I’d wager we’re in the second now. I could almost argue the Nokia N9 was the progenitor of that too, but that’s a much longer bow to draw haha
Yes, they absolutely do.
"How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years? Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones,<...>"
Answer: 'many' in both instances.
Where possible, I root my phones and install LineageOS or other similar 'open' O/S. In instances where there's no LineageOS available or where LineageOS doesn't provide a full implementation of the phone's original software (in that some essential feature that I require is either missing or doesn't work properly under LineageOS) then I still root the original OEM's O/S and then deGgoogle it the best I can—that is, nuke all of Google's apps as well as all of the OEM's junkware apps then install GApps as well as various alternatives to Google's software, etc. including a firewall to stop certain apps getting access to ads.
I always install two essential apps, F-Droid (store) and Aurora Store which spoofs access to Google's Playstore.
Note: Be very careful in how you logon to Google's sites (that is if you still use them, Gmail for instance (luckily, I don't). Failure to take great care will mean that you'll be deemed by Google of having violated its terms of service and your account will be revoked or suspended!!
Most of you who will be reading this already know all these details, so the most significant thing I have to say is that I NO longer advocate to my friends that they ought to root their phones. I even include my many technical friends who could easily root their phones if they wanted to do so in this rule—because it's just not worth the risk of aliening them when things stuff up (as they often do) when phones are rooted.
Diehards like me have either no problems or they're problems I can easily live with. The trouble, however, is that the Google ecosystem is so addictive and all embracing that even many savvy techies find that they cannot live without certain features, or alternatively, they're so engrossed in using their apps that they haven't the time to even look for alternatives let alone take sufficient effort to evaluate them properly.
In my opinion, it's this utterly strong grip that Google has on its users that's the key issue—and major problem! Whilst rooting and LineageOS are great for the likes of you and me, they're not suitable for most people (as terrible as that me be). Period!
I'm of the strong opinion the only way around this dilemma is for some big Maverick manufacturer to manufacture a high performance, super-easy-to-use 'Fairphone'-like 'clone' that has even better performance than the current crop of non-Google alternatives—and it should also be even easier to use than current phones. Only then will there be sufficient momentum from sales to see other manufactures take up the challenge—and it's only then when we will end up with effective competition.
At present however, I'd not even give my wish a snowball's chance!
Moreover, frankly, I'm concerned that the current lot of manufactures that make Google alternatives is just too small to make any appreciable difference. That said, I wish them well—and few I'd reckon would be happier than me if my assessment turned out to be totally wrong.
No, not really, they take great photos, I can surf internet, send mesages, check my calendar etc. Though I was doing most of this already before Android/iOS on my Symbian/Java phones, "smartphones" just made the experience more pleasant.
> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years?
Had to replace? 0. But I wanted to replace the phone (running 5th phone in 11 years, technically 6th but I gave the last phone to wife after few months and returned back to previous one because I couldn't stand the size), because I wanted better specs, better camera etc. Since smartphones reached certain level of performance I don't really have this need since my last phone bought in 2018. I wanna upgrade it already for like 2 years but there are no available compact options to upgrade really until recently (great camera, good battery, compact size).
> Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones, or have you tried to absolve some regret and taken a few trips to an e-waste "recycler"?
No, previous phones I donated to mother, now with older kids they will be inheriting my phones, though I still have "in drawer" 2 decent older phones in case current phone would break so I (or wife) can use something temporarily.
> The battery no longer holds a charge;
It holds still pretty well even after 4 years, can get me through the day, which is all I need. That's why you buy phone and take into consideration battery life deteroriation over 2-3 years, so you don't buy phone with crap capacity straight out of box (see Pixel 4A or Mi 9SE which I bought considered to buy).
> it gets way too hot;
No, I don't game.
> replacing a cracked screen costs more than just getting a new phone;
In 11 years I've never break my phone screen, neither did wife which use phone few years less and her poor phones take lot of beating, but we use tempered glass screen protectors.
> new updates are unbearably slow; updates stop altogether; support stops altogether.
I don't really care about any of these, if it works don't fix it. Why would I upgrade to new shiny Android version which peaked anyway around 7-8 and there is hardly anything useful introduced since then. Apps are still supported.
Btw. in 11 years I've never used official ROM, always only custom ROMs, mostly LineageOS, maybe 7+ years my phones don't have even gapps, luckily I don't use ride hailing apps or grocery delivery from phone (why would I use horrible small screen of phone instead mice and 32" display? and if your service doesn't have web version for PC it doesn't deserve my money), otherwise it could be a problem.
Ultimately, given the above, I don’t think ewaste is a big problem with iPhones. Apple either refurbishes and sells it in a market that still values older phones, or recycles it.
I also support right to repair and any legislative efforts to force apple and others to stop deliberately making phones hard to repair. But given the trade-in value and used markets, I’m not sure why anyone would toss it in the trash or keep it in a drawer!
So often I try to update F-Droid apps and the site isn't available or it takes forever to download updates.
It's not the F-Droid app either (i.e.: not an old version etc.) because I experience the same delay using Aurora Droid (which I didn't mention above), as you'd probably know it also accesses F-Droid's site.
I've often wondered if F-Droid's slowness is due to my location/time zone as I've found it fastest when the US and Europe are asleep. I'm in UTC+10 hrs.
Could be that I mostly access the site during hours when backups or maint is been done.
Pinephone et al appeal to nerds and are a good reference case about those tradeoffs but I'm doubtful they'll tip the scale.
Just editing fucking textfiles and copying it back to a normal PC (that isn't a mac) is a real bitch. Especially if you don't have an internet connection. It's almost as bad as a ti84+ honestly, just a nicer screen, a couple cameras, and the ability to send IM and email. In fact the TI84 could do things iOS can't, I had compilers on mine.
