[mkettn]

What about the software side? Fairphone 3 supports Android 9, Fairphone 2 supports Android 7. I see no use in a smartphone with replaceble hardware parts if I cannot install at least security patches for my phones OS on the long run.

[xorcist]

Fairphone has had very solid software support. It is together with Nexus and Oneplus the hardware most enthusiasts choose, so there is a functioning community around it.

It is not only well supported in LineageOS, but also most alternative phone OSes such as UBports (Ubuntu Touch), Sailfish and postmarketOS have or have had people actively using the hardware.

It's quite a good track record considering the Fairphone 2 is already twice the age the minimum software update guarantee from Google for their own hardware.

[freehunter]

Absolutely not. I don't download Windows updates from "enthusiasts" or "the community", and I don't consider community security patches to be "solid software support".

There's nothing wrong with LineageOS and I'm not criticizing their work. They do a great job keeping phones supported past the time when manufacturers have dropped support. But the Android community is far too willing to trust ROMs downloaded from forums that include who-knows-what and calling it "solid software support".

Solid software support is updates from the manufacturer, the company I originally trusted to provide updates when I bought the phone. If I have to rely on the work of people who once called themselves "Team Douche" [1] because the company who released the original software has stopped support, I'm not considering that "solid software support".

[1] https://www.talkandroid.com/16074-modders-round-table-with-t...

[rossy]

You don't download Windows updates from your laptop manufacturer either (unless you have a Surface.)

Comparing LineageOS with the custom ROMs on XDA really misrepresents their professionalism. LineageOS development does not take place on XDA. It takes place on their own infrastructure like any other high-quality open source operating system. Builds are made from public sources and signed by their build server (they definitely don't just include "who-knows-what.") They ship security patches faster than any manufacturer (except Google,) and I don't see any reason not to trust them as much as or more than your manufacturer. LOS-supported phones are well supported.

[freehunter]

>You don't download Windows updates from your laptop manufacturer either

True, but that's a minor difference. The normal way to get Android OS updates is through your device manufacturer, like the normal way to get Windows updates is from Microsoft. The normal way to get Windows updates is not from a torrent found on some random forum, and that's not the normal way to get Android updates either.

>Comparing LineageOS with the custom ROMs on XDA really misrepresents their professionalism

I agree and that's why I said I'm not calling them out... but again they're not the normal way to get OS updates. It's out-of-band and while LineageOS may be professional, it's not professional to have to abandon the normal update mechanism just to continue to receive OS updates.

LineageOS is still community support, and community support is not "solid software support". It's community support.

[rossy]

What's normal shouldn't really matter. If anything, the "normal" way of receving Android updates from your manufacturer is kind of bad. I bet if laptops followed the same model, you'd see exactly the same things, like late security updates and devices losing support after two-three years. In general, I think I'd rather see my OS distributed by people who make software rather than people who make hardware.

> I agree and that's why I said I'm not calling them out

You kind of are. You've mentioned that you don't want to download OS updates from forums a number of times in response to people mentioning LineageOS, but official LOS ports are not distributed through forums (or torrents for that matter.) You also brought up an old, somewhat embarrassing name that their development team apparently used to call themselves. It seems a lot like you're trying to discredit them.

[freehunter]

I'm not calling out Lineage as bad, I'm calling them out as unofficial community support, which I am saying is not "strong software support". Lineage is not distributed through forums but Lineage is a fork of CyanogenMod which got its start... being distributed through forums. From some random group of people who chose to use an embarrassing name. Lineage would not exist today if CyanogenMod hadn't been so popular. And the Android software update process was so broken that people had no choice but to download this software, distributed on a forum, from a group of people who willingly chose a wildly unprofessional name for themselves. Does that sound normal? Does that sound okay? Is any other OS distributed in this fashion?

I'm not trying to discredit Lineage. I'm trying to discredit the Android software update process. Lineage makes it better but it is not strong software support if you have to rely on the community to deliver out-of-band security updates.

Lineage is better than nothing, but only because the current Android update process is so broken. If Android was any other OS, getting updates from the hardware manufacturer or the community would both be laughed at. This process only seems normal on Android because the Android update process is so hopelessly broken because the original software vendor refuses to distribute their own updates.

[tracker1]

But Debian images are from enthusiasts and the community. Also, your windows updates don't come from HP, and they often break things. Lineage isn't much different than most Linux distributions.

My guess is maybe you'd be happier with an iThing.

[secondtom]

Conflating LineageOS with forum sourced ROMs is FUD, and the vast majority of servers are run on software from the efforts of the "the community".

