I use GrapheneOS on a Pixel 5a. I highly recommend the OS to anyone who is looking for an alternative to Apple and/or Google.
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There is a substantial change to booting between the PinePhone and PinePhone Pro. Previously, each distribution could develop a self-contained eMMC or microSD card image, including a compatible bootloader and kernel distribution. Installation is as simple as flashing a microSD card with the desired distribution and popping it in.
On the PinePhone Pro, the hardware works differently: it prefers to load the bootloader from the eMMC instead of the microSD. This means that when the PinePhone Pro shipped from the factory with Manjaro on the eMMC it will always boot the Manjaro u-Boot, even when booting from a microSD card. We no longer have any control over the bootloader for these devices.
This would completely break, for me, the way that I use mine (funnily enough a Manjaro Community Edition) as Iāve always used it as a distro-hopping deviceā¦
It seems like I ended up getting all three of the devices I bought from PINE64 during rosier days, itās a shame, I had a lot of hope for the PineNote as when I was following development it looked like paper display + ereader capabilities + replacing my large quantity of paper pads.
PINE64 responded directly to Martijn.
And Brad Linder has links to additional responses.
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I havenāt replied for ages. Sorry about that. But, I saw this thread and it caught my attention. Iāve been taking a close look at the e-Foundation offerings. I see a few new names here - for example, PinePhone. Iām in the UK so that may have some bearing on what I choose. Iām currently a Google Android user.
PinePhone is an interesting one as PINE64 are mainly focused on hardware, with the wider community being where the software comes from (although @mikeās articles above show some disunity with regards to that process). I have one of the really early Community Edition ones:
which hasnāt really found much use as a phone, but has been very good as a device to take with me when I know I might want to SSH into some things on the go, but donāt really want to carry a laptop with me. I have also a Pinebook Pro which is an interesting device also (this way of building hardware is pretty unique) and has been taken with me on a camping trip where I wanted to do some writing, as you can just charge it from a standard battery pack!
This means that with a little bit of work on your side, and Iām talking very little as a bunch of these projects have quick installers that work through your browser, you could likely quite easily use /e/OS, GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, Replicant, LineageOS or DivestOSā¦ it is very likely Iām missing something here, which is in my eyes a good thing. ItāsMeās comment up top is relevant here for managing expectations.
Lots of people seem to be taking on the challenge of forking and amending operating systems to help people get away from what is currently a quite-solidified duopoly (with some minor differences for those using hardware that gives its own flavour of Android). Also, /e/ through Murena provide pre-flashed devices, which is a cool way of approaching the problem for those who donāt want to go through this process.
Something which I also encountered recently which I think is very interesting to me, and also likely @mike (due to my perception that we share a hatred for e-waste) is KaiOS - an elegant answer to the question, āwhat if a (kind of) dumbphone was smart?ā
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KaiOS sounds OK on paper. I feel that many KaiOS devices are just e-waste.
Rantingā¦
I had one for a bit. I actually liked it. It was the Nokia 800 Tough. Nice little brick. But, hereās the thing. Within a year KaiOS no longer served updates to the device. Then FB removed WhatsApp support (not that I used that) and that was a selling point for lots of people. Then certificates stopped being updated too (or they were announced to expire, I forget). So, it appeared it would become a brick.
(When WhatsApp was removed, the app icon stayed and could only be removed using some Bananahackers tricks)
The newer KaiOS devices still suffer from issues like battery life. They are loaded with trackers too. I really wanted to like the platform. But it was clunky with baked in games and bloat.
To me, it looks like an attempt to get a foot in the door for the āNext Billionā users in India and Africa, so Google and friends threw some money at them, and KaiOS was listed in TIME as an invention of the yearā¦ but if every major update means you need to buy a new device, doesnāt that make more waste?
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100% me getting the vibes of a thing but not having used it at all, very sad to hear it doesnāt meet expectations 
The idea itself is absolutely stellar, and I think efforts to reclaim and enhance old tech are always things that I will give some time to.
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I almost got a Mudita Pure a while back (maybe youād enjoy it), but decided not to since itās quite a big phone (the design makes it look like a small device), and I needed a couple of apps you can only find for Android or iOS, so for about a year I had a Murena Fairphone (before it was called that), and enjoyed /e/OS for a while.
Then they decided to make a lot of it closed source and I went for GrapheneOS. I think itās been 6-7 months now and I love it. So much better.
I needed a couple of apps you can only find for Android or iOS [ā¦] and I went for GrapheneOS. I think itās been 6-7 months now and I love it. So much better.
I own an iPhone that I intend to keep for as long as possible. I also own a Pinephone which I rarely use due to the lack of apps I need (namely, SIgnal, which might be easier nowadays). Iāve never used Android (so feel free to correct any incorrect assumptions Iāve made)āwhat would you say the advantage of using GrapheneOS instead of stock Android is?
