Linux Mobile Intensifies
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Is it possible to get NewPipe on regular desktop Linux?
Amazing to see newpipe on my desktop but wow, over a gigabyte of flatpak trash downloaded. Android app is 12MB for comparison.
Similar apps:
- Pipeline 8 mb
https://flathub.org/apps/de.schmidhuberj.tubefeeder
- VacuunTube 114 mv
https://flathub.org/apps/rocks.shy.VacuumTube
- Parabolic 114 mb
https://flathub.org/apps/org.nickvision.tubeconverter
Looks like the NewPipe flatpak is very unoptimized compared to what others are doing.
Yeah, but are those Android apps? My understanding is that this Flatpak contains not an emulator, but like a lightweight version of android and the dependencies. That's going to take up a lot of extra space.
It's not that Newpipe is that big, it's that flatpak needs to download a 15th copy of the Gnome environment and one more copy of Platform.GL
Tangentially related but since they mentioned TVs, are there any ways to flash smart TVs with something barebones? Not just "use pi hole and host jellyfin" but like... actually get rid of all the bloatware. Mines starting to slow down and I have a feeling its mostly that garbage corporate software it came with.
Not really, no.
If the TV is running Android you could do some trickery to (maybe) disable the bloat apps, but actually flash a new OS? No.
Developing a third party OS for a closed device like this is super hard, and there's so many millions of TV models, the developers with the skill to do it end up focusing their time on other devices instead.
I'd recommend looking into a TV box appliance of some sort.
Some of those OSes are pretty integrated with the TV's features, like picture processing, input settings and such, so I can envision that being problematic.
I know it feels like I waste, but I think factory resetting it, airgapping it and using some external device is the way.
I run several of the dynalink and onn boxes and works great for me.
It's best to never connect a "smart" TV directly to the internet. Bloat and updates to the software will inevitably cause what you mentioned. It's almost intentionally planned obsolescence.
A Android box, Raspberry Pi, or apple tv, or small pc would be the way to go IMO any day of the week.
With Google attempting to further lockdown Android, the time is ripe for Linux Mobile. Projects like this can help make it a viable alternative.
Thank you so much to everyone working on this!
Was just gonna say this. I'm currently using GrapheneOS and am concerned about how long my pixel 8a will last with Google being such assholes. But if this app can solve the issue of not having android, then I'd definitely switch to a Linux phone (with further research of course).
Graphene is working with a major phone Maker and will be releasing a Graphene compatible phone in 1-2 years
I've heard, which would be mega awesome when it does come out. Maybe I wouldn't have to fight RCS so hard lol. Unfortunately this Pixel 8a I used is only a year old, so getting a new phone in 1-2 years seems like a waste. But if Google goes nuclear in a few years, it's either Graphene hardware, Linux phone, or dummy...
I refuse to go back to Apple, and I didn't come to GrapheneOS just to go back to stock Android.
I'm on a pixel 8 with GrpaheneOS and was hoping not to have to worry until 2027 or whenever the updates end. I would hope the devs at least consider a few years of updates for pixels after they release a me wphone but I guess time will tell.
Genuine question, how do you do banks and Netflix on your phone?
Both apps and others with similar paranoia are my biggest hold ups for rooting or custom ROMs. And nope, laptop is not an option for me, I spend too many work hours on it.
I don't use official streaming apps, I basically pirate everything on a Fire stick TV. Idk if anyone has reported issues with them on GOS. Some of my banking apps work, others don't. I just do the ones that don't work online in browser instead, I feel like it shouldn't be a problem tbh.
If you need tap to pay/Google wallet then you unfortunately can't use GOS due to not being approved by Google or smth. Like SafetyNet issues or smth.
Source? Just wondering if this is from an official announcement or rumors
I'm hoping the camera is at least on par with the pixels. I don't take many photos but when I do I'd like to maximize quality
You should be fine on gOS for 6 yrs+, which is how long google promised to keep up with security updates. The device tree (think hardware drivers), which is what google removed with pixel 10 is what is causing grief, is already there for lower pixels. Unless, of course, google comes up with some new fuckery to invalidate the usability of the security updates (pray I don't alter the deal further...)
I'm afraid with how insecure mobile networks are, modem manufacturers will never dare to open or document their mobile drivers to Linux. And we'll continue to be stuck in this perfectly controlled and planned scenario.
Ideally, the cellular modem just looks like a network device and usb sound card to the OS. Jail it as much as possible.
also networks. on my network i can't use volte or 5g with a google pixel 5 because they did not "certify" that.
They "certify" a handful of samsung + the iphones, no fairphone and they would absolutely never "certify" stuff like the pinephone, if they could i think they would even blacklist their whole IMEI range
It's really more like the Android apocalypse is looming. We have 11 months and some change before android phones get locked down like Apple.
It would likely increase adoption of the OS on people's computers too.
This would be a game changer, like how Steam brought games to Linux, that could bring mobile apps to Linux.
I wish Linux mobile becomes a real option soon
Steam could make this happen faster if more of their user base requested the ability to play (x86 compatible) Android games on their Deck.
The Android dev kit includes a copy of QEMU that's set up to emulate ARM with a selection of popular screen sizes and revisions of the OS, so that you can test your app on a variety of 'potential phones' before you upload it to the marketplace. Snapdragons are amazingly performant CPUs for how gently they sip at the battery, but they're not that strong in the big scheme of things - any random x86 processor should be able to emulate them while using fifty times the power. A Steam deck ought to be able to do it; the request will then be 'we'd like to play Android games better', which to me is a much more reasonable ask.
You can just open an apk file with this tool; apps don't need to be integrated with it. It's just that the implementation is far from complete and most apps will not work (correctly) right now.
Oh good to know! If you've tried it with any specific apps this way, would love to hear which ones work well and in what ways.
Just to point out a potential misunderstanding: NewPipe devs did not use ATL to move it over, the developers of ATL chose NewPipe as the first app and extend the tool around getting more features of NewPipe to work
I've been following this since the initial Newpipe Linux flatpak release. I find it more exciting than Waydroid even though Waydroid is way more functional today
my Plasma Bigscreen Linux TV Box
Nice! What distro are you on? Or did you compile it yourself?
FYI, as well if you're looking for a good remote for a GNU/Linux TV box (or Android, Windows, etc), this remote is the best one I've tried from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.ca/Backlit-Keyboard-Backlight-Learning-Voogoo/dp/B09Z2X4WGB
I'm currently using a Raspberry Pi with their Debian based OS. It is on Bookworm, but there are major improvements to Plasma Bigscreen on QT6. They didn't make the updates before it was removed for Trixie, and Trixie is still in beta for Raspberry Pi, so doing an in place upgrade for the OS and compiling Plasma Bigscreen for it to see the improvements.
I think Manjaro (which works well on mobile too) has the latest one in their repos, and the KDE ARM OS may have it too if you want to try it without compiling it.
I want to see how difficult it is to drop in OVOS/Neon modules to replace Mycroft ones for voice control too.
How did you get Plasma Bigscreen? Last time I checked it said that it was "still in development" and the website didn't provide any builds.
what about waydroid? I'm thinking of installing chimera linux with phosh as a de, and for the apps I was thinking mostly linux programs and maybe some android apps with waydroid, but I'll also try this!
There's some good potential here for sure. I use a project called Sober to run Roblox on my Linux PC, which runs the Android version. It works incredibly well.
Oh man, this is great news! I'm waiting for a couple more to make it, and I'm off the megatrain!
The newpipe flatpak port uses this: https://flathub.org/apps/net.newpipe.NewPipe
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