Meanwhile me absolutely running a dualboot Oneplus 6 with lineage and droidian that has had kupferos, mobian and postmarketos in the past... (yes, i distrohop my phone, so what?)
I would totally daily drive a Linux phone if performance wasn't so awful. I don't care if it doesn't a have any apps. In fact, the inability to install apple or android apps is actually a positive point in my view.
it's a fun toy, not super useful but probably fun to tinker with
I've done some ungodly stuff to my android phones (even non-rooted ones, I'm totally abusing them) and I can't even imagine all the possibilities with a proper linux distro. Having a pocket pc with a full arm64 linux sounds awesome
I daily drive it, just like some other people here. It lets you run the same software that you use on desktop. Some apps don't have a UI that works well on mobile (possible workaround: play around with scaling) and some old ones might not have touch support (you would have to use those with mouse or keyboard), but often there are mobile friendly alternatives, so it's better to use those instead. It can't replace a proper PC, even if you plug it into a monitor and it's not a fast device, but it's usable and you can do fun stuff with it. You can run CLI programs and servers, run Kali Linux (NetHunter Pro), distro hop, make hardware addons (there are some exposed pins on the back) or simply use it as phone. You just have to be an advanced GNU/Linux user, because sometimes workarounds are required.
And when you add the keyboard addon, you can look like a true hackerman:
I don't think anybody is saying that. It's a product for GNU/Linux experts who either like to tinker or whose main goal is to have freedom even at the cost of convenience.
According to the FSF, GrapheneOS also contains non free firmware:
GrapheneOS is a version of Android which is described as “open source,” but it seems to include software that isn't free software or even “open source”. For instance, it comes with firmware programs for installation and it appears that at least some of them are binaries without source code. It is said to be “de-Googled,” but includes a way to download and install the nonfree Google Play program.
This only talks about the Fairphone. The only mention of PinePhone and Librem 5 is that according to the author providing schematics is not enough to call it "open hardware".
It's a misconception that the Librem 5 and Pinephone are open source. Their hardware components including the CPU, GPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, etc.
The word "open source" usually refer to software, but ok. Those companies provide schematics for the motherboard and Librem 5 also provides PCB designs. But they don't provide those for the chips, so that is correct. I don't think anyone says otherwise.
Their hardware/firmware/software is all much less private and secure
What? :D The person doesn't even explain why. Then they talk about physical killswitches misunderstanding what they are really for (they are there so that you don't have to fully trust the software/firmware to turn something off - especially the proprietary modem firmware) and claim that all of those devices are insecure somehow, because on GNU/Linux any program can access the microphone. But that's exactly why we use free software, isn't it?
I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous, so I won't read the rest. I'm not a hardware expert, though, so maybe some of their other points were valid. I guess those phones's hardware is probably as secure as any other computer's. I don't think anyone says otherwise, but the killswitches are always a good idea.
Pinephone doesn't have features like IOMMU isolation or even verified boot. Also as a matter of fact, permission control, unless you're using flatpak/bwrap/firejail is actually better on Android than Linux. Plus long before the first usable part of Linux written in Rust was released, large parts of low level AOSP code were already rewritten in it.
PinePhone's modem is isolated through USB. I don't know about other components, though.
Also as a matter of fact, permission control, unless you’re using flatpak/bwrap/firejail is actually better on Android than Linux. Plus long before the first usable part of Linux written in Rust was released, large parts of low level AOSP code were already rewritten in it.
I understand that, but none of that makes GNU/Linux insecure and that's what the GrapheneOS developer has claimed. They said it was insecure. I can't say if GrapheneOS is more secure than GNU/Linux, because I don't know enough about it or how libre it is, so I'm not arguing with that. It's possible that it is (I would have to check opinions of independent experts). My point was that those people can't be taken seriously if they make such ridiculous claims. I don't know if I can believe anything they say.
This person says that Android (a proprietary operating system) is more secure than GNU/Linux. Ridiculous. It's nice that Android has all those security features, but it's still proprietary, so can't be trusted. Keep in mind that he didn't just say GrapheneOS, which might be entirely free software, so unlike Android, it might have a chance to be secure.
PureOS also uses linux-libre. This will prevent the user from loading any proprietary firmware updates, which just so happens to be almost all of them.
I don't think this is true at all. The firmware in Librem 5 is stored on some separate chips and I think users can flash new firmware to them. But even if he was correct, I'm not entirely convinced that you get a security benefit from being able to change from one proprietary firmware version to another, since both those versions can't be trusted. I will need to read more about this at some point.