[freehunter]

>Conflating LineageOS with forum sourced ROMs is FUD

Nonsense. CyanogenMod started off as a forum-sourced ROM on XDA just like anything else [1]. It may have grown beyond that, but only because people blindly trusted it and installed it on their phones 10 years ago, and XDA is still distributing hacked ROMs in the exact same fashion today.

[1] https://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=537204

[CDSlice]

You mean the community of companies that pay people to work on Linux? Most people working on it today aren't volunteers

[jsingleton]

I'd say a Fairphone is better supported than a Nexus (no experience with Oneplus). For example, the Nexus 5 is no longer supported, even by lineage (https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/hammerhead/), although they do say:

> A build guide is available for developers that would like to make private builds, or even restart official support.

Edit: I should add that although I've already ordered my Fairphone 3 I've not had a chance to actually test it out yet. If anyone is interested I can post a 25 EUR discount referral link?

[johnday]

I currently use the Oneplus One, ie the first phone they brought out, 5 years ago. It still has lineageOS support.

[Woberto]

I'd be interested! Thinking of getting one even though I'm in the US, I've heard with tmobile you can get 3g which is aight

[jsingleton]

http://fairphone.refr.cc/jamess

I'm not sure they are supported in the US but it looks like you are well aware of that.

[opan]

The Nexus 5 is one of the best supported devices for running postmarketOS right now.

[tgsovlerkhgsel]

Does it receive real security updates (i.e. all the CVEs that are supposed to be fixed by that patch level are actually fixed), or "whatever we can reasonably fix" updates where e.g. the kernel is left on an outdated version without fixes because the fixes never got backported and upgrading the kernel is impossible due to limited support from e.g. the SoC vendor?

https://www.wired.com/story/android-phones-hide-missed-secur...

[Brakenshire]

Is that really support throughout the stack? I understand they can provide userland updates, but kernel and driver updates? I’m not sure it’s possible for anyone apart from the chip manufacturer to do that, unless the drivers are open source.

[joecool1029]

That Fairphone 2 fully supports Android 9 officially on LineageOS: https://download.lineageos.org/FP2

[alerighi]

Sure, but we are not talking about custom ROMs, but rather official support from the manufacturer.

[AWildC182]

That's like saying that you insist on using the Windows XP image that came with your laptop forever and will only update through the vendor rather than just installing the latest Ubuntu image.

We really need to stop giving a fuck about manufacturer images and demand that the industry ceases to lock bootloaders so we don't have to wait on them to update anything.

[pedrocr]

Unlocked bootloaders everywhere would be nice but there are already manufacturers that give you that across the range. The big issue is that none of the drivers are upstream so even with LineageOS you're stuck on and old and often unpatched kernel. When a new Android version comes around it's common for support to be dropped for devices. Right now there's no Ubuntu-like experience with Android. Get a Pixel or an Android One phone if you care at all about security and access to new Android versions.

[wolfgke]

> The big issue is that none of the drivers are upstream

Demand from the Linux kernel developers that the internal APIs for drivers are kept stable for a much longer time.

[freehunter]

No, it's like saying I want to get Windows Updates from Microsoft and not some random person on a forum. It would be great if Google published a full Android release that worked on all phones and had the manufacturer's best experience in mind, but they don't. So the next closest thing, the company I choose to put my trust in, is the maker of the phone. The company who originally installed the OS in the first place.

I want updates from a company who can be held accountable. Not some random ROM from XDA.

[mattkevan]

I bought one of the second batches of the first Fairphone - I love the idea and the phone was great for a proof of concept, but it was disappointing to find it was never going to be upgraded beyond Android 4.4.

It kind of broke the promise of repairable, sustainable hardware if the chipset provider obsoleted the device through lack of updates in less than a year of ownership.

While 4.4 wasn't brilliant, I could have continued on with it - but I was uncomfortable using such an increasingly insecure OS.

[vanderZwan]

FP2 still gets Android security patches - the main problem by now is that the drivers for the hardware are not properly updated to Android 7 (due to the manufacturer not providing any updates)

[jsingleton]

And that's better than even Google's own devices. Old Nexus models don't get patches any more.

[sct202]

In one way, but the comparably aged Nexus 5X at least got updated to Android 8.1 while the Fairphone 2 is still on 7.1

[Fnoord]

The Fairphone 2 can run Android 9 via LineageOS. The official versions (the one with and the one without OpenGapps) still get security updates. Can you say the same about Nexus 5X with Android 8.1?