this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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How many of you run a Linux phone (Pine64, Librem etc) as your daily driver? (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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.

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[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 35 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I've bought a Nexus 4 to play around with Ubuntu Touch many years ago, but I really don't think I could daily drive even a more powerful Linux phone. Many apps from messengers to banking apps are Android/iOS only, so it'd be really inconvenient to use — not to mention problems with calling and a not-so-great camera.

Almost all things I want to do on a phone are possible with a Pixel + GrapheneOS, which also makes an open source, secure and private phone OS.

Usually ssh'ing into a server through termux is all I need, altough it'd be cool to be able to plug my phone into a monitor and have a desktop with me all the time. But it being "cool" is the problem, as it's not useful day to fay for me. If I need a pc I'll take my laptop. I'll probably try it at some point, but that's many years into the future.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Man, the call problems are a dealbreaker for any phone at all, imo. Maybe not for a toy, but it's bonkers that they'd release a phone OS that isn't 100% call stable.

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago

There has to be a device to develop support for calling. Since there're multiple open source phone projects it's also not simple to just write an implementation for them. Additionally carriers don't work all the same (different bands, ...), so it's really not easy to solve with the few resources available. As far as I know much of the development on these phone OS is done by volunteers and pine64 isn't a big established company either.

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Copying my edit here: I am willing to watch content and use banking apps from the browser. Do you think it'll be fit for me?

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Performance and bugs might still be a problem with these relatively young projects. But if all you need is a browser I do believe it might be worth a shot.

In the EU 2FA for banking is required by law which usually comes down to either an Android/iOS app or a chipTAN device. That's why browser isn't an option for me. Sadly I don't think waydroid passes the basicIntegrity check of AOSP [1], so emulation is out of the picture too.

[1] https://grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Banking 2FA can be done by SMS too, which is secure enough.

A world in which banking requires us to install spyware on our mobile computers is not a world we should accept.

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 10 months ago

My bank disagrees that SMS tan is secure enough 2FA and doesn't support it.

[–] ritchie@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sms is not as secure as a 2FA app or the bank's own app. SMS verfification also costs money, so it will raise your monthly fees quite much if you wish to receive a text on every transaction.

[–] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As I said, SMS is secure enough without being the nightmare of a proprietary spyware app. As for fees, you have an American perspective, in most of the world SMS has been free to send for decades, and was always free to receive. The ideal solution is indeed a 2FA app, but those never took off.

[–] ritchie@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I have a European perspective and here you need to pay per text message. Receiving is free, but the bank is charged and they put their charge on me, so they bill me for the messages, unfortunately. In the US SMS is free in most plans as I know.