Do you use an alternative OS on your smartphone?

23

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 Iā€™ve 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, itā€™s 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.

24

PINE64 responded directly to Martijn.

And Brad Linder has links to additional responses.

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25

I havenā€™t replied for ages. Sorry about that. But, I saw this thread and it caught my attention. Iā€™ve been taking a close look at the e-Foundation offerings. I see a few new names here - for example, PinePhone. Iā€™m in the UK so that may have some bearing on what I choose. Iā€™m currently a Google Android user.

26

PinePhone is an interesting one as PINE64 are mainly focused on hardware, with the wider community being where the software comes from (although @mikeā€™s articles above show some disunity with regards to that process). I have one of the really early Community Edition ones:

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which hasnā€™t 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 donā€™t 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 Iā€™m 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 Iā€™m missing something here, which is in my eyes a good thing. Itā€™sMeā€™s 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 donā€™t 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, ā€œwhat if a (kind of) dumbphone was smart?ā€

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28

100% me getting the vibes of a thing but not having used it at all, very sad to hear it doesnā€™t meet expectations :cry:

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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29

I almost got a Mudita Pure a while back (maybe youā€™d enjoy it), but decided not to since itā€™s 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 itā€™s been 6-7 months now and I love it. So much better.

30

I needed a couple of apps you can only find for Android or iOS [ā€¦] and I went for GrapheneOS. I think itā€™s 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). Iā€™ve never used Android (so feel free to correct any incorrect assumptions Iā€™ve made)ā€”what 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 Iā€™m not considering (beyond the more security-involved changes like Grapheneā€™s improved memory allocator)?

31

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. Iā€™d been growing worried on Appleā€™s ā€œcontrolā€ 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), theyā€™re sandboxed (so they wonā€™t access anything I donā€™t let them), and I can disable them after Iā€™ve used them. You certainly canā€™t do any of that on stock Android.

I use Aurora to install apps that donā€™t offer APKs and are not in F-Droid (thereā€™s only 3 right now, to be honest, all other apps I use are open source and offer APKs, because Iā€™ve been making that effort/transition for the last 6 years).

This article explains a bit more about it and has some more links if youā€™re curious on diving deeper about the differences.

Hopefully that helps. You also have their Matrix community where everyoneā€™s friendly and helpful to clarify doubts and point you in the right direction.

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32

I had been fully in the Apple ecosystem for many years, too.

I donā€™t use the cellphone much except for communication and for a choice few proprietary apps, so I donā€™t expect to have much trouble with switching to Android/Graphene, though itā€™s 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.

Iā€™d been growing worried on Appleā€™s ā€œcontrolā€ 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 itā€™s unfortunate that most custom ROMs donā€™t 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 itā€™s 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 Serifā€™s software, which means I might be able to use that software on GNU/Linux in the future. Now, if only DaVinci Resolve would allow ffmpegā€™s 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), theyā€™re sandboxed

That certainly does sound preferable. Iā€™d rather a free operating system with some proprietary userland software than both of them being proprietary anyhow. If I ever get an Android phone, Iā€™ll 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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34

Thanks for sharing that @bbbhltz. Iā€™d 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 donā€™t understand what ā€œIRā€ 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!

36

Iā€™ve looked into some of this random internet drama at the time (mainly the PTIO vs PrivacyGuides fiasco) and Iā€™ve heard thereā€™s tensions between Daniel Micay and various other people. But I hadnā€™t 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 shouldnā€™t 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 doesnā€™t, which entity you have to trust if you use it, what is the worst case scenario if the providerā€™s 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 securityā€”it has always been about power. Free software is the only software where the user has the same power as the developer. If thereā€™s something you donā€™t like, you can always change it. You can investigate it to see what itā€™s 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 doesnā€™t 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 Thompsonā€™s 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 wasnā€™t too long ago that Brave was an Anti-Recommendation. They recommended you donā€™t use Brave because they are untrustworthy. After that, they removed Brave from the list entirely. Now, you can see theyā€™ve 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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37

Thanks for keeping this useful, non-inflammatory, and with links to sources.

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38

I am increasingly inclined to ā€œDitch the bloody thing!ā€ and only just use it at home.

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39

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 theyā€™re 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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41

/e/OS named best smartphone for 2022 by Distrowatch

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42

Love to see it. I actually will have some time reserved Christmas day to try them out once again. I have a suitable phone inbound but am not yet completely sold on which of the AOSP-based distros to go for. This is for sure a tick in their column (there are a fair few).

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Apologies for the belated response.

As a GrapheneOS user for the past 2 years, I can honestly say that the developers (and community as a whole) are among the most respectful and caring people that I have ever met. They do not hate Firefox but simply point out the shortcomings of it. No one involved in the project trolls people who are critical of the OS but instead will address the criticism with fact-based information. The lead developer as well as the moderators in the community Matrix rooms and the discussion board forum have zero tolerance for GrapheneOS users and community members trolling others or for any kind of disrespect towards others.

As for the recommendation to not use F-Droid, here is a well-written piece of information by a long-time GrapheneOS community member:

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hi @gabehcuod - looks like wonderfall.dev is dead? hereā€™s an archived version

that article is shortsighted IMO - while they make some good points, particularly about updates lagging behind the developer release, it fails to account for one of the most significant advantages of F-Droid and that is a significant lack of malware compared to all other repositories audited - of all, F-Droid had the best (lowest) score

another massive advantage is the lack of ad/tracking code which i consider to be malware because i define malware as anything (significant) which isnā€™t required for the expected functionality

in light of the above points, i think the following concerns mentioned in the article are largely irrelevantā€¦

  1. The trusted party problem
  2. Low target API level (SDK) for client & apps
  3. General lack of good practices
  4. Misleading permissions approach

Googleā€™s Play Store allows ads/tracking and contains malware, while F-Droid doesnā€™t, yet F-Droid is ā€œweakening the Android security modelā€? hmmmā€¦

granted, F-Droid has issues with its model, but in the end it seems to me to be far superior in general for the end user

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45

An alternative to F-Droid is to install APKs from developers directly and update them with Obtainium.

Because you get the APK directly from the developer, youā€™re trusting their signing key. You donā€™t need to trust F-Droid or Google Play as a middle-man. I donā€™t know what the benefits are to using F-Droid. Maybe a guarantee they donā€™t depend on non-free libraries?

Of course, this doesnā€™t matter when application developers do bizarre stuff like this: GitHub - termux/termux-app: Termux - a terminal emulator application for Android OS extendible by variety of packages.

Security warning: APK files on GitHub are signed with a test key that has been shared with community. This IS NOT an official developer key and everyone can use it to generate releases for own testing. Be very careful when using Termux GitHub builds obtained elsewhere except GitHub - termux/termux-app: Termux - a terminal emulator application for Android OS extendible by variety of packages.. Everyone is able to use it to forge a malicious Termux update installable over the GitHub build. Think twice about installing Termux builds distributed via Telegram or other social media. If your device get caught by malware, we will not be able to help you.

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I donā€™t know what the benefits are to using F-Droid.

think about the vast majority of people that use Android - can they identify and remove remove ad/tracking components? can they read source code? can they compile source code (not every developer releases packages)? what would they compile it on? apparently a lot of people donā€™t even have a PC anymore

also thereā€™s the huge convenience of a one-stop-shop that catalogs and categorizes the software