14 ms·

OS on the FairPhone 3 – a FOSS OS for phones [video]

79 points by indidea 6y ago

mlang23 6y ago
I wonder if it implements Accessibility APIs and a screen reader. It took Google years to catch up to what VoiceOver on iOS can do. I hope FOSS does not forget about this topic on phones. My phone has become the most ubiquitous assistive technology in my life. Checking public transport arrival times. reading labels on canned food. using tools like Be My Eyes to solve everything for which there is no deep learning application yet. All these things would be impossible without a good Accessibility API and screen reader. And before you ask, no, voice enabling a select few applications is not the solution. This is what Android tried in the first years. It was horrible and pretty laughable at the same time.
- turbinerneiter 6y ago
  I wish that FOSS could serve this, but as you said, it took Google, a billion dollar company, a long time to get it right. /e/OS has about 40 team members mentioned on their website, including regular contributors - so its not 40 full-time employees. I think the best chance to get something going in this field is to try to get public funding for a research project around something like universal accessibility or some such.
  - mlang23 6y ago
    If FOSS can not cater to people with special needs per definition, as you seem to imply, I will have to stop advocating it altogether. If advocating for FOSS means supporting a movement that is not willing to bridge the gap and fight against digital divide, we need to stop doing so. Technology is the best chance for people with disabilities to catch up in our society. If we take that aware from them, we are not doing any good.
    - deathgrips 6y ago
      By supporting it, do you mean that you donate? Or do you mean that you just talk about it? It takes a lot of money to develop hard features like this.
    - valvar 6y ago
      FOSS is not a company with a big budget and a CEO. It's a philosophy and a community built around the radical idea that user freedoms matter. If you want something particular to exist, then perhaps you should start building it or donating to those who are. No matter how nice or important it is, someone needs to build it and development requires more than just wishing — it requires money and time.
      - simonh 6y ago
        It's this user blaming by the FLOSS community that really sticks in my craw. On the one had proprietary software is immoral, on the other FLOSS software not living up to the needs of users is, er, the user's fault for not being programmers or personally sponsoring their own development effort.
        mlang23 6y ago
        +1 Thanks for this comment. I hear this a lot from people who actually know about F/LOSS but were not able (or interested) to switch from proprietary solutions because their needs are simply not handled in an appropriate way by F/LOSS. In the past, when I was still more enthusiastic about free software, I heard their words but they somehow didn't really sink in. These days when all I hear if funding and the lack thereof, I start to get what they were saying, and I am actually pretty concerned about this. The worst outcome we could have is that free software advocacy actually works and these inaccessible solutions dominate the market. This would mean that free software actively pushs disabled people out of our society. Thinking about this, I stand to my massively downvoted comment. This would be a horrible outcome. So as long as there is no solution to the "why should I think about these fucks" or "nobody is paying me to care for disabled people" it would be a bad thing to further advocate free software.
amenod 6y ago
Off topic: how is one supposed to search for "/e/"? Is there some alternative spelling? On topic: I like that /e/ foundation is selling new and refurbished phones with the OS installed. It (hopefully) gives them some income and it helps get this OS in hands of users who would rather not tempt the goddess of bricks.
- nine_k 6y ago
  Slash-E? How authors themselves do it?
- dddw 6y ago
  eOS ?
- Fnoord 6y ago
  It is a placeholder name. The previous name was Eelo, but it was in conflict with an already existing brand.
- kevinfanch 6y ago
  I think searching e foundation is the easiest.
- xorcist 6y ago
  Is this in any way related to Enlightenment which also styled the "e" similarly?
  - Fnoord 6y ago
    No. /e/ is a project started by Gaël Duval, founder of Mandrake Linux (nowadays known as Mandriva). See [1] [2] [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABl_Duval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABl_Duval [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(software)
- Vinnl 6y ago
  I think they use e_mydata at some places [1]. [1] https://mastodon.social/@e_mydata https://mastodon.social/@e_mydata
