I went Graphene a while back and can’t be happier with it.
I’d still love to see a real Linux phone that really works and really has native Signal/etc apps but since buying a pinephone years ago to tinker with it, I’m not holding my breath.
If anyone here has fears/questions about installing/using it, I can give you basics. NOT an expert, but installation was the easiest thing I could have imagined, took MAYBE 10 minutes literally following their official guide.
This might be a silly question, but do you think it would be a good idea for me to first set up my old android phone with my bank and authenticator apps before I make the switch in case some of them don’t work?
I’m about to make the switch myself. I have a Pixel tablet and a P9 Pro. I swapped my tablet over just so I can test things out. I want to deGoogle completely. No play store.
So far I’ve had to make a list of all my apps I have on my phone and go one-by-one seeing if there’s an apk for it somewhere outside of play store, and if not, then if there’s an alternative app, and then website or PWA it is.
I’ve come to realize I have a lot of unnecessary bullshit on my phone to begin with. Think I’ll make the switch this weekend, just need to find a few more alternatives to specific apps.
What apps are you looking for alternatives for? I run Graphene and have replaced everything with foss alternatives and couldn’t be happier. Except my banking app and a couple that should absolutely be the official apps, but those are installed on a seperate profile.
Also, dont use Aurora store for apps once on GOS. Its not recommended. Use Obtainium for apps straight from the source or accrescent along with GOS’ official app store.
Check our Aurora store for apps you need from the Play Store. But ya, once you start scrutinizing the apps on your phone you realize 95% of it is just useless junk you dont need.
Agree. On my fifth anniversary with GrapheneOS and it still kicks ass.
The Pixel phones on the other hand still leave a lot to be desired as reliable hardware. My 8 Pro is the best of the ones I’ve owned, but not by much considering my Pixel 6 Pro had a shitty Tensor modem, and my Pixel 4 XL had a spicy pillow.
The sooner GrapheneOS moves to Motorola, the better.
I don’t have any serious complaints about my 9a REALLY, but I’d prefer something with SD, headphone jack, and I’d REALLY kill for something much smaller. (but no fold, that stuff’s for derpy weirdos)
I had looked it up, they are starting with new phones in the same line/family as Motorola Signature, Motorola razr fold and Motorola razr ultra apparently
The software for linux phones is pretty much there. Gnome and KDE mobile are surprisingly capable. There’s built in apps for every basic thing you’d need on a phone like a dialer, SMS app, camera, etc. plus all the normal apps adapted to work with mobile like the calculator and maps apps.
The only real limitation is with the hardware. I have no idea why all new linux phones launch with specs from a decade ago. You can get a better experience by flashing ported Postmarket OS to an Android phone like the Nothing phone or a OnePlus 6t.
It shouldn’t be like that, no idea why it’s impossible to just have a linux phone with decent specs and a good camera on par with modern flagships.
Linux phones try to build from upstream Linux, and the major phone SoC vendors HATE upstreaming their code.
They believe every character in their source code is absolutely top secret.
A middle ground I wish was considered more is taking Google’s kernel and the vendors DLKM partition/DTB/DTBO for hardware support, and putting a GNU userspace on top.
This has had problems in the past, because vendors would modify syscall tables such that they don’t match userspace anymore, but with GKI, I think we’re closer to that being a possibility
Thats always the problem with building hardware open source products. You spend millions developing the OS to work with your stuff and you get like six months before someone else is competing with you, except they didn’t have to spend that investment. The only reason we got the steamdeck was because the guys that made it ALSO owned the means of putting games on it, so they didn’t really need to make money on the product itself (kinda like with Google and the play store).
At least with the vendors I’m referring to (2/3 that make all Android phones), they just took the open source code, hacked it up as quickly as possible to get some basic drivers working, and moved on.
There wasn’t any “special sauce” in the source, they just didn’t want to spend the effort to upstream it
Edit: Just because you said “hardware open source” I wasn’t advocating for open hardware, just for hardware vendors to, ya know, support the hardware
All I want is a linux phone that takes good photos that I feel is secure. I need it to launch android apps in sandbox instances too but I understand that is possible.
