I probably can’t get a new phone super soon, but it’s been quite frustrating how little support there is for iOS versions of open source software I’ve been slowing moving towards or investigating. I absolutely get why though!
I have the capability to understand complex topics but it takes me quite a few tries to really get it, so I’d like some help or recommendations of things that aren’t “just use linux”. (I am slowly dipping my toes by using WSL for things, though.) I am always searching for software, but I’ve never been active enough in communities to ask for personal recommendations and be warned of short comings. Obviously if you find recommendations, they want to look the best to you and hide their faults. I do try and research as much as possible, but like I said, I can get confused or not understand the drawbacks or full level of manual work/environments needed to operate at times.
Mostly I’m looking for day to day things that I can operate from my windows computer, but can also connect to my phone, assuming I get an android next. (Librem phones looks cool, but switching carrier providers is not feasible for me at the moment.) The boring things, like calendar, email, notes (I do use obsidian already). But if you’d like to gush about your daily drivers, I’m all ears!
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Start with an android phone from a vendor that runs a very stock ROM. Go with Google for fast updates, teracube or fairphone for long term support and sustainability, or Nokia for a good solid privacy respecting company (not perfect, but pretty good). From there prefer open source play store apps. When you’re ready, try F-Droid.
Generally I recommend starting small and escalating
Second this. Start with a Pixel or a Fairphone and go from there. Pixels come with all the bits needed to build your own OS and so are supported by most aftermarket Android-based OSes. Using open source apps where possible is also a fairly significant part of the equation. The latest gen Pixels have 5-year official software support. Even if you stay on the stock OS, they won’t turn into e-waste too soon.
In my view, since I’m already switching to a different ecosystem from apple, I might as well pick the one I want in the end since I’m not really familiar with stock android in the first place. Tercube looks good, though it doesn’t support my carrier, hurm…
Yeah but to get to a special ROM you’re gonna need to familiarize yourself with a litany of other tools while your phone is still not familiar and usable. If you want to start out going super technical, more power to you, but for me I always need to take on new information slowly to keep from losing all daily productivity
That does make sense what you’re saying though. If I’m not in the best mental focus at the time it might not be best to delve too deeply into it. If I get maybe an older but compatible phone I can test without actually transferring my phone number over.
https://e.foundation/e-os/ can just buy these. Essentially LineageOS with some tweaks
Galaxy S9 is something like $100 on eBay and well supported
This is the best way. Messing with roms can be a lot of work and even if you want to transition to a more opensource ecosystem unfortunately in life youre going to sometimes need those closed source apps(like if you need to do banking stuff for example).
You can download fdroid and sideload all the open source apps you want and when you need to use a closed source you arent locked out of it.
That’s what I do. And yeah. If you use your phone for work stuff (email / MFA) there’s no chance in hell your IT manager is going to be okay with you having a rooted phone with a custom ROM with third party apps from an unverified source like F-Droid.
Unless you can afford to have two phones, one for work and one for personal, be ready to make some compromises