tshanmu 6y ago
From the page: It consists of: an installable mobile operating system for smartphones, which is forked from Android and strongly “ungoogled” a set of sorted and improved default open source applications various online services that are linked to the mobile operating system, such as: a meta search engine for the web, drive (with synchronization), mail, calendar, notes, tasks.
chrisxcross 6y ago
I'm a FP3 and /e/ user for about half a year now. And well, it works for me but frankly there are some issues. Nothing I'm not willing to take, but it's different to the premium android device with google services before. The Appstore provides some apps. But not all of them and some are quite outdated. They seem to get their APKs from https://info.cleanapk.org/ https://info.cleanapk.org/. Some apps just don't work or stop reacting to touches. But this can be an Issue with the missing Google Services. The FP3 is a decent phone. It does its job well images are ok (old camera) focus and stabilization are not as good as flagship phones. The fingerprint reader is pretty unreliable. It usually needs some tries... However, its repairable, the price is fair for what you get, they try to be sustainable, there is /e/-os and lineage available. That's the main reason I bought it: I expect to use it as long as I want and not only as log as the manufacturer publishes the patches.
- kevinfanch 6y ago
  I am also a Fairphone 3 user but I don't notice many issues. Are you sure you are updating /e/ ? I am on verions 0.11 now and it is very rare to have a crash or something else. I also believe apps are updated quite frequently now.
  - chrisxcross 6y ago
    I'm on 0.11, too. OS crashes are rare ~2 time, maybe. It's minor things, embedded qr-scanner fails, AntennaPod crashes and needs a restart, some Apps like eBay just crash... But checking the apps I got from /e/'s-Store: They are up-to-date :)
    - lucideer 6y ago
      I don't use eBay but AntennaPod crashes occasionally on stock Android. I wonder are these definitely /e/ issues?
- izacus 6y ago
  As an Android developer I can't see how an app would stop responding to touches because of lack of Google services. It'll either crash completely because it won't be able to bind to them or just skip the functionality.
ForHackernews 6y ago
/e/ is a great idea, but it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth how the /e/ foundation hides the contributions of the free software projects they rely on. https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/ is the core that makes it possible to create the /e/ distribution, but good luck finding that in any of /e/'s promotional material.
- kevinfanch 6y ago
  MicroG is mentioned a lot as a part of /e/ check https://e.foundation/get-started/ https://e.foundation/get-started/ Does /e/ = Lineage OS + MicroG?
- m3adow 6y ago
  References to LineageOS (which /e/ is a fork of) and microG can be found on their "Getting Started" page [1]. I wouldn't call that "hiding". Also, don't they fund microG development since a couple of weeks? I too am critical towards /e/ because I think that they have done very little own work for now. But hiding their reliance on other OSS projects isn't something I'd call them out for. [1]: https://e.foundation/get-started/ https://e.foundation/get-started/
  - dudeoninternet 6y ago
    They were removing LineageOS headers from files and when called out just added "and others" instead.
  - em-bee 6y ago
    for what little work they did, they created a much more polished experience compared to lineageOS. i have been using both, and the difference is noticeable. that and effectively auditing the android for google dependencies and privacy violations, i think are already a quite substantial contribution. it is also worth considering how many resources it took to achieve that, so i think it's unfair to say they didn't do much as if anyone with a few weekends to spare could have achieved the same.
- fermigier 6y ago
  From the FAQ: "/e/ is forked from LineageOS. We’ve modified several parts of the system (and we’re just getting started): installation procedure, settings organization, default settings. We’ve disabled and/or removed any software or services that were sending personal data to Google (for instance, the default search engine is no longer Google). We’ve integrated microG by default, have replaced some of the default applications, and modified others. We have added a synchronization background software service that syncs multimedia contents (pictures, videos, audio, files…) and settings to a cloud drive, when activated."
dudeoninternet 6y ago
Some food for thought https://web.archive.org/web/20200731160632/https://ewwlo.xyz/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200731160632/https://ewwlo.xyz...