Linux phones are always missing modern stuff be it fast charging, nfc, decent compnents, etc.
Love a tablet too, the pixel tablet with speaker stand is ideal if it wasnt the devils products.
Never used the stock rom on it, purchased it, turned it on, and immediately flashed it. BUT compared to my last “normal” android? (Smasnug- I’ll never NOT call them that thanks to a certain Aussie on YT) No. Nothing. That said I’m middle aged and never even considered using stuff like contactless payments with a phone, etc. Never saw the appeal of increased risk just to look like a douchebag at the checkout aisle or the drive through. Your mileage may vary if you use things like that, I can’t speak to it.
Only thing I noticed was for my bank’s app, I had to enable “exploit protection compatibility mode” to make it function like it should.
I have company managed apps on my device. Teams, Outlook and Authenticator. Any idea if there might be any friction there with Graphene? It’s really the only thing from holding me back and I can’t really justify experimenting if it’s going to break things
Should work, although haven’t tried Teams or Outlook, but I would recommend putting it on a different profile, you can make multiple users, then enable the google play store on there. Leave that as you work profile or google profile. Helps keep things separated.
Oh, they turned that off? Okay, where in the policy does it say that you’re required to use your own device? No stipend no teams. No stipend no outlook. No stipend no authenticator. I’m not giving them a single millimeter.
I went Graphene a while back and can’t be happier with it.
I’d still love to see a real Linux phone that really works and really has native Signal/etc apps but since buying a pinephone years ago to tinker with it, I’m not holding my breath.
If anyone here has fears/questions about installing/using it, I can give you basics. NOT an expert, but installation was the easiest thing I could have imagined, took MAYBE 10 minutes literally following their official guide.
This might be a silly question, but do you think it would be a good idea for me to first set up my old android phone with my bank and authenticator apps before I make the switch in case some of them don’t work?
Yep sounds like a good idea to me, I like when people think ahead like that.
I’m about to make the switch myself. I have a Pixel tablet and a P9 Pro. I swapped my tablet over just so I can test things out. I want to deGoogle completely. No play store.
So far I’ve had to make a list of all my apps I have on my phone and go one-by-one seeing if there’s an apk for it somewhere outside of play store, and if not, then if there’s an alternative app, and then website or PWA it is.
I’ve come to realize I have a lot of unnecessary bullshit on my phone to begin with. Think I’ll make the switch this weekend, just need to find a few more alternatives to specific apps.
What apps are you looking for alternatives for? I run Graphene and have replaced everything with foss alternatives and couldn’t be happier. Except my banking app and a couple that should absolutely be the official apps, but those are installed on a seperate profile.
Also, dont use Aurora store for apps once on GOS. Its not recommended. Use Obtainium for apps straight from the source or accrescent along with GOS’ official app store.
Well I found good alternatives(Fossify stuff) or most apps I use already have GitHub releases.
My biggest one is the Steam app for their authenticator. I read some stuff online that Aegis supposedly can work as a Steam auth, but yeah.
Awesome, godspeed smart person.
Check our Aurora store for apps you need from the Play Store. But ya, once you start scrutinizing the apps on your phone you realize 95% of it is just useless junk you dont need.
Agree. On my fifth anniversary with GrapheneOS and it still kicks ass.
The Pixel phones on the other hand still leave a lot to be desired as reliable hardware. My 8 Pro is the best of the ones I’ve owned, but not by much considering my Pixel 6 Pro had a shitty Tensor modem, and my Pixel 4 XL had a spicy pillow.
The sooner GrapheneOS moves to Motorola, the better.
I don’t have any serious complaints about my 9a REALLY, but I’d prefer something with SD, headphone jack, and I’d REALLY kill for something much smaller. (but no fold, that stuff’s for derpy weirdos)
If Motorola offer one with and SD card and headphone jack, I’m buying it on day one.
