This will become increasingly important as Google has boiled the frog too fast while trying to force its new store policies + banning sideloading; however, all of the pieces are now in place for them to try again in a year or 2, which history shows us they will. It’s certainly time to start toying with Linux phones if you haven’t already. This year I picked up an Xperia 10 to flash Sailfish OS on—which has rough edges (many of the hardware issues should be fixed in the next release), but Android App support bridges some of the gaps in application support.
I agree with the ethos but "banning installing" wouldn't have been correct here.
There should be terminology for installing from the source of your choice which doesn't carry the marginal or sinister connotations of "sideloading" though.
"Freeloading" would have been a good one but... yeah
I can install on my Fedora laptop through dnf. I've never felt like I needed a new word to describe downloading and running an AppImage. Why would phones be different?
Doesn't feel like any conspiracy.. Isn't sideloading installing through adb instead of from the system itself? (by clicking on an APK or using an app Store like Xiaomi/Googled/Huawei/Fdroid)
I just bought a second Fairphone 4 just to play a bit with pmOS. I'm really surprised by the state it is. It's not fully usable as a daily driver yet, but with some work it can get there. Waydroid works also pretty good. Of course, the major problem are banking apps and similar. I hope that some progress can be done in this direction. And, who needs working audio, if you can have python and git in your phone!? :P
Did you test apps that need sensors and notifications? If I want to run an OpenStreetmaps apk (there's no good way to run OMS on Linux natively), do I get GPS and compass heading? Do I get turn-by-turn navigation? Even if the app is in the background?
I made a partition for Nix on mine so I have all the tools I need while not relying on Jolla to package things (the installable package list is quite barren). My audio works from the speakers, but the patches to make the headphone jack (something you Fairphone users no longer know of :P) work won’t come til the next release. For banks, I just use cash or log into the website on my laptop if required—while I will refuse goods/services that require an apps to the fullest extent possible (couldn’t get around TicketMaster which was a real blood-boiler beyond just the “phone required” aspect).
But for the reason an antiquated os like postmarketos are suggested is that the project is being opportunistic thinking this is a chance they can be relevant. Additionally, the population of HN has more sentimental view on these legacy operating systems and view it as a chance to go back to the past and use software they are familiar with.
I really wanted to like Graphene OS but I ended up bouncing off it due to a few major pain points that badly effected battery life.
- Using the default 5g setting resulted in far worse battery life than stock, telling people to choose 4g isn't a solution. They desperately need something like the adaptive connectivity service.
- Using Homeassistant's GPS tracking feature just destroyed the battery life, even switching to 4g didn't solve this issue. Changing all the GPS settings didn't help either.
- The obnoxious green GPS active icon makes the notification bar useless if using a GPS tracking app (or even gps navigation). The request for a whitelist was either ignored or rejected, the teams communication can come off a bit rough.
No normal user is going to be happy with Grapheneos. From what I've seen postmarketos is much more user friendly.
I don't recognise the 5g battery life issues personally. I do 100% agree the GPS thing is such a bad decision. It just becomes noise that no one pays attention to anymore.
I ended up using my public ip address in combination with a list of known ips for home and work and such, and building my HA automations around that. I wanted to do it with wifi SSID's, but that also requires the location permission and triggers the indicator (which is understandable, just wish I could still read SSID's with location services disabled entirely) (or, just let me disable the gps antenna and leave everything else).
It certainly could be something else other than 5g but it's one of the first things that gets thrown around when battery drain is mentioned and the mobile internet was the main user of power on the phone.
> No normal user is going to be happy with Grapheneos.
I am a normal user, extremely happy with GrapheneOS. I just don't use HomeAssistant, which seems to have been your dealbreaker in this case.
I genuinely don't see a difference between Stock Android and GrapheneOS, except that I get more updates and I have more privacy controls (like scopes, but honestly I haven't had a need to use them yet).
You are very fortunate for not hitting any edge cases, but sorry anyone commenting here typically isn't anywhere near to what you could call a "normal user". I ran into quite few minor issues with the enhanced security settings, my partner would never been able to figure out the solution to that issue and I consider them a normal user.
Not to mention the 5g battery drain is a hard show stopper, not just Homeassistant issues. I even experimented with different apps like owntracks but same problem with GPS.
I found a solution to the GPS icon but it requires an ADB command so not a great fix.
There is no reason to hard fork, as long as Google contributes to AOSP without breaking it.
Regulators in the US decided that Android did not have to be split from Google, but they could theoretically decide that Google is not allowed to break AOSP to gain a competitive advantage. Not that it would matter: TooBigTech is too powerful to care about regulations anyway.
At least in regards to the security model, it is decades out of date. For example any app can listen to your microphone and spy on you at anytime. Programs can act as ransomeware or destroy all of your files. Stealers can steal your login credentials and access tokens for all your sites including banking ones.
I installed PmOS on my old Xiaomi redmi note 9 with KDE Plasma Desktop. It works remarkably well, with the exception of sound. I am using it as a full Linux PC when I am on the go with my large power bank and a full sized folding keyboard/track pad.
