It took over twenty years just for Linux to enter the conversation at the enthusiast level, it took a lot, and I do mean a lot, of enshittification on Microsoft’s part and decades of campaigning by free software ideologues for us to get to this point, and if Windows still worked like Windows 7 we still wouldn’t be anywhere close.

OpenBSD is super niche relative to FreeBSD, which is super niche relative to Linux. I don’t even know if it was built for desktop use, or if it happens to be usable as one thanks to Linux DEs being compatible so long as they don’t heavily depend on Linux specific stuff. Though I guess it can be a desktop OS in the most conservative sense of that term even without all that stuff.

Ubuntu had issues with it’s snap store as well. I think there will be more security oriented distros in the future like Kodachi, but it’s best to be cautious in general these days.

Not for long, Linux will get targeted like this as it becomes more popular. It’s more of an argument for OpenBSD if anything, since OpenBSD will never be popular on desktop and it’s developers take security very seriously.

What game is that?

I try to degoogle the best I can. When I was shopping for a new phone I went with Xiaomi because those phones used to be famous for their community support, but it seems like those days have passed. Once I discovered that I looked for alternatives that are available where I live and saw they weren’t any better, so I went with Xiaomi anyway.

Until I manage to move to EU and buy a Fairphone using a private, open source smartphone OS won’t be possible.

Celeste is a good contender, Hades II as well.

I don’t see what would be the value in that anymore. I didn’t use a phone with a physical keyboard in a while but I think a virtual 3x3 keyboard would be more comfortable.

Why not both? Android is open source, an organization can hardfork it if there is demand for it.

That doesn’t say much honestly. Three was a repurposed generic military shooter, four showed potential but fell short (maybe they fixed it since then).

I think the number of games ported over from the 16 bit era gives that impression. GBA didn’t even get it’s own Mario game, they just released the All-Stars versions of classic games, which I get was super cool at the time but still.

But yes, GBA was a very capable machine. GBA could run Doom with a smooth framerate, SNES couldn’t. Not to mention the stuff like Driv3r, Asterix or even GTA Advance.

From what I hear an HDR OLED loaded up with Sony Megatron and CRT beam simulator can get very close.

I really hope this project succeeds. Having an upgradable, mostly opes source phone would be amazing.

I think this is an exaggeration. Smartphones are one of the greatest inventions in human history, the problem is corporate control, the actual device is amazing.

I have a smartphone, just like there is no more need for a dedicated music player and a portable game console, I can play games and music on this as much as I want. A question popped into my head? I can look it up immediately. Love reading books? You now have effectively infinite space for them and don’t need to carry them around, trying to make sure they don’t get damaged. Want to watch a movie or a series? You got it. You even used to be able use it as a VR viewer! How cool is that?

If you suffered from social media addiction and just can’t use the device without risking a relapse I can sympathize with that. But that’s big tech’s fault, nothing necessitates smartphones being that way apart from corporate desire for infinite wealth.

Most of the world will not have access to phones that put freedom first, but if you have access to them they can remind you how amazing these things actually are.

If you can’t access an open Android phone, at this point there is no reason to consider anything other than an iPhone. It’s very expensive, yes, but it will be supported for years to come.

Switching to a feature phone depends on whether you can leave some smartphone usecases behind in favor of a feature phone’s benefits. I use my phone to read books and study my lessons with a stylus. I can let gaming go, it would suck but I can buy a portable console in the worst case scenerio. But those two are important. Banking is another one, even if I showed to the bank in person they direct you to use the app anyway. Which is cool, you get stuff done quickly but it sucks for cases like this.

No, X7 Pro has a Mediatek chip so there are no official roms for it, and I didn’t want to risk buying an older phone just for custom rom support since it’s possible to brick your phone if you mess up the installation.

They should copy the touch controls setup uf Magic Dosbox. Infact, every emulator with touch controls should do that.

In theory yes, in practice there is also the matter of your currency’s buying power and import taxes. I would know, when PinePhone was first coming out I looked into it to see if I could get one. And yes I could, except it would come at the price of an iPhone. The tax and IMEI unlocking fee quadrupled the price.

It would be less bad with laptop or desktop since there is no IMEI fee, and there are some workarounds you can employ but it’s still a pain.

I don’t believe those will be accessible for people outside of Western markets.

Yes there are, 90% can’t run Linux. And PCs built to specificly run Linux will only be available to Western markets, everyone else will be stuck with whatever corpos put out because they will be excluded by the weak currencies they use and in some cases also by prohibitive import taxes.

Once ARM on PC takes off it’s over.