I’m thinking of getting a second phone to ease off iOS. It has been good for productivity stuff but the closed off nature of the device keeps disrupting my plans. Everything is either expensive or ad ridden. (Except floccus, floccus is awesome)
So far I have read about graphene OS and am quite interested. I really despise google though. Any chance to use another device and put some linux flavor on it? I was playing with the idea of a pinephone but it seems to be nowhere near daily drivable, fairphone is starting at 580 €, volla phone (german) 450 €…
Some people said xiaomi should be rootable. But the amount of different phones is huge. The price range is awesome though. I was thinking sub 300 €/$ would be awesome so tinkering doesnt hurt me financially.
Disclaimer: I dont want to go full hermit mode with no sim and a faraday bag. I respect the opinion but thats not what I’m trying to do. I want to write some small apps for my phone and use it as a computer if needed. Calling, matrix and browser should work flawlessly.
Any ideas or suggestions? :)
I went with a Nokia X20. It has standard android, no extra cruft and comes with a guaranteed three years of updates, as opposed to the Google device that was considered obsolete after six months.
It’s not waterproof, but that was the only feature I gave up. Cost half of my previous “flagship” phone.
No doubt there is a newer version of this device available today.
Thanks for mentioning it. Sounds like google is a real sweetheart with their devices.
I‘m thinking of getting a oneplus 6 with postmarket os since I‘m a fan of owning my device. This trend of the manufacturer deciding how long your device stays alive is toxic as hell.
Having run other rooms since about 2010, I have a lot of experience with this.
I’ve intentionally bought phones based on the ease of flashing.
I finally switched to Pixel this year because I’m tired of fighting. My last phone was a non-Pixel 2017 flagship, that was about as simple to flash as possible.
Only needed:
- ADB on a pc
- enable OEM Unlocking
- boot to fastboot
- fastboot flashing unlock
- boot the phone to ADB/sideload mode
- adb flash boot <rom name>
The end.
Pixel works the same way. And, there’ll be another Pixel model next year. So I should be able to buy a 2 year old Pixel whenever I want.
I’ve fought with flashing (and rooting) other phones, which require more effort, and it gets old.
Even with a Pixel I have a project plan with 130 tasks to restore a phone (many of those tasks occur in a single adb install script).
Wow! Thanks for elaborating. Thats quite a journey and a lot of work to get a phone restored but I really appreciate you telling me this. Obviously restoring a smartphone is at least as hard as a pc if you do it manually because the proprietary „comfortable“ mode isnt healthy for you.
Using some automation with backup utilities (O&O Backup) and sync tools (Synching,Resilio) make a world of difference. Of course, backup requires root.
Neat. I wrote my own backup script for my two jacked up servers. I suppose I would be able to either write something or just use these classics. Syncthing i think is deja dup, right? I use a combination of deka dup and timeshift for my pc and a script if I want to push backups over network.
I see two options here really. Either get a pixel phone and install Graphene on it (this allows you to run play services in a sandbox), or get any phone that supports lineage and install everything there and avoid Google.
It depends on whether you need Google services or not. Pixel phones support both operating systems.
Thanks for chiming in. I dont need any google services. Most of my stuff is self-hosted by now.
Then a custom rom, like graphene is allows you to de google your phone. Although google have embedded themselves deeply into android, the pixels are quite open about unlocking boot loader etc.
thanks for elaborating. I’m not sure which OS i would want to use but definitely not stock android. :D
I’d really like to have a proper linux so that I can use the phone as a computer from time to time. Like impromptu connecting it to a tv and connecting a keyboard or something but I will see about that later. :)
It depends on whether you need Google services or not.
I would get a Pixel with GrapheneOS regardless of if you need Google or not. Graphene does a lot more than just sandbox the Play Store.
May be check out other privacy focused custom ROMs:
LineageOS: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
DivestOS: https://divestos.org/pages/devices
I think that grapheneos is the most advanced one and if you can have it, it’s the best choice
I agree. I myself use GrapheneOS. However, seeing that OP despises Pixels so much, I figured these would be the next best options.
Thanks for chiming in. I checked the phones on the lists. Pretty awesome! Its actually a lot of devices that can be rooted which I think is great.
I dont despise pixels, I take issue with buying a google device. I could obviously opt for a used one which would at least lessen the cognitive dissonance.