For my use case it's beyond great, albeit the small screen and the aarch architecture I can develop small projects as if I was on my PC.
My current phone OP13r doesn't is supported yet by PmOS, when someone does it Im gonna try to install it on one of the slots.
google/android/apple/microsft are fighting for there lives, as there is no reason for there continued existance
all the important types of comunications can be hard coded into chips and operate free of any external OS, everything else is two way media, 95% of which can be handled on local networks
what big tech is trying to build is something alien to human needs, false promises and enticements, faked up ideals bases on faked up images and outright lies served by monsterous AI data farms that look more and more like the set of "the matrix"
the issue with that, is that it is essentialy empty and boring, demanding that the viewer suspends ANY judgement or discernment and further defend this completly impossible and artificial media creation as real.
litteral zombies.
It's a shame phones didn't get anything similar to BIOS back in a day.
Imagine if every laptop manufacturer had not a couple of incompatible sensors, but a whole unique boot system only allowing you to boot a crippled version of Windows ME.
Yeah, the requirement to build and provide device trees for most mobile devices is the huge issue. For all of the garbage we have gotten from buggy ass ACPI tables on assorted PC’s, it’s absolutely true that it solved a lot of headaches with hardware discovery/enumeration.
It’s really too bad that ARM had adopted ACPI as part of their SystemReady certification. It does work, and not reinventing the wheel is always a wise where feasible, but I think we could absolutely push something better.
This will become increasingly important as Google has boiled the frog too fast while trying to force its new store policies + banning sideloading; however, all of the pieces are now in place for them to try again in a year or 2, which history shows us they will. It’s certainly time to start toying with Linux phones if you haven’t already. This year I picked up an Xperia 10 to flash Sailfish OS on—which has rough edges (many of the hardware issues should be fixed in the next release), but Android App support bridges some of the gaps in application support.
> sideloading
It's called installing. Language matters and I see no reason to concede this point in Google's favour.
I agree with the ethos but "banning installing" wouldn't have been correct here.
There should be terminology for installing from the source of your choice which doesn't carry the marginal or sinister connotations of "sideloading" though.
"Freeloading" would have been a good one but... yeah
You can also install through the Play store. Sideloading is more specific.
Like hacking, sideloading is now a loaded & misunderstood term. It is considered as something only nerds or bad actors do.
Let's just call it alternate install.
Or manual install.
How about calling the other one "installing from the play store"? installing was there first.
I can install on my Fedora laptop through dnf. I've never felt like I needed a new word to describe downloading and running an AppImage. Why would phones be different?
Would you make the same distinction on a mac when installing Photoshop from the Adobe installer vs installing KeyNote from the MacStore ?
Doesn't feel like any conspiracy.. Isn't sideloading installing through adb instead of from the system itself? (by clicking on an APK or using an app Store like Xiaomi/Googled/Huawei/Fdroid)
"Side" being.. from your computer
Yes but fdroid is facing restrictions while adb is not
I just bought a second Fairphone 4 just to play a bit with pmOS. I'm really surprised by the state it is. It's not fully usable as a daily driver yet, but with some work it can get there. Waydroid works also pretty good. Of course, the major problem are banking apps and similar. I hope that some progress can be done in this direction. And, who needs working audio, if you can have python and git in your phone!? :P
> Waydroid works also pretty good.
Did you test apps that need sensors and notifications? If I want to run an OpenStreetmaps apk (there's no good way to run OMS on Linux natively), do I get GPS and compass heading? Do I get turn-by-turn navigation? Even if the app is in the background?
Organic Maps has a flatpak, though oddly they don't refer to a desktop app on their website anywhere so idk how trustworthy this is.
Unfortunately CoMaps doesn't seem to have desktop client builds at all yet.
I made a partition for Nix on mine so I have all the tools I need while not relying on Jolla to package things (the installable package list is quite barren). My audio works from the speakers, but the patches to make the headphone jack (something you Fairphone users no longer know of :P) work won’t come til the next release. For banks, I just use cash or log into the website on my laptop if required—while I will refuse goods/services that require an apps to the fullest extent possible (couldn’t get around TicketMaster which was a real blood-boiler beyond just the “phone required” aspect).
What I never get is: why not prepare to fork AOSP? I like the security model of AOSP :-).
That's already happening today.
https://grapheneos.org/
But for the reason an antiquated os like postmarketos are suggested is that the project is being opportunistic thinking this is a chance they can be relevant. Additionally, the population of HN has more sentimental view on these legacy operating systems and view it as a chance to go back to the past and use software they are familiar with.
I really wanted to like Graphene OS but I ended up bouncing off it due to a few major pain points that badly effected battery life.
- Using the default 5g setting resulted in far worse battery life than stock, telling people to choose 4g isn't a solution. They desperately need something like the adaptive connectivity service.
- Using Homeassistant's GPS tracking feature just destroyed the battery life, even switching to 4g didn't solve this issue. Changing all the GPS settings didn't help either.