EDIT: Somehow I missed that you mentioned the battery. Smartphones have some of the worst battery life among any PDA I've had. iPhones can stretch out a few days (maybe a week if it's just sitting in a drawer near a tower) if you use them sparingly but it's nothing like the Palm Pilot or the grayscale calculators that could easily last a month.
If you're on Android, I suggest looking at F-Droid; there exist decent text editors and file managers, and failing all else Termux manages to drag a decent amount of sanity in.
On Android the situation is much better, you can use Termux and it runs things natively.
For Android file transfer is easy, except on a Mac where IIRC you need to install a separate transfer tool. On Windows and Linux the file explorers come with support for the protocol used. (It's MTP I think?)
For iOS with a non-Mac it's more complicated, IIRC for Windows you need iTunes and I never used my iOS device with Linux. You could mount the folder you want in iSH, start an SSH server, and tunnel it over USB to your computer with one of the usbmuxd tools (I don't remember what the specific command is) then copy the files with SFTP/SCP, but that's kinda overkill and would probably be slow.
The display is the biggest battery eater, but you can significantly extend lifetime by disabling mobile data and Wifi (use Bluetooth PAN kind of like on a PDA lol) and either undervolting, locking clocks low or disabling the performance cores, there are options. 10-12 hours screen on time even with Wifi on can be achieved.
Did Dropbox and Google Drive shut down service when I wasn't looking? Did the handful of code editors I use suddenly lose the ability to save text files? Did the Files app suddenly lose access to my iSH file system, rendering using Vi under Linux on my iPad impractical?
No.... phew.
From my quotes file: "It's amazing what we can build, it's baffling what we have built." (jrumbut, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25168187) Yes, the hardware is amazing, and the software is sometimes amazing in what it can do, but... If you have gobs of bandwidth (courtesy of modern WiFi and LTE) and loads of RAM and storage and CPUs that scream (seriously, for a while my phone had more cores than most of my laptops at a close clock speed) and a high-quality touch-sensitive screen and a solid OS that makes it easy to use the system even on that tiny screen, but you use it to let apps bloat like there's no tomorrow (Facebook comes to mind), show ads even more efficiently, spy on the user at will, and deliberately make things worse so people will pay more (ex. YouTube), what have you really gained?
Last time I checked, Apple does not subsidize their hardware and actually earns majority their money off of the hardware markup, not the services.
I was blown away when a phone that I bought didn't actually contain all kinds of bloatware. That this is not just forbidden is beyond me.
For my personal usage I'm in the second group. I have several 'real computers', and I just want my phone to do phone stuff, and do it without getting in my way. I have no interest in switching from my iPhone to a PinePhone or whatever.
The big caveat here, which has me a bit worried in the long run, is that there is an entire new generation of people growing up using only devices that are not 'real computers'. That seems really bad, but at the same time I might just be old. Who knows.
Disclaimer: I know the phrase 'real computer' is a bit of a trope, but I hope it's clear what I mean.
That being said, I just had a deep look at the pinephone. And to be honest, I like it, hardware is decent enough, price is good and I like the idea of manual kill switches for various stuff. Thinking about what I use my de-googled, and shot, Pixel 2 for, so, I think the pinephone won't cut it. And the killer is actually banking apps. My banking app was hard enough to get running under CalyxOS and microG, I don't have the stomach to try to get it running under Linux... Something like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS on the pinephone would be great so!
Well, I guess it will be a refurbished Pixel 3 or something when the time comes that my trusted Pixel 2 completely falls apart...
Smartphones are mostly toys, dark pattern traps for procrastination. They are not productive tools, because you're always going to be a fraction as productive as you are on a full-size screen and keyboard. The only exception is maybe photography, since the sensors are finally catching up to entry-level DSLRs (optics still aren't, and probably never will)
Even most laptop users I know make use of several external monitors and a keyboard and a dock for other accessories.
> The problem is that we don't want to pay
Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that end-consumers should be willing to pay developers to not work at corporations and instead focus on creating some kind of open-source dark-pattern free paradise ecosystem for smartphones and other portables?
Side benfit? No tracking from big tech
what does that even mean?
I simply cannot relate with this hook.
> Don't smartphones... kind of suck?
No, smartphones are kinda magical. They take better snapshots than my first DSLR, they play games at higher fidelity than my first gaming PC, and they’re general purpose computing devices with better battery life, connectivity, and portability than my first laptop.
> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years?
Twice. My first smartphone was the Nexus 4 way back in 2012. I moved on to iPhone with iPhone 6s, and then upgraded to iPhone 12 Mini last year because I was enraptured by the faster performance, better camera, and small size.
> Do you have a drawer of random crap with a growing pile of phones?
I definitely have a random crap drawer, but it contains no phones. My Nexus 4 went on to become a dev testing device until it was resold for parts. My iPhone 6s still sits in my drone bag so I can use it to control the drone while shooting other video on my 12 Mini.
—-
I dunno, I just can’t relate to the problems presented. Maybe it’s because I have only gotten top-of-the-line devices from companies who promised software longevity. Maybe it’s because I didn’t feel financially well off enough to jump on the upgrade cycle (until recently) and made do with older/slower devices for longer than most people. But the world of smartphones, from my perspective, kicks ass.
As for PinePhone: it's interesting that this article puts LineageOS and PinePhone together since the latter cannot run the former. Speaking for myself, it would be nice if I could buy a phone from someone other than Google to install and use a de-Googled form of Android.
If somehow web browsers didn't exist the only downsides left for the Pinephone would maybe be regarding high performance video recording, some ML features and 3D games.