You said there were still Android apps you needed to use, which implies to me that these are proprietary apps not available on free software app repositories like F-Droid. Which would mean you would still be using Google services on GrapheneOS. I had considered getting a Google Pixel and flashing GrapheneOS onto it as my next phone, far into the future, but if I have to use Google services anyway, that feels like a loss to me with a similar amount of telemetry to stock Android. Is there something Iām not considering (beyond the more security-involved changes like Grapheneās improved memory allocator)?
I own an iPhone that I intend to keep for as long as possible.
I had been fully in the Apple ecosystem for many years, too. Iād been growing worried on Appleās ācontrolā since 2018 or so, and after moving back from mac to linux in 2020 (I used linux before getting into the Apple ecosystem), it was the next logical step.
what would you say the advantage of using GrapheneOS instead of stock Android is?
GrapheneOS removes all Google stuff from it (tracking, telemetry, etc.), and if you need to enable Play Services (which I have, when I need to use these apps), theyāre sandboxed (so they wonāt access anything I donāt let them), and I can disable them after Iāve used them. You certainly canāt do any of that on stock Android.
I use Aurora to install apps that donāt offer APKs and are not in F-Droid (thereās only 3 right now, to be honest, all other apps I use are open source and offer APKs, because Iāve been making that effort/transition for the last 6 years).
This article explains a bit more about it and has some more links if youāre curious on diving deeper about the differences.
Hopefully that helps. You also have their Matrix community where everyoneās friendly and helpful to clarify doubts and point you in the right direction.
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I had been fully in the Apple ecosystem for many years, too.
I donāt use the cellphone much except for communication and for a choice few proprietary apps, so I donāt expect to have much trouble with switching to Android/Graphene, though itās also important to me that the phone receives security updates for as long as possible, and Apple has always beaten mainline Android/Graphene at this.
Iād been growing worried on Appleās ācontrolā since 2018 or so
To me, Google and Apple are equally undesirable masters. I would be far more convinced if Graphene supported the same phones for longer than mainline Android, but I believe that long-term support can only be found in LineageOS. When I first heard about the possibilities of custom ROMs, my first thought was longer support than what Google (or whatever OEM) provides, so itās unfortunate that most custom ROMs donāt seem to do this.
This is why I was more enthusiastic about the Pinephone, because I know it would be far less effort for more traditional distributions to support the hardware for much, much longer periods of time than Apple or Google phones. Though itās still very much in its infancy.
I still have my iMac around for work; namely, Adobe software. But it seems that WINE is finally able to partially run some of Affinity Serifās software, which means I might be able to use that software on GNU/Linux in the future. Now, if only DaVinci Resolve would allow ffmpegās libraries to decode/encode AAC on DaVinci Resolve with its GNU/Linux versionā¦
GrapheneOS removes all Google stuff from it (tracking, telemetry, etc.), and if you need to enable Play Services (which I have, when I need to use these apps), theyāre sandboxed
That certainly does sound preferable. Iād rather a free operating system with some proprietary userland software than both of them being proprietary anyhow. If I ever get an Android phone, Iāll flash it with Graphene. There are some things that I definitely like more about Android than iOS, such as easy access to a terminal app, trivial ways to share photos/files to a computer, and integrations like KDE Connect.
Thanks for the links!
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If I had a Pixel, I might try GrapheneOS. I am a bit wary of the devs behind IR, though. There has been random internet drama about them hating Firefox and trolling anyone who is critical of the OS, recommending not using f-droid, etc. But, again, I havenāt used it or even tiptoed into the forums, subreddits, or the like.
Thanks for sharing that @bbbhltz. Iād advise, for the sake of keeping this useful for everyone, to share some links/support for such negative claims, otherwise it can seem like misinformation or fearmongering.
Also, I donāt understand what āIRā is in this context, and I looked for custom ROMs, team names, and so on, so it would help to clarify that as well.
Thanks again, I hope that makes sense!
That was a typo.
Should say, ā[ā¦] the devs behind it [ā¦]ā
I did not include on purpose, because the sources for these rumours and ādramaā seem to come from one or two sources (and the second one does, in fact, have a āfear-mongeringā feel about it).
long reply with links and such
But, since you asked, there is some āsubreddit dramaā between the PrivacyGuides folks and the original PrivacyTools founder, with additional drama coming from another user who launched their own sub.
As you can guess, a lot of this is one personās word against another.
