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Comment by pjerem

4 months ago

> "just use a second phone" cannot be the answer because 99% of people will just scoff at that.

Here we are talking about installing PostmarketOS/Linux on a smartphone. The next milestone is not to get everyone on it. First we need a base of early adopters that are willing to use it despite the drawbacks. The more user those alternatives will get, the more they will be developed, the better it will get.

Sure, for the next years, it will be way behind Android or iOS in terms of ease of use, but that's the price to pay to get back control on the device you own that is probably the main computer you use everyday.

For me that's not worse than using Linux in the early 2000s, and like Linux in the early 2000s, it may even be _fun_ to be an early adopter of Linux on the smartphone.

Now we don't need to migrate everyone to PostmarketOS, we _just_ need an alternative OS for at least the ones who are willing to play with it.

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pjerem

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pqtyw  4 months ago

> it. First we need a base of early adopters that are willing to use it despite the drawbacks.

That didn't work that well for Linux, though. It's still a very niche OS even on desktop.

TeMPOraL  4 months ago

What you're saying already existed. Linux on a smartphone was called Android. It ended up where it is today. If you were to somehow make another Linux on a smartphone competitor, it too would end up where Android is today, for the same reasons.

  • fsflover  4 months ago

    This is just not true. Google has been directing the development of Android to maximize their profits. without such incentive, it won't be repeated.

    Also, please stop with security nihilism, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27897975

    • hparadiz  4 months ago

      The current cyber security zeitgeist is to only allow "trusted" devices in your SSO flow and to also shove your VPN authentication on that SSO flow which includes even third party browsers not working. Only Chrome with a managed profile is even allowed to login. That pretty much means if you're not using a most recent version of iOS or Android you're SOL for using it for work.

      And good luck spoofing it these days cause they are usually backed by hardware backed tpm encryption. Which is why windows 11 only installs if there's a tpm 2.0 device detected.

      It's become super dystopian in the past 10 years and I don't see it changing.

      Always thankful that I got to live through the wild West days because that's going away.

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