What are 'replicant' and /e/?

[daniel]

I was going over the OS PP can run and saw 'Replicant' and /e/

From their websites, 'Replicant' looks Android version for free software and /e/ an OS for private data?
Not clear if they are Linux or what OS?
I thought Android was a Linux made private by Google, so how it can be free?

Can anyone shed some light here?

[saba]

I think Replicant is android without the non-free blobs and it only works on a few phones, mostly older hardware like some of the early Galaxy phones. And I think /e/ is a custom android rom where they try to replace gmail and some other google services with their own.

edit: Android is open source(the base android system/AOSP), but the google apps and services are not.

[daniel]

Thanks for the answer

So, Replicant and /e/ are thought to de-google Android phones.  So, even they could potentially run on PinePhone, it sounds non-sense. They were build to run on android phones without the spy apps from google. So, why make it for a clean empty hardware as PP? Only because it can be done?? Defeats their goal.

Clear now.

thanks!

[natasha]

yep! they look out of place

[saba]

Thanks for the answer

So, Replicant and /e/ are thought to de-google Android phones.  So, even they could potentially run on PinePhone, it sounds non-sense. They were build to run on android phones without the spy apps from google. So, why make it for a clean empty hardware as PP? Only because it can be done?? Defeats their goal.

Clear now.

thanks!

Defeats whose goal?  AOSP, which both Replicant and /e/ are based is an open source phone operating system, just like all of the others here.  I'm sure some pinephone owners will be interested in it.

[wibble]

So, Replicant and /e/ are thought to de-google Android phones.  So, even they could potentially run on PinePhone, it sounds non-sense. They were build to run on android phones without the spy apps from google. So, why make it for a clean empty hardware as PP? Only because it can be done?? Defeats their goal.

The goal is to have a usable smartphone and app ecosystem without the Google/Apple requirement, and with long term support. They've run on android phones because until recently because there hasn't been an alternative, but it has a limitation in that the closed drivers required by much of the available hardware limit the ability to upgrade the kernel. Running on hardware with upstream kernel support removes this limitation. The AOSP base allows for a functional phone with relatively little effort, unlike the linux developments where we're missing widely adopted APIs for some of the core functionality expected in smartphones. Repositories like f-droid provide a decent number of open and phone-friendly apps, while we're struggling to make desktop apps fit a smartphone display and work well with only a touchscreen.

Replicant and /e/ are no more out of place than GloDroid. LineageOS and GrapheneOS would probably have been interested if the bootloader could meet their security requirements.

[daniel]

So, Replicant and /e/ are thought to de-google Android phones.  So, even they could potentially run on PinePhone, it sounds non-sense. They were build to run on android phones without the spy apps from google. So, why make it for a clean empty hardware as PP? Only because it can be done?? Defeats their goal.

The goal is to have a usable smartphone and app ecosystem without the Google/Apple requirement, and with long term support. They've run on android phones because until recently because there hasn't been an alternative, but it has a limitation in that the closed drivers required by much of the available hardware limit the ability to upgrade the kernel. Running on hardware with upstream kernel support removes this limitation. The AOSP base allows for a functional phone with relatively little effort, unlike the linux developments where we're missing widely adopted APIs for some of the core functionality expected in smartphones. Repositories like f-droid provide a decent number of open and phone-friendly apps, while we're struggling to make desktop apps fit a smartphone display and work well with only a touchscreen.

Replicant and /e/ are no more out of place than GloDroid. LineageOS and GrapheneOS would probably have been interested if the bootloader could meet their security requirements.

Ok, so, the reason for these two OS is to remove from Andoid the google spying apps. Then this leads to a new OS which can  also be run on a PinePhone, and you are saying that the advantage of this deGoogle-OS is that already is phone-app friendly.
So, I guess they have already a bunch of drivers to run android phones hardware, and now the limitation would be to develop the drivers for pinephone hardware?

[wibble]

So, Replicant and /e/ are thought to de-google Android phones.  So, even they could potentially run on PinePhone, it sounds non-sense. They were build to run on android phones without the spy apps from google. So, why make it for a clean empty hardware as PP? Only because it can be done?? Defeats their goal.

The goal is to have a usable smartphone and app ecosystem without the Google/Apple requirement, and with long term support. They've run on android phones because until recently because there hasn't been an alternative, but it has a limitation in that the closed drivers required by much of the available hardware limit the ability to upgrade the kernel. Running on hardware with upstream kernel support removes this limitation. The AOSP base allows for a functional phone with relatively little effort, unlike the linux developments where we're missing widely adopted APIs for some of the core functionality expected in smartphones. Repositories like f-droid provide a decent number of open and phone-friendly apps, while we're struggling to make desktop apps fit a smartphone display and work well with only a touchscreen.

Replicant and /e/ are no more out of place than GloDroid. LineageOS and GrapheneOS would probably have been interested if the bootloader could meet their security requirements.

Ok, so, the reason for these two OS is to remove from Andoid the google spying apps. Then this leads to a new OS which can  also be run on a PinePhone, and you are saying that the advantage of this deGoogle-OS is that already is phone-app friendly.
So, I guess they have already a bunch of drivers to run android phones hardware, and now the limitation would be to develop the drivers for pinephone hardware?

More or less, for at least a subset of the people developing and using them. It's open source after all - a bunch of people with different motivations and red lines that sometimes work together towards a common interest, or descend into religious wars over something other people think trivial. Some will probably think the PinePhone is useless because of the low spec while others will think it's great because there's open support for all the hardware and it's got an aspiration towards long term hardware support.

I think the issue is the hardware abstraction layer between the kernel drivers (which we have) and the standard android interfaces, but I could be wrong - I'm no low level android dev. I think it's more or less transferable between the AOSP-based projects too, so once one of them figures out part of the puzzle the others can use it.

[pljanson]

I would not necessarily disqualify /e/, in my opinion its more than only a degoogled phone, it also replaces the useful cloud services with their own nextcloud based one.
And I think this is a good example how a linux smartphone should work.

I would like to see the nextcloud integration (preferably distribution independent) on all phos, plasma mobile, lomiri on ubports, manjaro, postmarketos, mobian etc.

Same thing goes for messengers like matrix clients, signal. preferably opensource, decentralized, encrypted

[eKeith]

I would not necessarily disqualify /e/, in my opinion its more than only a degoogled phone, it also replaces the useful cloud services with their own nextcloud based one.
And I think this is a good example how a linux smartphone should work.

I would like to see the nextcloud integration (preferably distribution independent) on all phos, plasma mobile, lomiri on ubports, manjaro, postmarketos, mobian etc.

Same thing goes for messengers like matrix clients, signal. preferably opensource, decentralized, encrypted

I completely agree.

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