I was going through Pine64’s page again after I found the latest KDE announcement. With that said, I seem to see a lot of issues with firmware on the Pine, whilst the Librem is just plain out of budget for me. Was interested in how many people here run a Linux mobile as a daily driver, and how has your experience been?

I’m considering purchasing the Pine but I’d like a better screen, more RAM and a better CPU. Don’t know if I should wait for a new model to be released (are they even planning to do that? Is the company active?). I will only really use it to browse the Web, and might even look to desolder a couple of parts that I know I won’t use.

Thanks.

Edit: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it’ll be fit for me?

Edit 2: overall, I am much saddened about the state of affairs regarding private computing on the go. I desperately hope that Linux on mobile takes off, even though its incubation looks disheartening at the moment. Thank you everyone for your comments.

  • pathief@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’d love to run a system without Google but it’s hard. I tried to run LineageOS with microg for a week or two but eventually had to install Google Play Services. Lots of hurdles with push notifications and unfortunately some apps really refused to work when they detected no play services installed. It really sadden me, to be honest. Really wanted to make it work.

    Never gave Linux phones a chance, I rely too much on apps that wouldn’t be available.

  • xarexyouxmadx@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    I looked into this for myself but I was told a lot of what has already been said here and decided to go with a pixel + graphene OS .

    I’m probably sticking with this type of setup until there’s a proper Linux phone that can be easily used as a daily driver.

    I think the key is patience. One day I think we’ll have something that will be able to daily drive Linux that won’t feel like you’re using the alpha release of android.

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      I mean GrapheneOS is probably the most secure OS on the planet and also privacy friendly. Android is annoying sometimes but its pretty okay and the security standards are veeery high

      • themelm@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        1 year ago

        Graphene also is way easier to use their google play sandbox then messing around with microg and shit on lineage. I’d love to see the sandbox stuff ported to lineage or similar but I imagine its pretty baked into graphene. Since I care a little about privacy but also just want my phone to be rooted so I can do whatever I want with it. Oh well maybe someday.

        • Pantherina@feddit.de
          0·
          1 year ago

          You can root GrapheneOS, no problem. Its just not as secure anymore and the bootloader cant be locked, banking apps will not work anymore, Android Attestation, Safetynet etc

        • Pantherina@feddit.de
          0·
          1 year ago

          You can root GrapheneOS, no problem. Its just not as secure anymore and the bootloader cant be locked, banking apps will not work anymore, Android Attestation, Safetynet etc

      • xarexyouxmadx@lemmy.world
        0·
        1 year ago

        True. That’s why I chose graphene in the end. Ib liked the idea of the multiple user profiles to sandbox certain activities to a disposable profile and the fact that if I need Google play I can sandbox that as well by running it as a regular system app on it’s own profile…

        So far it’s been pretty good. I think my only complaint is I can’t get my Chromecast devices to connect. I got my Google TV to connect but all Chromecast devices refuse to pair for some reason but that pales in comparison to the headaches I’d get trying to daily drive a Linux phone. But I’m big on Linux (I use it as a daily driver on my computer) so I’m patiently waiting for a daily driver worthy Linux phone. 🤞

        • Pantherina@feddit.de
          0·
          1 year ago

          Things are going in the right directions, somewhere.

          • immutable Systems
          • security optimized, permission models etc
          • TPM encryption
          • HEADS Bios with hardware key as storage

          But its far from the security of a Google Pixel with GrapheneOS.

    • Kühe sind toll@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      There’s a simple reason to change that: use it. Recommend it to your friends. And yet there are great Linux mobile OSes(as example Graphen OS.

  • trivial_wannabe@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 year ago

    I used a pinephone as my daily driver for about a month. Importantly, this was 3~4 years ago, things could be better now.

    My take at the time: The battery life was bad, the phone was slow, MMS did not work, making a receiving calls was iffy at best.

    I really really hope this improves/has improved over time. Android gets more and more difficult to de-google. A linux phone would solve a lot of privacy issues (not all, but some)

    • Pantherina@feddit.de
      0·
      1 year ago

      It sucks that GrapheneOS supports only Pixels and nobody came along and ported it to other devices, although less secure.

      But “Android gets harder to degoogle” is not true. Pixels are just way too expensive

  • Pantherina@feddit.de
    0·
    1 year ago

    Me, GrapheneOS!

    No jokes, I found a Oneplus 3 with broken Display, will fix that and try some distros. But the choices all seem pretty bad tbh, I would like Fedora Silverblue but I guess that doesnt exist… yet.

    Maybe I will try to create a custom Ublue image?