Like, sure one can make 60fps vector graphics for a smartwatch purely from software rendering running on embedded hardware e.g. https://repository.microej.com/packages/documentation/rt595/... but just look at your typical web app. No embedded will run that and it is pretty much needed for a smartphone.
This is when we absolutely need to name and shame.
> But while you can install many apps on /e/OS, we know that some apps are not working properly today: banking apps or games for example, and this has been painful for many of you.
> Our team has been hard at work to improve app compatibility in the last few months, and we will be rolling out improved app compatibility with the 0.23 release end of March. This means that apps like Pokemon Go, Ma banque (Crédit Agricole) and many others will work now fine on /e/OS.
Now, I would like better night photos, and some zoom/wide angles, so going to go with the same approach, getting 12gb instead of 8. Only good candidate I see right now is a note 20 because I can expand it. Expansion is a must, I really hate where the phone market is heading right now with severely limiting repairs, gb premium with no expansion, Limited updates for an exhorbitant price and not controlling what I run and how I run it on top of it all.
Software like LineageOS are essential not only to reduce waste, but also to get a minimum control on our hackware back.
First we need to pass laws that force repair ability on these devices. Like being able to replace a battery easily, think slipping the back cover off easy. Force the unification of a charging standard. Finally we need to nickle and dime these companies for not making the devices more reusable.
I can get my battery replaced for $50-$70.
If the EU had forced a common standard before USB C became prevalent we would be stuck with USB A. Government moves way too slowly and doesn’t have a clue about technology.
GDPR made web browsing worse with cookie pop ups everywhere.
No we wouldn't.
> GDPR made web browsing worse with cookie pop ups everywhere.
Cookie pop ups are not happening because of GDPR.
It's not fully open source that's true, but it can be daily driven on a number of modern(ish) compatible hardware. The most prominent of them being some of Sony's Xperia's line(official) and a slew of other older devices through the efforts of a community of enthusiasts.
I used to use it and enjoyed doing so, but I’d hoped Jolla would open source more of it as they said early on that they were considering.
As someone from a region where it's WhatsApp wherever you look I do not understand the US situation.
For me, the problem with phones is the sense that you're just one step away of having no more OS updates, or updates making it slower, or basically getting locked-in in some way.
Phones feel very different to computers.
The integration with Android apps, when it works, is fairly seamless.
It is kind of like using wine to run windows applications on Linux. Sometimes things may not work, but otherwise it's fine.
Web archive link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220418204119/https://jleightca...
Currently ive learned from HN there are numerous 3GPP protocols that provide direct, clandestine monitoring of the GPS location of the phone. the feature lives unchallenged in the firmware, so if you can give me a phone that cannot report its GPS data to the carrier without my knowledge, id be ever grateful.
A 2013 iPhone 5s is still getting security updates.
A 2011 iPhone 4s doesn’t support LTE and soon won’t be able to connect to any network. Verizon is shutting down their CDMA network as is Sprint.
So how does open source make my life better?
From a hardware side, why wouldn’t I just take my phone to any number of places to get the battery replaced?
The main current problems are 1. support life 2. repairability 3. non-competitive/closed software platform.
I feel like Google had a chance at some point to "open" phone hardware similar to the IBM PC situation... but I suppose, realistically, the telecoms and qualcomm held those cards too close to the vest. oh well.
Does lineage in that case really provide better privacy? Honestly curious. I use an iPhone these days out of uncertainty
Now, sorry, I just don't care anymore. I don't live my life through my phone so I buy cheap Android phones for a few hundred dollars tops, and when they die they die. If it can make and receive calls, texts, and run Google Maps navigation that is 90% of what I need.
Yes, but so do normal computers, just in different ways.
Android and iOS both greatly restrict user freedom, sure. But they're both far easier to use than Linux, and "just work" way more of the time.
Yeah, neither mobile OS can do packages or shared libraries - but at least they can't get stuck in an inconsistent state, like apt.
The toolchains for Android/iOS are absolutely abysmal - but the OSes themselves come with a capability-based security model that is infinitely better than what's available on Linux.
All software is bad.
(although, to the other point of "phone hardware has bad longevity" - yes, that's completely correct)
From my experience iPhones are as hard (or a bit easier) to open as other waterproofed phones, but battery and display replacements are actually prioritized in the design and easy to conduct once you open the thing. Cryptographically paired components are the problem with iphones, not the way they are built.
I am the author.
not so general, you can pretty much only run programs allowed by the mothership, and if some neural net decides you can be locked out of your phone forever
This is not even remotely a reasonable definition of today's smartphones.
You can bank, search, chat, consume content, and shop from one device - it doesn't get much more "general purpose" than that.
If you want them to be general purpose computers straight from the store, yeah, that's not happening. But you still own the hardware and can change the software, again, on many, sadly not all, devices.
Me too! And I'm a mobile engineer! My partner only recently updated their iPhone 6s, and I upgrade when the need arises, not when there's something new and shinny on the market.
I had just upgraded my OnePlus 3 to a 5 when this was announced, so I purchased a Pixel 3a XL by the deadline (which fortunately has VoLTE in AOSP).
I moved my phone to Verizon for a few reasons, but Lineage struggles with VoLTE and this is a big reason for old phones in a drawer.
I think the problem with smartphones doesn't lie so much in hardware as it does the software ecosystem. Yeah, my phone also takes better snapshots than my first DSLR and plays games better than my first gaming PC (from 2001) -- and yet, it can't run the OfferUp app or Google Maps for more than 5 minutes without freezing up.
>> How many times have you had to replace a phone in the past 10 years?
