Google has news on what you will need to do for still being able to sideload apps:
* enable developer options
* confirm that you are not tricked
* restart phone and re-authenticate
* wait one day
* confirm with biometrics that you know what you are doing
* decide if you only want unrestricted installs for 1 week or forever
* confirm that you accept the risks
* enjoy the few apps that still have developers motivated to develop for a user-base willing to put up with this
@grote Something tells me LineageOS is about to suddenly get 100x more popular....
Of course then they'll have to start more obsessively locking down bootloaders and probably even remove the unlock option in anything they can. We've begun an age where even the open devices are now going to soon be closed and locked down.
And yeah, it's past time for a real OS.
EDIT: Wow, amazing levels of hate and fear towards the idea of using something more open that gives the user control over their own devices just because it's not as easy as simply buying something and it's already there...
You, uh, might want to look a little deeper into why you feel that way. Seriously, I'm not kidding. Think about it.
@FifiSch @grote I don't really understand that. The instructions are so simple and detailed and the "new OS" is basically exactly the same thing right down to having the same basic startup configuration and etc. The only difference is the Google connections are optional and one can decide for themselves how far they want to go.
It's pretty much just tapping a few things, then copying and pasting two lines or so. Once it's booted you wouldn't tell it apart from stock other than its cleanliness. It's easier than installing Linux on a PC and that's actually a lot easier and less scary than people have been convinced.
I bet if people didn't let Google, Apple, and etc convince them that they are so scared of installing third party options we never would have reached this point.
@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote First problem: The user needs to know what an OS even is and that they're using one.
Second problem: The user needs to realize that they can use a different OS.
Third problem: The user needs to know the exact model/codename of their phone, find a suitable OS, unlock bootloader, probably install adb and/or other tools (if there is no WebUSB option), etc.
Should I continue?
The user needs to know what an OS even is and that they're using one.
No... Not really. "Install LineageOS" or whatever is all they need to know.
The user needs to realize that they can use a different OS.
That's the second part of the first problem repeated. Again when people say "just install LineageOS" they know they need to install a different thing.
Third problem
Oh we do agree on parts of that and that is a huge part of what I'm saying is NOT ok in this ecosystem. It's not to the extent that you say of course, but it still applies a lot.
I get it. You're terrified of something different and really really don't even want it to be a thing. But that doesn't mean it's ok to be 100% behind letting Google and Apple do this.
@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote
> "Install LineageOS"
Oh, is that an app or something? Can i download it from the Play Store?
You're naive. I'm not saying it's okay for Google and Apple to do whatever they're doing. I'm just saying that the whole process to switch OS is hard and claiming otherwise isn't helping anybody. Also, the thing is, users shouldn't be forced to switch OS just to install an app they want. The same way they shouldn't be forced to self-host a whole-ass cloud stack just to keep their privacy (see https://neilzone.co.uk/2022/07/self-host-it-is-not-the-answer/). It simply isn't a viable solution for regular users. There should be much stricter regulations in place to prevent these kinds of things in the first place.
@Razemix @nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote
Just to add some anecdotal experience:
I'm developer. I use Linux as my daily driver for laptop for 15 years.
I installed multiple desktop OSes.
I installed LinageOS on older phone (~7 yrs ago).
And still I'm afraid of reinstalling OSes in phones.
Will I brick it? Will all apps work? What amount of Google should I use? How do I backup/restore? What's adb? How much time do I need to set aside for this?
It's intimidating for me.
@nazokiyoubinbou @Razemix @FifiSch @grote Okay, I'm sorry, but you can't really say that installing LineageOS is easy and "just a few clicks". For most people that. Is. Not. Easy. I've installed it on three different OnePlus phones and one Samsung tablet and that was an extremely conscious effort. You need to read the documentation really carefully and know what to ignore in it. Installing the SDK is not self-explanatory, you have to make sure it's properly installed with plenty of pitfalls along the way. You need to make sure to have a USB cable that will work to get the phone recognised (if you even know that that's a factor you need to consider). Don't even get me started on the mess with the Samsung device and running Odin _several_ times before getting the patch applied. Unlocking bootloader, booting into recovery, following all those steps. That is not something you can expect people who aren't _really committed_ to do. Add to that the huge mistake LineageOS recently made where you had to reinstall everything, and based on pretty lackluster documentation regarding what you actually had to do and what you could skip (since it wasn't as device-specific as they led you to believe). Or the rather annoying upgrade process when bumping a major version number (eg. 21 -> 22)
Installing GrapheneOS via WebUSB was surprisingly easy, but don't make the mistake that this is something a lot of people will even dare to try. "Just install LineageOS" is unfortunately not a sensible thing to say. It's not too different from saying that anyone could just replace the brake discs on their car on their own if they want, "it's just some bolts". I'd love it if there was some easy fix for us, but this is a huge problem for all of us.
@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote That's the assumption, yes.
Two things.
First, you can just flash again if you for some reason did something stupid like yanking out the cord while it was transferring.
Second, modern Android devices usually use two separate partitions. When you flash it goes to whichever it's not currently using. So if you render it broken and for some reason can't flash again, you can still just boot the first.
Again, people have let themselves be convinced to be scared of things rather than trying them.
@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote
you can just flash again
Look that is comforting to someone who knows they can flash their phone. For someone who is doing it for the first time with exactly one device, that's essentially saying "If you find you do not have what it takes to do this, you can just do the thing you found you could not do to fix the mess you made!"