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Regarding the ban: this is why a community forum needs to be separate from the company.
xorcist 6y ago
The e.foundation home page caters to users without any technical knowledge, which is great but I'm not sure users of alternative mobile operating systems are quite there yet. It's not even immediately obvious this is Android-based. It would be useful to list some more specifics. Is this built on LineageOS? Does it come with their own cloud services? Can you opt out of that? How close do you track LineageOS? The video shows someone installing the Facebook app. That puts a limit to how de-googled this could possibly be. How are those products distributed? Can anything from the Play store be installed the same way? Happy user of LineageOS here, but there is definitively room for a more complete system with best of breed open source apps installed for those services most people require (mail, chat, maps etc.). Alternative application stores makes me wary however, F-Droid does an admirable job but compared to something like Debian they are still tiny.
- em-bee 6y ago
  yes, it's based on lineage. for apps that need google, microG is avaiable, and aparently does the job. (i don't use apps that need google, so i don't even have microG activated)
- Fnoord 6y ago
  Using Play Store via microG in /e/ is akin to using non-free in Debian. The philosophy of the OS recommends against it. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. You can though.
- takd 6y ago
  I have been using /e/OS on a Fairphone 3 for several months now, and I am quite satisfied. Yes, it is built on LineageOS, though I am not sure how closely it is tracked. They have their own cloud services, but you can opt out. You can use your own Nextcloud server as well, which I think is pretty neat: you can have a convenient cloud-based experience (contact and calendar sync etc.) with the stock /e/OS installation, while also having ownership of your data in your Nextcloud instance. (Their own servers are also heavily based on Nextcloud.) Regarding app stores: I think it is the weakest point. F-Droid is nice but not enough, the /e/OS App Store is a bit murky for me; for most of the non-FOSS apps I use the Aurora Store, which seems trustworthy to me so far.
help568832 6y ago
Anyone outside Europe can buy the Fairphone 3+ from Clove UK [1]. They have 25 yrs experience shipping phones. The official fairphone store ships only inside europe. But first check FP3/FP3+ Network specifications below to see whether the 4G LTE bands of your carrier are supported: In case you need it for your specific situation, the network specifications for the FP3/FP3+: Configuration Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby (DSDS) SIM Sockets 2 x Nano-SIM (4FF) Network Technology 2G / 3G / 4G LTE - Advanced GSM/GPRS/EDGE Quad-band: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz UMTS: Band 1 (2100 MHz); Band 2 (900 MHz); Band 5 (850MHz); Band 8 (900 MHz) 3G Max Downlink Speed - 42 Mbps 3G Max Uplink - 11 Mbps 4G / LTE Advanced Band 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 13 / 20 / 26 4G Max Downlink Speed - 300 Mbps 4G Max Uplink Speed - 75 Mbps Source: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047326452 https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047326452 [1] https://www.clove.co.uk/collections/smartphones/products/fairphone-4 https://www.clove.co.uk/collections/smartphones/products/fai...
help568832 6y ago
Recent discussion about Fairphone 3+ , for those interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24553617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24553617
pelliphant 6y ago
Thinking of buying a fairphone and using e on it, but I have a question about apps, and thought hackernews might know: I don't need that many apps, but the few I do need are very specific, such as the local public transportation app, and bankID from my bank. Can I just download those from the normal google app store?
chrisMyzel 6y ago
I love to see any project that aims to end smartphone duopoly craziness - but seriously, he's trying to end the dependency of a central google account by replacing it with an /e account as the first step? This does not make any sense and is so contradictory to the idea that I did not look any further into the project (some while ago).
- addicted 6y ago
  As long as the API is well defined, and the /e/ account can be easily replaced by a 3rd party, it’s probably the only way to a successful replacement. It’s also ok to not define the API immediately, but to wait a few years to understand what the API should actually look like and then publicly define it for v2.0 once you have enough feedback about what you did wrong.

