Hacker News Reader

just like living the hermit life, leaving all of these services behind is surprisingly alienating.

I say this as somebody who has done several of these and is trying to continue to expand. but damn, the is a lot of stuff that you miss out on and I'm starting to be squeezed by the losses to move back.

I guess I'm saying, even though I feel driven by a massive moral imperative to engage with technology in that fashion, I find it absurdly difficult to the point of failure. I'm not ready to be a hermit.

Just rebuild what you're missing, and share. In the journey to do so you will discover some of the most interesting primitives out there, and everyone gains, instead of a few unrepentant Gatekeepers.

i would prefer not to

You can, of course, pick your level of engagement, and make adjustments over time. An Android phone can provide all the engagement you need, and there are lots of distributions that focus on providing different experience. I'm using a stock Android phone and Linux everywhere else. My current phone isn't rootable, (I bought it to replace a lost iPhone and didn't have time to do research) so I'm stuck with stock, but my next phone will be. I'm still way happier on Android than I ever was on iOS.

If you really want to have your foot in both worlds, you can always live the two-phone lifestyle. Might go that way myself eventually.

I've been happily living on android for maybe 5 years now after iOS for maybe 10 before that. I don't really miss it at all, but the tier system is hard to ignore. besides the infamous "green text" phenomenon, iOS tends to get the apps for applications that only support one, or in my car, android auto only takes up the top half of the screen whereas car play uses the full display. and of course, the software ecosystem for the Subaru infotainment is completely proprietary and non-user-serviceable so I can do nothing about it.

but that's just how it is, choosing free, ethical software is choosing a life of austerity and alienation.

Alienation I can see, but austerity? One of the things I plan on doing is building custom UIs for all the apps I usually use. Termux on stock Android is hobbled by unremappable key bindings that make using the Super key almost impossible, but when I can finally actually control the computer I carry around in my pocket all day, a blank canvas I can mold and shape is infinitely better.

I bet your Subaru is probably hackable, all these things run Linux under the hood, wouldn't be surprised if there were already a group of people on Reddit that have already done it. Lonely, this lifestyle does not have to be.

> your Subaru is probably hackable, all these things run Linux under the hood,

Years ago I would have said “much more likely to be QNX since a car always has a RTOS.” These days it’s likely Android Automotive, which has a massive share now. Note: despite the name it has nothing to do with “Android Auto.”

Overall, hacking on a car, even infotainment, seems very difficult. They really don’t want you to have any control over it.

I live that two phones lifestyle. One is being iPhones SE 1st Gen., the smallest one; another is being Google Nexus 6P ¹

While in theory that works, in practice I bear just iPhone all the time. With Android on the shelf most of its time. I even started to turn off its Wi-Fi so it keeps being alive after a week of being untouched.

————

1 — I’m the lucky one who hadn’t been bootlooped, so I’m not on Pixel yet. Both phones are enough for me, performance wise.

This is missing a very important part of how certain software became de facto standards: by achieving dominating market share, which, in turn, was achieved by shipping working software with passable UX, ruthless business practices, making governments use the software, and making schools teach the software.

I'm writing this because the software is already there. There are decent alternatives to most things, sometimes multiple. What isn't there is government adoption, and commercial adoption.

I agree and the fact the governments prefer commercial and costly software instead of adopting open source solutions and hire local companies for support and custom development is very disturbing : they spend the taxpayers money to make rich a bunch of already disgusting rich companies. And when this company is a foreign company the damage for the state money balance (and citizens of course) is double.

That's exactly right and I think it's no much "preferring", rather than getting different deals from these companies like Microsoft. MS has already been caught specifically, but also I think that this phenomenon is hardly exclusive to software, it's just part of how the government, or rather the individuals in government, go about their business. In the third world it's practically an open secret, and I don't have doubt that basically every government works like this.

Also, large companies offer quite robust support, deals to implement specific features, compliance with different regulations, etc. I know from experience that one thing I like about dealing with large entities is that they have many corner cases already figured out.

I predict you will never feel like you "win" .. Instead, find what else exists and use that ALSO not instead of.. paper exchange has some positive sides to it, expect much less volume and currency of course.. radio is not dead, etc

Many businesses already have WhatsApp as the exclusive channel of communication. So its either have a Meta account, or become locked out of a subset of services. Not to mention how many work/social groups use also WhatsApp exclusively. To try to force everyone to use something like Matrix is an herculean task, which also requires maintenance.

And then there are all the government/school/work/authentication apps that are mobile only and exclusive to iOS and Android.

IMO its impossible to walk away from it. The ship has sailed. It is possible to move away as far as you can and keep these accounts and their usage to a minimum, but its time consuming and has little rewards against many obstacles. Atm I'm willing to put in the effort but I also totally understand it not being a reasonable option for most.

> - use an open source version of Android on your phone, without the Google services

Having tried this many times over the last 10 years, I have never encountered a stable, non-vendor Android distribution for any of my phones. Oh there are always multiple available Android images for most popular phones, however in my experience they are always unstable in ways that make them too much of a hassle to use. I have experienced bluetooth suddenly disconnecting from my headset and refusign to reconnect until i reboot the phone, WiFi drops connection and needs a phone reboot, unable to make phone calls or receive SMS until I reboot the phone, phone randomly reboots without any interaction. These are primary uses for my phone and if the primary functionality of the Android image is broken, I do not want to use it.

In the phone ecosystem, you have to choose the OS you want, and then buy a phone that is compatible with that OS.

If you buy a random phone and then try to find a compatible OS, your options will be very limited, or null.

