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<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Hi Rick, <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Thanks for your
perspective on LineageOS and your phone choices. Lots to digest!</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">My primary goal with
switching to LineageOS is to be able to delete my Google
account. I have a Google account to be able to use the Google
Play store on my phone (a OnePlus 6T that I bought new at the
TMobile Store for about $600 in December 2018) and access the
one group that I am a member of that uses Google Groups to
communicate (the North Bay Electric Auto Association - <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://nbeaa.org/"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">http://nbeaa.org/</a>). I don't
use my gmail account for any personal email, for that I use
Sonic. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I am pretty new to
NBLUG, so maybe the rest of you are more experienced at asking
your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp to Signal or
giving up conveniences like my credit union app (yes, I am also
able to access online banking via the mobile website), but for
me it is surprisingly difficult and that makes the process slow.
I am definitely not an engineer, just a user of open source
software. I do try to push into new-to-me areas of open source
or give up corporate options, but usually with the goal of
bringing others with me, not so much for personal projects. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I would prefer to keep
my current phone for the time being, but that's awesome that you
got a PinePhone! I have only heard about the PinePhone through a
DistroWatch review (<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20211220#pinephone"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20211220#pinephone</a>)
and I have not seen one in person yet. From the review, the user
experience sounded pretty rough. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">I am curious as to the
phone/mobile setups that other NBLUG members use - any other
recommendations?</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Derek & Tom: I
tried to find a link to the T-Mobile plan that I have ($15 per
month, unlimited calls & text, 2 GB data per month, prepaid)
and even asked their customer support chat (they were pretty
unhelpful and told me to call their prepaid CS department). You
may be right that I have a plan that has been phased out to new
customers. There are cheap T-Mobile Connect plans (their new
brand for prepaid service) with the $15 per month one looking
pretty similar to mine, but it may not be so good depending on
how they define "roaming" -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect">https://prepaid.t-mobile.com/prepaid-plans/connect</a><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Brad</font><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 4/13/22 12:00,
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:talk-request@nblug.org">talk-request@nblug.org</a> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:mailman.1.1649876401.8628.talk@nblug.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Send talk mailing list submissions to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of talk digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. LineageOS and competitors (was: talk Digest, Vol 195, Issue
3) (Rick Moen)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2022 18:51:54 -0700
From: Rick Moen <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com"><rick@linuxmafia.com></a>
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:talk@nblug.org">talk@nblug.org</a>
Subject: [NBLUG/talk] LineageOS and competitors (was: talk Digest, Vol
195, Issue 3)
Message-ID: <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:20220413015153.GN3919@linuxmafia.com"><20220413015153.GN3919@linuxmafia.com></a>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
(Please note renewed real Subject header. Not a complaint, but IMO
those introduced into threads by subscribers posting from digest mode
are regrettable.)
Quoting Brad Morrison (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:bradmorrison@sonic.net">bradmorrison@sonic.net</a>):
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Derek: I still have not made the plunge into LineageOS yet. Oddly
enough, having to ask my friends/relatives/housemates to switch from
WhatsApp to Signal or give up my access to my credit union's app is
more sticky than I thought...
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I find LineageOS (immediate successor to CyanogenMod) an interesting
option, along with others, e.g., "/e/" (formerly Eelo), a fork of
LineageOS using microG, a free and open-source implementation of Google
APIs substituted for LineageOS's Google Play Services
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-services-1094356/">https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-services-1094356/</a>) and
with Mozilla Location Service for geolocation.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system)</a>
There are also, predictably, other less-Googly Androids (Replicant,
CopperheadOS and others).
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distributions</a>
Yr. present correspondent has considered smartphones, especially those
with vendor OS loads, to be a privacy and security dumpster fire, and
has considered the typically ~3 year software support to be laughably
bad. I've in fact, up to now, done something stubborn and impractical,
in consequence: Since buying my first unlocked Motorola RAZRv3 in
~2005, I've picked up new ones off eBay so as to always have one and a
spare in the kitchen drawer, each costing me about $20; thus I've blown
about $100 on phones over 17 years.
Of course, a 2005-era RAZR flip phone doesn't do jack, except for voice
telephone calls with superb audio quality, and simple SMS. (Their
ability to do MMS (modern SMS extensions) has lately been a bit of a
problem, sometimes.)
I am _definitely not_ suggesting anyone buy such a hilarously obsolete
thing at any price in 2022, because the cellular telcos are EOLing 2G/3G
service as fast as they can get away with. Mine (T-Mobile), after
trying to sell 2G/3G EOLing for years and getting too much pushback
from, e.g., users of medical devices reporting over that, is finally
serious, and going to swich it off so it can repurpose those frequencies
for 5G on July 1st, 2022. "This time for sure!"
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc4IFIXcDcs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc4IFIXcDcs</a>
So, anyway, a couple of nights ago, I ordered a PinePhone Pro
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pro-explorer-edition/">https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pro-explorer-edition/</a> -- which is
as close to fully open hardware as is currently possible, prepload OS
on the internal eMMC flash in Manjaro with Plasma (KDE5), and it has
built-in ability to boot from microSD.[1] (Its main market rival
is the greatly more expensive Purism Librem 5, likewise primarily
intended to run real Linuxes, not Android.)
Popular alternatives on the PinePhone Pro include Maemo Leste and
PostmarketOS -- both likewise real Linuxes, not Android -- plus it'll
run various Android implementations, too, including, say, GloDroid or
LineageOS.[1] So, IMO, one attraction of this flexibility is that I can
have both things: my choice of preferred real-Linux distro (that I
trust) for normal use, and then an alternate boot to a microSD card
bearing some Android OS that I trust very little, that I use very
specifically for questionable things like proprietary apps from Google
Play Store, etc. -- thus keeping the two environments separate.
(That's almost as good as what I did in the 2000s while working in the
Linux department at Cadence Design Systems in San Jose, a place that
loved Linux but had a serious Exchange Server habit. There, I ran
Debian with Window Maker on my company-issued ThinkPad T42p, then
site-licensed VMware Workstation 5.x for Linux, then site-licensed WinXP
Pro in the VM -- thus, real Redmondware for communication with Exchange
Server and ActiveX-dependent intranets, but not allowing Redmondware
access to anything on a valuable laptop but an isolated VM.)
The notion of letting the second most nosy corporation in the world --
Google/Alphabet -- have root on my computer (smartphone) -- which,
AFAIK, is what you're effectively doing with Google Play Store -- gives
me the heeby-jeebies, but giving them superuser on an effectively
untrusted throwaway Android distro housing zero amount of my personal
data, that I'm more OK with.
BTW, obviously I don't know the situation with your credit union, but
mine doesn't make anything require a mobile app. All online banking can
be reached (in my CU's case) from either a regular or a mobile-friendly
Web site.
[1] Related to, but more hardware-endowed than, its predecessor and
cousin, the PinePhone.
[2] Support from both Linux distros and Android distros is a moving
target, and is best checked on the PINE64 forums,
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://forum.pine64.org/">https://forum.pine64.org/</a> .
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</pre>
</blockquote>
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