Phone to use as a daily driver
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I'm climbing the ladders of freedom and so far I have libre server and a laptop. Next step could me my phone (router is one also and something for vpn).
Landline is not an option and 3g is going down from where I live. 2g is still working from what I've heard. So this limits my options quite a lot. I tested Replicant with Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and get it working (one libre device more). Phone calls were horrible thought because of a bug. This can be avoided if 2G network is used. I could not test it because somehow that switch didn't work in my tablet. Don't know why.
What are the options?
1. Buy Replicant supported old smartphone.
2. Buy an old 2g phone (over 20 years).
3. Buy new 4g supported "dum" phone.
4. Pinephone?
5. Something else?
Needless to say that I need working phone. Phone calls and SMS are necessary but that doesn't have to be a smartphone.
This is my daily driver phone. It works quite well and has no software. The tones generated by the buttons come from tunable coils.
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1, 2 and 3 are probably ok, main drawbacks of 1 and 2:
- battery may not be in good shape but usually you can replace it
- I had audio issues with several phones on which I installed replicant, although some phones worked fine. So get it for cheap, so you don't loose too much money if audio has problems.
The Pinephone has terrible battery life. If you need to reliably receive phone calls, the previous options are much better choices.
No other suggestion. Any smartphone with LineageOS will work but if you just need calls and SMS, not terribly useful. One nice free software app that works with Replicant (and LineageOS at least until version 18) is MAXS, to control sending/receiving SMS on the phone via XMPP, e.g using an XMPP client on a computer.
EDIT: since Librem 5 was mentioned, I bought one second-hand but re-sold it. It works better than the Pinephone but battery life is still poor (8h at best). If you just want to use phone calls and SMS, not an attractive solution.
Not directly related, but for the router, have you looked at libreCMC? It's a libre version of OpenWRT. Doesn't have any proprietary blobs. Works well on the Netgear WNDR3800 (although installing it is kind of tricky).
As for the phone, all I can suggest is the Purism Librem 5. It's expensive and hard to find.
Sorry if that's all I have.
Thanks for all answers! I would love to have same phone as Jxself but that's not possible anymore.
So hardware freedom is quite impossible for now, I see. I've used Lineage OS few times and it works really well with F-droid and without GApps.
If there's no better options available I will go with Replicant and basic dumb phone as a plan backup. Librem looks very nice but it's quite expensive as I don't use phone that much and Replicant is really enought for me.
For what comes to a new router. I've looked thinkpenguin for options. I recall that they sell something without blobs. And also a vpn service. But I know so little about those that I must study them before acquiring one.
Glad to hear you found the answers helpful! While it may not be possible to get the exact same phone that I have, there are still many landline phones that respect your freedom and privacy. It seems common for discussions of phones to revolve around "within the constraints of using a mobile phone, what phone to use..." When it seems perfectly logical, to me, to remove that constraint.
It's not possible to open new landline subscriptions anymore here where I live.
I think it's probably curtains for the trusty old POTS.
https://www.spearline.com/blog/out-with-the-old-phasing-out-of-pstn-pots-globally-by-2030/
Here, they mention PSTN emulation. I wonder whether it can be done with an old telephone set.
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All computers have non-free software, so to go along the same line, shouldn't one advise not to use a computer?
On landlines, where I live, within a few years, all copper should be replaced with fiber and the only solution for a landline will be a device using SIP. Most landlines are already using that, ISPs provide a routeur that has a plug for an "old" phone (still only DTMF is supported for dialling) but uses SIP.
"All computers have non-free software, so to go along the same line, shouldn't one advise not to use a computer?"
It's important to note that recommending a specific telephone to use is not equivalent to suggesting not to use a telephone altogether.
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The specific telephone you are suggesting have the property to only work at one's home, so you are simply recommending not to use a phone out of home. To me it is a bit like recommending not to use a laptop: it is possible but means one won't use a computer during most of the day, unless one is working from home.
Pinephone Pro and (separately) GloDroid is as far as we got in this area. The PPP is expensive and GloDroid isn't ready either. Smartphones generally have 2 hardware-level backdoors:
1. Modem
2. TrustZone (Galaxy S3 onwards)
I used a Galaxy S2 with Replicant 4.2 before (with a WiFi blob and Conversations/XMPP for communication) and it was a good experience (there were some good apps for reading PDF ebooks, gaming like e.g. Hexxagon via aFreeBox, Rabbit Escape, etc. - I still have the list around somewhere), but I can't recommend it. Last year I was planning to buy a Galaxy S5 Demo Unit (model g900x) to flash LineageOS for MicroG on it (normal firmware confirmed to be compatible), which I found for what I recall 35 euro + cash on delivery, but I haven't bought it. I was also having an old GSM phone (blue Siement A55) for mobile calls.
While there's no such smartphone I could recommend (atm) without compromising the expectations you have, try flashing a custom ROM (Graphene, /e/OS, LineageOS for MicroG, etc.) with built-in MicroG/Fdroid on a secondary phone and use Quicksy/Movim for communication over the internet.