79 points by indidea 6y ago

I wonder if it implements Accessibility APIs and a screen reader. It took Google years to catch up to what VoiceOver on iOS can do. I hope FOSS does not forget about this topic on phones. My phone has become the most ubiquitous assistive technology in my life. Checking public transport arrival times. reading labels on canned food. using tools like Be My Eyes to solve everything for which there is no deep learning application yet. All these things would be impossible without a good Accessibility API and screen reader. And before you ask, no, voice enabling a select few applications is not the solution. This is what Android tried in the first years. It was horrible and pretty laughable at the same time.

turbinerneiter 6y ago
I wish that FOSS could serve this, but as you said, it took Google, a billion dollar company, a long time to get it right. /e/OS has about 40 team members mentioned on their website, including regular contributors - so its not 40 full-time employees. I think the best chance to get something going in this field is to try to get public funding for a research project around something like universal accessibility or some such.
- mlang23 6y ago
  If FOSS can not cater to people with special needs per definition, as you seem to imply, I will have to stop advocating it altogether. If advocating for FOSS means supporting a movement that is not willing to bridge the gap and fight against digital divide, we need to stop doing so. Technology is the best chance for people with disabilities to catch up in our society. If we take that aware from them, we are not doing any good.
  - deathgrips 6y ago
    By supporting it, do you mean that you donate? Or do you mean that you just talk about it? It takes a lot of money to develop hard features like this.
  - valvar 6y ago
    FOSS is not a company with a big budget and a CEO. It's a philosophy and a community built around the radical idea that user freedoms matter. If you want something particular to exist, then perhaps you should start building it or donating to those who are. No matter how nice or important it is, someone needs to build it and development requires more than just wishing — it requires money and time.
    - simonh 6y ago
      It's this user blaming by the FLOSS community that really sticks in my craw. On the one had proprietary software is immoral, on the other FLOSS software not living up to the needs of users is, er, the user's fault for not being programmers or personally sponsoring their own development effort.
      - mlang23 6y ago
        +1 Thanks for this comment. I hear this a lot from people who actually know about F/LOSS but were not able (or interested) to switch from proprietary solutions because their needs are simply not handled in an appropriate way by F/LOSS. In the past, when I was still more enthusiastic about free software, I heard their words but they somehow didn't really sink in. These days when all I hear if funding and the lack thereof, I start to get what they were saying, and I am actually pretty concerned about this. The worst outcome we could have is that free software advocacy actually works and these inaccessible solutions dominate the market. This would mean that free software actively pushs disabled people out of our society. Thinking about this, I stand to my massively downvoted comment. This would be a horrible outcome. So as long as there is no solution to the "why should I think about these fucks" or "nobody is paying me to care for disabled people" it would be a bad thing to further advocate free software.

amenod 6y ago

Off topic: how is one supposed to search for "/e/"? Is there some alternative spelling? On topic: I like that /e/ foundation is selling new and refurbished phones with the OS installed. It (hopefully) gives them some income and it helps get this OS in hands of users who would rather not tempt the goddess of bricks.

nine_k 6y ago
Slash-E? How authors themselves do it?
dddw 6y ago
eOS ?
Fnoord 6y ago
It is a placeholder name. The previous name was Eelo, but it was in conflict with an already existing brand.
kevinfanch 6y ago
I think searching e foundation is the easiest.
xorcist 6y ago
Is this in any way related to Enlightenment which also styled the "e" similarly?
- Fnoord 6y ago
  No. /e/ is a project started by Gaël Duval, founder of Mandrake Linux (nowadays known as Mandriva). See [1] [2] [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABl_Duval https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABl_Duval [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(software)
Vinnl 6y ago
I think they use e_mydata at some places [1]. [1] https://mastodon.social/@e_mydata https://mastodon.social/@e_mydata

tshanmu 6y ago

From the page: It consists of: an installable mobile operating system for smartphones, which is forked from Android and strongly “ungoogled” a set of sorted and improved default open source applications various online services that are linked to the mobile operating system, such as: a meta search engine for the web, drive (with synchronization), mail, calendar, notes, tasks.

