LineageOS is the perfect minimal smartphone for non-tech savvy folk | Hacker News Reader

LineageOS is the perfect minimal smartphone for non-tech savvy folk

blog.decryption.net.au

53 pointsdecryption76 comments

For those who ask themselves which device to get to give LineageOS a try, I try to automatically compile a list of recommended models from the project's structured data that underpins its wiki. The list lives at https://johannes.truschnigg.info/tmp/lineageos_device_toplis... and is updated daily.

I myself have been a happy user since when my daily driver phone had a 320x480px screen, 512MB RAM, and ran CyanogenMod with some alien skaterboi mascot ;)

This is a very good initiative! There is also https://divestos.org/pages/devices?golden=true

There is also https://www.sustaphones.com, which presents the supported devices in a more graphical format, and allows filtering based on headphone jacks, battery repairability, etc.

Great list! Thanks for sharing. Noting how many developers work on the device is a nice addition.

This may seem silly but step 0 of every alternative ROM install is always what? "Backup your phone." But they never tell the user how. If you're really going to target "non-tech savvy folk" you can't just leave important steps at "you figure it out."

The context is that it's somebody else setting up what's basically a dumb phone for family members. I agree that custom roms are a terrible idea for non-tech savvy folks if they have to set it up themselves, but in this specific narrow case it's a good solution.

That's correct. I wouldn't recommend a custom ROM to an average smartphone user, but when you have someone in your life that's dedicated to tech support and you have custom needs, it's a good idea IMHO.

I consider helping my family with their tech stuff a privilege, not a burden. They help me with so much, why wouldn't I want to guide and support them on things I am knowledgeable about?!

GrapheneOS is way better if you can get this hypothetical "non-tech savvy" person to install it + play services.

I'm not sure why the author thinks Lineage is easy enough for a non-tech savvy person to install...I mean, if you've got this guy to do it for you then you're good I guess.

Completely agree. Overall a better install experience. Can install google play super easily after install as well if you aren't worried about that.

Graphene is only supported on Pixel devices however.

A very good point. You can run Lineage on basically anything...

For those who are trying to put space between them and Google GrapheneOS + play services is a bit of a mixed bag given that it only runs on "Google hardware" (i.e. Pixel devices) and those additional play services let Google in through the back door. A non-Google device running LineageOS or some other AOSP derivative + F-Droid serves this purpose well and comes without any dependency on Google or it's services. For those few proprietary 'apps' which are only distributed through the 'play store' something like Aurora store (an alternative play store cliënt which works without a Google account) can be used.

Yeah, some good points in here.

You can have multiple profiles in Android, so you can, for example, have your main GrapheneOS profile be google-free and have a "spyware trash" profile for things that won't work without tithing to Sauron.

One would think a pixel with a different rom would be far morelikely to be secure and private than the chinesium that is the norm for roms outside of the pixel, no?

> if you've got this guy to do it for you then you're good I guess.

as long as he'll also provide the bimonthly necessary tech support with a fast response time.

Does anyone know what is the cheapest (refurbished) smartphone this OS can run on?

Check out one of the supported Motorola's, they sell cheap brand new.

That's a good tip. I've got a moto g32 (ca. 130 € new) running LineageOS and am happy with it. Only downside is the CPU which could be a tad faster.

Unlocking the phone's bootloader is also not so easy, because you have to register your phone online and the web page is quite finicky. I had to try with different browsers to get the registration form to work.

Yeah, Motorola (which are now a brand of Lenovo after Google bought and sold them a while ago) are good value for money. I owned the Motorola Milestone (Motorola Droid in the US), then the Moto X (smaller version of the Nexus 6), and finally the ultra-thin Moto Z - however I was a bit disappointed with that one because the battery management was totally screwed up after a few years - it used to shut down spontaneously while reporting 60% battery and I wasn't able to reset it.

OnePlus are my go to

I use a Samsung S4 mini with it. There are unofficial builds for it, but it's not the most pleasant experience.

Since you are explicitly asking for cheapest: a used Motorola Moto G7 Play can be gotten very cheap. Alternatively, a used Pixel 3a. You probably find something cheaper from Xiaomi, but I'd stay clear as unlocking the bootloader is not pleasant on these devices.

Personally, I would aim a little higher though. I run it on a Pixel 4a and am quite happy. (Don't get the Pixel 4/XL since those do not have a fingerprint reader but only Face Unlock, which the latest LineageOS does not support.)

I tried looking for these phones on eBay - it’s a bit challenging to find unlocked refurbished phone that would work in my region from a trusted seller. Sometimes you have to take the leap of faith with a purchase and hope it works. It’s a bit of a headache…

Can also recommend new Motorolas. Currently on G52 with LineageOS (microg fork) and it feels as good as a factory ROM.

Previously I had a Moto One Action and the system had a few quirks, but overall was OK.

Until your banking or ID app doesn't work as you need Google Play services, or WhatsApp notifications don't work, etc.