But in any case, I‘m very happy that so many devices are actually runnable in linux. I have one of the few devices that cant be rooted which is pretty much the reason I want to switch…
DivestOS is the only privacy focused OS in that list.
LineageOS’ goal is extend software support for Android phones, and /e/OS is designed for the Fair Phone. Privacy isn’t the goal, and LineageOS still phones home to Google for most things.
LineageOS still phones home to Google for most things.
Do you have a source on this? I thought LineageOS was completely de-googled now.
My knowledge here isn’t perfect, but I learned a lot from this discussion on the Privacy Guides forum.
You might find this chart to be helpful as well.
If you’re comfortable with the pros and cons of an unlocked bootloader, you might consider phones on the LineageOS supported hardware list.
Thanks for the heads up. Will check. Any particular reason for LineageOS instead of any other linux?
Mainly because, of the Android variants that I’ve seen, it has the best community and device support.
I think you’re mixing things up a bit. LineageOS, GrapheneOS etc. are not what people refer to as “mobile Linux”, mobile Linux would be Ubuntu touch, mobian etc.
Btw. do you know about Sailfish OS?
Piggybacking off your comment I’ve been using SFOS as a daily driver for the past couple of years and while not perfect, it does work pretty well, somewhat of an ecosystem and it runs android apps pretty flawlessly. The UI is beautiful! If you want to get away from iOS/Android it’s a decent choice.
Some parts are closed-source tho (UI secret sauce, some Jolla apps etc). The vast majority of it is open-source though and I trust the Finnish spiritual successor to maemo/nokia a lot more than a megacorp.
I have heard of it but damn, the design is sleek! :)
Non-android mobile Linux is not mature enough yet.
I dont hear this often tbh. How do you figure?
By the fact that none of the apps I use day-to-day on my Android phone have viable alternatives on non-Android Linux.
I’d have to run Android inside a container on the mobile Linux which isn’t the best experience and if I need to have Android running anyways, might aswell use regular android.
While it’d be cool to have, I don’t really need a proper freedesktop userspace on my phone if I’m honest.
Android is also simply leagues ahead in mobile UI things.
You can also look at supported calyxos/divestos phones
Keep in mind that divestos doesn’t support any gapps
My personal choice would be just Graphene, without any gapps
if you hate google, you could buy a pixel secondhand, right?
That’s what I did!
That’s what I’ve done for my last few phones. Aside from a battery issue that got replaced on a “recall” of sorts, my pixel 4XL has been running strong for years now. Haven’t bought a brand new phone for well over a decade now
How do you buy a second hand Puxl safely?
With iPhone there’s so many horror stories. Mainly what they do is buy the phone through some means that opens up the possibility of credit card fraud, then pass the phone on. Then they do the charge back to reclaim the money. Apple then bricks the device of course due to non payment and you as the second hand owner are stuck with a decorative piece.
My Puxl was from eBay.
To be honest, I don’t know much about how credit cards can be associated with phone hardware. I would think it could conceivably be tied to phone #s. In my case the phone is unlocked and it’s not an esim, which I understand we will all be moving too soon.
I wonder if it might have something to do with Google Pay or Apple Pay that ties hardware information to payments? And as for Esim, it might make it so that you can’t distinguish phones based on their physical sim card so it perhaps introduces a possibility of reliance on hardware.
But this is all speculation on my part. I just don’t know and I haven’t made whatever precautions would be needed.
Oh! No-no. Must phone purchases in NA are made by CC at either the manufacturer’s store / website or a telephone provider’s store or website. The CC is not tied to the phone itself. But the purchase of the item is.
If you buy something with a credit card, you can dispute a charge and claim “goods not received” with the issuer of the credit card. After a time period you usually get the money back.
I’ll try to demonstrate:
You can try a refurbished store, I got my Pixel from Backmarket without any problems.
i bought mine from swappa, they seem to have a pretty decent support system for any potential fraud.
Thats what I‘m thinking about as well.
Currently have a pixel 6 256gig
Spent about a half hour in a hot tub with it in my pocket on saturday and it shut automatically disables the usb port.
Havent had any issues with it this week
If it helps
(In a sprigen case)
What? I mean, did you test it or what was the idea with that?