>Twice. My first smartphone was the Nexus 4 way back in 2012. I moved on to iPhone with iPhone 6s, and then upgraded to iPhone 12 Mini last year because I was enraptured by the faster performance, better camera, and small size.
I had to replace my Thinkpad 0 times in the past 10 years, and my phone 2 times as well. I also bought devices from companies who promised software longevity. But why can't I replace my phone 0 times in 10 years like my Thinkpad?
ProtonAOSP works with root, and the documentation explains how to use it with Magisk:
ProtonAOSP also passes SafetyNet by default, as of right now.
The developer of ProtonAOSP (kdrag0n) is also the GrapheneOS contributor who implemented the Google Play Services sandbox for that OS.
ProtonAOSP supports the Pixel 4/XL, 4a/5G, 5, and 6/Pro. It does not currently support the Pixel 5a.
One problem with GrapheneOS is that it only supports a tiny handful of devices, and only for few years (at best) per device. A lot of people can't afford to keep buying Pixel phones on that schedule, and some who can afford it find the e-waste unappealing.
This isn't exactly the project's fault. It's more a side effect of an industry that prevents customers from securely installing an OS on their own hardware, and/or refuses to provide firmware security updates beyond a rather short time frame.
I hope that changes. I love what GrapheneOS attempts to do, but at the moment, I think using it is unreasonably hard on the budget and the environment.
If you care too much about privacy, GrapheneOS is the way to go. If you want a balance between privacy and usability, LineageOS is the way to go. Also, GrapheneOS only supports Pixel phones.
I have tried CalyxOS but there are too many issues.
Not so sure about that. If you care about SECURITY than GrapheneOS is pretty much the best choice on the market, comparable only to iOS or bare Android on Pixel Phones. Everyone else isn't even reasonable to compare against it.
But wether it's more private with sandboxed Google Play Services vs Lineage OS and MicroG or iOS is not such an obvious choice to me.
Coming from iPhone, something I keep forgetting is the full support for PWA apps on Graphene OS. I wish there were PWA versions of apps like Signal, Wire, ProtonMail, and more; so much cleaner to update the app through a deliberate refresh than going through a middle-man service like F-Droid.
Sandboxed play services is quite literally play services you're allowed to deny permissions to, it offers way more compatibility than microg which replaces play services with it's own thing
That goes for software as well as hardware. Plus, hardware needs a certain quality and price point, both of which are in short supply. Everyone who’s tried designing and shipping a quality hardware product at a reasonable price in a reasonable time frame has experienced that. Even if you magically could solve one of the issues, you’d never be able to ship the sheer volume to satisfy demand. And that’s all before even attempting to create a smooth and complete software experience, not to speak of software quality and security issues.
Also, don’t underestimate the novelty factor in mainstream products, which is directly at odds with the goals of open source hardware and software developers.
I have wanted to switch from Windows to Linux so many times, and I would love to ditch my Google phone for PinePhone. But for me, this always gets back to the problem of well-maintained software on Linux vs corporate systems. The last time I tried switching to Linux a few months ago, all of the programs I use on a regular basis had some impossibly complicated setup or program-crashing bugs (that I reported) that made me give up after a few days trying to migrate.
Don't get me wrong, the OS (Ubuntu) installed just fine and I was able to browse the internet (which should be sufficient for most people). But anything beyond turning the phone on and having everything self-setup is asking way too much from a mainstream user. Therefore, this argument is always an economic one - not a conceptual one. You need a greedy corporation that is incentivized to make a friction-free experience for the end user. Too many well-meaning, but way too smart for their own good developers think everyone else thinks like them.
https://xkcd.com/456/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rlg4K16ujFw
3GPP is usually used in the context of AGPS to help GPS get a lock, by using the ID of the tower your 3GPP UE is connected to. There is one such tower, and there is simply no way to hide it. It is a technical requirement for your carrier to have an approximate location of your equipment. Even if they wished they didn't have it, they would still need it.
A phone doesn't have its GPS turned on permanently, because it eats a lot of battery, and sure some carriers and some OEMs have some backdoors (Sprint last I've seen) to request a GPS position, though AFAIK it can't be enabled in most cases. Is this what you're talking about? As far as I know, taking a "stupid" modem (Say an exynos one), and putting a custom ROM should make you safe from it, because from what I've seen, those backdoors are done in Samsung Android framework
If your question is about E911 (which is lockdown to... well... 911 calls), can't say that I know much about it, but I think what I said on the previous point still applies. On a dumb modem
BTW, PinePhone's modem being a Qualcomm, it is very "smart", and does a lot of things behind Application Processor's back. A Mediatek, or better an Exynos modem is much better to that regard, and would be preferable. (but there is no pinephone on non-qc modem)
- removes most Qualcomm location blobs
- removes carrier OMA-DM blobs
- doesn't send IMEI to SUPL server
- only allows SUPL override when an emergency call is active
- disables A-GPS MSA mode
- and shows a notification when location is requested via SUPLThe problem here isnt the collection of data, its the abuse of that data whether its sale to data brokers or over enthusiastic law enforcement using GPS pings on flimsy pretexts to sweep people up.
The emergency services commitment just gives them a convenient excuse to require it.
But if the carriers are actively gathering my location information and are selling it without giving me a way to opt out then perhaps I need to think about my phone as something I turn off most of the time.
Which reminds me: can you still get pager service?
Does this work by reporting GPS data? I thought this data was acquired with cellular triangulation.
Some years ago I was thinking of a way to separate the functions we insist in cramming into phones, making them in the process nearly unusable for anything but consuming media content and advertising.