I've been daily driving Lineageos with MicroG on a cheap Motorola and have had no problems with Whatsapp at all. (Thankfully I've been able to avoid banking or ID apps so can't chime in on that)

LineageOS microG on Moto G52: My banking app works fine, it does detect something, but only refuses to setup fingerprint unlocking

You can use Google Play services on Lineage os. IIRC they are installed by default though there are ways to use it without them (doing that right now). About banking apps idk.

Google Play is not installed by default, you need to additionally flash it before first booting it.

Yeah, look for a bank that does not require you to have a smartphone.

In Europe, bank transactions have mandatory 2FA. In most cases that means a smartphone apps though many banks also offer a physical device. But you have to pay for the latter, and if you have different accounts at different banks, there's a good chance the devices aren't compatible with each other. Smartphones are the easiest option for most people.

All major banks here have either a personalized physical thingamajig or a generic one that you put your card in, I opened an account with a new bank not too long ago and I got this for free, never heard of anyone having to pay for it.

Then keep a dedicated smartphone for bank purposes only. I already do that with iPhones in usa. I have se 1 Gen as a cellphone on a cheap $7 plan, and a se2 Gen as a pda of sorts on a “unlimited” plan. There are multiple benefits to it. Like when I browse on my pda phone I don’t have to worry about draining battery on phone. I only charge my phone (se1) about twice a week.

Sorry to hear your banking system sucks.

Try being your own bank. Dump the fiat.

Don't they support 2FA as a text message to your dumbphone?

No that's been explicitly disallowed (text messages are notoriously insecure).

This is covered in the linked post.

On my phone, using crDroid (no official lineageos support), I can use Google Pay without problems. This wasn't possible when it was still rooted, so I think root access is what prevented that from working before.

As for Google Play, you can just install those right after installing Lineage. Or you use MicroG or something if you don't like the closed source Google services client.

Even with Google Play Services working, there's a much more difficult underlying issue that makes for a rather unpleasant user experience with banking apps: SafetyNet Attestation/Play Integrity/CTS profiles/whatever other names there are for it.

I remember that ages ago I had to use Magisk and a finnicky Xposed module on my phone to be able to get past the root protection my banking app had. I'll be honest, these days I just don't have the mental energy for those sorts of fights anymore.

resistance is futile... you have been assimilated.

TNG went off the air 30 years ago - find new references.

Every one of my phones before was rooted with custom os flashed, but now I feel exactly the same a as you, it's just not worth it. Kinda sad how stuff is being more and mored locked down.

> I remember that ages ago I had to use Magisk and a finnicky Xposed module...

Same, funny how we're basically putting "rootkits" on our phones. At the end I also gave up having root on my phone, because it seems the banking app(s) were too clever and detected them.

Was your phone rooted?

I've never rooted mine, running LineageOS since 2016 + minimal Google services. There was a period when my bank's app suddenly decided things weren't "safe" and refused to run but this was many years ago - no issues since.

It's easier now, after flashing the custom rom, go ahead and flash gapps package of your choice (BitGapps or NikGapps) are worth looking into. Even if you choose the most minimal packages, everything is bound to work just like it does in a normal Android.

I'm amazed this didn't come up yet as a part of the DMA because everything related to the play services and integrity are a blatant antitrust violation.

Do you mean root detection? Because running Google apps on lineage OS devices is probably more common than not.

MicroG has a LineageOS distribution, they build for all the supported devices by upstream Lineage: https://lineage.microg.org/

That should cover at least the notification side. If I can't bank on a mostly open-source mobile OS than I would rather just not bank on mobile at all. Banking on stock ROM is not an option for me.

In the latest lineage (21), you can directly install microg as lineage os now directly allows signature spoofing (only for microg and related apps).

I recently learned that too. Does that survive OTA updates?

Fire your bank if they don't respect your boundaries.

...and ask your employer to pay out your salary in cash? Doesn't sound very realistic unfortunately. I don't think it's only about banking apps needing the Google services, it might actually be that they refuse to run on rooted phones?

If there are any banking apps that run on LineageOS, kudos to them - if they are available in Germany, tell me so I can switch...

Just curious, why do you need a banking app on your phone?

I need the bank's eID-application to authenticate against pretty much all of the public sector, and when I buy tobacco online.

The banks were many years ago allowed to develop an electronic identification system and they now totally dominate in this space, and that's what the public sector generally supports.

It's the 'worse than Soviet' kind of nasty that tend to emerge from liberalist oligarchies.

What country is that? Sounds horrible.

Sweden. We have 'owner families' dominating our economy and politics, and things have been rotting fast over the past thirty years or so. I'm unlikely to relocate though, at least not until the NATO membership pulls us into open conflict.

It's a decent place to run a company though.

As a fellow person dreading conscription into someone else's conflict, it might be too late by then

Yeah. I've been drafting and revising relocation plans for years, so if it seems to heat up or kids might be conscripted we'd probably manage to leave in an orderly manner within a couple of months.

I'm probably too old to get conscripted even if I were to botch my predictions, I'm old enough to have done both obligatory service and a couple of military employments and been placed in and culled from the 'war placement' registry.

