Signal is working on a standalone version of its desktop app that does not require a smartphone. Signal Desktop will also gain additional options when used as a linked device.
The usability is nowhere near acceptable with a cellphone for daily usage with either or those options, or with the native client in Waydroid because it’s not persistent if Waydroid is closed.
Signal with anything other than the official client sucks ass. I know, I tried.
And that’s without mentioning that you still need to have the “master” Signal client running on an Android cellphone, which defeats the purpose if you want to ditch Android.
You can use something like signal-cli and the desktop app for basically the same thing.
The usability is nowhere near acceptable with a cellphone for daily usage with either or those options, or with the native client in Waydroid because it’s not persistent if Waydroid is closed.
Signal with anything other than the official client sucks ass. I know, I tried.
And that’s without mentioning that you still need to have the “master” Signal client running on an Android cellphone, which defeats the purpose if you want to ditch Android.
Of the desktop app? The .deb?
The desktop app on a cellphone is unusable, like all desktop apps.
Use a local Matrix bridge.
This new update will not change how the desktop app looks. They’re just copying over the code for the signup flow.
Edit: oh my brain put your and the top level comment together. Sorry.
Not an option. You lose the ability to share photos and videos, which I do constantly with friends and family.
And it’s hellishly Rube Goldberg.
I share photos and videos through my Matrix/Signal bridge all the time just fine.
Calls don’t work but that’s about it.
Okay, I guess it’s gotten more usable since I last looked at it.
But it remains a terrible solution to a problem that only exists because nobody made a port of the mobile Signal to a mobile Linux OS.
Photos have been working for a year now in the Mautrix bridge.
Waydroid seriously doesn’t have persistence? Are you sure there isn’t a setting?
If you close Waydroid in UBPorts, it takes down whatever was running inside it.
It’s a UBPorts thing though: I have am ARM64 laptop running Debian, and Waydroid keeps running in the background in Debian.