- The obnoxious green GPS active icon makes the notification bar useless if using a GPS tracking app (or even gps navigation). The request for a whitelist was either ignored or rejected, the teams communication can come off a bit rough.
No normal user is going to be happy with Grapheneos. From what I've seen postmarketos is much more user friendly.
I don't recognise the 5g battery life issues personally. I do 100% agree the GPS thing is such a bad decision. It just becomes noise that no one pays attention to anymore.
I ended up using my public ip address in combination with a list of known ips for home and work and such, and building my HA automations around that. I wanted to do it with wifi SSID's, but that also requires the location permission and triggers the indicator (which is understandable, just wish I could still read SSID's with location services disabled entirely) (or, just let me disable the gps antenna and leave everything else).
It certainly could be something else other than 5g but it's one of the first things that gets thrown around when battery drain is mentioned and the mobile internet was the main user of power on the phone.
> No normal user is going to be happy with Grapheneos.
I am a normal user, extremely happy with GrapheneOS. I just don't use HomeAssistant, which seems to have been your dealbreaker in this case.
I genuinely don't see a difference between Stock Android and GrapheneOS, except that I get more updates and I have more privacy controls (like scopes, but honestly I haven't had a need to use them yet).
You are very fortunate for not hitting any edge cases, but sorry anyone commenting here typically isn't anywhere near to what you could call a "normal user". I ran into quite few minor issues with the enhanced security settings, my partner would never been able to figure out the solution to that issue and I consider them a normal user.
Not to mention the 5g battery drain is a hard show stopper, not just Homeassistant issues. I even experimented with different apps like owntracks but same problem with GPS.
I found a solution to the GPS icon but it requires an ADB command so not a great fix.
> That's already happening today.
That's not a hard fork. They always rebase on top of AOSP when there's a new AOSP source release
There is no reason to hard fork, as long as Google contributes to AOSP without breaking it.
Regulators in the US decided that Android did not have to be split from Google, but they could theoretically decide that Google is not allowed to break AOSP to gain a competitive advantage. Not that it would matter: TooBigTech is too powerful to care about regulations anyway.
It doesn't have to be. Most of Android is fine.
Nobody really want a hard fork, if you can't run Android apps, you might as well use a Linux distribution.
Well the idea would be to run Android apps on the hard fork :-).
If you can run Android apps then you need the same behavior as AOSP or I'm missing something?
If you don't rebase from AOSP, the apps won't run pretty quickly.
How is Postmarket OS antiquated ? Its just a standard Linux distro (unlike anything Android based).
At least in regards to the security model, it is decades out of date. For example any app can listen to your microphone and spy on you at anytime. Programs can act as ransomeware or destroy all of your files. Stealers can steal your login credentials and access tokens for all your sites including banking ones.
I think people don't realize how inadequate the Unix security model is.
or they already have hardware which postmarketOS supports and grapheneOS does not (or they would just prefer that hardware)
Some people (like myself) prefer the desktop userland which is more familiar and works like you would expect as opposed to the android quirks.
eOS is basically what you are looking for for most phones or GrapheneOS (pixel only)
I installed PmOS on my old Xiaomi redmi note 9 with KDE Plasma Desktop. It works remarkably well, with the exception of sound. I am using it as a full Linux PC when I am on the go with my large power bank and a full sized folding keyboard/track pad.
For my use case it's beyond great, albeit the small screen and the aarch architecture I can develop small projects as if I was on my PC.
My current phone OP13r doesn't is supported yet by PmOS, when someone does it Im gonna try to install it on one of the slots.
The wiki has instructions for the N900! Not everything works, but it appears to be a work in progress.
google/android/apple/microsft are fighting for there lives, as there is no reason for there continued existance all the important types of comunications can be hard coded into chips and operate free of any external OS, everything else is two way media, 95% of which can be handled on local networks what big tech is trying to build is something alien to human needs, false promises and enticements, faked up ideals bases on faked up images and outright lies served by monsterous AI data farms that look more and more like the set of "the matrix" the issue with that, is that it is essentialy empty and boring, demanding that the viewer suspends ANY judgement or discernment and further defend this completly impossible and artificial media creation as real. litteral zombies.
But have you thought about shareholder value?
It's a shame phones didn't get anything similar to BIOS back in a day.
Imagine if every laptop manufacturer had not a couple of incompatible sensors, but a whole unique boot system only allowing you to boot a crippled version of Windows ME.
There's a lot of UEFI in the phone ecosystem, it's not the BIOS later that's missing - it's the ACPI layer.
Yeah, the requirement to build and provide device trees for most mobile devices is the huge issue. For all of the garbage we have gotten from buggy ass ACPI tables on assorted PC’s, it’s absolutely true that it solved a lot of headaches with hardware discovery/enumeration.
It’s really too bad that ARM had adopted ACPI as part of their SystemReady certification. It does work, and not reinventing the wheel is always a wise where feasible, but I think we could absolutely push something better.