The idea was to have a small battery powered 3g (now 5G) modem whose task was to route Internet connectivity to a local PAN (low power WiFi, BT, etc) while allowing other PAN devices talk each other. Other PAN devices would be: a very small phone piece with minimal display and navigation keys to receive calls and make ones picking contacts from the list; a pocket keyboard to enter data; a small camera to take pictures and movies; a tablet like device screen with touch, a more capable OS and physical buttons for apps and games; a belt-like holder with housings for all PAN devices. All PAN devices would have their own battery along with contacts exposed for recharging, so that their battery would be recharged by a bigger one contained in the belt as soon as they're snapped into their place in the belt; also all devices would store their data in a central small NAS-like device, also contained in the belt. The communication protocol would allow for example to talk with someone using the phone piece, then grab the camera, take a photo and have it sent automatically to the person on the other side, including geographic coordinates. ...etc.
I spent some good hours wondering about this contraption, then realized that, although very open to expansion, it would also be extremely unpractical for most users, and eventually let the idea die.
Even Google had to prematurely abandon support for one of its phones because it couldn’t get driver support for a cell phone chip.
On that same note, cellular standards are a minefield of patents to the point that even when Apple starts producing its own cellular chips, it will still owe Qualcomm patent fees.
for my pc if I wanna use a sim card after old network shutdown, all it is is swapping a single card on the mobo, perhaps swapping out some antennas too
for the pinephone, just swapping the baseboard without the rest changing, or make/group hire someone to make a case with an updated modem
for battery, because you get a free battery to keep around for emergencies when you buy a new one.
I guess if you want to pay to fix your problems, fine, but not everyone has the luxury to do that!
Sure I can still use a Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop with 8GB RAM, a nice 1920x1200 display, 250Gb hard drive, and gigabit Ethernet from 2011 [1] in 2022. But could I use a computer from 2001 in 2011?
There is a reason that you can use a iPhone 6s from 2015 in 2022. But an iPhone 3G from 2008 would have been unusable in 2015.
[1]https://www.ebay.com/itm/224241464162
This is similar. Mine was much higher specced. It was given to me after a startup I worked for went out of business in 2012. I used it to run Windows CE emulators while writing C# Compact Franework applications.
No, it's not. Pinephone and Librem 5 can run practically any desktop software just fine and still serve as smartphones well. They're both smartphones and PDAs.
Also if the screen turns off it kills your sockets so you get to start things like git clone over (which can take tens of minutes on a normal sized repo and will make the phone hot enough its uncomfortable to hold.)
Also you can't multitask at all.
And most importantly: The interesting thing about compilers is that you can generate native executable for the platform. gcc on iSH is generating executables for an interpreter which is no better than just messing around with javascript.
>complicated File transfer stuff
I can literally just scp things back and forth between my phone and computer, the UI is exaclty the same, no extra wires, no extra software and it doesn't matter what device I'm sitting in front of. On my Girlfriend's machine running Gnome I can even type the IP into the graphical shell and everything shows up like a local disk. If I had an MDNS responder set up it would be 100% point and click. If I had a Windows or OSX machine in the house it would just work with those too, no extra software needed (now that Windows ships with OpenSSH.) The UX for this is unbeatable by Apple and Google.
Yes should it be. There's no value in "I suffered to learn this, so everyone should have to". There is a ton of value in "you can now pull data from five easy to use systems in the same time you used to spend on one hard to use system". That's not dumbing down, that's progress. It's raising the abstraction layer and hiding the minutiae. (This is not the same as apps forbidding you from getting to the lower levels. An easy to use UX and access to the lower levels are both desirable, and not in conflict. That apps have one and block the other is not a reason to reject easy UX.)
It is possible to install microg making more Android apps work on SFOS.
ssh just works (the phone shipped with it preinstalled)
vim just works
scp just works
All my X11 apps just work
All the scripts and little tools I've built up over the years just work (no fighting with namespaces when you switch to root or other weird Android nonsense.)
All my dev tools just work (and you might say "well why would I ever want that on a phone? Because when you find a bug in the OS or an app and you're sitting on transit you can fix it right then and there. No making mental notes, no filling out issues, just slow continuous improvement. Something these mobile OSes will never have.)
Desktop Firefox just works (even without touchscreen mode it's usable. With xinput2 enabled it has nice gesture support.)
Want something to run in the background? Just open an Xterm window, run it, and minimize it. Want it to start on boot? Add it to the default runlevel or your X session just like you would on any other computer.
There's absolutely no reason for any of the mobile nonsense (there arguably never was) other than money for the mobile OS vendors.
My phone works. I open it and it works. I've never been in a position where trying to fix the underlying OS was required nor could I picture it being something worth time I'd have to trade away from my family.
>I don't want a browser that's described as just "usable".
I have to wonder what exactly you do want then, maybe a parade?
I get it though. You don't want the responsibility of configuring your device. That's fine, most people don't. This next thing you said really gets me though:
> I've never been in a position where trying to fix the underlying OS was required nor could I picture it being something worth time I'd have to trade away from my family.
You've been conditioned to feel helpless here. You've been told you can't fix things so you accept that they're broken and don't think about it. That's one reaction and in this situation it's probably healthier. For me it's like living in a house with crooked picture frames and the police showing up if you try to straiten them. It's a little upsetting for people to act like that's reasonable or ok.
I've found that any problem I have can be solved with something on f-droid / google play and by googling it. This isn't dissimilar to the experience in linux for my headless NAS or VPS to figure out how to run a new service or learning to use borg backup.
Backup photos via SMB share every night if on local wifi/VPN'd home? Sync calendar, contacts with nextcloud via dav? Schedule a copy of my sandboxed work outlook calendar from Nine into a dav calendar so I can share it (read only) with family? Spit tunnel wireguard traffic? All these work without having to root and I'm not spending my evening trying to fix driver issues. I didn't spend an entire evening on these away from family.