GrapheneOS is, in my opinion, the most mature, serious, and reliable phone operating system, so I bought myself a Google Pixel specifically so that I could install GrapheneOS on it.

The options might exist, but that doesn't mean that they are viable/usable. I agree with many of your points, but regarding document processing, LibreOffice really does not compare with any of the best alternatives (Google Documents, Office Word). It lacks options, if the options exists they are hidden in obscure menus, it doesn't display many things correctly (at least on my Linux computer), etc. For document processing, I'm still stuck on Google Docs, which is quite a sad state of affairs.

I prefer LibreOffice so much more over Microsoft Word and Google Documents.

yes, with LibreOffice, often options are hidden somewhere that I wish there was just an autocomplete box to type in what I'm looking for (e. g. "Page numbering", "page break l");

BUT: finding those options in Word is complicated as well, and on top of it it reshuffles with every new version

> 20 years ago it was impossible to buy a PC, especially a laptop, without MS Windows : today there are several suppliers: System76, LaptopWithLinux, TuxedoComputers, to name but a few.

Buying components and assembling them yourself has always been an option for desktops (and IMO the best one). For laptops, I bought a Dell with Linux ~15 years ago - not quite 20 but close enough.

> It is only in the last few years (less than 10) that Linux is perfectly usable on the desktop, so I don't care what decision MS will take for Windows, it is irrelevant if you have other options. For office suites we have: LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, FreeOffice

Linux has been a perfectly usable desktop OS for a long time. I know because I have been using it for well over 10 years and have not missed the sorry excuse for a OS that is Windows.

If anything, there are certain actors trying to lock down Linux to build their own walled garden. Of course being open source makes this harder but they do try and with hardware-backed crypto requirements may eventually succeed - source won't help you if whatever you build with it won't match the whitelisted checksums.

> There are many messaging apps and protocols that are decentralised and resistant to censorship.

Which is an improvement on a single Gaim/Pidgin being able to connect to all networks you can think of? We hardly need more messaging protocols and apps.

Would be nice to have a Linux phone where one could run ios and google android in a vm. Same way I run my computer. Level 1 hypervisor and all flavors on top. Max control, max options, max nerd.

postmarketOS and waydroid are almost there, though I still went back to lineage. No answers for iOS.

Oh, do you mind elaborating on this? I’m looking for a way to organise my PC with similar approach. I thought of minimal Arch Linux installation as a host, and macOS (or Windows for very special cases) on top, when I need those GUI apps that aren’t present in Linux. I see no need to keep Linux apps in a VM.

Proxmox with gpu pass through can do windows, macos and the various linux platforms with very little performance loss.

Thank you for most of the points, it's easy to miss the good parts of development of the recent years.

I don't however agree with this one: "It will take a few years, but I'm sure we'll have a viable alternative to Android in the near future." I think many essential apps (such as banking, or "less essential" such as for bike- and car-sharing) will start requiring device attestation as soon as even low-end Android phones start shipping with hardware TPM.

Oh, I have a nice contribution to your comment! I use some taxi apps (very infrequently), and sometimes I need to call it for someone else, not in my current location. Sometimes there is a promotion catch with, say, 20% discount. Which is applicable only for a personal ride (e.g. from your location), but if you ask a taxi to bring someone to you (e.g. from other location to your location), well, then sorry, not applicable. I used to trick the app but faking my location on my Android with gps-fake app (don’t remember the name, mine was from f-droid). I bet taxi services are not happy about that kind of a customer. Giving it some thought: still a returning customer. Sometimes it’s not just the money thing for me, but the challenge of whether the algorithm could be tricked.

Yes, I agree that this will be the critical point, but ... it all depends on the critical mass of users. About 20 years ago there was no CAD software for Linux, no IDE for rapid development and now we have tons of incredible tools in all areas: FreeCad, Blender, Lazarus, KDevelop, QT Creator. JetBrains produces incredible cross-platform development tools.

The same revolution that happened on the desktop can happen on mobile. The people at Pine64 are creating incredible and affordable devices, and this is just the beginning. The open source revolution is spreading from software to hardware (Risc-V processors for example).

In my lifetime I have seen Linux and open source software in general make incredible progress. And it is not only a technical aspect, but also a different way of living and seeing the world: hundreds of thousands of developers working together for the benefit of the most, beyond any language, geographical or political boundaries.

It also depends on the choices that each of us will make to stop supporting and encouraging predatory and monopolistic regimes, and instead make choices to preserve our freedoms as individuals, which are more important than the last "nice features" in expensive and proprietary gadgets that imprison us and our data in closed kingdoms.

Can anyone elaborate on Free Office? I checked, it was first submitted to AUR in 2013, but it’s the very first time I hear the brand. I use Libre Office and I tried OnlyOffice as well. Of course I know Open Office, which Libree Office was, once upon a time.

But I never seen in any shape of form Free Office. I couldn’t find even Wikipedia article about them. Their website looks dull to me. What is it all about?

Me, I’m looking for a way to fool people that claim they need Windows when they need browser and Office by installing Linux (possibly with some similar looking shell) and some Office suite that looks very similar. Is Free Office that thing?

FreeOffice exists since many years. It is free for personal use. It is a light and complete office suite. It is a good alternative to LibreOffice, also if not so rich in features.

Just tried to install it from AUR, and it didn’t run on my Arch Linux system.

`$ freeoffice-textmaker`

Critical System Error: Unable to open X Window display. <:0>

I assume it doesn’t support Wayland. And I don’t support X, I don’t use it and if an app doesn’t work on Wayland, I won’t use it. May be useful for someone else, who doesn’t tolerate Wayland being unsupported.