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CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

calyxos.org

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Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#351

Post by danvittegleo »

busymom0 wrote: post #349
danvittegleo wrote: post #347

CalyxOS is an awesome project. I have worked with the lead developer a bit over the past few years and it's been such a pleasure. We share some bits of code between our projects here: https://github.com/AOSPAlliance . If anyone is interested in building their own custom android OS in the cloud (AWS) with same ability to lock your bootloader like CalyxOS, you can checkout my project I've been maintaining for a few yea…

How expensive is it to build android in the cloud? And how are the build times? Is it possible to do it on a local Mac mini instead or will that take too long to build?

With rattlesnakeos-stack, it uses spot instances and defaults to a c5.4xlarge which takes about 7-8 hours to build AOSP and Chromium (for an up to date webview) and equates to about ~$1 a build. I typically build on a c5.24xlarge instance which takes about 2.5 hours and costs about ~$2 per build. Unfortunately both AOSP and Chromium are massive projects that require a ton of computing power to build quickly. It's definitely still possible to do on less powerful machines, but it's just going to take a lot longer to do builds.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#352

Post by danvittegleo »

bigyikes wrote: post #350
danvittegleo wrote: post #347

CalyxOS is an awesome project. I have worked with the lead developer a bit over the past few years and it's been such a pleasure. We share some bits of code between our projects here: https://github.com/AOSPAlliance . If anyone is interested in building their own custom android OS in the cloud (AWS) with same ability to lock your bootloader like CalyxOS, you can checkout my project I've been maintaining for a few yea…

Could you explain why you would build in the cloud? Based on a sibling comment, it sounds like it might be because it’s crazy resource-intensive? I’ve honestly not heard of cloud building before. Is it common for large projects like operating systems?

Yes, building AOSP requires a fairly powerful machine (at least to do it quickly): https://source.android.com/setup/build/requirements. It's definitely possible to do on a local machine with decent specs though.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#353

Post by suyash »

new_stranger wrote: post #198

I purchased a Pixel phone to test this stuff on. I installed LineageOS and found I couldn't run some google apps. I reinstalled LineageOS with https://opengapps.org added during the install and made the mistake of transferring from my old phone which brought all the google services and everything back to the phone (mostly). I then installed CalyxOS - much easier install process than lineage. Really liked the defaults…

Having developer for Android, I can tell you that Google pushes their libraries hard and make that as default in tutorials, docs etc so most developers end of depending on play services without realizing that is only one of the many options.

This is done by design to lock developers in and by proxy, lock users to Google flavored Android OS

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#354

Post by hayd »

danvittegleo wrote: post #351
busymom0 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How expensive is it to build android in the cloud? And how are the build times? Is it possible to do it on a local Mac mini instead or will that take too long to build?

With rattlesnakeos-stack, it uses spot instances and defaults to a c5.4xlarge which takes about 7-8 hours to build AOSP and Chromium (for an up to date webview) and equates to about ~$1 a build. I typically build on a c5.24xlarge instance which takes about 2.5 hours and costs about ~$2 per build. Unfortunately both AOSP and Chromium are massive projects that require a ton of computing power to build quickly. It's def…

Is any of the build cached?

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#355

Post by ignoramous »

privacyking wrote: post #342
ignoramous wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TrackerControl doesn't encrypt your DNS queries, though. You'd need to proxy DNS requests to another app like http://github.com/ch4t4r/Nebulo which supports DoT / DoH3 / DoH for that. (disclosure: I co-develop a FOSS TrackerControl alternative)

What is your trackercontrol alternative called? What makes it better or worse?

RethinkDNS + Firewall: https://github.com/celzero/rethink-app

TrackerControl has a tad better UX; is built on top of the super-stable NetGuard and hence inherits its flaws and merits.

For instance, it does not support DoH/DoT/DNSCrypt.

It also leaks DNS connections over TCP (this happens when a DNS question or answer payload is too big to fit in a single UDP packet). In fact, all userspace DNS clients on Android I have taken a look at, leak DNS queries over TCP.

TrackerControl does not trap all packets over port 53, which RethinkDNS does by default.

TrackerControl isn't geared towards bypassing censorship. RethinkDNS can bypass stateless firewalls employing a similar trick to GreenTunnel, and we plan to implement a couple more such mitigations.

Unimplemented but soon, RethinkDNS would let users block connections if apps don't resolve DNS with a resolver of their choosing.

