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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?

#91

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

genewitch wrote: post #26
hnlmorg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The year of the Linux desktop” has always been a stupid statement because it never quantifies what the success criteria is. For example, we now have first class games support via Proton. First class application support via Electron and other web technologies. Linux used in schools via Chromebooks. Etc Linux was never going to be Windows-killer but I’m constantly amazed at just how easy it is to use vanilla GNU Linux…

Do people still use desktops? To answer your question.

"Desktop Linux" includes laptops, so yes.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#93

Post by em-bee »

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.…

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 on a phone at all. if we live in the same city we could have regular hangouts where we'd be able to meet without any prior arrangements. or if we know each other well enough you know where i live, or have contact to family members.

this is a matter of priority. i keep using the chinese wechat despite privacy concerns because it is the only way to stay in touch with friends and family in china. i long refused to use it, but as a consequence some friends from that time are now lost.

but outside of china matrix and deltachat are the best options even with android. and matrix unfortunately isn't even that good[1]. it still fails some times, and it is difficult to maintain a server and keep it spam free.

[1] matrix is getting better, but the key handling is complex, and at least one seurity minded friend rejected it in disgust last year when for unknown reasons at one point the encryption between us failed and we could not talk to each other. it's a problem when even tech oriented people privacy minded people reject matrix.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#94

Post by margalabargala »

Rooster61 wrote: post #81
seba_dos1 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#96

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

codethief wrote: post #40

> Many will point out that a Linux phone is less secure than Android or iOS, but that highly depends on your personal threat model. Linux phones and their apps are all open-source and do not depend on ads or surveillance to sustain some nefarious business model, which means there is much privacy to be won. Meanwhile here I am on my Linux machine, constantly anxious that sooner or later one of my bazillion npm and pip…

> Meanwhile here I am on my Linux machine, constantly anxious that sooner or later one of my bazillion npm and pip dependencies will get compromised, and secretly praying that one day proper sandboxing and an Android-security model will be common on the Linux desktop, so that I can erect security boundaries between my applications and repositories.

Why wait? You can shove your pip/npm uses into docker/podman and remove 90% of the attack surface today. (Provided you don't map your home directory into the containers)

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#97

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

mac-attack wrote: post #86
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.…

I had a similar experience with GrapheneOS. There is a balance in act between continuing down the privacy rabbit hole versus being able to communicate effectively with your social circle and it is easy to double down on privacy at the cost of relationships if you are not aware of how it is affecting others.

I have my own problems with GrapheneOS, but I thought they made a great effort to make sure that it didn't really have that kind of downside. What problems did you hit?

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#99

Post by diggan »

ForHackernews wrote: post #78
codethief wrote: post #40

> Many will point out that a Linux phone is less secure than Android or iOS, but that highly depends on your personal threat model. Linux phones and their apps are all open-source and do not depend on ads or surveillance to sustain some nefarious business model, which means there is much privacy to be won. Meanwhile here I am on my Linux machine, constantly anxious that sooner or later one of my bazillion npm and pip…

This is a solved problem if you trust the packaging folks for your distro. Most end-users will never need to install some random stuff from npm or pypi: these are developer-specific concerns.

> Most end-users [...] these are developer-specific concerns

I'd wager a bet and say most end-users who end up using Linux are, by one definition or more, developers.

Re: Daily driving a Linux phone, but why?

#100

Post by tholdem »

guappa wrote: post #49
codethief wrote: post #40

> Many will point out that a Linux phone is less secure than Android or iOS, but that highly depends on your personal threat model. Linux phones and their apps are all open-source and do not depend on ads or surveillance to sustain some nefarious business model, which means there is much privacy to be won. Meanwhile here I am on my Linux machine, constantly anxious that sooner or later one of my bazillion npm and pip…

Firejail and apparmor have existed for years. If you don't use them maybe it's your fault? Also the very same npm backdoors have already hit android apps. What can sandboxing do if you backdoor a dependency of your banking app?

Sandboxing should be built in and by default, not DIY and glued on, like with apparmor and firejail.

"Your car does not come with a seatbelt? Seatbelt parts are easy to order online and assembled on any car, it's your fault for not using one."

> Also the very same npm backdoors have already hit android apps. What can sandboxing do if you backdoor a dependency of your banking app?

The whole point of sandboxing is that one compromised app can not compromise the whole system and other apps. Compromised dependency on my banking app on Android or iOS only compromises that banking app and nothing else.

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