Then he says the same stupid thing about the killswitches and just like the GrapheneOS dev pretends that they have no benefit. I'm starting to wonder if they are the same person. Never mind, I can now see that he quotes him in his GNU/Linux article, so he is probably just repeating after that guy.
The microphone kill switch is useless since audio can still be gotten via the sensors (such as the gyroscope or accelerometer).
I doubt that. I'm pretty sure that in reality the audio levels you can get from those sensors is too low to be usable (unlike a microphone). Here is a fun fact that this person doesn't know about. The microphone killswitch on one of the PinePhone versions doesn't actually kill the microphone, it just disconnects the amplifier or something. So the microphone technically still works, but it's not gonna pick anything up, even if you yell directly at it. I know this, because people have figured it out from looking at the schematics and tested it.
The unorthodox way in which the Librem 5 attempts to isolate the modem is via the Linux kernel USB stack, which is not a strong barrier, as shown in the Linux article.
I can't find where he explains this, but I think the problem was that he just doesn't know about USBGuard. The author's two articles are full of errors or false information, they don't understand that proprietary systems can't be considered secure. I see no reason to trust their opinions on security.
AOSP is not proprietary. Also security is not achieved merely by the merit of being libre, see CVEs for sudo, glibc or Apache HTTP server or even the Linux kernel itself.
And when it comes to proprietary firmware updates, in case of x86 one such notable example is the microcode which is pretty important to keep updated for security.
Also security is not achieved merely by the merit of being libre, see CVEs for sudo, glibc or Apache HTTP server or even the Linux kernel itself.
Being libre is the basic requirement to even being considering something as secure, but it is not enough by itself. I agree.
And when it comes to proprietary firmware updates, in case of x86 one such notable example is the microcode which is pretty important to keep updated for security.
Generally that's what people say, but is it really that simple? A new firmware version might fix some known vulnerability, but its developers might have also introduced a new one on purpose. So a known vulnerability might have been fixed, but you might have gotten a new one that isn't yet known. So I don't know if that's really so much better. Also I assume that the only way to exploit those vulnerabilities is through malware? But if you only run free software, the risk of getting malware is very small.
I agree with you that every proprietary software must be presumed to be a trojan with a backdoor but still some critical, low level free software being decades old C codebases with oftentimes millions of LoC has proven to be a double-edged sword where on one hand most of it is super optimized (just compare launch times of lightdm or GDM to e.g. regreet) but on the other hand by pure probabilistics it's more likely to contain some vulnerabilities accumulated over the years of imperfect code reviews.
Sure I believe it's worth hoping and supporting initiatives that might one day bring us to something like RISC-V smartphone with high level of hardware security that'd run something like Alpine (a minimalist distro) but based on Redox OS. Maybe that'll come true in a couple of years.
But right now GrapheneOS even despite proprietary hardware is the best option security-wise, unless you're willing to tinker with hacking together some RISC-V SBC-based device (which might even have better battery life than most smartphones by up to 60%!), but the optimization of basically any software is going to suck so badly. And forget compiling any Rust code on the currently available RISC-V CPUs. want memory safety? pick something with a VM/GC instead.
You are right that some projects are more likely to have vulnerabilities than others. But at least with libre software any expert can look into it, fix it and distribute the patch to others.
I don't have much hope for RISC-V, since most SBCs that use it seem to require a custom Linux kernel, so it's the same problem that we have with ARM. Maybe things will get better at some point, but unfortunately most people don't seem to care. I haven't heard of Redox before. It looks interesting, but it's a shame that it's not under a GPL license.
But right now GrapheneOS even despite proprietary hardware is the best option security-wise
Maybe you are right and Graphene with F-Droid is the most secure option. I don't think it's necessary to have all of its features, since we don't have them on desktop either, but it would be nice to have them on mobile for sure.
unless you’re willing to tinker with hacking together some RISC-V SBC-based device (which might even have better battery life than most smartphones by up to 60%!)
That's crazy! Is RISC-V so much more efficient than ARM?
And forget compiling any Rust code on the currently available RISC-V CPUs
Apparently there are multiple crates but no official toolchain so unsure how that works in practice. You're still limited to either waiting for hours or cross-compiling though since currently the best available RISC-V CPU is quad-core 2.5 GHz (which still looks hella promising, 2 years ago best we had was 1.5 GHz dual-core). This blog post by Drew DeVault goes into detail of how daily driving RISC-V looked like 2 years ago. I suppose these days it looks noticeably better, especially since Samsung and Apple have been eyeing RISC-V adoption due to ARM consortium doing some monopolistic shit with their licensing. But eventually, so far, not enough critical mass was attained and afaik the whole drama mellowed out a bit.
