southernwolf

southernwolf, 1 year ago

Really, it’s gonna depend on what your top priorities are. I run a Pixel 6 Pro with CalyxOS and I love it. But for you, it depends on whether you really need top security or want to go for a more open and long term design (which may not be entirely beneficial or all that special now).

For the Pixel 8, you’re gonna get much better cameras and more of those “Pixel Features” even when running something like GOS or CalyxOS. Its really nice cause you can even use GBoard and GCam and just firewall them (or however you do the equivalent in GOS), so you get the benefits without the downsides. Though it will be more expensive too.

With Fairphone, you’re gonna get a more open design that likely will last longer. That said, it doesn’t have a top end processor in it, so you have to imagine what it’ll be like in 6-8 years trying to run Android 20. Longevity is nice, but not as helpful if it can’t keep up physically with new releases. Also, with the Pixel 8 line now set to be supported for 8 years, it kinda… Undermines the Fairphone argument somewhat, though not to a huge degree.

Personally, if it were me, I’d choose the Pixel (and also choose CalyxOS as well, but that’s more a personal choice, don’t let the Graphene folks try and sway you with a bunch of FUD. CalyxOS is just fine, but GOS is a good choice too). It will have higher quality hardware, the processor should be able to handle tougher workloads into the future, and I think you’ll quite like the experience.

But, the Fairphone isn’t a bad choice either, and its definitely supporting a better ecosystem overall. It just won’t have as good of cameras and may not run as well a few years down the road, which could be an issue for the longevity. It can also run CalyxOS as well, so you won’t be missing out on using most other normal apps.

Really, it just depends on your use case and priorities. I don’t think you can go absolutely wrong choosing either one though.

southernwolf, 1 year ago

This is absolutely true. The Fairphone kinda gets around this since its got open parts and can be user serviced for most things, but the honest question for that is how many are gonna go to that trouble, not next week when your phone is still new, but 5 years from now? The dedicated certainly will and I commend Fairphone for it, but a lot of average folks with a slower phone are gonna want to upgrade at that point.

southernwolf, 1 year ago

Holy crap, I didn’t know about this fork before now. I kinda thought that OpenBoard was sorta… abandoned at this point, but seeing the improvements from this fork just made me go and try it again. Normally I just use GBoard with it’s connections disabled (CalyxOS, so that is possible to do in a secure way), but trying this out now to see if I can dump Gboard entirely.

southernwolf, 1 year ago

🤘🏻

southernwolf, 1 year ago

Unfortunately for those of us that use Cuda features, AMD just really isn’t that viable of an alternative. Anyone who’s had to deal with ROCM can attest to this…

southernwolf, 1 year ago

OpenSuse Tumbleweed without a doubt!

southernwolf, 1 year ago

While I have little respect for Apple’s overall privacy practices, this sounds a lot like the CCP making something up to scare protesters and dissidents from using AirDrop. There’s no sensible reason they would be advertising such an exploit openly, especially when it could potentially be used to secretly spy on dissidents, protesters, or even used in foreign espionage. Something doesn’t sit right with this.

southernwolf, 1 year ago

10/10 for Voyager, with a shout-out to Eternity too!