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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

#381

Post by idiotsecant »

dev1ycan wrote: post #277
WorldMaker wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It always seemed insane to me that people accepted so easily to have everything locked behind "app stores", crazy garbage, even worse having SO MUCH PREINSTALLED BLOATWARE OUT OF THE BOX.

People just want to press a button and see videos or their bank balances or whatever. They don't care about architecture.

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

#382

Post by fzeindl »

palata wrote: post #379
fzeindl wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually really like Android as an operating system, the internals seem remarkably well thought out and ideal for the mobile use case Just no. I developed for android for a long time and I have seldomly seen a worse and more confusing SDK and code base. I can give you many examples but the core layouting algorithm having quadratic complexity with the number of widgets and the single base-view class having 60.000…

> I developed for android for a long time When was that?

I stopped in 2018. I realize that a lot has been done since then, but the base code wasn‘t changed, otherwise old apps wouldn‘t run anymore.

My gripe with android is that I think it wastes a lot of resources by being very inefficient in software. Just enable the debug mode to see what portion of your screen refreshes and repaints and stand back in awe while nothing changes and you still get hundreds of repaints.

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

#383

Post by palata »

yyaakkqq wrote: post #257
MarceliusK wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't have issues with my Pixel running GrapheneOS in that regard. I have issues with goddamn banks doing that at the app level.

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

#384

Post by emj »

pjmlp wrote: post #273
jarbus wrote: post #80

I really want to love mobile Linux, and have given it multiple shots before. But I just don't see how it will catch up with iOS/Android in the same way it caught up with Windows/Mac: - OEMs have poured an enormous amount of resources into the camera software, Linux cameras are years behind from what I understand. - Android/iOS have thoroughly optimized the UX in all sorts of subtle ways, the big one being their keybo…

Linux desktop is still not caught up with Windows/Mac in regards to graphics, gaming, and laptops hardware support. Gaming, it is mostly Windows games via Proton, hardly any different from using MAME, FS-UAE, Amiberry,... Graphics, most of the well known commercial packages for VFX, 3D modeling, visualisation, lack a Linux version. Laptops, just two years ago I failed to make UEFI work with the myriad of distribution…

Linux desktop has always worked, and was better for me. There will always be stuff you can't have on one OS that works on another, this has been true since before Linux. The question here is of what we are given be iOS and Google Play Services is enough, for many of us it is not.

I daily drive SailfishOS on Jolla to see if it can be enough.

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

#385

Post by inigyou »

inigyou wrote: post #354
eimrine wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS is still having two reasons to cry even in your case.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. If my bank wants me to run proprietary shitware, they can supply me with their proprietary secure processor to run it on, and we're good.

Also the bank card is really part of the bank system. It doesn't do anything else, and it has to interoperate exactly as they want it to. While I may feel the right to hack on it, I'd do so entirely at my own risk. It's probably better that I don't mess with it as long as it fulfils its purpose. I can use my own device for my own stuff.

I feel the same way about ISP modems (not routers). As long as I get an Ethernet port and the modem isn't doing anything untoward, I don't see any problem with letting the ISP's network termination equipment exist inside my house. Some people think there should be a right to hand off the connection as DSL or fiber and buy your own modem, and I think you should be allowed to do that at your own risk, but I don't think the ISP should have to support it. Particularly with PON fiber or CATV, it's actually a bit dangerous to let the customer use random modems as it's a shared medium with half your street and you wouldn't want to jam them.

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

#386

Post by emj »

mdp2021 wrote: post #282
CalRobert wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We chose that when we stopped using cash.

> stopped using cash You stopped using cash? It is one of the most insane things I ever heard. You transactions are tracked, I assume? The rule in the eu (PSD2) is that a dozen private/public/hybrid/other databases, of unclear substantial identity, will record your transactions. And what if you had a an infrastructural shortage? No transactions then? How can people think of "cashless society" as something outside a d…

Because cash sucks. Haven't used cash in 10 years. I agree it is problematic. I guess a high trust society enables it NL and SE are such places.

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

#387

Post by bpavuk »

inigyou wrote: post #341
bpavuk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, me being in Ukraine also means readiness to move out of my house whenever the need (or opportunity to escape abroad! I hate this war and kidnap-conscription) may arise. it's as much convenience as it is preparedness

Which part of having all your money locked behind six technological barriers requiring pervasive infrastructure to be working is preparedness? Preparedness is having several thousand euros in cash.

everyday transactions and subscriptions still go through banks and apps. also,

> Preparedness is having several thousand euros in cash.

totally agree. not that I, much like any average Ukrainian, have more than €400 behind my name, but I agree, and by that definition only the wealthiest ~10% are truly prepared

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

#388

Post by seba_dos1 »

Cheese48923846 wrote: post #192

Doesn't Android already use the Linux kernel?

You can build various, vastly different operating systems around the same kernel. When people refer to "Linux phones", they usually mean the family of systems often referred to as GNU/Linux distributions, which Android very clearly doesn't belong to.

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

#389

Post by cogman10 »

rickdeckard wrote: post #331
reorder9695 wrote: post #294

I've come to the conclusion that I actually really like Android as an operating system, the internals seem remarkably well thought out and ideal for the mobile use case (so long as you're running a userdebug build with the ability to adb root in when needed), most of people's issues aren't really with Android (although Google reducing the AOSP release schedule isn't a good sign). I think the real problem is Google Pl…

> I think the real problem is Google Play Services. It's far, far too tightly integrated in a way that it just seems like Android was designed to be unusable without. This is somehow by intention. In the ramp-up of Android adoption, Vendors and carriers started to fork Android and deviate too much from the core. Google needed a leverage to tie them to stay compatible to the ecosystem, Google Mobile Services (GMS) was…

> Google needed a leverage to tie them to stay compatible to the ecosystem, Google Mobile Services (GMS) was the tool to do so. "Pass the compatibility test suite and you qualify to preload GMS".

Yeah, it wasn't even totally the wrong thing when it happened. It was something I liked because you had both the manufacturers and the carriers getting in the way of OS updates.

For example, I bought a new Samsung Galaxy 4 years ago from Tmobile. Tmobile NEVER updated the phone past the initial release, even though samsung did the next android version (I forget which exactly, 9, 10?). But even samsung had dropped support for the phone basically after that single update.

The google move to pull things out of the OS and push them into the play store was welcome because it meant you were less likely to have unfixed bugs and problems due to vendor laziness.

But of course greed has taken over and now google is trying to change Android from an open source OS to a closed source one. Increasingly making it hard for the likes of GrapheneOS to exist.

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

#390

Post by pjmlp »

fg137 wrote: post #373
0xpgm wrote: post #195

Android basically ran a long bait and switch game. It came out as open source, achieved wide adoption, important online services like banking and government-related moved to it. Now they are locking it all down.

In "Androids: The Team That Built the Android Operating System" by Chet Haase (a book you shouldn't waste time on), it is very clear that making Android open source (i.e. AOSP) was almost by accident. Google was pretty confident that Android could be just as successful if it were a more closed ecosystem. And it seems to be that Google is increasingly regretting that decision and closing things down bit by bit, from P…

Folks around here that repeatedly mix Android with Linux, should also be happy that for whatever internal political reasons, they ended up not rebooting it with Fuchsia, or simply replacing the Linux kernel with Zircon.

As everything else, especially anything with a GPL license, has been removed already, with exception of the Linux kernel.

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