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by 1718627440 263 days ago
These phones seem to have hardware isolation for the privacy sensitive sensors, so this matters less. I the user already use all the GUN programs daily. It would be nice to be able to use them on the phone. Having these in some isolation like Termux, isn't that useful, as I want to use the programs to control my phone. Not sure if ssh -X works on Termux.
1 comments
okanat 262 days ago
Having granular access != no control. On the contrary, I want more control over the apps. There is no benefit to me if my banking app or any other app can also have access to GPS, while I am navigating with a map app. AOSP is much much better in this aspect. Normal desktops are nowhere near. GNU userspace also simply has very litte preparation for this. Creating granular SELinux rules, and then separating each hardware into its own system agent and then isolating them further with various containerization is no small task. GNU userland is still struggling with styling Flatpaks and keeping them performing well and small. Android's frameworks libraries provide a consistent UI with little overhead.

I don't know why you need ssh with Xorg on your phone though? There are ways like scrcpy to control your phone remotely. Apps like KDE Connect on Android already give quite a bit remote control opportunities too. There are open source remoting apps that fit the Android user interface better like RustDesk. If you still want an Xorg running, there is nothing stopping you from encapsulating it in an Android app too.

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1718627440 262 days ago
Yes for most domains encapsulation is fine. It is not fine, if the domain is the device itself. I want to apt update the phone, I want to switch to another kernel on boot, I want to update the firewall from the shell, I want to sync config by rsyncing parts of my home directory. All of these won't work by running an App on top of Google Android, because I want to change the layer below.

> ssh with Xorg

For example to run gufw on the Phone, but access it on my computer? Sure I could also learn to do it in the shell, but it is so damn convenient. Sometimes it's also nice to run an editor directly on the device itself and not run the editor locally on an ssh-mount.

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