I grew to love Linux because I was hating Windows, I don’t hate Windows because I love Linux. And I don’t want to hate Windows, I wish they were slowly becoming anti-user, but they keep adding (forcing) features that are so unfriendly to the user.

Yes. If Windows was still like Windows XP, I don’t know if I would have ever switched. It used to be fun, not soul sucking.

There’s lots of other reasons I’m glad I switched, of course.

I find the windows update and Linux graphical updater processes identical. They only diverge at the end when the Windows one fails with a mysterious error message and offers to retry or open a troubleshooter that won’t work.

Windows arguably is, indeed, two or three different systems stapled together. There’s the C code kernal bits, the .Net runtime higher level bits, and the Electron “this didn’t need to be fast anyway and we only knew how to write JavaScript” bits.

until it came time to install new software.

That is the big giveaway. I used the term “It’s free” too many times when setting up software for them. “I used to have to pay for all of that.”

I always hard code IPv4 addresses. Load balancing and DNS resolution are an admission of weakness.

(This is sarcasm. WTF Steam?)

Linux Mint is so nice.

I would turn off “Secure Boot” in BIOS before doing the upgrade.

It officially works, but can throw in unnecessary challenges - and Mom probably isn’t traveling with national secrets next week anyway.

That’s a pretty good description of what GrapheneOS does with the sandboxed Google services.

I have found that the only apps that don’t work well with Samdboxed Google services are ones that work hard to invasively probe their runtime environment.

Thwy usually fall into these three categories:

• Bank apps that do it “for my safety”. Nevermind that a website version exists for attackers to target without the same (dubious, invasive) “protections”.
• Streaming apps that do it “because this paid subscriber might be some kind of dark web pirate and we need to protect our content from being uploaded to the dark web one more time.”
• Apps whose developers are shitty at writing code for memory management. But GrapheneOS has good options to allow these to run, anyway.

That looks like exactly what I’m looking for in my next phone. Thanks.

Do you have access to credit unions?

The GrapheneOs team is quite particular about hardware.

I would gladly purchase a phone that came preloaded with LineageOS.

“Better than we have now.” often wins over waiting for perfection.

CoMaps is quite nice.

There are also still companies selling navigation devices that mount in a car windshield, assuming the car doesn’t already have one built in.

Pro tip - those navigation devices also often have an accident camera that records if it feels an impact - which is a good idea anyway.

GMS apps work fine. The only ones that don’t work are ones that act invasively enough to notice they are sandboxed and disable themselves.

Mostly bank apps. Which is irritating, since they all have mobile friendly websites that work fine without needing to know my location and everything else about my phone.

Google has made it extremely hard to degoogle.

Just remember that there are no nice reasons why they are working this hard to keep your phone captive.

We can argue about how bad it will get, but there’s only worse things coming from this effort.

Yes. Web apps existed before JavaScript.

While you can setup a second profile to put the Google services into, I don’t recommend it.

The version of Google Services on GrapheneOS thinks it has root, but it does not.

So there’s no dramatic need to setup a second profile, unless you want it for other reasons.

I personally think the second profile feature is one of the things people think they want/need from GrapheneOS, but really are happier without.

(Sure it’s safer, but GrapheneOS is already so much better than other mobile OSes - and I hate to see someone quit GrapheneOS just because they didn’t like the optional profiles.)

An exception I have seen is for apps mandated for a job. I’m happy to bury that stuff deep.

That amused me, too.

I think it plays fine for the intended audience, though.

For the folks looking into Anubis, that line plays well - because hosting costs are driven up by the kinds of spam bot visits that Anubis slows down.

a) I would not be driving a car with my child in it if I was so tired that I would forget I had a child. The fuck?

I hope you’re thankful for a lifestyle where you have that option. We should all strive to build a world where everyone does.

Pen and paper is great for whenever I can’t get my hands on a chisel and rock wall.

This is the way.

I’m sorry you went through that. I’m glad you got your trapper keeper, though. Your mom made the right call.