I know that Mastodon is a smaller community than most social media, and there are still very few PinePhone users in the world, overall.

So a theoretical random distribution would make my odds very poor of finding PinePhone community here.

But y'all are here, and y'all have been awesome. Thank you!

#pinephone #community #linux #mobile #arch

@EdTheDev I mean I don't even know what pinephone is, but I'm happy to hear about any alts to andriod/google or Apple. Graphene os on my next phone was gonna be my first toe in water.

@davidmaddock Cool!

For full disclosure, I should mention that I still run GrapheneOS as my daily driver phone.

My PinePhone journey is very early:

I am the current target audience for the PinePhone - a full time professional software developer.

And I am still deciding what packages I will need to hand compile and test, and hopefully contribute back to the community - to get to a dialy workflow that works for me.

There's so much great Linux software, but I suspect that very little of it has been tested on phone hardware.

But if you have questions about ny experiences with either GrapheneOS or PinePhone, feel free to ask!

#grapheneos #pinephone #linuxmobile #privacy #devops #floss

@EdTheDev @davidmaddock PinePhone devices are poor choices for privacy, security, and practical functionality. Their operating systems are far less private and secure than AOSP-based systems, while also lacking the app compatibility and basic features most users rely on.
@EdTheDev @davidmaddock The hardware is a low-end ARM platform built around closed-source components, including the SoC, radios, firmware, and other critical parts. Its cellular modem is especially problematic.
@EdTheDev @davidmaddock it combines an outdated Qualcomm baseband with an additional CPU running a proprietary fork of an old Android, originally intended for Windows-oriented use cases. Replacing that Android fork has often been misrepresented as “open-source baseband firmware,” but it’s not. Even after replacement, the radio is not meaningfully more open than mainstream alternatives and still contains more closed-source hardware and firmware than a typical modem.
@EdTheDev @davidmaddock The traditional desktop software stack used by GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, and similar systems remains far behind iOS and AOSP in privacy and security. It lacks modern app sandboxing, granular app permissions, strong access control, exploit mitigations, and widespread use of memory-safe languages.
@a53bdb @davidmaddock Agreed on all points. I was aware of these concerns, but I appreciate discussing them publicly for anyone reading along.

@a53bdb @davidmaddock I was not aware of the specific closed hardware issues.

I'm always looking for more openness in my hardware, so I appreciate the heads up.

I still use plenty of closed hardware - I haven't learned about good enough options to get away from it.

But I appreciate the support staying aware of the trade-offs I am accepting.