That is NOT going to be comforting to those who need that comfort.
@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote What?
I'm saying if you for some reason yanked out the cable or something and broke the initial flash you can press up and press enter then this time not yank out the cable.
@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote And I'm saying it's not scary if you mess it up is because you can just simply try again and not do something really stupid like yanking out the cable the second time.
I'm also saying most have dual partition layouts where if you do screw up the second one you can go back to booting the first.
Also, there's nothing wrong with the old tried and true "just ask someone who knows this stuff" like people used to do back in the day. I don't know why everyone decided that they had to just buy stuff certain ways and if it wasn't right toss it and buy a new thing rather than just asking someone who knows the thing like everyone used to do...
@Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote Ok, let me say it more clearly: you can't mess it up to such an extent that it won't boot ever again without doing some things that basically require you to know what you are doing and intentionally screwing it up because you wanted to make some kind of point or something.
And, again, even if they screw it up to that level, they can just boot back to the original which wasn't overwritten because again, as I just said, modern phones use two separate partitions. When you tell it to flash, it goes to the unused one unless you very specifically manually tell it to use the wrong one.
You really really really don't like the idea of having control over your own device do you?
@nazokiyoubinbou @Epic_Null Peak Fediverse battle 🍿🗿
In my opinion, the hardest part of installing a custom ROM is finding one that supports your phone model. And that does not depend on you unless you have the skill to port Lineage or whatever to your proprietary distraction rectangle.
@geonz @Epic_Null @FifiSch @grote It's easy enough to add insults, yeah, but the thing I'm not understanding is why people can't just follow a set of instructions that say "tap here, then there, connect the cable, copy and paste this text, done."
In fact, the fear there doesn't even make sense to me. Where do people even get the idea that they're so likely to brick? I won't say bricks never ever happened, but they really aren't that common. It's VERY hard to brick it so bad it can't be fixed just by redoing the process and following the instructions instead of typing something different or yanking out the cable or whatever. Even if you get the wrong image you can just flash the correct one after. It won't hard brick...
I don't even know how you could hard brick most...
@tedmielczarek @FifiSch @grote That's a strong declaration without a whole lot of backing...
We'll just have to agree to disagree there.
I'm not saying that they're likely to do it. As I said, people have been systematically convinced not to even look into it. But I don't agree with a blanket statement that no one will ever do it either. Especially if they get pushed hard enough.
@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote Unfortunately, you cannot do complete backups of android devices if you are not rooted. You may have a phone in use currently, which you didn't have the foresight to bootloader unlock and root when you initially got it, and thus installing any custom ROM is not very interesting as you would loose a large part of your data. The part of the data that you would lose is unknown as app/phone backups are opaque, and might also result in losing access to some messaging applications if not done carefully. In the best case, you would have a second phone from which to transfer data from, as a reference (and for messaging apps that can transfer accounts between devices).
At least, that's how I see it. The process itself is easy, but the steps before and after are much more scary.
In all, I do agree with your initial premise that LineageOS and other custom ROMs will become more popular for those that have android headsets that have unlockable bootloaders and have the initial knowhow.
We do seriously need more alternatives to Android and iOS, such as postmarketOS, as the current state of things is getting very dire. Unfortunately, the hardware itself is not very standardised and manufacturers want to keep control to squeeze a few more cents from each device…
@confusomu @FifiSch @grote Honestly just feels like a whole lot of "I don't want to, it sounds hard." Which is just what all these posts feel like.
If you don't divest from Google, it stores backups in your account — the "cloud" if you will. If you do want to divest from Google, you can set it up to use the internal backup function that's in like 9 or so on up to backup to a flash drive or whatever, which it can import during initial configuration when you first boot up.
But really there is a lot less to lose in most apps than one might think. It's usually so little trouble to redo things I typically don't bother even though I have root and backups. There are benefits even to starting clean.
People want to be scared of the process.
As always, one can ask someone to help!
@nazokiyoubinbou @FifiSch @grote Installing a new OS on your daily driver phone means wiping it (because unlocking the bootloader wipes the data partition as a security measure). Other than "adb backup" (which is deprecated and does not work for all apps), you can't do a full backup of all the data on the phone before wiping; you have to hope all the apps you use synchronized their data to a server.
And there's the risk (perceived or real) of bricking the phone.
@cesarb @FifiSch @grote That risk of bricking is perceived and that's the thing I keep saying I don't get why people believe it so strongly.
Putting aside that the instructions are very clear and very hard to in any way mess up, the only way to brick it is if you flash something with root access, then use the root access to intentionally break hardware components. It literally would be easier to break it in half or something and that's more likely to actually work. Everything else is mostly software.
Because with anything else you can do you can always just flash a stock system back on there if all else fails. (Even if you relocked the bootloader, stock will have the correct key to boot anyway.)
Yet people are almost obsessed with this idea that they'll brick it.
@cesarb @FifiSch @grote And yes, unlocking does erase data. Ideally one would do it first. Failing that, there are backup ways. I guess most people forget the seedstore or whatever it was called exists. (It's the cloud backup method, but stored internally, which can then be transferred to a USB drive.) Then there's always the "just write crap down" method...
It may not be all 100%. But then anything that can't be saved via any means is something that seriously needs to be reevaluated anyway because it will always be a problem...
Torsten Grote
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