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Comment by Scene_Cast2 | Hacker News Reader

I still buy devices based on the likelihood that they will be supported by LineageOS. Good to see them continuing along.

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I find any time I've put lineage on a device, the support lifetime is lower than I expect.

In a perfect world, you would be able to bring your old device forward to multiple new major android releases beyond the support lifetime of the manufacturer, like you can with a Linux distro on a PC. But I guess android doesn't work that way, even with third parties willing to make new builds.

Often device drivers specific to the model of handset are only available as pre-compiled binary blobs, and will not run with any future kernel release without herculean effort to reverse engineer them and implement a shim. This effectively ties the hardware to a single kernel release.

The practice makes ewaste of otherwise perfectly usable devices, and should be illegal.

Isn’t that significantly on the Linux kernel not having stable driver ABIs?

I don't see how any choice the Linux developers make forces phone manufacturers to do anything.

It's their choice to use Linux. They can abide by the license or not ship Linux.

Not to mention that there are many more or less stable APIs within the kernel (which even has versioned API support in places) such as Video4Linux which manufacturers seem dead set against using.

They do abide by the license, but it's also their choice whether to maintain cheap firmware for n years old devices, that they may not even have the license to distribute in source form.

Nonetheless, android mostly solved the issue of the kernel's lack of stable interface via their HAL.

They could also contribute to the Linux kernel like normal companies instead of shipping half broken binary blobs.

That's a really backwards way of thinking about software distribution. It's like Debian's idea that every piece of software in existence should be packaged for Debian (and Suse, Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.).

I don't package any of the software I write for Debian because I don't want to have to jump through their hoops. I don't blame device manufacturers for wanting to avoid jumping through Linux's hoops. Especially with having to deal with Linus.

Nobody likes Apple's app review process do they? I don't think device driver writers should have to go through that.

(I also wish they would open the code but not having a stable driver ABI clearly doesn't make that happen.)

I think a valid reason for not having a stable driver ABI is that it's a mountain of work and makes everything else more difficult. But I've never heard anyone give that as the reason.

There's a big difference between Apple's review process which I would qualify as unnecessary and unfair and Linux's review process which is necessary to produce high quality software.

But it's true that they could at least start by publishing the source code, even if they don't contribute directly.

As for the ABI, I also agree, this would just make the situation worse.

> Linux's review process which is necessary to produce high quality software.

Why? I don't see how that follows. It might be likely to produce better software simply by having experienced kernel devs review the code, but it's definitely not necessary.

Most of them buy parts from other companies, that often license the source only for inclusion.

This is a very myopic view of the industry.

I'm also saying the industry is broken, I'm well aware that the whole industry isn't really good enough on the software side.

AFAIK the Android binary blobs are generally userspace, not kernel drivers.

I think the interfaces we are talking about are not part of upstream Linux. They will bolt on half baked stuff regardless of the interfaces Linux provides.

Any devices that fare better in this regard?

Not really, no. For manufacturers it is faster to just write the drivers once for their chip, and release them targeting to an exact Linux kernel version rather than actually writing good enough code that it goes through the LKML process and gets merged into mainline. It costs money to update the drivers later on and it especially costs money to mainline them later on.

Nobody's asking for mainline submissions though. Just publishing the drivers source code under a FLOSS licence when they stop supporting it would be enough to let the community take over the maintenance.

The kernel side of drivers is already published under a FLOSS license, it's just that the code quality is usually subpar and the important changes are crammed into a tarball together with (sometimes) millions of other lines of changed code.

The sources for the matching userspace binaries (which are usually the issue for Android version bumps) are usually under NDA by the component manufacturer and can not be released by the OEM independently.

Is the kennel driver code not available for the Community to take over the process of mainlining? If that gets done then surely the user-side code will work with all future kennels that contain the driver?

The user-side will work with all kernels that contain the matching driver, but the user-side will not necessarily work on future Android versions without modification.

Out of curiosity, what do you buy?

