I fixed my silly phone.
It's a Pixel 4A 5G, and there's dust under the main camera, which is something I use a decent bit.
I was doing tons of research into alternative OSes (because even de-googled #Android is pretty BLEH), and was considering getting a #PinePhone (not Pro) for #PostmarketOS & #SXMO, or getting a Pixel 3a XL for #UBports.
@RL_Dane I miss the Nokia N900 with Meego. Used to have it as my main phone, SSH terminal, even used it for making music. Been thinking of getting a Gemini PDA as a more modern device as I managed to brick the N900 years ago.
I'm considering it now that Mr. Micay is no longer running it.
No ill will towards him or the project -- he's a very smart guy, but I just couldn't stand how he ran around incessantly accusing people of being in a conspiracy to abuse him. He tried to manipulate Rossmann the same way and it went about as well as you'd predict. Those New Yorkers don't take that kind of B.S. (although he was pretty respectful in his video response).
I gotta say, I'm happy for him (Micay) and hopeful that he is getting some help. That level of I-don't-quite-know-what-to-call-it-without-sounding-insulting-which-would-be-bad-because-mental-health-is-very-important-and-should-never-be-stigmatized is really alarming, and desperately needs some professional attention and reality checks. I've been the recipient of the same, and while it's not a pleasant process, the outcome is wonderful.
All that said, I was considering getting a new(er) pixel (either 7a or used 6 pro), migrating #CalyxOS over to it and experimenting with GrapheneOS on my 4a 5G to see if I like it better.
I'm also still thinking about trying #UBPorts, although I'm a little concerned that the Android underpinnings of it would be a considerable attack surface. It might be fun to play with, though.
Man, I just want to be able to ssh into my phone and send texts. I love the idea of #KDEConnect, but I can never get it to work. It just chokes on my 800MB SMS database ;)
@RL_Dane I have a OnePlus Pro 7 and it's starting to have some issues, the usb-c is fucked up a bit, and I was thinking buying a pixel 5 with 128gb for ~250euros
Have you looked at how well supported the hardware is?
It seems that the #PinePhone (not Pro) is the only first-clast citizen for PmOS, although it's not as usable a phone. ;)
@RL_Dane@hyde it seems to have enough to be daily-drivable, except without GPS and maybe no camera, other than those 2 all green.. But theyre not small things either
A linux phone would be a dream, but it seems like it's going to be a dream for a while longer, unless we opt for UBPorts on an Android phone. But then you have a linux OS running on a dated Android base that may be a huge attack vector for security exploits. I dunno :/
I like #CalyxOS, #GrapheneOS is worth considering, as is /e/, Iodé, and Sailfish.
But Graphene is the strongest, security-wise, although I think Calyx is ok -- they're not as quick with the updates as graphene, and don't have as tight security, but it's a bit more lightweight and still has a re-locked bootloader, which is important.
Yeah, that's definitely a step up, security-wise. Just know that there's a noticeable (at least on some older phones) lag when launching applications because of the super-tight SELinux setup and sandboxing, but I think it's probably worth it.
I'm still not sure if I'd trust sandboxed Google Play services over MicroG, though. But I'd have to learn more about just how well sandboxed it is, and what kind of system access it does have.
I hope the issue with Google locking out accounts that access the Aurora store gets sorted soon. I'm afraid to use the store, because I can't afford to get my account locked. I tried to make a scratch one, but they require a real phone number (wasn't able to use a temporary one)
What you're referring to is secure exec spawning. It's a non-issue on any of the supported device. A small lag was noticeable on the first launch of an app (as it only affects cold app boot) on 3rd gen Pixels due to their crappy eMMC storage. Also, that option has been completely optional for quite a while, so you can completely disable it if you want.
Play Services on GrapheneOS are sandboxed just like any other regular app. It's not a special sandbox, but rather the same one that applies to any other app you'd install, so anything that would apply to all other apps also applies to those. With MicroG, you're granting it privileged access on your device, and you're still communicating with Google services. It also has to download proprietary Google components like droidguard to work. Overall, MicroG may have been a great solution back in the day for people on alt OSes, but in my personal opinion, it's been made completely obsolete by Sandboxed Google Play.
Honestly curious... does that mean play services can't read any files on the system, or pass data back and forth with other Gapps to get around restrictions? It still seems pretty dodgy to run the play services, even unprivileged. Just trying to understand this better.
Also, would it be possible to have multiple work profiles in Graphene? I'd ideally like to have a main profile that's all FOSS, a Google App work profile that isn't logged in (so I can occasionally use Google Maps with location access without being logged in), and another work profile that has google apps logged in (like google drive), but no location access (because once you log in to one google app they're all logged in, in my experience).
If I'm failing to understand something basic, please let me know. I'd like to get a better grasp of these things.
Also, no slight intended, but with Mr. Micay gone, can I trust that the days of Graphene folks constantly lambasting other FOSS Android projects is over? I don't have an issue of comparing technical advantages and differences of opinion over which implementation is better.
But I avoided GrapheneOS because I found Mr. Micay's behavior inexcusable. Again, nothing personal there, I do hope he's able to take some time to reflect on these things and get back to work making great FOSS soon.
@RL_Dane@hyde Same as the response to your post above, I'm sorry to hear that you've found a project member's behavior to be "inexcusable". I do not agree, but I think that we won't be able to find common ground here, so I'm happy to provide answers to help the community and people who are curious such as you when it comes to GrapheneOS, but I won't get into an argument about anything aside from that.
@RL_Dane@hyde I'm sorry to hear that you've interpeted any actions from the project or its members as such. I'm not really willing to debate this point, as we've gone back and forth on this in the past as well, so I'll just say this.
Technical discussions and technical criticisms is not "lambasting" anyone. If something that you've seen has been in poor taste in your opinion, again, I'm sorry to hear that, but I don't think that's a fair assessment of any of Daniel's technical posts. We can agree to disagree and leave it at that.
You cannot run multiple work profiles. You can have one in your owner profile. You can, however, have multiple user profiles (called Multiple Users), which GrapheneOS makes significantly more usable as per: https://grapheneos.org/features#improved-user-profiles
As Sandboxed Google Play is the same as any other app and sandboxed in the standard app sandbox, you can choose in which profiles to install it and in which not, and you can login to an account in one profile, and not in another, or not have it in another. Flexibility that's not afforded on Stock OS where it's privileged and has a bird's eye view on all profiles. I also believe MicroG applies across all profiles, and isn't isolated to specifics ones.
@RL_Dane@hyde As previously mentioned, the apps run in the same sandbox as all other apps. Just like other apps can't access files provided that you don't grant them a storage permission, the same exact thing applies to those apps on GrapheneOS.
Similarly, all apps within the same user profile can communicate with each other via mutual consent (meaning Both apps agree to communicate).
All rules that apply to all apps also apply to those. There are no specific consideration to make here that wouldn't apply to all other apps, so any questions about what they can and cannot do can also be answered with "what can an app do".
Apps that depend on play services just run Google code, and they can use it independently of Play Services/MicroG if they so choose. Whatever reservation you have about Sandboxed Gogole Play is misplaced, because there's nothing that it can do that another app bundling a Google Play library wouldn't be able to do itself. As an example, see Google Maps which is perfectly capable of working without Play Services/MicroG.
But guys... I just grabbed my little pry tool/knife thingy and lifted up the stupid camera module glass and hit it with a burst of canned "air" (sorry, Earth). BOOM. Clear as heck pictures again.
Camera bumps are SO STUPID, y'all.
Now I just need to figure out what to use as sealant so I don't have to dust it every day.
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