Getting the source code is only one piece of the puzzle, before you do that, have you checked if the bootloader is unlockable? Because if you can’t unlock the bootloader then there’s no point trying to get the kernel sources.
You should also bear in mind that if you unlock the bootloader, you’d be degrading Widevine to L3, which means the video quality of Netflix and other streaming services would be downgraded to SD. One of the main reasons why people buy these TV boxes (instead of using a Raspberry Pior something) is to watch streaming services - but unlocking the bootloader breaks the DRM, which would defeat the whole point (IMO) - unless you don’t plan on using those services?
The ability to unlock the bootloader is actually irrelevant in this case. I want the source code because it is my right. I might find away to boot custom code or I may not. Either way I still want the sources to study at least.
As for streaming services I use Jellyfin so its not a big deal.
The ability to unlock the bootloader is actually irrelevant in this case. I want the source code because it is my right. I might find away to boot custom code or I may not.
And what will you do with it exactly? Without unlocking the bootloader, it’s basically useless. You should concentrate your efforts on seeing if you can unlock the bootloader first.
Either way I still want the sources to study at least.
There wouldn’t be anything interesting about those sources, except the binary blobs/DTB. Unless you’re expecting to find some malware or something. If you’re really interested in studying the kernel/Android sources, you can always head to source.android.com or kernel.org. There are also more interesting sources over at LineageOS and GrapheneOS.
As for streaming services I use Jellyfin so its not a big deal.
Then why did you even bother buying this box? You’d have been better off using a Raspberry Pi or some HTPC, where you could load any opensource distro or even easily compile your own, and have a far greater deal of flexibility and freedom.
I want the source code because it is my right. If you don’t use your rights you will lose them. As for the boot loader unlocking I will need to study the device for vulnerabilities to see if I can get around the normal hardware security. With any luck I might just be able to find a security hole.
You don’t want to max out your ram with running applications, modern operating systems are designed to have several gigabytes of cached stuff in the memory next to your applications. You will be experiencing less than Ideal performance (and in some cases, quite abysmal performance) if your application usage is brushing up against your capacity.
A good rule of thumb is when you’re running your heaviest task, you probably still want at least a quarter of your RAM “free” (free memory is not unused).
If you’re specced at 16GB and the most you’re doing is zoom plus a couple of web pages, then you might be cool for the next couple of years, but I’d not recommend someone buy a new computer with that amount today as software inevitably gets heavier and a new computer shouldn’t only last a few years
Bro, I bought my current MacBook Pro in 2014 with 16 GBs of RAM for “future proof” how is that 10 years later that is the “bare minimum” right now?
I don’t do anything heavy but tend to let lots of apps run in the background and never close my tabs of Firefox and I never get to use that much RAM, even nowadays, sometimes I also add Parallels running Windows 10 lol.
::: spoiler So Flash memory works in blocks called pages. The pages contain a header that ends in a few bytes that says what the rest of the page maps to.
If the file was encrypted, you’re probably SOL. If it was not encrypted it may be possible to to recover some parts of the files. This is extremely advanced level data recovery. I only know the abstract basic principals and would likely struggle to figure this out and recover my own stuff if I ever needed to do this. I’ve only programmed microcontrollers and flash memory devices.
A micro SD card contains a small microcontroller and some blocks of flash memory, although the microcontroller is transparent to the user and operating system… unless hacking with needle probes in a lab.
So here’s the basics. Writing flash involves taking an entire Page of memory and zeroing it first. There is a tiny voltage booster circuit on the card that allows the page to get pulsed up and down in voltage a few times in order to completely zero the entire page without any remaining residuals. Once this is done and the entire page has been zeroed, only then is it possible to write the data into the bytes of the page.
If you want to change a single byte level value in an address that already contains a value, first the entire page is copied to a blank page in another location, then the old page is pulsed a few times, then each value is transferred back into the old page except that the new value that needed to be changed is now set to the new values.
This is the proper way to write flash at a basic level. If the power is lost in the middle of this cycle, the worst case scenario is that the new updated value was not written. The page in question should never be “missing” because the header record should always point to either the original or copied page. One of the two should always be present and complete… in a proper setup. Obviously, it might be faster to simply use some RAM to hold the page, erase the old page and rewrite it. I have no idea what size pages are in modern SD cards, but on hobby class microcontrollers I have used the pages were 4096 bytes, IIRC. My understanding is that most SD cards use an 8051 clone micro, so it is probably a similar size.