I'm not happy giving away the sum total of my experience on this planet to Google but this device just works and it works well. Some conveniences like Android Auto keep me from going to CalyxOS.
I run Windows for work and gaming, and run into issues regularly. Default Android/iPhone makes me a bit queasy.
Most importantly: all these problems are entirely artificial. There's no actual limitation that creates them, just smartphone vendors declaring "things must be painful."
rm -rf / in one of those scripts also just works I assume; my point being that at least part of what you consider nonsense are real security improvements in Android with its permission model. I wish I could easily run Termux and access all everything by default without any restriction, but I also like that I've heard way less stories of viruses on Android than on Windows among my friends.
In fact it doesn't, I have GNU rm installed.
>I've heard way less stories of viruses on Android than on Windows among my friends.
And how often do you here stories of viruses from Linux users? (outside the ones running Wordpress or NPM who carelessly fling executable code from strangers around.) Naive Linux users are protected from this problem but it's done in a very different way: Installing software that the distro maintainers haven't looked at requires a small amount of understanding and thought. They're discouraged from just grabbing executable from the web the way Android and Windows users do and so it's extremely rare that desktop Linux users experience malware (even if you use extremely broad definitions like RMS might. Often maintainers patch out things like telemetry or drop packages containing it altogether) Because of this the kinds of security measures Android has would mostly just get in the way.
These tools are all there if you want them. SELinux can sandbox your app and prompt you for permissions. No one does this because it's just not necessary the way most people use typical GNU/Linux distros.
Other devices compromise on security.
How often do you hear stories of people switching from Windows to Linux? You and I are not relevant, the median user is, and the median user doesn't even understand your comment.
The Android (and others) permission model is more than just an arbitrary constraint, it does bring real security benefits, and plain Linux is just not there yet.
> SELinux can sandbox your app and prompt you for permissions. No one does this because it's just not necessary the way most people use typical GNU/Linux distros.
No one (well, almost) does this because it's a pain and you're not even sure what you get out of it. Compare with the Android installation prompt where the permissions are explicitly spelled out before you click "install", and where the OS can meaningfully take them back eventually.
Instead of two-factor-only apps, we get "electronic ID" that are legally like a photo ID, and which are also used for making payments from the phone itself.
In fact, some of these rely on security of the OS it is running on, and not on the use of any trusted platform modules ("secure enclave", TrustZone, etc.) or on any mathematical proof. Therefore, un-rooted recent versions of Android and iOS is compulsory in practice, because those are the only environments that are secure enough.
And BTW, the electronic ID are very convenient for the banks. If they get social-engineered and the banks' API abused, the banks can conveniently blame the victims — because it's a legal ID and not merely a login helper or debit card, and you're not supposed to be "careless" with an ID.
The underlying protocol is a national standard (published by DK, the association of German banks) and meets all European requirements.
I don’t do business with banks that require iOS or Android apps for 2FA unless they support an alternative.
* Physical hardware (what?)
* SMS at 9 cent each
* An app
Why not? If you say "security reasons", then why is SMS allowed, since it's way less secure?
> SMS at 9 cent each
What places still charge for SMS?
Having a standard in doesn't means that innovation slows down/stops or that the standard can't change.
This is a content-free denial without argument.
I say this as someone who's an iPhone user, and I'm perfectly happy with my iPhone. But I wouldn't call it a general purpose computing device honestly. The Android phone I used many years ago, for all its flaws, would have fit that description much better IMO.
In fact, it is outrageous not to say so.
in general the term vaguely means 'this computer can perform many different tasks' but can an iphone perform a task you want, but apple did not allow?
You can't run arbitrary binaries, but you can run whatever code you want.
The iOS kernel will literally kill your process unless you have an Apple-approved certificate.
The kernel will also block you from accessing any OS service that’s not allowlisted in your certificate.
And it’s impossible to obtain a certificate from Apple that allows you to fork a subprocess, access the filesystem, or run a custom hardware driver.
...isn't the definition of "running whatever code you want" equivalent to "running arbitrary binaries"? How else could you "run code" if not as an "arbitrary binary"?
> Right but that doesn't make them any less useful
Sounds like a contradiction to me. If you can't do anything you want with your phone but Google/Apple can, it must make it less useful for you.
"A general-purpose computer is one that, given the appropriate application and required time, should be able to perform most common computing tasks."
https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2021/3/250710-the-decline-of-...
I'm starting to get the feeling it has a "mainstream" definition and more of a "people in the know" definition. A lot of the sources that matched my definition tended to be from more non-technical, mainstream outlets like the BBC; https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zkrr97h/revision/1
FWIW I like your definition better, I think closed off environments in the long run will be worse for everyone (except the people that make them).
I'm currently living with SO MANY "crooked picture frames" on all my devices that I've just given up on fixing after spending tens of hours on them and burning my free time on it. I still prefer Linux in general for a lot of the reasons you like it, but just doing basic "I want to install a program to take screenshots" has send me down hours of reading about how window compositing systems work, and why Snap is the devil even though everyone seems to be using it now. If I wasn't single and had better hobbies other than tinkering with config files, I'd have given up months ago.
If you pull out everything complex and thoroughly understand what's left you won't run into the "idk just reset the whole OS" situation.
Something Windows/OSX users coming to Linux might not realize is that almost nothing in the userspace is actually necessary because the kernel does almost everything. Especially if you don't want graphics but even if you consider those components necisary then all you need are: The kernel (one file plus some modules), a device manager (the thing that creates nodes in /dev when you plug stuff in, if you use kdrive you don't even need this), a display manager (Xorg, kdrive or Wayland) and some kind of shell and VTE (bash and Xterm for example.)