Regarding the energy efficiency, some experimental units managed to even be manifold better at this:
But on the other hand, studies involving some RISC-V models show quite the contrary when it comes to energy efficiency, although the thermal performance is much better:
And below is a screenshot from a comparison by Gary Explains using more microcontroller models. So it really depends on the specific model, but it seems like the design of RISC-V has some solid potential to beat ARM in terms of energy and thermal efficiency.
I didn't know there was no RISC-V toolchain for Rust, that's kinda weird!
You’re still limited to either waiting for hours or cross-compiling though since currently the best available RISC-V CPU is quad-core 2.5 GHz (which still looks hella promising, 2 years ago best we had was 1.5 GHz dual-core).
Compiling anything on PinePhone is also painful :D. But I suspect there is probably a lot more ARM packages available in distros and some app developers release ARM builds.
Those energy efficiency comparisons are pretty interesting! x86 is also improving, so I'm curious if there will ever be x86 phones.
Linux people tend to forget, that people want something that just works, why I love Linux, I have a mac and later bought an Iphone, the UX difference of using and airpod pro with an Android phone and an Iphone is just miles apart, I can literally have it in my ears, click on a video on my mac and the sound transfers, then as I go out for a walk with my dog and start a podcast, the airpods switch back to my phone without any hassle.
Before that I would have to disconnect and reconnect bluetooth multiple times to switch between the android phone and the macbook.
Granted I maybe care a lot more about good UX than normal people, but good UX like that just makes me hard.
Yeah, thanks for that info, couldn't think about that myself, Except I have used non apple bluetooth earbuds with android phones for years before and it was just as shit of an experience, so I dont know, guess again?
If you have the right earbuds it does just work. I've used a few different types of earbuds that can seamlessly switch between a MacBook and an android phone, none of which were airpods
You dont see an issue with that? I must have been unlucky with all 3 of mine I guess, id rather have something that just works, now that I can afford it and dont have to justify why I wouldnt buy it.
It's definitely frustrating to have to search out the correct type of earbuds. Every type that I've bought this has been a feature that I'm specifically looking for. I would say most earbuds don't work like that.
I use windows and android and my earphones switch just fine between pc, phone and my car. Or should I say the audio switches with no issue between them.
Yeah, Linux phones are cool and stuff but is there any benefits compared to using GrapheneOS? Sure, you can have more freedom on the OS level, but is it really a big benefit compared to just using GrapheneOS?
The killswitches on the phone seem nice, but I do wonder if they're using any proprietary firmware or something to make it switch on or off?
Sure, you can have more freedom on the OS level, but is it really a big benefit compared to just using GrapheneOS?
With more freedom comes more privacy and security. I don't think GrapheneOS is entirely free software, but correct me if I'm wrong.
The killswitches on the phone seem nice, but I do wonder if they’re using any proprietary firmware or something to make it switch on or off?
I think they just electrically disconnect the modem (so that you don't have to trust its proprietary firmware to turn it off) or the microphone or whatever from power.
I appreciate the people who daily drive pinephones. They are paving the way for when they'll be viable alternatives for the masses. (Or verifying that they won't be, we'll see.)
I was downvoted before for suggesting the Pinetab is not a viable Android or iPad replacement. That thing doesn't even have a working wifi driver yet, you have to plug in a dongle just to connect to wifi. I'd love to have good smart devices running Linux one day, but we're not there yet.
The thing about convenience vs freedom is that, why can't we get freedom if we choose convenience as well? I don't feel like messing around with my phone to setup the basics, and the closest thing freedom-wise would be a de-googled rooted android phone. It would be nice to have an inbetween.
It's just that freedom sometimes requires sacrifices. Switching to GNU/Linux is also not easy. It requires that a person learns to use a completely new operating system (schools usually only teach Windows). This is hard even for many technical people and it requires time. Windows users can also say that GNU/Linux is just not ready yet or that it's too inconvenient (and some of them do). But if we don't fight for freedom, we will never get it. Through hard work of many people over decades, we managed to get freedom on the desktop. Now it's time for phones. After that becomes easier, there might be some other, new challenge. Maybe firmware or something else. But it will probably always be inconvenient in some way, because you will have to switch from something you already know to something else that is new, even if it has similar features. Just like Reddit users could switch to Lemmy, but they won't. So they will not have freedom and Reddit continues to have power over them.
