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I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

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Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#251

Post by jolmg »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #162
smalltorch wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the main things you can do in a real shell versus termux for instance? It's a pretty big sandbox in my experience.

If something bothers me with my phone's UI or if I want to change the behavior of some system service, I can do e.g. "apt source phosh", patch it and then "apt build-dep .", "dpkg-buildpackage -b" and "apt install" it right on the phone. I can even send the patch for upstreaming from there. How easy it is to do an equivalent thing on Android?

UI-wise, termux can run Xorg and you can modify the interface you use there. You're right about services. Can't run systemd, but they can just run the service programs in the background (e.g. they can call sshd directly). Regarding modifying programs, maybe not that convenient directly on termux, but if it's rooted, you may be able to run docker and modify them in a debian environment.

The neat thing about non-Android phones with respect to what you mention is that you can do those things just like how you would on any other computer, without having to worry about Android workarounds that may one day stop working via an update.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#252

Post by tweetle_beetle »

filmgirlcw wrote: post #50
MarkWayneNewton wrote: post #10

Shoutout to Purism... if you got the loot. https://puri.sm/products/liberty-phone/

Anyone looking at this should recognize that the hardware itself is nearly a decade old (and has performance of a mid-range Android from 11 or 12 years ago), the software is buggy and not fully baked (the version of Debian they JUST moved to has lost normal Debian Security team updates and maintenance has moved to the Debian LTS team) and the company has a history of extreme delays in shipping and customer service. P…

I find it interesting to track the reality of using these free-er devices well after launch. Sadly it always seems incredibly painful and hinted at post-launch improvements tend to be small if they come at all.

https://forums.puri.sm/t/each-update-makes-my-librem5-worse/...

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#253

Post by throwawayk7h »

thelastgallon wrote: post #219
zx8080 wrote: post #198

If only a few techies will be able to use Linux phone, banks will freely lock payment services access down to two platforms: ios and android. No way out, it's happening right now (in the name of "security", of course, but surprisingly it does not stop scam from happening). Web will be locked down too, via secureboot stack browser integration (not -s, it's already actually monopolised to chrome only, as FF lives on fu…

Perhaps we can think of this? Use a linux phone and an android phone as VM. For apps that are not immediately available as Linux apps, we continue to use the android VM. We continuously make better apps available on Linux and maybe, just maybe eventually switch completely to Linux phone.

The problem is that Remote Attestation allows apps to reliably detect running in an emulator. Otherwise, it's already possible with waydroid.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#254

Post by hommelix »

TheRoque wrote: post #44
summermusic wrote: post #41

Is there such thing as a palm-sized mobile PC that can just run a desktop Linux distribution (or Windows for that matter) that supports mobile features (calling, SMS, and data)? Even if it has rough edges or compromises?

What's wrong with just Android?

Currently Google is planning to lock down the Android platform to only Google Play store software repository. See https://keepandroidopen.org/ for more info.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#255

Post by indianmouse »

droserasprout wrote: post #114
realusername wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say the OnePlus 6 is fully supported so it's one device at least (the stuff that isn't on it is minor). Mainlining is very hard though so the results are expected

I can confirm this holding OP6 (enchilada) in my hands — it's a flagship postmarketOS device. It also has other nerd options available — Sailfish and Windows (Renegade Project) — but obviously with poor hardware support. I highly recommend keeping an eye on postmarketOS blog. [1] It's a fun reading, and development's been really rapid lately. What stopped me from full migration to pmOS the last time I tried it about…

True. I have installed PMOS on a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 and it is has great support for the hardware.

Amazed to see Linux booting natively on a palm sized device with full hardware support and computer capabilities was out of the world!

Given the fact that the device is more than a decade old, it still runs the mainline 6.x Linux kernel and the UI is good! (desktop manager which I've installed it is based on POSH Shell).

Looks cool and since calls, SMS, Wi-Fi and data works fine to a good extent, the only gripe was that camera is unusable in it's current form. Have not tried the android subsystem yet I don't think it'll work due to device limitations.

Have installed Tailscale and primarily using it for remote SSH administration of all my devices through Tailscale. The device build is still solid (which I don't see in the newer devices! due to planned obsolescence) and browser based netbanking access works fine.

Caveats of a small device, keyboard and user experience matters though I'm not complaining because I can pretty much see what happens on the device and I'm not feeding any unwanted signals to anyone.

Constantly on the lookout for pure Linux based devices. Unfortunately, yet to my hands on Librem based device or on a Fairphone!

I hope the world moves towards a Linux based device (being a Linux user for close to 3+ decades (since the early Sco Unix times with core systems programming, I always dream of it! BTW, being a hardcore C programmer who has worked across almost all OSes and CPU architectures!) and such wish and dream will fully be fulfilled only on Linux or on *nix with firm belief!

Hope someone takes a serious move...

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#256

Post by WorldMaker »

zx8080 wrote: post #198

If only a few techies will be able to use Linux phone, banks will freely lock payment services access down to two platforms: ios and android. No way out, it's happening right now (in the name of "security", of course, but surprisingly it does not stop scam from happening). Web will be locked down too, via secureboot stack browser integration (not -s, it's already actually monopolised to chrome only, as FF lives on fu…

It's what felt like what really killed Windows Phone. Too many things became "only available" through an iOS or Android app. Windows Phone was free as in beer towards the end and there's a possibility there would have still been a small but devoted techie audience on it, if so many things weren't already so broken from disappearing/vanished app support.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#257

Post by yyaakkqq »

MarceliusK wrote: post #226
zx8080 wrote: post #198

If only a few techies will be able to use Linux phone, banks will freely lock payment services access down to two platforms: ios and android. No way out, it's happening right now (in the name of "security", of course, but surprisingly it does not stop scam from happening). Web will be locked down too, via secureboot stack browser integration (not -s, it's already actually monopolised to chrome only, as FF lives on fu…

The frustrating part is that security increasingly means proving you are using an approved device and software stack, rather than proving that you are actually the account owner

the people deciding this are the ones selling the devices

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#258

Post by yyaakkqq »

zx8080 wrote: post #198

If only a few techies will be able to use Linux phone, banks will freely lock payment services access down to two platforms: ios and android. No way out, it's happening right now (in the name of "security", of course, but surprisingly it does not stop scam from happening). Web will be locked down too, via secureboot stack browser integration (not -s, it's already actually monopolised to chrome only, as FF lives on fu…

> Very sad how it was allowed to happen so easily.

says everyone, using chrome. sigh.

Re: I'm switching my phone from Android to Linux

#260

Post by penguin_booze »

I'm all for using a Linux phone. The caveats thereof are mentioned in this thread.

I've a wish list of one, though: make the Web the primary GUI front end. Essentially, apps are a specialised browser window. That way, I can program (both the front- and back-end) in plain text, just using regular Linux tools and a text editor -- no bloatware and gargantuan IDEs mandated.

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