**Wanted to update this post with a website I found that has info about this topic for regular people, in case anybody finds this later. ** Privacy Focused OS For Everyone It has info about the different os options as well as apps for phones using regular android.

Pretend I am five and please be nice.

Say I want to free my phone and tablet from samsung/google/skynet but I neeeeeed to be able to use my printer and external cd drives and their silly proprietary apps, as well as flash drives, cds, and normal apps without alternatives like bandcamp and libby and and all that. I also need to be able to use government websites and use my wifi and pay bills and just generally do everything that I do now on samsung’s/motorola’s software.

(Most of these things were issues for me when I tried to use linux years ago which is why I’m listing them. I do not possess the technical ability to solve these problems on my own when they come up. I also do not possess any other devices to use if my main ones can’t do these things anymore.)

Is this realistic in 2024 for Graphene or any other free open source os? And if it is, how do I install it safely and properly?

Are there any known issues with it like slowness or not being able to use the camera, etc? Most of the places with information about this stuff are not written in a langauge I speak.

Edit: does anyone want to work on creating or collecting some simplified tutorials with me? I’m thinking of installing one of these on my phone and it it goes well I will probably write the details down. It might be good to have a place for other people who have done so, or want to, to do the same for their respective devices.

  • @leadore
    10•3 months ago

    One thing to consider is Graphene and Calyx both say they are designed to work on Google Pixel phones. If you have a different kind of phone you should search on your phone model and see if anyone has installed those on it and how it went for them.

    Other than that, they are basically just de-googled Android so I would expect the things you mentioned to work. You can get many apps from Fdroid or use the Aurora client to get them anonymously from the Google store, though I don’t know for sure if that works in all circumstances. My brother uses Calyx and I know he has been able to install at least one proprietary app (for his car) and I think one from an insurance company or something like that.

    edit: update, I just checked the CalyxOS site and it says they also support Motorola moto and the Fairphone.