I bought my sister a Motorola g52 which is compatible with calyxos and only cost 175€
I am rocking a Fairphone 4 with iodéOS and I am very happy with it. Though I am definitely not phone power user…
Thats the first time I‘ve heard of this OS. What features do you like most?
FDroid is a native app store, aurora is preinsralled as well as microG. I don’t use any google apps and have none installed. Afaik there is no option to have GAPPS with iodéOS. They do sell the fairphone with the OS preinsralled which is very nice and iodé is from france which is a plus in my book as well 😁
OnePlus makes some great phones in the mid to low price range. I don’t know if they’re rootable or whatever
They are. I checked the list for some OSs. Thanks for sharing. You’re actually not the first person to recomment oneplus. Whats your favorite thing about them?
They hit a sweet spot of having basically everything. Like the n30 has pretty much everything you could want - sd card slot, super fast charger in the box, headphone jack, screen with no pwm, relatively low price, fast cpu, huge 8 gb amount of RAM so apps never need to refresh when you switch back to them, all the antenna bands for the fastest data speed and best reception coverage area, good software with almost no pre-installed bloatware, etc etc. It honestly is just about perfect!
Sounds good. I‘m very curious but nearly nobody I know has a non android or non apple phone which I dont like. Will need to think more about this stuff.
Does anything refuse to work or work badly?
It’s an android phone, and it does everything perfectly for everything i ever try to do with it
Ah! Got it. Stock android isnt exactly what I‘m searching for as I‘d like to have control over my phone. I‘ve been using apple for years and I want to switch because apple makes it impossible to control my device.
Well i can tell you that the hardware is fantastic
I’m partial to the poogle gixel
Thanks for mentioning it. It feels like there isnt that much of an option if I want something that actually works. At least thats what a lot of folks are saying.
Yeah, I haven’t personally used grapheneos but that seems to be the reigning king at the moment
A alternative to fairphone would be https://www.shift.eco/en/ They want to put killswitches into their new Phone which you can preorder for 535€ https://shop.shiftphones.com/shiftphone-8.html
It won’t be as secure as a Pixel with GrapheneOS. Grapheneos won’t support that Phone officially.
Very interesting! Thanks for mentioning it! :)
I’d vote against shift phones. Support is also a crucial part of what you’re paying for and most of their communication on their website is in German, which doesn’t tell much good about getting customer support in another language. Maybe they don’t offer support in English or maybe very limited with longer waiting times.
Jesus. $100 for a pixel or $600 for this. Hmmmmm
how are you getting a pixel for 100 dollars lmao
Ebay. I never spend more than $100 on a phone.
With the crowd here, I have completely de-googled my life, also hate google, and the data mining nightmare that comes along with it…but in the end. The pixel phones (with grapheneos) are the most secure and private out there, or one of the most should say, ya know seems odd that a phone by such a data hungry company, can be made into exactly the opposite. Have had 0 issues since running grapheneos on my pixel 6
ya know seems odd that a phone by such a data hungry company, can be made into exactly the opposite.
It shouldn’t feel odd, because we should have control over the hardware we buy, yet here we are.
We do not have control over the extra “security” proprietary chip Pixels have. Yet these shills cheer Pixels and Graphene every single day.
I didn’t know that, my google-fu turned up nothing do you have a link with more info?
With the crowd here, I have completely de-googled my life, also hate google, and the data mining nightmare that comes along with it…but in the end. The pixel phones (with grapheneos) are the most secure and private out there
Who decided this? Was there a competition or a hacking contest? Or is it GrapheneOS propaganda?
There is no better phone than Pixel. It’s because Pixel has the support for the best alternative ROMs like GrapheneOS and LineageOS. I have a Samsung A53 5G phone, and I have to use Odin to flash stuff.
If your not going to go with a pixel, the best alternative is a new samsung phone with Divest OS.
Samsung is the closest in terms of meeting GOS hardware requirements (it still doesn’t) and Divest OS is the next best privacy respecting ROM.
More so than Lineage? I never heard of them.
Way more. Lineage is not a very good rom in terms of privacy and is an awful choice in terms of security. Both Divest and Calyx are better choices.
Lineage as the name implies is best suited for end of life phones that you need to keep working. Which i would avoid anyway as you are not getting any security updates leaving your phone extremely vulnerable.
