Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

jleightcap.srht.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 277 posts

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#251

Post by zwieback »

antisthenes wrote: post #103
zwieback wrote: post #30

I like the idea of a more open phone a lot but dispute the "Smartphones are shit" premise. I think modern smart phones are an unbelievably awesome value. Battery, display, wireless and processing power have advanced at such an unbelievable rate that we have something in our pockets that far exceeds predictions of 20, 30, 100 years ago. The problem is that we don't want to pay what it really costs to have such a great…

> I think modern smart phones are an unbelievably awesome value. 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…

No, not suggesting that. I don't actually think there's that much wrong with corporate-driven development. I think what most users, myself included, don't like is that our personal data is monetized in increasingly complex ways. There is no simple solution to this problem, though. "Accept all cookies yes/no" has only made things a bit more annoying without really fixing anything.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#252

Post by jrm4 »

synicalx wrote: post #171
jrm4 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You completely lost me at "they're general purpose computing devices." This is not even remotely a reasonable definition of today's smartphones.

I beg to differ. They might not be suitable for "power users" or Stallman but for most people they're fine. I've got at least a few non-technical friends that haven't owned a laptop or PC in years and do all their "computing" from their phone and maybe an iPad. The only reason my parents still have a computer is because they like to look at their photos on a large screen, but outside of that one use-case (which could…

You fundamentally misunderstand and misrepresent what is commonly meant by "general purpose." General purpose is not merely a set of specific purposes that a lot of people are into. General purpose means I can freely change it if I want to.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#253

Post by josephcsible »

MinorTom wrote: post #233
josephcsible wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What regulation requires Android or iOS in particular?

Regulation requires 2-factor verification of sign-ins and transactions (and no, WebAuthn and TOTP aren't allowed). That leaves three options: * Physical hardware (what?) * SMS at 9 cent each * An app

> WebAuthn and TOTP aren't allowed

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?

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#254

Post by aerique »

ryukafalz wrote: post #13
mariusor wrote: post #6

I wish Sailfish OS had a mention. If someone tries to escape the Android/iOS duopoly, it's probably the most mature linux based distribution out there. 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 enthusias…

From a US perspective, the lack of group messaging makes it a non-starter for me, unfortunately. My friends and family just expect me to be able to receive group messages. It’s not optional these days for a lot of people. 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.

What do you mean with group messaging?

As someone from a region where it's WhatsApp wherever you look I do not understand the US situation.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#255

Post by aerique »

mariusor wrote: post #55
spaniard89277 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They claim to be compatible with android apps in their site, how true is that? 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.

They support android apps from a custom repository and from f-droid. I think most of them work in the limit of being compatible with the android version that Alien Dalvik on the device supports (the latest models like Sony Xperia 10 II support version 10). However most of them suffer from not having access to Google services, but then again, that's something a person that wants to de-google would expect I think.

Aurora Store also works (which just gets apps from the Google Play Store).

It is possible to install microg making more Android apps work on SFOS.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#256

Post by ryukafalz »

aerique wrote: post #254
ryukafalz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a US perspective, the lack of group messaging makes it a non-starter for me, unfortunately. My friends and family just expect me to be able to receive group messages. It’s not optional these days for a lot of people. 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.

What do you mean with group messaging? As someone from a region where it's WhatsApp wherever you look I do not understand the US situation.

Group MMS. Here in the US MMS messages are usually included with your plan (as opposed to much of the rest of the world where I hear it’s expensive) so it’s caught on much more here than elsewhere.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#257

Post by fsflover »

synicalx wrote: post #178
spacexsucks wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to differ. They are higly optimized attention seeking monsters with side "benefits". They will turn on you thr momemnt google/apple so choose.

Right but that doesn't make them any less useful as a general purpose computing device - they still serve that function perfectly well with or without them slowly eroding our mental capacity and stealing all our data.

> They will turn on you thr momemnt google/apple so choose.

> 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.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#258

Post by fsflover »

jarbus wrote: post #225
HidyBush wrote: post #29

The funny thing is that PinePhone's problems almost entirely fall on the software side. I think we can all agree that for basic smartphone usage the base PinePhone is plenty overkill. How much processing power do you need to send messages? Take and look at moderate resolution photos? Render an OpenStreetMap tile? If somehow web browsers didn't exist the only downsides left for the Pinephone would maybe be regarding h…

As someone who uses a PinePhone, this is hard to say. Web browsing on the device is incredibly slow, just opening the browser can take fifteen seconds. If this could be improved with software optimizations, then it might be overkill, but as it stands, this phone can’t do basic web browsing to any decent standard and still has me reaching for an iPhone

Try sxmo and you will see how fast and smooth Pinephone can be.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#259

Post by foresto »

throwing4321 wrote: post #209
foresto wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five years from when? The purchase date, or the product introduction date? If the latter, the effective support lifetime will be (on average) much shorter.

Product release date of course. Other devices compromise on security.

Indeed. Which brings us back to my original comment.

Re: The case for LineageOS and the PinePhone

#260

Post by hiq »

usrn wrote: post #139
hiq wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.) 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 defau…

>rm -rf / in one of those scripts also just works I assume 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…

> And how often do you here stories of viruses from Linux users?

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.

Post reply on HN