Literally everything else can be thrown out if you don't want to deal with it. Don't like configuring systemd? I've used just script in the past at /linuxrc. Don't like what Gnome is doing or maybe it's crashing on you? Get rid of it, for the most part it's just aesthetic and the functionality can be replaced by eg fluxbox and PCFMan (and maybe wpa_gui if you like using a GUI to configure your wireless card.) Did the package manager get confused? You can actually get away with removing the database and starting over (although this will replace all the binaries it previously installed and potentially overwrite configs.) Don't be afraid to nuke things.
Who in 2022 doesn’t “want graphics”?
... On Linux? That's the traditional Windows solution.
So a long time ago, I installed Gentoo running GNOME 2.
There was a menu in the topbar labeled with some kind of icon in addition to the text. Probably the GNOME foot.
Anyway, since Gentoo was all about letting you make the customizations you wanted, I thought it would be nice to replace that icon. I had found an icon of the Gentoo fish wearing a wizard hat and I thought that would be appropriate.
So I looked through the documentation for the menu. I found the file where the icon associated with the menu was defined. And I replaced that with a definition pointing to my preferred icon. This did not work. The icon displayed in the name of the menu didn't change.
It's not that there was no effect. If I viewed the menu properties (you know - right click, "properties"...), my fish-wizard icon showed up (in the properties view) as the icon for the menu where I'd tried to put it. It just wasn't displaying in the topbar the way I'd hoped.
I was unable to figure out how to change the icon the menu actually displayed, and had to give up. The documentation was no help. :(
To know which applications/libraries are available and suitable for a certain task, and what their individual strengths and weaknesses are, is a very different set of knowledge, and often a vastly underestimated part of experience.
I've been using Linux and other Unix/BSD operating systems since the nineties, and I'm completely lost when it comes to helping out others about App store or Windows store options. I can imagine that it's especially hard in Linux to be missing that sort of ecosystem information, as the installation process often assumes some level of technical proficiency and up-front knowledge already.
For experienced Linux users, the experience of freedom is a lot greater than using Windows, Android or Apple operating systems; but if you're just starting out and all unknowns turn up more unknowns, it might be a pretty frustrating experience. I think you have to choose if you want to learn, or if you're willing to settle with whatever you're given in the Windows, Android and Apple world.
I have had home built pcs, custom built ones and have just bought that laptop from a common Linux only supplier. My Dell was much worse.
If it takes more effort than I have spent finding either support, components or experts then it's a bad sign.
Maybe you should just be ever so slightly picker about your Android phones?
> I have to wonder what exactly you do want then, maybe a parade?
Well this just unnecessarily rude, and frankly silly. What I want is a browser that works "well" not that just meets the bare minimum of "yeah it's possible to use".
> You've been conditioned to feel helpless here. You've been told you can't fix things so you accept that they're broken and don't think about it
No. I have told you exactly why.
1. I haven't come across this on my phone
2. I have on other devices and I would much rather spend time with my family now
I have gone through years of tinkering and adjusting xorg config files, wrangling with mythtv, all that kind of thing. It's no longer a trade-off I want to make.
> It's a little upsetting for people to act like that's reasonable or ok.
I think you have invented a false image of me in your head then are feeling upset about that character.
The problem with not using those banks is that I don't think there's any banks that aren't hostile like that, and keeping all of your money under a mattress is a worse choice than compromising on this principle.
But yeah, fair enough! I choose to just not chat to those people, but I totally get that it's not that easy for some.
Most folks who use Linux daily are just flat out better at Linux than me at this point. It makes sense - it's a self-selecting group. But that also means half of the instructions you'll find on a blog or forum or SO assume a lot more familiarity with the system than I have. I've been wanting to try a different visual theme on my computer - it seems easy to install a new one, and the repo I found just has a helper script that should install it, but all the docs also just say "and you can just uninstall it if you want", but there's no uninstall script, and I don't understand the install script well enough to know how I'd undo it if something broke. So I just haven't done it.
To be honest, I kinda felt similar with Android (I think it was LineageOS) at one point, which I have used for a few years on a secondary phone. The system shell went into some broken state where it didn't want to display any quick settings at all, and my search for how to debug such issues (or even just some information on where does it store its state) has been completely fruitless. Turns out nobody does that; I'd have to build my own image from scratch and dig into the source code to debug it, and I have decided that it's a bit too much and that I have better things to do. Rebuilding a single .deb package is fine, rebuilding a whole OS - not so much. Now I'm using GNU/Linux on my phone as well, and debugging things like that is much easier and more approachable, with tons of resources around the Web and people who are willing to help.
The issue is "keeping things simple" requires you to have some pretty serious knowledge of Linux, to the point where it's far from simple to know what the "simple" set of things you need to install in order for your system to work, or to know what components you can't buy if you want to use Linux. As-is, my trackpad on my laptop just sometimes doesn't register clicks, even on the best supported drivers (which I had to install by hand because no distro upstreams them). Also the audio system just doesn't work half of the time either, but I'm used to that on Linux, and literally the official explanation I've seen is "idk it's like that. Just reboot if it can't find any audio devices." No other OS makes me have to check the manufacturer of specific sub-components of my motherboard to know whether they'll work at all.
Helplessness.
Drivers are going to be part of the kernel. The only thing I would expect to vary by distro is probably the way firmware blobs are packaged (which is just a matter of installing the appropriate firmware blob package or worst case grabbing the blobs from kernel.org.) In general your hardware shouldn't constrain your distro choice outside of very weird hardware or very weird distros (or maybe Nvidia graphics cards but you just shouldn't use those.)