chrisxcross 6y ago

I'm a FP3 and /e/ user for about half a year now. And well, it works for me but frankly there are some issues. Nothing I'm not willing to take, but it's different to the premium android device with google services before. The Appstore provides some apps. But not all of them and some are quite outdated. They seem to get their APKs from https://info.cleanapk.org/ https://info.cleanapk.org/. Some apps just don't work or stop reacting to touches. But this can be an Issue with the missing Google Services. The FP3 is a decent phone. It does its job well images are ok (old camera) focus and stabilization are not as good as flagship phones. The fingerprint reader is pretty unreliable. It usually needs some tries... However, its repairable, the price is fair for what you get, they try to be sustainable, there is /e/-os and lineage available. That's the main reason I bought it: I expect to use it as long as I want and not only as log as the manufacturer publishes the patches.

kevinfanch 6y ago
I am also a Fairphone 3 user but I don't notice many issues. Are you sure you are updating /e/ ? I am on verions 0.11 now and it is very rare to have a crash or something else. I also believe apps are updated quite frequently now.
- chrisxcross 6y ago
  I'm on 0.11, too. OS crashes are rare ~2 time, maybe. It's minor things, embedded qr-scanner fails, AntennaPod crashes and needs a restart, some Apps like eBay just crash... But checking the apps I got from /e/'s-Store: They are up-to-date :)
  - lucideer 6y ago
    I don't use eBay but AntennaPod crashes occasionally on stock Android. I wonder are these definitely /e/ issues?
izacus 6y ago
As an Android developer I can't see how an app would stop responding to touches because of lack of Google services. It'll either crash completely because it won't be able to bind to them or just skip the functionality.

ForHackernews 6y ago

/e/ is a great idea, but it really leaves a sour taste in my mouth how the /e/ foundation hides the contributions of the free software projects they rely on. https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/ is the core that makes it possible to create the /e/ distribution, but good luck finding that in any of /e/'s promotional material.

kevinfanch 6y ago
MicroG is mentioned a lot as a part of /e/ check https://e.foundation/get-started/ https://e.foundation/get-started/ Does /e/ = Lineage OS + MicroG?
m3adow 6y ago
References to LineageOS (which /e/ is a fork of) and microG can be found on their "Getting Started" page [1]. I wouldn't call that "hiding". Also, don't they fund microG development since a couple of weeks? I too am critical towards /e/ because I think that they have done very little own work for now. But hiding their reliance on other OSS projects isn't something I'd call them out for. [1]: https://e.foundation/get-started/ https://e.foundation/get-started/
- dudeoninternet 6y ago
  They were removing LineageOS headers from files and when called out just added "and others" instead.
- em-bee 6y ago
  for what little work they did, they created a much more polished experience compared to lineageOS. i have been using both, and the difference is noticeable. that and effectively auditing the android for google dependencies and privacy violations, i think are already a quite substantial contribution. it is also worth considering how many resources it took to achieve that, so i think it's unfair to say they didn't do much as if anyone with a few weekends to spare could have achieved the same.
fermigier 6y ago
From the FAQ: "/e/ is forked from LineageOS. We’ve modified several parts of the system (and we’re just getting started): installation procedure, settings organization, default settings. We’ve disabled and/or removed any software or services that were sending personal data to Google (for instance, the default search engine is no longer Google). We’ve integrated microG by default, have replaced some of the default applications, and modified others. We have added a synchronization background software service that syncs multimedia contents (pictures, videos, audio, files…) and settings to a cloud drive, when activated."

dudeoninternet 6y ago

Some food for thought https://web.archive.org/web/20200731160632/https://ewwlo.xyz/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200731160632/https://ewwlo.xyz...