I had Xiaomi last and bought another one recently and they have made it pretty much impossible to unlock the bootloader.

Apparently limited number of unlocks at 12am Beijing time. I have tried a few times, read through all the complaints and the community forums, and Xiaomi can very kindly just fuck off.

It used to be really good value for money as the hardware is great. But without flashing it is terrible. Crypto spam ads in system apps and things like that. Am going to sell it again but part of me can't give it to anyone in good conscience.

VoLTE is a huge consideration for older devices, and it is best to avoid Samsung.

Pixels are the reference. Whatever you buy, verify VoLTE.

Very true, yes. 4G connectivity is the main reason for me to upgrade. My Poco F1 doesn't support the main 4G frequency used in Australia. So connection and bandwidth is pretty crappy since 3G got sunset.

Unfortunately the intersection of phones with headphone plug, SD card slot, decent RAM and hardware, not being huge, and supporting lineageos is pretty much nonexistent nowadays.

Oh interesting. I was planning to get a Xiaomi as my next phone; I recently heard that they limited the number of unlocks to one per person per year.

I got a OnePlus and a Pixel. Before that it was a ZTE, but they aren't unlock-friendly these days.

> limited the number of unlocks to one per person per year

I’m wondering how exactly they are gonna enforce that.

you actually have to create a xiaomi account to be able to unlock a xiaomi phone with their crappy bootloader unlocking tool (only running on windows FWIW).

This is just a terrible experience, avoid this brand like the plague.

Yeah, I went through it once. You also have to wait for 30 days IIRC.

There are unofficial unlock tools on Linux / macOS, though: https://github.com/topminipie/awesome-xiaomi-bootloader-unlo...

The problem is, you can create as many Mi accounts as you want. They can make it slightly harder by verifying your phone number, but that’s also pretty easy to circumvent.

Thanks for the pointers, when I did it, all the linux tools I had found had been abandonned/were not working.

Don't sweat it. The link for the official tool in the official xiaomi site directs to an old version that didn't work for my old phone.

I found The latest version in xdaforums, and that worked, thankfully.

The whole xiaomi experience is very unpolished. The siteS are a mess for this, the tool looks like a cooked homebrew, and their English doesn't look official.

I'd say stay away from it! From what I understand it mostly depends on what OS is running on the phone.

Phones on their old Xiaomi OS can be unlocked reliably. You have to register an account, wait 30 days, and use the unlock app on a Windows computer. It's annoying but doable. But, the current Xiaomi HyperOS is where the insanity starts. It's pretty much impossible with arbitrary limits of global unlocks per day. The app constantly telling you to try again the next day and stupid stuff like that.

I've had that phone sitting in a drawer for a month or so now. It's just not worth it. And I'm not going to put anything personal on their shipped OS. When system apps come with popup ads to install dodgy crypto apps I'm not going to trust it.

Not TS, but I have similar thought to him. Just recently, I bought a used Samsung A52 4G phone, which is supported by LineageOS.

I am not a LineageOS user, but I own a 5 year old Xiaomi phone. The latest Android version for that phone from Xiaomi is stuck at Android 9. It now runs Android 13 on /e/OS, a fork of LineageOS, and I have a good experience with it.

The biggest problem with /e/OS is the launcher (Bliss).

The launcher does not seem to be able to do app shortcuts, particularly to make a shortcut to an incognito browser tab. Widgets are also confined to a separate page. [Please correct me if I'm wrong.] It's really trying to be an iPhone in some constraining ways (stressed by the Settings icon).

Lawnchair [1] is a pretty good alternative.

[1] https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair

It needs to be in f-droid, or maybe on ffupdater.

It is on F-Droid IIRC.

Edit: just checked, it’s in the IzzyOnDroid repo: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/app.lawnchair

Samsung has its own bootloader. Some people get it to work with AOSP/LineageOS, but it is an extra pain. So I avoid Samsung for LineageOS.