Seems like a situation that necessitates having 2 phones. Wouldn't surprise me if this soon becomes illegal

You don't need the banking app for actual banking, but you need it for 2FA if you want to use the bank website on your PC. Some banks also offer an additional "authentication device", which would be an alternative for LineageOS users, but that's an additional device that you have to take care of, carry around etc., so much less convenient than using the app...

my mobile banking app is only good for looking up the balance, which i really dont need to do that often. for anything more complicated using the phone is just irritating and i more frequently turn to my desktop or laptop. moreover if banking is so significant to you, and you hold alot of funds, perhaps you should really then think about having a secure isolated banking device.

Where I live the largest consumer banks have a state sanctioned cartel regarding electronic identification. They'll never support Linux, and I won't support anything else on my personal computers, which means I have to use regular Android on my phone so I can use their 'app'.

I've been using LineageOS for 2 years now since my 2020 phone started to slow down due to bloatware. From the moment I installed it, the phone became fast again. Regarding notifications, I haven't had any problems with WhatsApp or any other messaging apps. As for my bank, I downloaded the app from the Play Store (I use microG) and I haven't had any issues either. I think it depends on your bank and the restrictions they place. In my personal experience, LineageOS has allowed me to continue using a phone that would have otherwise been thrown away due to planned obsolescence by the manufacturer.

Yeah we have extensive use of eID here in Sweden and they all require device integrity. https://wiki.lineageos.org/quirks/snet/

It's kinda funny that device integrity is so important to them, implying evil maid attacks, but the most common attack on eID is simply stealing someone's code or convincing them to use their eID over the phone.

Of course, with the evil maid attack enabled stealing someone's phone would become much more common, rather like stealing someone's credit card.

As a counter to this I'll bring up that the Swedish Bank-ID works on all of my devices, all of which are Google-free and have root access, most of which run LineageOS. The Bank-ID client throws up a warning that it "needs Google services to work" after which it continues to work fine without it. I do tend to use older devices - waste not, want not - so things may have changed somewhere past Android 11.

I have a hard time believing this. I'll have to look into it, because I do have a spare pixel 6 device I'd like to install Lineage on, but I also want to use it as backup for my BankID.

I use Bank-ID on a 2014 Samsung Galaxy IIIneo running LineageOS as well as on a Galaxy Tab 3, also running LineageOS. I also use it on a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 running a lobotomised stock distribution. None of these devices have Google services installed, all have root access using Magisk. These devices range from Android 7 (the tablet) to 11 (the Galaxy SIIIneo), i have no data on more recent Android versions.

Pixel 6 supports grapheneOS which is massively superior in all ways, at least in my opinion as someone who has used both lineageOS and grapheneOS for many years

If you use those apps, you're part of the problem.

Yeah, that's a really big problem for any Android enthusiast who wants to have a root and tinker with the device.

I ended up with 2 phones because of that and my second is an iPhone mini, because of the shitty financial apps that didn't work properly on Android. The upside of a walled garden I suppose is that the bank would test it properly on a more consistent iOS.

TFA says that the intended user does not care about having banking apps on that phone.

Also, there is nothing stopping you from just keeping an old phone around just for the banking app. It's not like I really need to do banking on the go, and the app is nothing more than a glorified 2FA app for when I do home banking, on my actual computer.

which is why LOS is exactly not for non-tech savvy folks. he probably proselytized his priorities until his family members couldn't hear it anymore and just surrendered. i hope he has a lot of time because exactly the points you mentioned plus all his "advantages" will come back to haunt him.

having said that i love anything anti-google but i'd be careful to advertise it to others.

My Dad likes his non-Google phone very much! He never had a smartphone in the first place so doesn't use any apps, social media, internet banking, etc. But does like having an easy to use on-screen keyboard. If a "dumbphone" existed with a large touch screen instead of the little 1" screen with a numpad, that would be great.

Agreed - this is a good solution for people that don't want or need any of that stuff. You'd be surprised how many people out there don't do any form of internet banking at all and simply manage their money in the bank branch or over the telephone directly to the bank. For the elderly, it's a great idea to remove their internet banking (or not give them access to it in the first place) and protect them from scammers.

I like LineageOS but for the privacy-minded I prefer the de-Googled fork: https://e.foundation/about-e/ (launched by the guy behind Mandrake Linux, for people old enough to remember that distro)

when i switched from lineage to /e/OS i found the latter much more user friendly. important tools such as maps worked out of the box while at the time (some 5 years ago) lineage needed a lot more manual effort to be usable, so i didn't consider that it would be suitable for non-technical users.

I was expecting to trash the idea of custom roms for the laymen, but this is actually a really smart idea. In this case, "minimal" means "as close as possible to a dumb phone", which means uninstalling everything that's not the phone app. I'm not sure how much longer society will tolerate somebody with a phone that can only call, but for those who truly only need to be able to call and text I think it's a brilliant solution.

i tried LineageOS, shortly after i also wanted to try e/os (..because of my proprietary banking app...) and was amazed how easy the e/os flashing+setup was. Also with e/os you have way more control over features like e.g GPS where you can not only enable/disable GPS but you can also provide fake GPS data for apps which force you to turn it on.

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