So here’s the thing, the bulk of the data is always there. Somewhere deep down inside you likely already knew this. It is why you’re supposed to overwrite an entire drive instead of the “quick” erase in most formatting tools. The quick erase is simply deleting a tiny header file that says what exists where on the drive. Similarly, some part of your SD card there is a page or few where the header has been screwed up. Your OS is looking at this header info and seeing a mismatch of garbled junk and saying f-that bs.
Generally, recovery would involve dumping the raw contents of the flash memory as hexadecimal, being super familiar with what you’re looking at and knowing how to find the page that is causing the error. Generally I assume you’d need to replace the bad page with a good header and it would then work. There are services for this kind of operation; data recovery. In practice, this has a few more layers of complication. Pages can be placed in different locations that enable wear leveling so one area of memory is not over utilized. There is also a table of bad blocks/pages that the micro knows to skip, and there is usually a bit or address in the page that is used to detect errors that may have occurred.
This is pretty much everything I know on the subject. Hopefully it helps you understand the abstract nature of what is happening. In the simplest of terms, flash memory is like writing a long essay with an ink pen and where you can not make mistakes or use whiteout. If you need to make a change, you must write out the entire page all over again. This process is what is so time critical that you must “eject” the drive.
Honestly, I never understood what the sharkey instance was even supposed to be. It looked extremely counter-intuitive to me. No idea what I was even supposed to do there,
I seek out phones with audio jacks. My current Moto G Power 2020 has one and I use it all the time. No dongles or adapters in the car or on various headphones. Plus I actually use the FM Radio built into the phone and that uses the wire for the headphones as an antenna. I just cut off some old earbuds and plug that in, then direct the audio to either the phone speaker itself or BT.
ColorOS is the culprit, that’s some bullshit they’ve been pushing on their Chinese OPPO phones, and it’s pure cancer.
Install the original OxygenOS. I’m running the Indian ROM and the only bloat was their RedCable Club or something (OnePlus own benefit program for India) and a cricket live ticker. Removed both via adb and now it’s great.
In the US many people do. Not so much outside of it. Personally I’ve wanted a truck ever since I was a kid and saw one plowing snow from our parking lot. Now I have one and I LOVE it.
Awesome recap. Telegram dev channels and xda used to be a place to spread the message so that users would pressure the company to fulfill their gpl duty.
On a side note Fuck Asus for screwing bootloader unlocking for the zenfone.
I’ve got 6GB in my phone. It’s been plenty for me even though Android eats half of it. The most resource intensive thing I do is use Firefox with a few tabs open though.
I can’t believe how bloated Android has gotten. My first Android tablet only had 256MB and it ran fine on that. Now my phone uses 3 times more memory than my desktop at boot.
Just for the sake of correctness: phones almost definitely do have virtual memory, that's how any modern memory allocation works. You probably meant swap files/partitions.
I was under impression Linux uses the term swap partition (or swap file if it's in a file which is much less common) while Windows calls them either swap files or paging files. Looks like you're right and Windows uses these terms interchangeably.
I had a 4GB phone and after an update, processes were constantly swapping or closing because I was bouncing off the limit. I later got a 6GB phone and I was able to get multiple updates and run more programs without any issues.
The fact that the whole phone is a unit is both absurd and stupid. It makes it nearly impossible to repair or replace anything but the screen. I cannot even remember how many phones I have been forced to recycle due to the fact that the battery no longer hold charge over time.
Storage might not be a big thing, most of us probably use cloud storage, but I don’t want cloud storage with a subscription fee, when it would be easier (and cheaper) to have storage directly in my phone.
I’m going to say it - fuck bluetooth! Every day it’s: will it connect? Do I have to re-pair? Is the sound really coming out of my headphones only or do everyone around me here what I hear?
You don’t need to pay a subscription fee for cloud storage when it’s super simple to host your own, and Android allows the mounting of different filesystems too.
SMB on a rasp pi + cheapo storage + Tailscale, all the way to paying £$€ for a dedicated NAS enclosure with as much storage as you can afford also with Tailscale?
Yup, fuck subscription fees.
You also can then use the corporate cloud storage providers like G/ProtonDrive etc to use their free offerings for off site backup of the most important data.
Amen! The only thing keeping me from upgrading from my Note 20 Ultra is the lack of options for SD card slots! The idea of having to pay a premium for storage each time I upgrade my device is insulting and terrible for personal finances. And with all the recent headlines about cloud storage being hacked, or how it was inaccessible, I wouldn’t trust it even if I always had access to an internet connection (which I don’t always have, especially when out and about).
