I never know what to expect from Google. They respect open source efforts to an extent, but play Calvinball with where they draw the line. In any case, Motorola will be an option soon, maybe more. And there are other custom ROMs, albeit not as thorough as Graphene. And for me? They can’t take it away now that I already did it, so I’m good for up to 7 years unless my phone breaks.

Thanks I’ll look

Flagship hardware has been sufficient long term for a while now. I’d still be using my 6 year old phone if it had security updates and I wasn’t getting into privacy and security

The Fediverse is not perfect, but it actually blew my mind a bit how much it lowered my blood pressure to not see the constant ragebait, and the calm of not being exposed and monitored at all times. I still have Snapchat just for one person, and WhatsApp which is Meta but still E2EE. Other than that, I’m all in and man does it feel great.

Soon, but not yet! I needed to upgrade, can’t wait until 2027 or whenever. But hoping it’ll be one of their flagships, the new Razr is pretty dope specs wise.

Not really, but I got one anyway because I need the storage. I wish I would have gone all the way and got a TB but I couldn’t buy that one in cash in store so I didn’t.

Like anything, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish, but in general yes.

You will still have a carrier phone number, but you don’t need to give identifying info when signing up, and you don’t need to use it. This prevents people from tracking you or Sim swapping. If you grt multiple numbers it also allows you to call anonymously or not worry so much about how much you give a number out because you can just turn it off. You’re more protected from data breaches. Jmp specifically isn’t KYC last I checked, but the phone number you actually use is going to be pretty public. You may also save money despite paying for Jmp, because of new customer deals from the carrier: you do not care if you have the same Sim number.

However, no VoIP number uses RCS. SMS is very insecure and lacks features. Jmp uses XMPP, but that only works when both parties are using it, meaning probably never. You could convince some people maybe but texting, even XMPP, is for people that won’t move to Signal or another actually secure messaging app.

If you have most people on more secure/private/featured platforms, VoIP and SMS is a good choice. If you are going to use text extensively and can’t get people on other platforms, you may consider sticking with Google Messages & RCS.

Right now I use VoIP but I’m having a medium amount of issues moving people over to Signal and missing some of the features, so I’m mixed on it. If RCS ever becomes more universal (and if Graphene gets better support for it) that would decide it for me.

Advertising matters for movies. Every time someone says “movies suck now”, there’s always some guy that says “movies are great if you know where to look”. Sure, but where is that? I can find listicles with a few of them, but this is usually only the ones that break into mainstream, a year later. Even generic reddit and Lemmy/Piefed subs aren’t much better. It’s not feasible to ask someone to join a forum or Discord about indie movies just to not be fed slop.

You’re welcome. Nice, what was the method you found?

No, and that’s the beauty of Linux.

Desktop gaming PC: Fedora KDE (might try Bazzite if I stop dual booting Windows, but I already got Nvidia set up and that’s the hard part)

Old laptop: Zorin OS

Old as dirt laptop: antiX

Wife’s Surface: Pop!_OS 22.04. Maybe change it eventually to something lighter.

I will likely go with Ubuntu Server or Debian when I set up my home server. Ubuntu seems like it has better Docker support.

Terrible time for any case to being going to the SC

You have to enable network, notifications, and unrestricted battery for both Play Services & Play Store (even if you don’t use it), and Play Services Framework if that installed alongside the other two (usually on older phones).

Did you install Play Services before the first time you launched the browser? If not or you’re not sure, uninstall and reinstall the browser.

Did you enable push notifications on your browser and/or try a different browser? I ran into a similar problem when I started using PWAs because I disabled notifications a long time ago because why would I want my browser to notify me but I forgot that PWAs ARE the browser. You’ll also want to check if it is an actual PWA or just saved as a bookmark on the home screen. Try deleting it and then saving it again and noting if it asks to install or not. If not there may be a more specific URL to use as a PWA. You may have to have Play Services on for notifications, use an alternative, or give the browser unrestricted battery.

Also, we sometimes have to do what we have to do. I redownloaded Snapchat solely for my sister because she is busy with her many kids and is used to sending pics/videos of them to multiple people at once and can’t be bothered to move to Signal. And that’s not a problem with Graphene, you’re just having trouble completely detaching from big tech. You’re not alone in that. Don’t get discouraged though, it’s a journey, not a destination.

Gotcha. I can’t say I have ran into hardware incompatibility issues in the half dozen or so distros I’ve tried kn multiple machines, but I would probably recommend Tuxedo to a non tech person and it’s great that they exist. They’re even a pretty good value.

I can’t agree with this. Mint, for example, is a great general use distro. It doesn’t support HDR, VRR, or even 4k 60 FPS because it’s not in Wayland. These are very basic gaming features that Windows has had for 7+ years.

Also, gaming focused doesn’t mean it has to boot into Steam Big Picture Mode and be used only for gaming. Bazzite is Fedora based, so it has RPM and flatpaks, and uses KDE, the most customizable DE. It even has a helpful onboarding Ui, and is packaged with the drivers you need for gaming. What could it possibly be missing that average users would want?

You very much need to pick a distro that has the features you want need, and the rest will follow unless it’s just a bad distro.

Deathloop doesn’t run well on Windows either.

It’s not an apt comparison because Windows doesn’t use apt for packages 😉

I’m relatively new to Linux. What do you mean by system integrators?