Hacker News

MiniageOS: "Dumbphone" Version of LineageOS

36 points by ashenke 3 days ago | 22 comments

cocoa19 17 minutes ago

For people already owning an iPhone, you can make it a dumb phone if you own a mac.

Turn on iPhone supervised mode (requires factory reset), then create and load a profile with Apple Configurator on macOS.

You can disable installing apps, just certain apps, or just block certain websites. If you want to ban TikTok and Reddit but not give up your banking app, you can do it. You want no browser, you got it.

dwedge 4 hours ago

This is an interesting concept but I think the dumbphone aspect will make people expect something different. It seems like it's more a static digital minimalism setup that you cannot easily undo. I saw someone doing similar by setting up MDM for their iPhone so you couldn't install anything without sending updates from a laptop.

I prefer the MiniageOS method if it's quick enough to refresh when needed. When you say banking isn't supported, I have a couple of banking apps that work on my two phones (AOSP and Graphene), would those still work? There are also a lot of apps that kind of rely on a browser being available even if not accessible (Uber is one but that doesn't work without Google play so whatever, but WiFi captive portals are another). Is there support for that?

a96 3 days ago

> Create a stripped-down "dumbphone" version of LineageOS for your Google Pixel without giving up the camera quality and touchscreen of a smartphone.

Dumb interface for smartphones, unrelated to dumbphones. Not that it was likely to be anything else. Pretty neat.

iAMkenough 5 hours ago

What in your mind makes a dumbphone a dumbphone? I see many for sale with cameras and touchscreens, even app support.

dwedge 4 hours ago

Do you mean the ones running KaiOS? I'm not sure I'd count those as dumbphones they're only dumb because they have limited apps due to popularity (WhatsApp was there but left) and they often have the nokia style design (some with t7). In my opinion a dumb phone is one that might support internet but can't do anything with it except potentially hotspot

iAMkenough 4 hours ago

I’m not sure. From the few articles I’ve now read today, I see there’s a LightOS and WiseOS too.

4thguy 3 days ago

As I read down the readme, I kept saying to myself "ok, that's reasonable," right up until I saw the 300GB free space requirement to build the image. Is that really what is needed to build an image for a phone or is this a one-off?

yjftsjthsd-h 6 hours ago

My understanding is that yes Android build requirements are... significant. Given that a gentoo system can self-host in like <10% of that space, I am somewhat mystified how it got here, but yes that's "normal".

tripdout 4 hours ago

android-latest-release branch (Android 16 QPR2) for lunch target aosp_cf_x86_64_phone-trunk_staging-eng (Cuttlefish emulator):

> du -hs --exclude /aosp/android-latest-release/out /aosp/android-latest-release

132G /aosp/android-latest-release

> du -hs /aosp/android-latest-release/out

127G /aosp/android-latest-release/out

So ~130GB each for the compiled artifacts and the source code. It's heavy, and at times can easily fill 64GB of RAM during the build.

nrclark 5 hours ago

Yes, that's normal for an Android build. Maybe even on the lightweight side as far as build requirements. I agree that it's an absurd about of space.

em3rgent0rdr 3 hours ago

Compiled android once ~10 years ago, remember it taking at least half a day. Really helped me appreciate how many things go into it.

realusername 4 hours ago

Android build system is a heavy Rube Goldberg machine, it's amazing it even works at all

trollbridge 5 hours ago

Building Android is heavy, and so is Chrome.

exe34 5 hours ago

Android uses like 7 build systems and repo is like 50 submodules deep.

codethief 3 hours ago

If you're already using a Pixel, why base your custom, very much stripped down version of Android on LineageOS as opposed to GrapheneOS? From a security perspective, that's insanity.

(I would actually love to see a GrapheneOS-based version of this!)

chasil 5 hours ago

First of all, did you disable the calculator? This app is an amazing feat of intellect, and should be retained due to its fundamental worth of ingenuity.

https://medium.com/@jnebos/the-humble-android-calculator-4f1...

Second, the kernel itself presents attack surfaces. It is important to accept updates, when they are offered.

tomashubelbauer 5 hours ago

I thought this was going to be an OS for actual dumbphones. Had me hoping I would have a reason to dig out my childhood Sony Ericsson W810.

ifh-hn 31 minutes ago

Same here.

LoganDark 3 days ago

> What will not work when using a phone running this build?

> RCS messaging

> (The points above apply to any phone with an unlocked bootloader, including ones running official LineageOS builds)

RCS really depends on attestation now? What the fuck?

cspeterson 3 days ago

Unsure about details, but it must at least not require Google Play attestation because Graphene supports it now

GreenVulpine 5 hours ago

RCS also goes through Google servers. I don't see much point in using it.

Nux 40 minutes ago

You can run your own afaik, but most MNOs prefer to outsource (big surprise here).