Hell, they could upcharge this “feature” and have it available only on the Ultra models to help justify the exhorbitant cost and I would pay it.
Counter argument: I get frustrated when people complain about the lack of SD card and headphone jack on every phone that doesn’t have those. I get it some people really want those features but do they really expect manufacturers to add them after they’ve gone? Sony’s the only manufacturer that changed course and they only did it because they’re a niche brand with an audience that appreciates those features.
I feel it’s foolish to expect someone like Google to suddenly change their mind because someone on the internet said they wouldn’t buy their phones without those features. They’ve not had expendable storage on any Nexus or Pixel phone except for the Nexus One and the jack has been gone since the Pixel 2. I know the A series had it longer but it’s been two generations since it’s disappeared from there as well.
For whatever it’s worth, I would like to have the headphone jack personally but it’s not a dealbreaker if it’s not there. Don’t care about the SD card and wouldn’t use it anyways since it’s extremely slow compared to internal storage and I’ve had a bad experience when I’ve used it on previous phones when it got corrupted and I lost a significant amount of pictures. Didn’t use it for apps because I knew it would result in slower load times so was really disappointed when it got corrupted. I’m not the only one who thinks this way, app developers hate the SD card too. Linus Sebastian also said that someone in the industry said it has gone away because of performance concerns.
Note: this isn’t aimed at you, it’s just a rant against the “no SD card, no 3.5 mm, no buy” crowd that always posts those comments whenever some phone doesn’t have it.
That's not really a counter argument, you're just complaining about people talking about hardware features they want in a thread about...hardware features we want.
A counter argument would elaborate on why these features aren't relevant anymore, but you didn't include that. A counter argument would offer superior alternatives that should be used instead of SD cards or 3.5mm jacks, but you didn't include any of those. A counter argument would have addressed the initial arguments of cloud storage being an unnecessary expense and a wired jack being more reliable than Bluetooth, yet you didn't do that either.
Every thread about hardware has at least one guy bitching that phones should still have 3.5mm jacks and expandable storage, but the guy whining about him is just as consistent. Congratulations, you're a different layer of the exact problem you're complaining about.
My comment mentioned why the SD card was removed. To paraphrase Linus, they’re the cheapest form of NAND storage and are extremely unreliable. When they fail, the average consumer blames the phone and not the cheap SD card they put into it. I’m not a fan of cloud storage but most people do not need anything other than the base variant now since it comes with 128 GB out of the box. Some manufacturers are even offering 256 GB.
I also mentioned that I’d like having the jack but it’s not a dealbreaker that it’s gone. Also doubt we would have seen as much progress with truly wireless earbuds if more manufacturers did not remove the headphone jack. I know some people detest them and think they’re a cash grab but they’re a game changer when it comes to exercising and moving around. However I’ll agree that removing the jack also opened another revenue stream for manufacturers which could be construed as a cash grab.
Additionally I stated my point wasn’t directly at the OP but was a rant at the senseless “no jack, no SD card, DOA” comment which can be seen at the launch of a phone who’s manufacturer hasn’t included those features for 5 or more years. It’s just beating a dead horse at this point. It is like expecting CRT TVs to be the default instead of flat TVs. CRTs also had advantages but the market has moved on. Additionally I think it might be better to actually comment about a phone having a headphone jack or SD card slot or both of those since that’s a much more positive way of looking at things since not having them is the default now.
My comment mentioned why the SD card was removed. To paraphrase Linus, they’re the cheapest form of NAND storage and are extremely unreliable.
Your comment mentioned why you personally don't like using SD cards, though I disagree that it's a reason to remove the functionality completely, which is why I wouldn't buy a phone without a slot. If you're having such reliability issues, you should buy a higher quality SD card. They're objectively more reliable than cloud storage though, should you ever go somewhere where network connectivity is an issue. And 128 GB is almost nothing, kinda proving my point that this is more of a use case point than an argument against the feature.
Also if they hadn’t removed the jack I doubt we would have seen as much progress with truly wireless earbuds.
Given that they're still using Bluetooth, which is still terrible with any interference, low bandwidth, and has the same tedious connectivity problems it's had for the past decade...I'd argue we have yet to see that progress where it matters.
the market has moved on.
If that were true, there wouldn't be so many people vocally expressing why new products aren't adequate without these basic features.