If you're talking about your WiFi, Bluetooth, or possibly your GPU not working OOTB this is almost certainly what you ran into. Not that Fedora is a bad distro although personally I don't like it.
Also switching out the UI is just a package away if you don't like the default. If you want to run, say, FVWM instead literally just `yum install fvwm` and then log out. It should show up in you display manager (and then since it's an X11 WM instead of a Wayland compositor you can just use scrot etc for screenshots.)
>Just reboot to fix audio
Sometimes Pulesaudio can get funky. Do you atleast run `pulseaudio -k` first?
>Trackpad
Yeah the trackpad situation is not great. I don't buy laptops without trackpoint mice partly for that reason and also because the only machine I've ever used where I didn't hate the trackpad was a mac.
>Shopping for motherboards etc.
An easy shortcut for this is to just check the Arch/Gentoo/Debian wiki for the composite hardware you're looking at and see if people have issues with it. Windows and OSX have similar issues if you want to buy hardware separate from the OS.
“No other OS makes me have to check the manufacturer”
Other OSes are sold on hardware that’s designed to work with them. If you want to buy a laptop to run Linux on, first research whether Linux works well on it. There are plenty of machines of all types that Linux works great on.
Nevertheless, now that is extremely ancient history.
During the last 20 years, I have been using Linux on all my desktops and laptops, without needing any Xorg config.
The only exception is that now I have a couple of lines of Xorg config, which describe how my 3 monitors must be positioned.
Without an Xorg config all would be OK, except that I would have to rearrange the monitors after each power-on.
Of course, there was no need to write those lines of Xorg config, I have just given the command to save the current monitor configuration.
So I cannot imagine what problems still exist nowadays that may require "to redo their Xorg config".
All the problems that I have seen in recent years with Xorg had been caused by either a kernel compiled without some modules needed by the hardware, or by an Xorg server that was installed without some X device drivers needed by the hardware.
With a complete kernel and X server, things should just work.
In my opinion, the worst hardware problems in Linux are usually with Bluetooth or with audio.
I have not encountered yet hardware problems that could not be solved in Linux (unlike for Windows Enterprise, where I have met unsolvable problems).
Nevertheless, in the case of Bluetooth and of audio, I have encountered frequent cases when the default configurations would not work and when finding how to make the right configuration was highly convoluted and unintuitive, so many hours could be lost with that.
Even so, the difficulties of installing Linux versus Windows, Android or Mac OS are just a myth.
Most users see that Windows and the other commercial operating systems just work, because they have been preinstalled by professionals on their computers.
When you are the professional who must install Windows on a new computer and when that computer happens to be slightly non-standard, which is the case for most embedded computers, installing Windows is usually much more difficult than installing Linux.
I have encountered cases when I had to work a week to succeed in making Windows have an acceptable performance on a computer on which Linux just worked from a live USB stick, without any problems.
I'd look into swapping out my UI if I had any confidence I knew what was going on and how to revert it. I mostly bricked an Ubuntu install earlier last year trying to get Wayland working on it.
I'm pretty sure it's not pulseaudio, it's Pipewire by default, but I think neither of them works. It's something about the device just not registering correctly on boot for some reason.
I knew what I was in for on trackpads, but it's still not a good system/sign either way.
I'm really unsure I agree with you on Windows having "similar issues" with hardware. As someone who's been building and upgrading the same desktop computer for 20 years with a combination of Windows and various Linux distros running on it, I have literally never had a compatibility issue on Windows that took more than going to the company's website and running an EXE for drivers, and I never once went to check if Windows was compatible with any part I purchased. Meanwhile, I found out that the specific sub-SKU of my Intel CPU just doesn't work with the Linux kernel for some features, so I guess I'm either out hundreds of dollars on a new CPU or I just don't use Linux again on that computer.
I'm to the point where I mostly like Linux for day to day stuff, and I really do understand a lot of the reasons why all of this isn't trivial, but it really gets my ire when people try to contend that Windows has worse usability for most normal use cases. I don't know nearly as much about Linux as you or many others, but I appreciate that I can fix things in ways I couldn't before. That said, the complete "there are no guard rails, the only instructions are a forum post you just have to copy-paste from, and sometimes the answer is just NO" of Linux is really its own universe of pain for anyone who doesn't want to have their computer eating up 1-10 hours a week just to keep it running acceptably.
My friend that bought a Framework as well had no trouble putting Debian 11 on it, you just need to add the non-free repo to /etc/apt/sources.list, install the non-free firmware with apt and reboot: https://community.frame.work/t/debian-11-on-the-framework-la...
Wayland also works out of the box on Debian, I have been using it for a few years on a Ryzen laptop without issue.
Fiddling with the OS is a rarity for me. Back when I was a teen I do recall the trouble that was upgrading Ubuntu or getting openSuse running after accidentally filling the disk fully.
Switching to Debian simplified life, I don't invest effort into my OS (eg: opening up a terminal) with any kind of regularity and it simply works, letting me focus on actual work (and video games :D).
As I said elsewhere, I've been building desktops for most of 20 years with just entirely random parts and had Windows always work completely fine on it, and only get better at it over the years. Linux has gotten better as well, but I still have to be paranoid about every single part and sub-component in the system. My current motherboard's USB-C controller just doesn't work with Linux, it seems, but I'm not about to replace the entire motherboard just for that, and I'm not even sure where I'd go to research such a thing.
I don't think you will be able convince a who-needs-graphical-displays and occasionally-run-this-command-a-terminal crowd that this is an issue.