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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 qu

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.
holri 6y ago
As far as I understand it is currently based on LineagaOS but this could change. Main difference in philosophy is that they aim to support the selected official devices longer than LineageOS does. Which is a good thing.

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.

holri 6y ago

As far as I understand it is currently based on LineagaOS but this could change. Main difference in philosophy is that they aim to support the selected official devices longer than LineageOS does. Which is a good thing.