Some links you might find interesting:
https://fsfe.org/activities/android/liberate.en.html
https://divestos.org/pages/faq#recommendPhone
Why can't you recommend Galaxy S2? It sounds good to me?
I could use Lineage OS as I have some old smartphones around. And thanks for the links! They looked very useful.
Because I have reasonable expectations about what is acceptable as an alternative to mainstream devices and not to offer an outdated (hardware/software-wise) and broken one. It's insecure (no regular updates), abandoned by upstream (LineageOS), and Android 6 would possibly not work properly on it (I had a Galaxy Nexus and it wasn't usable with Android 5+ mainly because it was constantly overheating).
I use a Pixel 2 on Ubuntu Touch. Ubuntu Touch is a very polished distro that is daily driver ready but lacks app support. I Would love to use my Pinephone CE as a daily driver but the battery life isn't quite there although the app support is great.
>I use a Pixel 2 on Ubuntu Touch. Ubuntu Touch is a very polished distro that is daily driver ready but lacks app support. I Would love to use my Pinephone CE as a daily driver but the battery life isn't quite there although the app support is great.
Can you use Ubuntu touch as a daily ?
Im using Divest OS on Pixel 4a, it's fork of Lineage OS with more freedom and less proprietary software. On certain phones it allows locking the bootloader.
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I highly recommend the phone that Jason Self has. I use it with JMP. Calls go to my Western Electric 2500 telephone; texts go to my laptop. Simple. It requires no landline service. It uses the internet.
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And don't be afraid to live without a cellphone. It's not a death sentence.
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/15/11204042/no-cellphone
How to live without a cellphone:
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Going_NoPhone
I didn't know there's such thing as JMP. How sad there's no good virtual mobile phone number provider here, in Poland — all are either non-mobile VOIP providers (like the one I am using; no support for SMS), require nonfree JS or target businesses and are therefore inadequately expensive...
Do you happen to know any good provider with polish virtual mobile numbers in the offer?
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OVH provides SIP phone numbers from Belgium, Switzerland, France, UK and Spain but this is only for voice calls, no SMS. I use a French number from them with linphone. To subscribe, you need to run nonfree JS though. I am not aware of any solution for SMS besides using a mobile phone.
I anyway need a cellular modem to access internet on a laptop out of home, there is rarely any other solution.
> I am not aware of any solution for SMS besides using a mobile phone
Are you able to find some listing of french VOIP providers? I tried tackling this issue by first finding a listing of polish VOIP providers and them emailing them one-by-one asking if they
1. require JS
2. offer virtual mobile numbers and SMS sending/receiving
3. allow individuals to purchase numbers
4. and work with standard free software SIP clients.
I could find some that passed 3 out of those 4. There was 1 provider from whom I even got to order an account by email and was able to send/receive SMS without JS... but his infrastructure was buggy and I failed to receive many of the messages so I didn't renew the subscription. There was also 1 SMS-only provider that seemed to have a good offer but that was the one I judged as too expensive.
> I use a French number from them with linphone.
Hey, I'm also using linphone :) The state of SIP apps in distros is far from perfect (many of them have bugs, some don't even start). I sometimes also use Twinkle because for an unknown reason I can't get DTMF to work properly with linphone.
Hey, do you happen to know any SIP app that would be usable with PinePhone's screen?
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> Are you able to find some listing of french VOIP providers?
Not really, I can just find some business sites that list Orange, SFR, Keyyo, A6 and OVH. Keyyo belongs to Bouygues, so the first 3 are 3 major fixed+mobile carriers out of the 4 in total, plus A6 that I never heard of before and OVH.
All of them hint at sending commercial SMS, not at receiving SMS, and at unreasonable prices for an individual. Only when digging through OVH pages, I found an option to "rent" a mobile number to receive SMS. However, the conditions really look like the service could be terminated at any time, so it would be foolish to rely on that service for anything important.
I may investigate more later, thanks for the suggestion.
> Hey, do you happen to know any SIP app that would be usable with PinePhone's screen?
I only tried Jami on it but not for SIP. I think managed to make a Jami voice call once, but I can't remember how usable it was. On PC, Jami used to not work with my OVH number, I filed a bug report but forgot about it. My Pinephone has not gone out of a drawer for months and it is my lowest priority now.
I use a pixel6a with grapheneOS mostly for the increase in battery life over any linux phone out there, and increase in functionality over dumbphones
if that's too costly you could also get a used like pixel 4 on ebay and flash it with graphene as well, if you want to go the extra mile you could even install orbot on it and push all your phones internet traffic through the tor network
Graphene OS is about to end support for the Pixel 4/4a next month. I would switch to Divest OS, better freedom/less blobs than LineageOS. I been daily driving the 4a with Divest OS and allows you to lock the bootloader.
What is a linux phone? Is not Android already with Linux?
Surely my cell phone is much more secure anyway. It offers full protection against all kinds of viruses, reduces environmental noise and brings back privacy into mobile communication.
I’ve never driven any of my phones. I prefer my pickup truck for that, which is a 1980 F150.
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