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Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

thefoggiest.dev

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Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#121

Post by [deleted] »

FredPret wrote: post #108
em-bee wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 le…

[deleted]

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#122

Post by JCattheATM »

tholdem wrote: post #118
dustbunny wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fedora Silverblue is this

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.

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.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#123

Post by kernal »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #72
greatgib wrote: post #19

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 so…

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.

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?

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#124

Post by nottorp »

Jhsto wrote: post #57

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 wo…

> 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.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#125

Post by genewitch »

greatgib wrote: post #35
genewitch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 separ…

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…

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).

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#126

Post by jasode »

margalabargala wrote: post #94
Rooster61 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

>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.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#127

Post by teddyh »

margalabargala wrote: post #94
Rooster61 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

That image is seriously out of date. Bluetooth, GPS, and even recording video all work fine.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#128

Post by erxam »

mft_ wrote: post #60

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.…

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.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#129

Post by craftkiller »

butz wrote: post #92

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?

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.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#130

Post by guappa »

Tepix wrote: post #112
guappa wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We‘re talking about AOSP Android here

It cannot be compiled as it is, so it's nothing that runs on any phone.
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