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You can install other OS on the phone if you want. But I of course agree with the overall point, that no interaction with the company should be necessary just

by lawn 3y ago

You can install other OS on the phone if you want. But I of course agree with the overall point, that no interaction with the company should be necessary just to update the OS.

izacus 3y ago
> You can install other OS on the phone if you want. As far as I know, Pixels are the only ones that allow resigning the boot loader chain with your own OS though :/
- zozbot234 3y ago
  You can use "fastboot boot" from an external trusted device to boot a known-good kernel.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  I'm not really familier with the terminology, so maybe you can enlighten me. You can install other operation systems on the Fairphone, but I don't know about resigning the boot loader chain, but why does that matter?
  - izacus 3y ago
    Android devices use dm-verity to make sure that the OS hasn't been tempered with - bootloader checks signature of first stage bootloader on flash and that one checks the next stage all the way to kernel and contents of the flash. This prevents all kinds of attacks where people could push things onto your phones OS. In desktop world, this is known as "secure boot". Many devices will, however, only accept OS signed by their manufacturer - e.g. Apple iPhones/iPads will only boot an OS signed by Apple and noone else. This is why you can't ever run Linux on an iPhone or iPad. In Android world, many manufacturers allow users to disable this verification (known as "bootloader unlock"). This allows running of non-manufacturer provided OSes (e.g. LineageOS, GrapheneOS, etc.). However, except for Pixels, they don't allow you to supply your own signing key to the bootloader, so you lose the security benefits of the secure boot chain and open yourself to big set of security attacks against your phone. On a Pixel (at least some of them), you can provide your own signing key and reenable secure boot when installing another OS.
    - mrweasel 3y ago
      Oh yeah, okay, that pretty silly that you can't do that. If you install a custom OS you're most likely the type of person that cares a lot about security, so not being able to enable secure boot seems weird.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      OnePlus did allow that in fact. CalyxOS was working to implement this functionality, but then OnePlus suddenly removed this feature from their latest update :( The two things were probably not related by the way, because that was also the update where they basically made the OnePlus phones an OPPO with some branding on top (ColorOS faked as OxygenOS). It was really the point where OnePlus as an Enthusiast brand died and is now just an OPPO marketing scheme. Link to the original announcement: https://calyxos.org/news/2022/04/01/fairphone4-oneplus8t-oneplus9-test-builds/ https://calyxos.org/news/2022/04/01/fairphone4-oneplus8t-one... Link to the feature removal by OnePlus: https://calyxos.org/news/2022/07/06/oneplus-android-12-relock-issue/ https://calyxos.org/news/2022/07/06/oneplus-android-12-reloc... Curiously enough this feature does seem to available for the fairphone 4 too! GrapheneOS never tried implementing this for OnePlus or FairPhone because it's not the only reason they stick with Pixels. The Titan security chip offers other benefits they want.
- YtvwlD 3y ago
  Fairphones do, too.
ryukafalz 3y ago
> You can install other OS on the phone if you want. Not with a kernel that wasn't provided by the manufacturer you can't. This massively constrains your options. I can pull a Debian or Ubuntu image off their website and install it on any old laptop, but for phones you need an image specifically tailored to each device, and it'll only get kernel updates as long as the manufacturer continues to provide them since they're all bespoke kernel forks per-device.

by lawn 3y ago

You can install other OS on the phone if you want. But I of course agree with the overall point, that no interaction with the company should be necessary just to update the OS.

izacus 3y ago

> You can install other OS on the phone if you want. As far as I know, Pixels are the only ones that allow resigning the boot loader chain with your own OS though :/

zozbot234 3y ago
You can use "fastboot boot" from an external trusted device to boot a known-good kernel.
mrweasel 3y ago
I'm not really familier with the terminology, so maybe you can enlighten me. You can install other operation systems on the Fairphone, but I don't know about resigning the boot loader chain, but why does that matter?
- izacus 3y ago
  Android devices use dm-verity to make sure that the OS hasn't been tempered with - bootloader checks signature of first stage bootloader on flash and that one checks the next stage all the way to kernel and contents of the flash. This prevents all kinds of attacks where people could push things onto your phones OS. In desktop world, this is known as "secure boot". Many devices will, however, only accept OS signed by their manufacturer - e.g. Apple iPhones/iPads will only boot an OS signed by Apple and noone else. This is why you can't ever run Linux on an iPhone or iPad. In Android world, many manufacturers allow users to disable this verification (known as "bootloader unlock"). This allows running of non-manufacturer provided OSes (e.g. LineageOS, GrapheneOS, etc.). However, except for Pixels, they don't allow you to supply your own signing key to the bootloader, so you lose the security benefits of the secure boot chain and open yourself to big set of security attacks against your phone. On a Pixel (at least some of them), you can provide your own signing key and reenable secure boot when installing another OS.
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    Oh yeah, okay, that pretty silly that you can't do that. If you install a custom OS you're most likely the type of person that cares a lot about security, so not being able to enable secure boot seems weird.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    OnePlus did allow that in fact. CalyxOS was working to implement this functionality, but then OnePlus suddenly removed this feature from their latest update :( The two things were probably not related by the way, because that was also the update where they basically made the OnePlus phones an OPPO with some branding on top (ColorOS faked as OxygenOS). It was really the point where OnePlus as an Enthusiast brand died and is now just an OPPO marketing scheme. Link to the original announcement: https://calyxos.org/news/2022/04/01/fairphone4-oneplus8t-oneplus9-test-builds/ https://calyxos.org/news/2022/04/01/fairphone4-oneplus8t-one... Link to the feature removal by OnePlus: https://calyxos.org/news/2022/07/06/oneplus-android-12-relock-issue/ https://calyxos.org/news/2022/07/06/oneplus-android-12-reloc... Curiously enough this feature does seem to available for the fairphone 4 too! GrapheneOS never tried implementing this for OnePlus or FairPhone because it's not the only reason they stick with Pixels. The Titan security chip offers other benefits they want.
YtvwlD 3y ago
Fairphones do, too.

ryukafalz 3y ago

> You can install other OS on the phone if you want. Not with a kernel that wasn't provided by the manufacturer you can't. This massively constrains your options. I can pull a Debian or Ubuntu image off their website and install it on any old laptop, but for phones you need an image specifically tailored to each device, and it'll only get kernel updates as long as the manufacturer continues to provide them since they're all bespoke kernel forks per-device.