• 1 Post
  • 9 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

help-circle
  • I didn’t read all the comments, so someone may have pointed this out already.

    One of the main ideas is probably something like Fedora CoreOS, where the Quadlet systemd files are automatically created during first boot with something like Kickstart or cloud-init.

    Instead of shipping the applications with the image, the OS image can be very minimal, while still being able to run very complex stuff.

    When you add the fact that CoreOS and other atomic distros can update themselves in the background, and boot to an updated base image, the box just needs periodic reboots and everything stays updated and running with basically no interaction from the admin at all, best case.

    Probably not so useful in the self-hosting / homelab context, but I can imagine the appeal on a larger scale.

    I’ve been using Quadlet+Podman kube YAMLs for a while for my own self-hosted services, and it’s pretty rock solid. Currently experimenting with k3s, but I think I’ll soon switch back. Kubernetes is nice, but it’s a lot more fragile for just a single node. And there’s way too much I don’t understand…

    I wrote a couple blog posts about the homelab setup, planning to add more when I have time. Give a read if you’re interested: https://oranki.net/tags/self-hosting-my-way/


  • Nextcloud notes, but the setup isn’t obvious:

    • Create a list with user A
    • Share the list .md file from the Notes folder via regular Nextcloud Files to user B
    • As user B, move the shared note file to the Notes folder in the Files app

    And you have a shared note. The Notes folder refers to the folder containing the user’s note files, not sure what the English name is.

    Not sure how well concurrency is handled, as Notes doesn’t really support sharing, but if it’s for groceries, I doubt it’s a frequent issue. Has been working well for 2 years now.



  • Not a stupid question at all.

    Location is for, well, location specifically. Sensors is a GOS thing, it blocks access to all sensors, like gyro, proximity, ambient light, etc.

    Since it’s not part of AOSP, apps will very likely misbehave if you turn the sensors permission off. That’s why I left it enabled for Play Svcs and GSF, not sure if it’s actually necessary.

    From https://grapheneos.org/usage#bugs-uncovered-by-security-features :

    Similarly, some of the other privacy and security improvements reduce the access available to applications and they may crash. Some of these features are always enabled under the hood, while others like the Network and Sensors toggles are controlled by users via opt-in or opt-out toggles. Apps may not handle having access taken away like this, although it generally doesn’t cause any issues as it’s all designed to be friendly to apps and fully compatible rather than killing the application when it violates the rules.




  • In that case hydroxide-push will work too, which is good news!

    Just note that the IMAP, SMTP and CardDav functions have been stripped out from this push version. If there’s interest to have those too, a different version with the push stuff added on top of full Hydroxide could be made. It will require a bit of time to develop.

    The scope of hydroxide-push is only push notifications for now.


  • I think it does require a paid account, Hydroxide basically acts like the official Proton bridge.

    I haven’t actually tested with a free account, so there’s a chance it does work. When you run the auth command (which is the same as upstream Hydroxide), it will probably throw an error.

    If you have a free account and try this out (or Hydroxide), please report how it goes back here, I’ll add a note to the readme. Upstream doesn’t seem to mention this in their repo either.



  • Not much to comment on the technical side, but quite a bit of things get upstreamed or reported from GrapheneOS. I believe they really know what they’re doing. You can ignore the rest if you don’t care for the general opinion.

    Yes, there’s probably Google code in the sandbox feature, it’s basically the stock Android userland app sandbox. The magic is the compatibility layer that allows Google apps to run as regular userland apps.

    ...

    I bought a Pixel 7a, just so I could try GrapheneOS.

    Installed it straight after unboxing, with Play services. Ended up using it pretty much like any Android phone. Installation is simple using the web installer. On recent versions, even Android Auto works, so the only thing you’re really giving up is NFC payments. Some banking apps may don’t work, but I’m lucky (or rather not unlucky) that the ones I use do. I believe those rare apps are somewhat lazily developed, and rely / trust on Google to do security for them.

    Some months later, I went back to the stock ROM, mostly for comparison. Stock Pixel OS has a lot of appealing features, but most of those are just “nice to have” things. Stayed on stock for a few months, but the plethora of obscure Google “privacy settings” put me back to GrapheneOS, and finally off Google. Reverting to stock was also simple, just as easy as flashing GrapheneOS.

    Now I don’t have Play services at all anymore, and have cleared most Google services (gmail, photos, drive…) so at least not much new data will go there. I do use Google Camera, and have Photos installed since I think the post-processing happens in Photos. Both have network permission denied, which is one of the nicest added features of GrapheneOS. The stock GOS camera is OK, but that’s one thing I think Google does better, though this is a subjective thing.

    The only thing I kind of miss is Google’s find my phone stuff. Even though it’s quite invasive, I have needed it once and it resulted in me getting a lost phone back. A simple solution is not to lose your phone.

    Apart from the per-app network permission, another really nice feature in GrapheneOS are the settings to toggle WiFi and Bluetooth off automatically. Why these are not in any “official” ROM tells a tall tale about how much they care about your privacy. The auto reboot if not unlocked in a while also brings some assurance regarding losing your phone, at least the storage will automatically back in encrypted unlocked state.

    Vanadium might be the best browser I know for Android. Pretty much Chrome without all the things that make Chrome one of the worst browsers. Vanadium’s point is security, privacy (e.g. adblockers) is not the main focus. I’m not sure if there actually even is adblock features bundled nowadays.

    If you want all the nice modern bells and whistles, stay on some other OS. If the benefits above appeal to you, there’s really not much you give up in the end with GrapheneOS. It requires a bit more technical mindset, but not really even technical know-how. I haven’t noticed bugs or broken stuff anywhere, with or without Play services. Android Auto (requires Play services) gets stuck sometimes, but that may also be my low-tier car too.

    The “sandboxed” Google Play refers to the apps running as user installed apps vs the system-wide root-access-to-everything apps they are on stock. The same limitations you can apply to any other app you install apply to GSF apps too. So even if you install Play services, you are severely limiting the scope of data Google gets from you. It’s a solid middle ground between full degoogling and stock OS.

    I’m not even an Android app developer, and will gladly admit technical mistakes. If you want something negative, the vocal minority of GOS users is really vocal and really full of themselves.