It would be nice to have an inbetween
I guess maybe Ubuntu Touch would be something in between. It uses Android kernel, so some Android phones support it.
Good to know that there is now a testing branch for a wifi driver. That wasn't the case when I wrote the original comment I was talking about. Still, this took almost a year of selling a tablet with no working wifi. There is inconvenience and then there is a product just being in an unfinished, effectively unusable state. I don't really see how having no wifi driver is "freedom". The freedom to code my own driver? I guess, but that doesn't make for an actually usable device.
Still many people bought the thing, because they wanted the freedom of GNU/Linux. They were willing to sacrifice something to get it. Sometimes that's what you have to do. Pine64 makes the hardware and does not contribute to the software development. That sucks, but there is nothing we can do about it, since they don't have a lot of competition.
The PinePhone has not killed any of my SIMs, and I've heard of nobody else having that happen. Nowhere on Pine64 conmunities. The burden of proof is on the one which made the claim that PinePhones kill SIM cards.
Stop spreading lies like "Pinephone kills SIMs". And if it truly did happen to yours are you sure the SIM didn't stop working because of the PinePhone and would have done anyways?
Daily drivin Manjaro (Plasma mobile) on my Pinephone Pro for over a year now. If you are not into the whole "taking pictures all the time" thing you can easiy use it as a daily driver. (This message was typed on it)
I respond to you just because yours is the last of the "I daily drive a PinePhone" comments, but this is meant for everyone with the same opinion.
Do you, in all honesty, feel comfortable enough with your device that you would confidently run a business solely through it?
I'm not an influencer, so my job isn't "taking pictures all the time", but still I wouldn't rely on a Linux phone to run my business because I cannot risk:
to miss a phone call, a text or an email;
to run out of battery if I'm outside my office all day long;
to have a faulty GPS should I use a navigator to meet a client;
that Bluetooth disconnects mid-call for the 5th time in a day while I'm driving;
that I have to take a picture to collect information and the latest update borked the camera.
All of these things happen frequently on a Linux phone, and if you have a job where you can live through it good for you, I envy you TBH.
On the other hand, keep in mind that it's not just the "Instagram people" that need a reliable device.
I couldn't run a business on any phone, frankly. That's what computers are for.
Also the GPS worked fine for me.
Let me guess, Manjaro or another unstable distro is where things broke for you? Mobian did not break things on update, much like Debian on desktop. I know the person you replied to uses Manjaro, but if you want a stable experience you really shouldn't.
And most people aren't running a business, so there's that.
I don't deny that the user experience isn't great, it is development/early adopter hardware, but it's definitely usable as a daily driver.
It depends by what job you have: a plumber, for example, could probably run their business entirely with their phone.
But we're missing the point, I'm not saying a smartphone can replace a PC, whether it be Linux, iOS or Android. I'm saying that If you need to do all the tasks that are required by a "modern day job" and you need to do them well, then I'm sorry (I really am) but Linux phones aren't ready yet.
And most people aren’t running a business, so there’s that.
Most people don't have the skill to troubleshoot a Linux phone, why don't we count them too in the statistics?
Then, I used "running a business" as just an example to indicate the "urgency of a functioning phone" for whatever reason: it might just be that you have a relative you have to take care of, or that you are a doctor/nurse that can be contacted on every moment, or that you're an a job hunt and cannot miss the call... I can go on for hours on why in A.D. 2024 a person from whichever social context cannot afford to be off the grid
Most people don’t have the skill to troubleshoot a Linux phone, why don’t we count them too in the statistics?
This community is called linuxmemes. You are talking to GNU/Linux users here. For everyone else it's going to be hard, obviously. It takes time to learn to use a completely different operating system.
Of course, everyone has different requirements on their phone, so the question if one would be comfortable running their buisness of a pine phone is quite divers.
Phone calls, texts and E-Mails
Text and E-Mails pretty much work as well as on every other phone. Phone calls work too, but the audio quality is below what one could expect from a modern iPhone.
Battery
While the battery runtime of one battery is definitely lower compared to competing devices, it is also replaceable. I usually spend my day in the office were the phone can be charged, so the battery life does not become an issue. When I am traveling I bring some extra batteries. The form factor is commonly available and batteries cost around 10 €, so I got 4 of them, which last me for ~36 hours until I have to charge them. I have so far never spend more time away from an outlet.
