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Linux phones are more important now than ever
321–330 of 515 posts
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#322Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#323I keep my eye on Linux phones from time-to-time.
By "linux" -- I guess I mean using a phone that runs a valid linux distribution that gives me freedom of control as well as software freedom.
I know people have a love/hate with environments like GNOME, but I don't mind it and happy for it on my phone.. as long as it adapts nicely on smaller screens.
My only issue is applications. Like many, I am using an Android/IPhone - and have installed various applications. Will any/most of these exist if/when I move over to a proper GNU/Linux phone?
This is the biggest hurdle. While I would find ways around it, I think this is where most people would stick to what they are familiar with... even if it is impacting rights, legalities, and other things we are slowly losing control over, etc.
I really do like the idea of Librem 5.
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#324My next phone will almost certainly be two phones. One cheap and super standard Android phone to just run banking apps and similar that insists on Google Play etc. Locked down and boring, turned off most of the time. Then a second phone for everything else (terminal with sshd, emacs, emulators, media players ... the stuff that allows a phone to be the general purpose computer it should be). Looks increasingly unlikel…
After just submitting my recent post --- I do like your suggestion.
Maybe 2 phones are the way forward.
Maybe a PAYG phone which stays at home on my network for particular needs like banking.
Then a standard phone which is essentially a GNU/Linux distro.... mmm... Emacs on my phone sounds lovely!
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#325Apologies if the idea is absurd, but wouldn't a Linux handheld without a cell modem be easier to build and distribute? Think something of an analogue to iPod Touches, which were iPhones sans the the phone part. This would skip a lot of the regulatory red tape, bring down costs, and make the devices more accessible so they’re in more developers’ hands. They’d have to tether from your primary phone which isn’t ideal, b…
I use a Nokia/HMD KaiOS phone as a 4G/Wifi router for the communications part of your idea.
Did you choose a KaiOS phone specifically because other current non-smart phones lack support for Bluetooth tethering (a.k.a. PAN profile)?
As far as I can tell, all currently available models from all manufacturers are based on some Unisoc platform and offer no indication of support for this feature in their manuals. Did you happen to come across any alternatives?
I'm not very keen on KaiOS given the ubiquitous advertising baked into it (which is apparently their business model).
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
> i mean yeah but you cannot do shit all about a vps Of course you can. The AS numbers of major hosting providers are well known and it is already common practice to ban associated IP addresses for stuff that should only be done by legitimate users.
you cannot ban aws or linenode my dude
Why not?
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#327My 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…
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Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#328My next phone will almost certainly be two phones. One cheap and super standard Android phone to just run banking apps and similar that insists on Google Play etc. Locked down and boring, turned off most of the time. Then a second phone for everything else (terminal with sshd, emacs, emulators, media players ... the stuff that allows a phone to be the general purpose computer it should be). Looks increasingly unlikel…
Could you maybe run a hypervisor with both operating systems? Like one does on a server?
Or will that munch your battery?
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#329Isn't Android... Linux? It's not "gotcha", just... there are many clones of Android that work without Google Play, because Android (AOSP) is based on Linux. Why not just use that? What does "linux phone" add?
Nobody actually cares about the kernel. They care about having control of their phones instead of the company that sold it to them, and they care that the userspace is normal, rather than weird and constantly changing according to the whims of the company that sold it to them. They do not want to carry conmen, swindlers, and spies in their pockets.
People mocked Stallman for saying GNU/Linux. Turns out it's important to specify what you're talking about, or people will misunderstand you. I use Debian. If Debian rebased to BSD (forked and relicensed to GPL, with gnutils) I'd probably still use Debian. If iOS rebased to Linux, I still would never consider touching it.
My opinion is that people actually want the political protection offered by the GPL and the people and projects who stick to it, like Debian (and others.) They do not acknowledge this to themselves. They usually want to be able to layer a few proprietary toys on top, but those are visitors who will be ejected for bad behavior, and they want an OS that will rat on that bad behavior when it sees it. They are afraid of this political project because they are afraid of politics (or because their professed meatspace politics turn out to be the opposite of what they actually want in their own lives.)
Re: Linux phones are more important now than ever
#330My next phone will almost certainly be two phones. One cheap and super standard Android phone to just run banking apps and similar that insists on Google Play etc. Locked down and boring, turned off most of the time. Then a second phone for everything else (terminal with sshd, emacs, emulators, media players ... the stuff that allows a phone to be the general purpose computer it should be). Looks increasingly unlikel…
Yeah, you second phone sounds like a laptop. I have a boring phone that I don't care about with basically factory settings and perhaps 3 apps. MyGov, Dropbox and something else I can't even remember right now.
And I also carry a super cool small laptop that can tether to the phone and actually do stuff with.
One is an appliance, the other is a computer.