The FSFE is running a campaign encouraging people to upcycle old Android devices with free code software. Totally agree with this in principle, but beyond installing F-Droid and using apps installed from there as much as possible, I've found it remarkably hard to do in practice.
@bsmall2 Similar for me. Researching how to hack the ancient mobile devices I have has been well down the priority stack for the last couple of years. It seems like the sort of thing where there's heaps that could be done, but minimal resources available for doing it. It takes hours of specialist work to reverse engineer the proprietary chipsets in most devices and write free code to make other OS work with them, let alone maintain that code over time. Who can afford to do that free of charge?
@bsmall2 Easy for me to carp from the sidelines I know. But the FSF/E seem to mostly work on convincing people it's a good idea to upcycle devices, and often end up preaching to the choir. It occurs to me they might achieve more if they helped coordinate (and get funding) for the work to get more devices supported, make installing replacement OS easier etc.
@strypey Agreed. I'm always willing to jump through some pretty crazy installation hurdles for #FOSS / #privacy, but every phone I've had for the last 7 years or so hasn't had images available from any of the major alt ROMS.It seems like you really have to choose the hardware for the ROM rather than the other way around, which kind of defeats the EFF's whole idea.
And trying, at least, to install F-Droid in old versions of android is a pain.
I thank FSFE good intentions, but right now, I think a breaking point would be to host a permanent set of every ROM possible. Don't know the legal implications, and maybe that's why nobody has done it... Or maybe funding projects like Postmarket OS?
@strypey I looked into upcycling old phones for a while too. If it was as easy as installing GNU/Linux on old machines... But you need specific machines for that ease I think, The old Nexus 5 and Nexus 7s that Ubuntu Touch works with. All the details seemed overwhelming for everything else. It's been a year or two since I looked into it though, maybe things are getting better?