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Linux phones are more important now than ever

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Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#161

Post by pabs3 »

salawat wrote: post #100
Telaneo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to focus on getting one easily available, affordable device working fully with pure Debian or PostmarketOS (no closed drivers or other modules, and preferably no blobs) and with Purism's Phosh. I'm not sure how viable this is. Linux phones already opt for hardware that's as open as possible, i.e. they use parts with the most open documentation and drives, but the trade-off to that is that those parts are functional…

Why is the baseband closed? That is the question we need to have answered.

It doesn't have to be, the PinePhone's modem runs a proprietary Linux distro, which you can replace with an open source Linux distro. That is only the ARM processor of it though, the Hexagon one is all proprietary.

https://github.com/the-modem-distro/pinephone_modem_sdk/

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#162

Post by like_any_other »

internet2000 wrote: post #107
joshdavham wrote: post #101

Pardon my potentially naive question, but would Samsung ever develop their own OS? I imagine they're not necessarily happy about some of the latest changes to android.

Bada and Tizen. They've been trying for 15 years. Tizen in particular is as Linux as it gets. Long story short: it's not something the market wants.

> it's not something the market wants.

If it was just "the market" guiding things, there would be no need to lock things down against consumers, or pulling bait-and-switches with slowly closing down the previously open-source Android, would there?

Please learn to recognize when you are under attack.

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#163

Post by goda90 »

j45 wrote: post #146
zaik wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely hate that government and bank apps are only available on the Play Store. You are legally required to have a Google account and accept their ToS to use them. I am aware of Aurora, but some banking apps check their origin and refuse to run if not downloaded from the Play Store.

Do they not have websites to login with?

Some force 2fa with their app only.

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#164

Post by maheart »

bobthecowboy wrote: post #158
maheart wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Is there a single Linux phone/tablet that can last an 8 hour day of actual use? What's "actual use"? Furi FLX1 has the best battery life I've seen on a Linux phone. Idling, it last 3+ days. I'm sure it could survive 1 whole day of "actual use". I also think almost any (official) SailfishOS device would last a day of actual use.

I've been considering this as my Android exit plan (as part of a slow rolling de-googling effort, even before the recent "sideloading" news). Are you using it as a daily driver? I'm sort of surprised it doesn't get brought up more.

Yes, I used SailfishOS as a daily driver since ~2014 until last year when I moved to the Furi FLX1. The FLX1 has been my daily driver since. SailfishOS is much more polished, but it's not fully FOSS, and it follows upstream much less closely. FLX1 is basically in-sync with Debian testing, with the exception of kernel.

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#165

Post by throw83834948 »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #150
jeffparsons wrote: post #17

My Android phone prevents me from taking screenshots if an app author doesn't want me to. My Android phone prevents me from recording phone calls at the request of my carrier, even though it's totally legal for me to do so in my jurisdiction. I'm not loving where this is all going.

My government (Denmark) refusing to let me use their digital identity app because I don't want to accept Google's or Apple's TOS, and Google helping them enforce that via remote attestation services. Luckily there are alternatives in the form of code displays and NFC chips. However, next year I won't be able to watch porn unless I verify my age using a smartphone, no alternatives are planned. Or rather, I have the "f…

During covid I was not allowed to leave house. Permits were only issued to local SIMs, which I did not had!

If I respected the rules, I would starve to death!

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#167

Post by pabs3 »

akagusu wrote: post #5

Linux phones are useless for common people until they can run government and bank apps.

Those apps usually require Google's version of Android (or Apple iOS), and block alternative Android builds using attestation:

https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-gu...

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#168

Post by fabrice_d »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #79

I fully think an amazing consumer-targetting device could take over like a storm if done well, if ambitiously done, with an aggressive software stack. But. I think what we should ask for now should be simpler. Let this be an alpha geek toy, let folks fiddle with some basic devices boards that can do the thing. The work on PinePhone, Mobian, others is good pioneering work, alas largely held back by there just being so…

PostmarketOS seems to have decent support for the Fairphone 5: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp...

Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever

#169

Post by Foobar8568 »

hypeatei wrote: post #62
jeffparsons wrote: post #17

My Android phone prevents me from taking screenshots if an app author doesn't want me to. My Android phone prevents me from recording phone calls at the request of my carrier, even though it's totally legal for me to do so in my jurisdiction. I'm not loving where this is all going.

> prevents me from taking screenshots if an app author doesn't want me to The most frustrating part about this "feature" is that you don't know it's enabled until the screenshot is taken and you're left with a picture of nothing. That and some app authors thinking they're protecting you with this (referring to banking apps in particular)

I want to send my new IBAN to my company, I can, no screenshot allowed on the screen with banking information. So I need to log on their website to do it. At least my new bank allows such screenshot and to copy account information directly from the app.
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