First up, there is Jonah Aragonās (PrivacyGuides) Failed Attempt to Takeover PrivacyTools.io. The first paragraph gives the summary:
This long overdue blog post covers the failed takeover attempt of this website, cryptocurrency donations theft, a successful smear campaign, corruption and censorship. All initiated, fabricated by Jonah Aragon , the project lead of PrivacyGuides.org and Aragon Ventures LLC .
This is a bit of a read, and is occasionally updated, and has nothing to do with GrapheneOS, except that the PrivacyGuides folks and the GrapheneOS admins/mods/users are nearly the same.
This is a long-winded rant, but the GrapheneOS-related highlights are that at least one developer, an admin/mod, and other uses of the OS have been trolling other users and using sockpuppet accounts, deleting comments that disparage the OS, etc.:
Quotes from very long article...
ANY CRITICISM OF GRAPHENEOS AND PRIVACYGUIDES = PETTY TROLLING, TROLLS, MANIPULATORS, CONCERN TROLLSā¦
Should I go for CalyxOS or GrapheneOS on a Pixel 6 Pro? : PrivacyGuides
Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/3sGHg5S.jpg
Notice akc3n, trai_dep and dng99 together replying to the same user, where trai_dep takes the moderator action.
The whole thread with removed comments, screenshotted from https://www.unddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/rocouf/should_i_go_for_calyxos_or_grapheneos_on_a_pixel/:
Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/qvqs0cQ.jpg
The most interesting comment chain, where GrapheneOS and PrivacyGuides moderators really work like the same entity:
GRAPHENEOS TAKING OVER PRIVACYGUIDES BY A SINGLE PERSON
Tommy_Tran proposes a funny thing - to remove rule 1, asking for closed source software caution. Not that it was ever practiced on r/privacy, r/privacytoolsio or r/PrivacyGuides, because of all the Apple shilling openly allowed, but the message is stronger here.
A month laterā¦
Recent changes to PrivacyGuides : PrivacyGuides
The goal is simple, to recommend closed source software, and to purge Firefox recommendations. This plays into how GrapheneOS developer and community has a hatred for Firefox, which I explained in depth above. They also get to control the big privacy subreddits easily.
Like I said, if I had a compatible phone, I would probably use GrapheneOS, and if I didnāt like it, and I canāt see why I wouldnāt, no harm done.
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Iāve looked into some of this random internet drama at the time (mainly the PTIO vs PrivacyGuides fiasco) and Iāve heard thereās tensions between Daniel Micay and various other people. But I hadnāt heard about all of the GrapheneOS/Firefox stuff until now.
Removing Rule #1
The suggestion to remove rule #1 (no closed source software) from /r/privacy is a curious conclusion to come to based on his argument:
But freedom of software is an ideology separated from privacy and security, and we really shouldnāt let those ideologies blind our judgement about whether something is privacy and security friendly or not. We should be discussing facts - what an application protects and what it doesnāt, which entity you have to trust if you use it, what is the worst case scenario if the providerās servers are compromised, etc rather than ideological non-sense.
This is a mentality I wish more people had. Free software is not automatically ethical; but it always has the opportunity to be ethical. Free software has never been about privacy, money, or securityāit has always been about power. Free software is the only software where the user has the same power as the developer. If thereās something you donāt like, you can always change it. You can investigate it to see what itās up to. The assumption that free software is more private or more secure than proprietary software is a flawed one.
ā¦but all the same, free software is the only software which you can verify is private today and will remain private tomorrow (no surprises). No matter what reverse-engineering you do to investigate the application, that doesnāt mean it will stay that way. Absence of proof is not proof of absence, and all that.
Trust is an absolutely critical part of the software ecosystem (just listen to Ken Thompsonās speech on Trusting Trust), but there is no good reason to give it so freely, in my opinion.
The suggestion of removing Firefox from Privacy Guides is an interesting one, given the heavy, lengthy debate about whether Brave should be removed and all of the comparisons to FIrefox. It wasnāt too long ago that Brave was an Anti-Recommendation. They recommended you donāt use Brave because they are untrustworthy. After that, they removed Brave from the list entirely. Now, you can see theyāve added it as a recommendation. All in the span of half a year.
The Privacy Guides community seems to stir the drama pot every few monthsā¦
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Thanks for keeping this useful, non-inflammatory, and with links to sources.
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I am increasingly inclined to āDitch the bloody thing!ā and only just use it at home.
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Old prototype with qwerty keyboard from privacy-focused company.
it turns out that before building the Punkt MP01 and MP02 mobile phones, the company designed an Android smartphone with a QWERTY keyboardā¦ but decided against manufacturing and selling it.
it sounds like theyāre planning to launch their operating system sometime next yearā¦ because Punkt says it plans to launch a touchscreen phone running Aphy OS by the end of 2023.
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I miss my BlackBerry, and I had 2 different Punkt. models. I canāt imagine the price theyāll put on that.
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