4 ms·

You could run Mobian or similar on a phone from Purism/Pine/etc. Problem is you end up with a vastly inferior hardware device that costs nearly as much as an i

You could run Mobian or similar on a phone from Purism/Pine/etc. Problem is you end up with a vastly inferior hardware device that costs nearly as much as an iPhone. I’m still waiting for my Librem 5 preorder. Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it.

zepto 5y ago
This is clearly a good thing to do and supporting those projects is great. So far though, they do nothing to solve the problems we are talking about. The software is not anywhere near audited, and even if it were, you are still interacting with people and services who are using unaudited software.
- kop316 5y ago
  > The software is not anywhere near audited Many of the projects leverage a well known OS as their base (e.g. pmOS uses Alpine Linux, Mobian uses Debian), and actively ensure that anything that can be upstreamed is upstreamed. So it's not like you're downloading some random ROM off of XDA.
  - zepto 5y ago
    That doesn’t make the system audited. The obvious reason we don’t hear more about the weaknesses is that no high value targets are using these systems, so it’s not worth exploiting them.
    - m4rtink 5y ago
      Um, these distros are normally used to run like half the Internet, they are very valuable targets today and I don't think putting them on a phone changes the threat environment so much.
      - zepto 5y ago
        The threat environment is utterly different between an individual person’s phone and an anonymous server behind a firewall on the internet. It’s not even close.
kop316 5y ago
> Problem is you end up with a vastly inferior hardware device that costs nearly as much as an iPhone. The Pinephone is $150/$200. > Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it. I have one, and I throughly enjoy it! One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt install build-essentials". Want to install XFCE? Knock yourself out! It is still missing MMS, which is why I don't use it daily, but that should be changing much sooner than later.
- zepto 5y ago
  > One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt install build-essentials". Want to install XFCE? Knock yourself out! You can do all these things with a $10 raspberry pi-w. It’s not obvious why it helps with having security and privacy.
  - kop316 5y ago
    Respectfully, I think you missed the point of my reply. The person asked: "Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it." ...so I responded about what I enjoy about using a "Linux Phone". A "$10 raspberry pi-w" is not a Linux Phone. The question didn't address "security and privacy", so I didn't add it. Though, since you brought it up, I will answer how the Pinephone "helps with having security and privacy". - I have hardware (cut physical power) switches to kill the Microphone, cameras (independent for front and back), and Wifi/Bluetooth. - I am running a full GNU/Linux distro that I have a lot more confidence in their want to protect users security/privacy. - I can run software of my choosing on it (the Pinephone actually defaults to booting on an SD card! so it encourages you to experiement with OSes). - There is serious effort to run the mainline Linux kernel on it, so it will not be artifically obsolete in 3-5 years (or be sutck on running some ancient swiss cheese kernel in 5 years like my old Pixel/Nexus devices). - I don't have to install/link to some opaque binaries to even boot the system. I'm sure I can think of more, but that's all I have for now.
m4rtink 5y ago
I have been using a Linux smartphone since 2010 an I certainly do enjoy it - first Nokia N900 & N9 followed by a series of Sailfish OS[0][1] devices, with Xperia 10 II with Sailfish X[2] being the latest one. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS [1] https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ [2] https://shop.jolla.com/ https://shop.jolla.com/

zepto 5y ago

This is clearly a good thing to do and supporting those projects is great. So far though, they do nothing to solve the problems we are talking about. The software is not anywhere near audited, and even if it were, you are still interacting with people and services who are using unaudited software.

kop316 5y ago
> The software is not anywhere near audited Many of the projects leverage a well known OS as their base (e.g. pmOS uses Alpine Linux, Mobian uses Debian), and actively ensure that anything that can be upstreamed is upstreamed. So it's not like you're downloading some random ROM off of XDA.
- zepto 5y ago
  That doesn’t make the system audited. The obvious reason we don’t hear more about the weaknesses is that no high value targets are using these systems, so it’s not worth exploiting them.
  - m4rtink 5y ago
    Um, these distros are normally used to run like half the Internet, they are very valuable targets today and I don't think putting them on a phone changes the threat environment so much.
    - zepto 5y ago
      The threat environment is utterly different between an individual person’s phone and an anonymous server behind a firewall on the internet. It’s not even close.

kop316 5y ago

> Problem is you end up with a vastly inferior hardware device that costs nearly as much as an iPhone. The Pinephone is $150/$200. > Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it. I have one, and I throughly enjoy it! One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt install build-essentials". Want to install XFCE? Knock yourself out! It is still missing MMS, which is why I don't use it daily, but that should be changing much sooner than later.

zepto 5y ago
> One of the neatest things about it, and I still have to wrap my head around it, is that it can do anything you can do on a desktop. SSH? No problem? Dev environment? "apt install build-essentials". Want to install XFCE? Knock yourself out! You can do all these things with a $10 raspberry pi-w. It’s not obvious why it helps with having security and privacy.
- kop316 5y ago
  Respectfully, I think you missed the point of my reply. The person asked: "Would love to hear if anyone is actually using a Linux phone and enjoying it." ...so I responded about what I enjoy about using a "Linux Phone". A "$10 raspberry pi-w" is not a Linux Phone. The question didn't address "security and privacy", so I didn't add it. Though, since you brought it up, I will answer how the Pinephone "helps with having security and privacy". - I have hardware (cut physical power) switches to kill the Microphone, cameras (independent for front and back), and Wifi/Bluetooth. - I am running a full GNU/Linux distro that I have a lot more confidence in their want to protect users security/privacy. - I can run software of my choosing on it (the Pinephone actually defaults to booting on an SD card! so it encourages you to experiement with OSes). - There is serious effort to run the mainline Linux kernel on it, so it will not be artifically obsolete in 3-5 years (or be sutck on running some ancient swiss cheese kernel in 5 years like my old Pixel/Nexus devices). - I don't have to install/link to some opaque binaries to even boot the system. I'm sure I can think of more, but that's all I have for now.

m4rtink 5y ago

I have been using a Linux smartphone since 2010 an I certainly do enjoy it - first Nokia N900 & N9 followed by a series of Sailfish OS[0][1] devices, with Xperia 10 II with Sailfish X[2] being the latest one. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailfish_OS [1] https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ [2] https://shop.jolla.com/ https://shop.jolla.com/