I had looked it up, they are starting with new phones in the same line/family as Motorola Signature, Motorola razr fold and Motorola razr ultra apparently
Samesame
The software for linux phones is pretty much there. Gnome and KDE mobile are surprisingly capable. There’s built in apps for every basic thing you’d need on a phone like a dialer, SMS app, camera, etc. plus all the normal apps adapted to work with mobile like the calculator and maps apps.
The only real limitation is with the hardware. I have no idea why all new linux phones launch with specs from a decade ago. You can get a better experience by flashing ported Postmarket OS to an Android phone like the Nothing phone or a OnePlus 6t.
It shouldn’t be like that, no idea why it’s impossible to just have a linux phone with decent specs and a good camera on par with modern flagships.
Linux phones try to build from upstream Linux, and the major phone SoC vendors HATE upstreaming their code.
They believe every character in their source code is absolutely top secret.
A middle ground I wish was considered more is taking Google’s kernel and the vendors DLKM partition/DTB/DTBO for hardware support, and putting a GNU userspace on top.
This has had problems in the past, because vendors would modify syscall tables such that they don’t match userspace anymore, but with GKI, I think we’re closer to that being a possibility
Thats always the problem with building hardware open source products. You spend millions developing the OS to work with your stuff and you get like six months before someone else is competing with you, except they didn’t have to spend that investment. The only reason we got the steamdeck was because the guys that made it ALSO owned the means of putting games on it, so they didn’t really need to make money on the product itself (kinda like with Google and the play store).
At least with the vendors I’m referring to (2/3 that make all Android phones), they just took the open source code, hacked it up as quickly as possible to get some basic drivers working, and moved on.
There wasn’t any “special sauce” in the source, they just didn’t want to spend the effort to upstream it
Edit: Just because you said “hardware open source” I wasn’t advocating for open hardware, just for hardware vendors to, ya know, support the hardware
100% I got a pixel, secondhand, to allow for gOS.
All I want is a linux phone that takes good photos that I feel is secure. I need it to launch android apps in sandbox instances too but I understand that is possible.
Linux phones are always missing modern stuff be it fast charging, nfc, decent compnents, etc.
Love a tablet too, the pixel tablet with speaker stand is ideal if it wasnt the devils products.
Glad to hear it, as years back with the Pinephone, I had a… worse than that experience. It was not good.
Give me a flx1s with usbDP alt mode and usb3 and I’ll switch today.
My 9a running Graphene works with a laptop usb C dock beautifully btw, just had to enable the beta in developer options.
That is not the same thing
Ah. kk.
Any functionality you miss from the stock rom?
Never used the stock rom on it, purchased it, turned it on, and immediately flashed it. BUT compared to my last “normal” android? (Smasnug- I’ll never NOT call them that thanks to a certain Aussie on YT) No. Nothing. That said I’m middle aged and never even considered using stuff like contactless payments with a phone, etc. Never saw the appeal of increased risk just to look like a douchebag at the checkout aisle or the drive through. Your mileage may vary if you use things like that, I can’t speak to it.
Only thing I noticed was for my bank’s app, I had to enable “exploit protection compatibility mode” to make it function like it should.
Oh, my pkcell
Did we just become friends?
I have company managed apps on my device. Teams, Outlook and Authenticator. Any idea if there might be any friction there with Graphene? It’s really the only thing from holding me back and I can’t really justify experimenting if it’s going to break things
Should work, although haven’t tried Teams or Outlook, but I would recommend putting it on a different profile, you can make multiple users, then enable the google play store on there. Leave that as you work profile or google profile. Helps keep things separated.
That’s your first problem. If your company want to force you to use specific apps on a phone they should just buy you a phone for that
Can’t really be helped. I was getting a $50/mth stipend for it for about 3 years but then they turned that off.
Oh, they turned that off? Okay, where in the policy does it say that you’re required to use your own device? No stipend no teams. No stipend no outlook. No stipend no authenticator. I’m not giving them a single millimeter.
Yah, the company I work for has been pushing Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) the last few months. Nope and nope.
YUCKY! Sorry can’t say. I don’t even allow Microsoft on my network.