RethinkDNS has open-sourced both its client app and a pi-hole like stub resolver: https://github.com/serverless-dns/serverless-dns

There's three of us working on RethinkDNS full-time, so it is likely to see feature development at a faster clip than TrackerControl and NetGuard (the latter's been put under maintanence mode by its original developer).

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#356

Post by danvittegleo »

hayd wrote: post #354
danvittegleo wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With rattlesnakeos-stack, it uses spot instances and defaults to a c5.4xlarge which takes about 7-8 hours to build AOSP and Chromium (for an up to date webview) and equates to about ~$1 a build. I typically build on a c5.24xlarge instance which takes about 2.5 hours and costs about ~$2 per build. Unfortunately both AOSP and Chromium are massive projects that require a ton of computing power to build quickly. It's def…

Is any of the build cached?

In order to limit costs, everything is pulled from source on each build and there is nothing cached. This strategy takes advantage of the fact that AWS doesn't charge for ingress traffic and unfortunately puts additional load on Google's servers. I've attempted a few different strategies on caching AOSP and Chromium source trees, but since you have to incur the storage costs on an ongoing basis, it's just not very economical.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#357

Post by kelnos »

zozbot234 wrote: post #305
kelnos wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the frank details about the downsides. If I can't use my banking apps, Lyft, Google Pay, Photos, Maps, etc. with a particular mobile OS (with all features working), then it's unfortunately not for me. It seems like most of the Android alternatives throw the baby out with the bathwater. I get that making a trusted OS based on Android is hard, especially with Google having moved so much core functionality in…

> If I can't use my banking apps, Lyft, Google Pay, Photos, Maps, etc. with a particular mobile OS (with all features working), then it's unfortunately not for me. These are proprietary apps, so it's a bit unrealistic to expect that they would support a free OS.

I'm not asking for official support from the app developer, just knowledge that they "happen to" work on an alternative Android-based OS. Which they should, if all the APIs they depend on are there (including the Play Services ones, via microG or whatever). If they specifically look for "non-blessed" Android variants and deliberately fail to work, that's a shame, but if it's an app I need, that rules out that OS for me, unfortunately. That's just the reality of the situation.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#358

Post by surajs »

I am as a rule wary of anyone who decides to offer me "privacy" as a USP of their products, I didn't pick up the phone or laptop to get more privacy, but to share more data. Moreover, the iron law of oligarchy seems to suggest that those who are excessively concerned about my data must need it more.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#359

Post by foresto »

busymom0 wrote: post #349
danvittegleo wrote: post #347

CalyxOS is an awesome project. I have worked with the lead developer a bit over the past few years and it's been such a pleasure. We share some bits of code between our projects here: https://github.com/AOSPAlliance . If anyone is interested in building their own custom android OS in the cloud (AWS) with same ability to lock your bootloader like CalyxOS, you can checkout my project I've been maintaining for a few yea…

How expensive is it to build android in the cloud? And how are the build times? Is it possible to do it on a local Mac mini instead or will that take too long to build?

From memory, I think LineageOS 17 took roughly 8-12 hours for an initial build and 3.5 hours for subsequent (ccache) builds on an Intel i5-3570K and spinning hard drive. That's not including the initial git clone.

The idea might seem daunting, but assuming midrange hardware and a decent net connection, it's very much doable in under a day without resorting to cloud services.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#360

Post by kelnos »

dyndos wrote: post #149
kelnos wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the trade off that I hate having to make, and I'm glad to see something like Calyx here. I want a phone that respects my privacy and is secure, but I also want to use apps like Google Photos (my favorite app that I use more than anything, aside from Firefox), Lyft, Netflix, Slack, banking apps, airline apps, and, critically, Google Pay. I get that using many of those apps might increase my exposure to trackin…

Note that the GrapheneOS developer has indicated they are working on getting the Google Play Services apps to run sandboxed like normal apps, without extensive system permissions. This could be quite promising.

Oh wow, this is actually amazing. I'm really impressed with the work the GrapheneOS folks are doing. Ah, damn, it looks like they've dropped support for the Pixel 2. I have a Pixel 4 as my daily driver, but I'd prefer to try it first on a phone I don't use all the time. Ah well. Perhaps the 4 will still be supported whenever I get my next phone :)

Some non-Twitter prose about the Play Services support (though it doesn't include the tweeted info about dynamite support being nearly finished): https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-play-services

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