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Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

divestos.org

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Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#81

Post by pabs3 »

wpwpwpw wrote: post #52

There's this years long quest to keep old phones alive, which is amazing (i'm myself using lineageos). But what are the odds of doing the crazy stuff people at asahi are doing with mX macs? There are absolutely no drivers for that hardware, and they are building everything from the ground up. Of course it's a huge amount of work given the considerable amount of different chipsets, cameras... but am I dumb to believe…

There are some people doing that, it takes a ton of work and the device will probably be dead by the time you are finished. Some links in the articles section here:

https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#83

Post by kelnos »

phh wrote: post #65
ramesh31 wrote: post #41

Still running the latest iOS on my 6 year old first-gen SE. Why can't Android do the same?

I run latest Android version on my 6 years old Pixel 1. The only reason it isn't provided by Google is that Google doesn't want to.

More like Qualcomm doesn't want to spend the money to do it. Google can't update the binary drivers and firmware that Qualcomm gives them. And Google only has so much leverage in order to get Qualcomm to provide updates to older hardware.

Sure, Google could release newer Android versions (assuming they'll run under whatever last kernel version Qualcomm provided support for, which isn't always the case), or at least release patches for flaws in Android itself, as long as they'd want to, but after the chipset support runs out, they can't update some drivers and firmware. I think it's not unreasonable to just declare those devices as insecure and move on.

Google has managed to get support up to five years, but only on newer Pixel devices. I'm sure that wasn't an easy negotiation.

Apple, in contrast, builds all the hardware and software in iPhones and iPads, so they can decide to support devices for as long as they wish.

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#84

Post by my123 »

bpye wrote: post #60
ccouzens wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that even supported phones can have unpatchable hardware bugs. For example checkm8 back in 2019.

At least that required hardware access. If you had an exploitable bug in say some GPU firmware, then you'd realistically need to disable accelerated graphics everywhere no?

GPU firmware is not a security boundary on the vast majority of hardware.

With app to GPU communication being mediated by the kernel.

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#85

Post by throw_m239339 »

I want to try this on a very old device BUT is there a way to flash the current image to restore it later if DivestOS installation did not succeed?

Or is there a list of supported devices for DivestOS already? the 2 devices are an old Alcatel and some random OEM Android (LOGICOM).

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#86

Post by asddubs »

ramesh31 wrote: post #49
palata wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier for Apple to do because they make both the hardware and the OS. Say you are Sony and make an Android phone. You take some version of Android and port it to your hardware (with patches for your hardware e.g. in Linux, etc). Your Android system is now effectively a fork. Now say you want to get updates from upstream regularly. Every time, you may have conflicts with your patches, and you have to fix them. T…

I’m not sure this holds up, though. I could install Ubuntu latest on any random laptop from 2005 right now with zero issues. What exactly makes mobile special?

the drivers generally do not get upstreamed by the vendors

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#87

Post by _piif »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #79
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They? This is my project, it is just me. "They" has been an acceptable default third-person singular pronoun since at least the 1400s. If there's something you'd prefer, it might be wise to list it on one of your user profile pages.

Since the 1400s my arse. It's just an annoying trend among woke evangelists, and makes the english language uglier while conveying less information about the subject in question.

There is quite literally nothing "woke" about using "they" to refer to someone in a gender neutral way. That term is really overused nowadays.

Either way, I suppose "he/she" could be used instead if that really is an issue?

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#88

Post by _rdvw »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #85

I want to try this on a very old device BUT is there a way to flash the current image to restore it later if DivestOS installation did not succeed? Or is there a list of supported devices for DivestOS already? the 2 devices are an old Alcatel and some random OEM Android (LOGICOM).

The downloads page has the list of supported devices, but neither of those two you mention are supported.

For a copy of the stock OS you can usually find it on the vendors website.

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#89

Post by noduerme »

jkepler wrote: post #47
Fatnino wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to place calls is the absolute last feature I want from my phone. I'll even call it a misfeature. An os that will let an old device live on as a wifi only device is sorely needed.

Lineage OS can often do WiFi only on old Androids. But unless I'm mistaken, if a device only has 3G, and you want to travel with it away from WiFi, you can't even get 3G data on the device, as they shut off the 3G networks in the USA. Best you're gonna find in some rural areas may be 2G or 2.5G.

I'm not sure. In some rural areas in Oregon I seem to still get 3G (on Verizon). Unless my Android device is mislabeling 2.5G.

Re: Show HN: DivestOS – Long-term support for end-of-life Android devices

#90

Post by culopatin »

I went to the site and failed to understand what’s different from other Android distros to make the general claim of “support for EOL Android devices”. Isn’t it the same as LineageOS or whatever other distros you can find for each device at XDA?

I thought I was going to find a site that found a way of running newer Android over the old one to not have to worry about drivers and such, but I found yet another distro with support for SOME devices. I also thought I’d find support for an oldish Kindle HD8 I’ve been wanting to repurpose.

This is not to say that it might be great and all, I just felt a bit mislead by the title and I would like to find out if I’m just not seeing something.

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