Fnoord 6y ago
Regarding the ban: this is why a community forum needs to be separate from the company.

xorcist 6y ago

The e.foundation home page caters to users without any technical knowledge, which is great but I'm not sure users of alternative mobile operating systems are quite there yet. It's not even immediately obvious this is Android-based. It would be useful to list some more specifics. Is this built on LineageOS? Does it come with their own cloud services? Can you opt out of that? How close do you track LineageOS? The video shows someone installing the Facebook app. That puts a limit to how de-googled this could possibly be. How are those products distributed? Can anything from the Play store be installed the same way? Happy user of LineageOS here, but there is definitively room for a more complete system with best of breed open source apps installed for those services most people require (mail, chat, maps etc.). Alternative application stores makes me wary however, F-Droid does an admirable job but compared to something like Debian they are still tiny.

em-bee 6y ago
yes, it's based on lineage. for apps that need google, microG is avaiable, and aparently does the job. (i don't use apps that need google, so i don't even have microG activated)
Fnoord 6y ago
Using Play Store via microG in /e/ is akin to using non-free in Debian. The philosophy of the OS recommends against it. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. You can though.
takd 6y ago
I have been using /e/OS on a Fairphone 3 for several months now, and I am quite satisfied. Yes, it is built on LineageOS, though I am not sure how closely it is tracked. They have their own cloud services, but you can opt out. You can use your own Nextcloud server as well, which I think is pretty neat: you can have a convenient cloud-based experience (contact and calendar sync etc.) with the stock /e/OS installation, while also having ownership of your data in your Nextcloud instance. (Their own servers are also heavily based on Nextcloud.) Regarding app stores: I think it is the weakest point. F-Droid is nice but not enough, the /e/OS App Store is a bit murky for me; for most of the non-FOSS apps I use the Aurora Store, which seems trustworthy to me so far.

help568832 6y ago

Anyone outside Europe can buy the Fairphone 3+ from Clove UK [1]. They have 25 yrs experience shipping phones. The official fairphone store ships only inside europe. But first check FP3/FP3+ Network specifications below to see whether the 4G LTE bands of your carrier are supported: In case you need it for your specific situation, the network specifications for the FP3/FP3+: Configuration Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby (DSDS) SIM Sockets 2 x Nano-SIM (4FF) Network Technology 2G / 3G / 4G LTE - Advanced GSM/GPRS/EDGE Quad-band: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz UMTS: Band 1 (2100 MHz); Band 2 (900 MHz); Band 5 (850MHz); Band 8 (900 MHz) 3G Max Downlink Speed - 42 Mbps 3G Max Uplink - 11 Mbps 4G / LTE Advanced Band 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 13 / 20 / 26 4G Max Downlink Speed - 300 Mbps 4G Max Uplink Speed - 75 Mbps Source: https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047326452 https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047326452 [1] https://www.clove.co.uk/collections/smartphones/products/fairphone-4 https://www.clove.co.uk/collections/smartphones/products/fai...

help568832 6y ago

Recent discussion about Fairphone 3+ , for those interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24553617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24553617

pelliphant 6y ago

Thinking of buying a fairphone and using e on it, but I have a question about apps, and thought hackernews might know: I don't need that many apps, but the few I do need are very specific, such as the local public transportation app, and bankID from my bank. Can I just download those from the normal google app store?

chrisMyzel 6y ago

I love to see any project that aims to end smartphone duopoly craziness - but seriously, he's trying to end the dependency of a central google account by replacing it with an /e account as the first step? This does not make any sense and is so contradictory to the idea that I did not look any further into the project (some while ago).

addicted 6y ago
As long as the API is well defined, and the /e/ account can be easily replaced by a 3rd party, it’s probably the only way to a successful replacement. It’s also ok to not define the API immediately, but to wait a few years to understand what the API should actually look like and then publicly define it for v2.0 once you have enough feedback about what you did wrong.