This is a list of support devices

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

I installed LineageOS on a Motorola Edge a bit back.

One problem is it takes a bit of time for a device to get officially supported by LineageOS. By the time it is, stores are often selling the next generation of devices.

That was not the case when I bought an Edge and put LineageOS on it in 2021.

> but it is an extra pain.

I've bricked several Samsung devices trying to flash Lineage on them. It is important to follow the Lineage installation instructions very closely.

It used to be dirt easy, i remember my s5 was just "fastboot oem unlock" and flash the new image...

Sure you'd lose knox, but nobody really uses it anyways... But from what lineage is saying, it seems Samsung made unlocking impossible on North American devices.

I'm not sure what the law side of things is like for this, because I recall it being mandated that phones could be sim unlocked after contracts expire... someone should try seeing if there is a legal requirement for unlocked bootloaders.

Edit: I wish apps would also stop whinging about unofficial OSes or devices being rooted... banking apps, mostly.

> someone should try seeing if there is a legal requirement for unlocked bootloaders.

The EU is only now applying usb chargers. They will be ironing appstores next. USA, maybe not with the next president.

> it seems Samsung made unlocking impossible on North American devices.

It is possible to unlock them. It just takes about 20 steps and multiple reboots.

My device is currently not supported, their FAQ about this is needlessly passive aggressive, though I can assume there's a reason.

I used to spend so much time flashing different ROMs, and even cooking a few modifications of my own. These days I find it much easier just to buy first-party devices like a Pixel and just move on with my day. They seem to have the least 'gotchas' in my experience. Stuff is unlocked, it gets updates, and doesn't have bloat/malware baked in.

Some would consider a Google device as malware out of the box. At least you know who is spying on you I guess.

Given the fact that all phones have closed-source baseband firmware and are hooked up to vulnerable networks running ss7, they've got worse things to worry about if they're using a phone anyway.

It's not all or nothing. That's like saying you might as well smoke 20 cigarettes since you are already smoking 10.

Google is one of the lightest offenders in the ecosystem. Remember that any other Android device is going to have Google PLUS the manufacturer junkware. Pixels can also be de-rooted with custom firmware installed, and graphene is hella polished.

I buy uses OnePlus phones off swappa and flash LineageOS with microG right off the bat. For a tablet I have a Google Pixel Tab, which has official LOS support. Very happy with both

I managed to unlock a xiaomi redmi note 9. The bootloader unlock tool only work on windows and on intel based computers (don't ask me why). I had to reinstall temporarily a windows on a computer to do that.

But this is really a brand to avoid at all cost anyway. Also these smartphones come super bloated out of the box with apps phoning home constantly, and super unreliables. 2 members of my houshold owned one and on both of them the screen started not accepting touch input randomly. These was on 2 different models.

You get profiled when you sign up for unlocking a xiaomi.

In order to use the official windows-only tool: You make a xiaomi account, wait a month or more, then put an internet connected sim card that receives an sms verification and try to unlock, if it fails, you wait a day to try again.

You can unlock about 3 devices at most every 6 months with one account.

They found a balance that is easy enough for tech saavy users, but not too easy for the general population. Helping someone with his phone is a chore if you aren't charging money for it.

Xda forums is much less interested in developing unlocking for xiaomis since there is this official method, and I can't blame them.

The "general population" is probably better off buying an unlocked device on the used market. Wipe it with a new LineageOS install and there should be no real concerns.

I have recently bought a Pixel 8 and I really like it. GrapheneOS is a very smooth experience, my only gripe is that the banking apps don't work on it, so I reverted back to PixelOS for the time being.

But their sandboxed GApps service is truly how a mobile OS should work!

I have been running custom Android, mostly Cyanogen and Lineage, since the G1. I went G1 > Nexus 1 > Samsung S4 > S5 > OnePlus 5 > Pixel 8. I won't buy a phone if it's not community supported.

Can anyone recommend a supported phone that is small in size?

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