cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/34022186
I own 2 bloated proprietary devices and don’t use them for anything important, like banking or dealing with authorities. I also don’t trust the manufactures not selling my data.
Id like to have a working device with no bloatware and completely degoogled. Ironically I’d have to buy something made by google to run GrapheneOS on it. Intended use would be to use as a camera, to run CoMaps on it, pkpass files with foss-wallet, reading epubs, making phone calls and running one aurora app.
I don’t need the device to play games, watch movies, show off or to play loud music, but I’d like a jack port for my headphones (I assume google headphones would cease to work if I degoogle the device, nor would I want to spend more than necessary enriching that data grabber even more.
Is there a pixel device with a jack port?
Are batteries inside pixel devices glued to the frame or can they be easy to change?
My main OS is debian. How easy is to transfer data from GrapheneOS to debian and the other way round?
Overall if you run GrapheneOS on a pixel, how many years running it and what do you think about it?
Not that still has security updates? Something to note is that gOS stops supporting pixels after security updates stop, so factor that into your decision. I use a qudelix-5K bluetooth adapter which has excellent sound (and balanced and onboard equalizer, flawless 96Khz/32bit LDAC from my pixel 7, also doubles as a USB DAC), it’s expensive but after 2 years I still think it’s one of my best recent tech purchases.
I had to replace mine and chose to use an iFixit kit, first foray into glued repair and while fraught it went fine. Removal wasn’t that bad, there’s a plastic strip under the battery to help get the bastard out.
Syncthing.
2 odd years in and it works great for a similar use case to yours (music [PowerAmp, paid], books [Moon Reader, paid], maps [still on Organic], notes [joplin], camera [google], web - ironfox, mail [proton]). Network deny permission is a godsend, most things on Google Play Store can be installed (even paid will usually work, but some use more aggressive checking) and then you can uninstall the Play store and services and deny network to anything that might call home and everything just works, including full google camera (see my history for details). A bit of onboarding hassle finding replacements, but well worth it, updates happen a lot more often than you are used to, but it’s a good pain. I also have a second user with full Google play and a few other apps, but I can’t remember when I last spun it up, good training wheels for adaption.