My initial comment also mentioned why developers hated the SD card slot. To quote Koush
The SD card needs to go away. It’s a nightmare for developers. There’s too much variability here. SD Cards can be slow, resulting in poor app performance. They can come and go, or be swapped, and that results in unpredictable behavior if an app was expecting an SD card. One contiguous block of data needs to become the standard here (with different OEM SKUs for more/less storage), as it has been on iOS since the first iPhone.
The comments from Linus came from an industry insider he said he trusts. I would be inclined to believe him since he used to carry a Note9 and was a massive advocate of SD cards.
Also don’t think the reliability of the cards was an issue when I got them, they were high rated Samsung and Sandisk models.
And 128 GB is almost nothing, kinda proving my point that this is more of a use case point than an argument against the feature.
You’re looking at this from the point of a power user and not the average person. Most normal people just get the base variant when they see it has 128 GB and are happy with it.
They’re objectively more reliable than cloud storage though, should you ever go somewhere where network connectivity is an issue
I mentioned I dislike cloud storage but with USB-C ports I can actually use my external SSD or a USB drive to backup my phone if I want to although it’s not something I do often.
Given that they’re still using Bluetooth, which is still terrible with any interference, low bandwidth, and has the same tedious connectivity problems it’s had for the past decade…I’d argue we have yet to see that progress where it matters.
When was the last time you used a Bluetooth headset? I had issues initially in 2018 and 2019 but things like the Galaxy Buds+ and newer generations of truly wireless earbuds have fixed the connectivity and interference issues. Some Bluetooth headphones support LDAC and LHDC codecs which allow for high bandwidth. LDAC is part of AOSP so it should be on every Android phone running Oreo or newer unless the OEM has removed it for some reason.
If that were true, there wouldn’t be so many people vocally expressing why new products aren’t adequate without these basic features.
That’s because there are a small group of enthusiasts who are extremely vocal. Most people have moved on, they may want one or both features but they aren’t dealbreakers for them. Also wouldn’t say a bunch of enthusiasts complaining means it expresses the sentiments of everyone. Look at the outcry about the iPhone mini, it didn’t sell very well but online communities would have you believe it was the most popular device of that lineup.
When they fail, the average consumer blames the phone and not the cheap SD card they put into it.
I remember I received a notification about a card that was about to fail or something, because it was too old. That was on an older Huawei phone but still. So I don't think it's this usual for people not to be aware that their SD cards would soon go away (instead of thinking they have a problem with their phones).
Not sure if all manufacturers do this, there are also instances where the user might set up the SD card as adoptable storage which would make it hard to differentiate between internal storage and the SD card.
How many people are going to read that properly? We’re not just talking about enthusiasts, regular users will do it if they get the option and think they can store their apps on there.
I like expandable storage, as I usually keep the SD card as a secondary partition. If my phone dies for whatever reason, I just pull that card out and stick it into a new phone.
Well yeah NAND has a certain amount of read/write cycles but it’s always going to be an issue with SD cards because they’re using the cheapest form of NAND. As a result of that they’re not going to get some of the complex safety mechanisms that are built into internal NAND. So I think we’ll have to disagree here.
I’m not against expandable storage at all, I wish more phones did have it as an option to be clear.
I am curious what exactly is going on these SD cards that everyone wants though. I personally haven’t gotten close to my storage limit since the default internal memory was 32GB.
I travel quite a bit, both for work and because I like going places. Often, internet is somewhere between unavailable and shitty. I keep a mess of music, movies, and tv shows synced/cached from Plex (which keeps fresh content via downloaded smart playlists that update as I watch episodes, etc.) and usually a couple of audiobooks in case I find myself making a long drive.
I'd love to see those features in phones today; all of those are basically dead in the US market (Xperia 1 V gets two out of three, Zenfone 10 at least gets the 3.5mm jack...might be some cheap Motorola something that still has a jack, as well?).
Me personally, I could even live with just the 3.5mm jack. The whole argument of "it's for waterproofing/making the phone thinner/insert BS excuse here" falls flat when my Galaxy S9 has a 3.5mm jack and the same IP68 rating as the Pixel 8, yet manages to be thinner.
I have maintained for a while that if phones came with 2 USB ports instead of just 1 you could have your cake and eat it too. My biggest gripe with the lack of a headphone jack is that I can’t charge my phone and listen at the same time. 2 ports, one on each side for right and left handed people to pick their favorite charging location and you get a ton of other options for peripherals that way.
At this point, I'd honestly be fine with that too. Unfortunately it looks like one of the only ones around that has two USB-C ports is the Asus ROG Phone 7 & 7 Ultimate, which both already have a headphone jack too, lol.
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