GPS
Works nowadays pretty reliable, accuracy of around 20 m is also good enough to find were I need to go
Bluetooth
Definitely not perfect but random disconnects happen rarely. On the other side I have an headphone jack, which always works reliably
Camera
Ok, this point goes to you, the camera is not usable. When taking pictures of documents I usually have to use my tablet.
So now to the overarching question:
Do you, in all honesty, feel comfortable enough with your device that you would confidently run a business solely through it?
No, I would not feel comfortable to run a business through a phone, I need a real computer for my work. If I could only use a phone I would choose the pine phone, because at least it can run all software I require for my daily work. Connected to keyboard, mouse and a monitor it could be a slow, but acceptable work machine
I can certainly imagine that there are jobs, which rely more heavily on a phone. But in these cases one should have separate work and private phones anyway
Missing a phone call or text is unacceptable and id consider that a fail if it came to phones everything else you mentioned wouldnt be a fail just poor quality in my opinion
I think they use some very old and heavily modified version of the Linux kernel, so it's not the same Linux kernel we use on desktop. Then each phone manufacturer adds custom patches on top to support their hardware. GNU/Linux phones also require a custom kernel, but the community is working on upstreaming those patches, so that they can run mainline kernel some day (PinePhone Pro and Librem 5 probably already can now, but some stuff might not work).
Yeah, using the name Linux for both the kernel and the operating system makes no sense and it's super confusing. When people say Linux when talking about the operating system, they almost always mean GNU/Linux (like Linux Mint, Arch Linux, etc). But then there is Alpine Linux, which isn't GNU/Linux and that makes things even more confusing. If I didn't know what Alpine Linux or Arch Linux was (and had no knowledge of distro names), based on their name I would assume they are some kind of fork of the Linux kernel. Arch Linux should have really been called Arch GNU/Linux and Alpine Linux should have just been called Alpine OS.
They use the current LTS kernel that exists when the phone exists. If your phone has an outdated kernel (mine had one too, and I thought the same) it is simply really outdated.
Yeah the problem lies in the many Distros I think. The BSDs are all different bundles, not like Linux+Gnu+Systemd+pipewire+wayland+glibc and some minor differences. FreeBSD is actually different from OpenBSD for example. Then Android is also a single project, just like this "modern desktop linux bundle".
While people know that Android is based on Linux, a fact that isn't in question, when people say a "Linux" phone, they're not discounting that Android exists or that it runs Linux, they mean to infer that they're discussing non-Android Linux phones. If they meant Android as a Linux phone, they would have said Android.
While android is in the set of "Linux", not all things that are in the set of Linux are Android.
Since we have a specific word for GNU/Linux - Android devices, but almost all Linux based alternatives to Android for mobile devices is basically referred to simply as a "Linux phone", it can be, and should be, assumed that the speaker is referring to Linux phones which are not Android.
It's a nuance of language and technically not wrong to say that "Android is Linux" but that's not what most of the readers understood to be the speakers intention.
That was the correction that the previous poster tried to portray.
Simply put, most Linux enthusiasts and community, doesn't really consider android to be "one of them" since, though it's Linux at its core/kernel, almost everything built on top of it from there is some bastardized/closed source software, or relies on something closed source. Most of the things people want to run on their phone (browsers, camera software, even the dialer), is almost entirely written, controlled and closed source by Google. While some of the "guts" of the OS might be open source/GNU versions, the interfaces are largely all closed source software that Google has published to run on top of Android specifically. This doesn't fit with the philosophy of GNU/Linux, and therefore Android is largely not included when speaking about Linux, at least for Linux enthusiasts.
No you're using Termux with bash. Unless you're actually interfacing with the kernel directly in which case ignore me and carry on.
Anyways this is a great example of why "Linux" as the name of the OS is stupid. GNU/Linux is better (for GNU-based, obviously, don't go wheeling out the Alpine copypasta because I'm not talking about that).
Alpine Linux is actually a great example of why you are right. Because when people say Linux to describe the OS, they almost always mean GNU/Linux (Linux Mint, Arch Linux, etc). But then there is Alpine, which also calls itself Linux, but its developers actually mean something very different, because it's not GNU/Linux. So that only makes things even more confusing. Android doesn't even use the mainline Linux kernel, so calling it Linux is probably even worse than with Alpine.
If we always used the correct names, there wouldn't be so much confusion.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
I've been daily driving Ubuntu Touch on the Fairphone 4 for over a year. I love it, even if some features are lacking. Calling and text is stable, but unfortunately Volte support is still missing. Waydroid is also working great.
ironically, the fact that i would genuinely rather spend my money on a pinephone as opposed to an android should go to show how little i care for android devices.
