I mean we all know about the sideloading restriction thing. So I wanna explore alternative OSes, just gathering info, not sure if I'll even end up buying another phone (currently have a Samsung as a main phone, and in North America they are bootloader locked).
Like I know Graphene OS is supposedly more secure, but is it worth paying so much more for a phone? And used phones are kinda sketchy btw, most originate from a carrier so unlockability is in question (I'm not playing the buy/return "lootbox" game lol, so much hassle and its never guaranteed when a seller would even accept a return).
The moto I was looking at apparantly was on CalyxOS's supported list, but they suspended development for some reason, so Lineage is the only Custom ROM left other than Graphene.
Graphene seems cool, but idk if its really that much better. Getting a pixel is directly giving Google the most money, and I don't feel so good about that after they closed sourced Pixel device tree codes (or whatever that thing was called that they closed sourced), and then they killed sideloading, feels wrong to be buying a pixel right now. So that leaves me with just Lineage. And I could get a much cheaper phone too going Lineage.
So TLDR: If you were to recommend a phone to someone, which would you recommend? Expensive phone for Graphene, or Cheap phone and just use Lineage? Or something else?
Something to note about GrapheneOS and its leadership (my personal opinion):
The main guy (I forget his name) can be rather hostile in his communications with other people - more hostile than even Louis Rossmann (which says a lot) - and seems to be incredibly paranoid. From what I've seen in all his communications I've come across, he seems to have a particularly nasty case of "if you're not with us, then you're against us". With everyone. Once he thinks that you might have any qualms with him or his product, he will become hostile and defend his position until you either leave or he bans you from any community he has control over. I've been down that road a couple times.
That said - Graphene is a solid ROM for those concerned about security, especially so if you relock the bootloader. I don't think you'll find a more secure ROM, and I think his paranoia lends to that aspect a lot.
Best secure Android experience. Certainly not the best from a usability standpoint, but I digress. If security is what you're looking for, Graphene is definitely the way to go. Just proceed with caution.
So you hold a grudge because they banned you for something, and now you're passive-aggressively spreading FUD, even as you recognize its superior security. What do you even mean by proceeding with caution? Be careful you don't get banned from a chat server, or something more vague and nefarious? This kind of petty mud slinging is the bane of open source software's existence everywhere.
Unrelated to the above, but what do you mean by this? Graphene is by far the most usable custom ROM I have ever used. Everything just works out of the box, including Google Play and banking apps (at least the ones I use) without compromising on privacy or security. The only times I've encountered a broken app, I could always fix them by disabling the hardened allocator for that app in the app info dialog, which does technically compromise security a little, but is a low risk trade off in most cases.
EDIT: I came to these conclusions on my own without any outside influence - only personal observations and experiences with Graphene and it's devs.
No grudges held, and I, personally, wasn't banned from anything. I've had conversations with him a couple times, and observed many of his comments in threads where he gets extremely defensive or outright hostile over very little.
Hardly. You wanna bring up FUD? There's a thread on Graphene's own forum regarding the situation with Calyx OS where the dude absolutely trashes Calyx based completely on speculation and his past experiences with CopperheadOS. One of the people who recently left Calyx eventually came into that thread and gave some context. Hell, Louis Rossman, an infamous asshole in his own right, even got fed up with this dude and tried to set the record straight TWO YEARS AGO.
In Louis' video, the Graphene dude had the balls to claim "autism" as a defense to his attitude, which, as a father to a few kids on the spectrum, is 100% bullshit and a straight slap in the face. You cannot be an absolute ass to people as a grown ass adult, and then claim "but autism".
Well, yeah - this is one of those cases where one can easily separate the art from the artist, so to speak. The "art" is objectively good, as it's pretty clear the guy puts in a lot of work to make it that way. I recommended it to a friend just yesterday who almost got suckered into some proprietary "privacy" garbage.
He's an absolute ass when it comes to criticism of any sort, validity be damned.
Dude clearly hasn't gotten that message, given his own complete trashing of Calyx's situation.
It's one thing to be critical of a person's attitude on a public forum, especially when that person heads a well-known project. It is a completely different thing to absolutely trash an entire project on a public forum simply because you don't agree with some of their methods.
I encourage you (and anyone else seeing this) to actually go and watch Techlore's Graphene OS videos that the dude constantly drags through the mud as well. I think you'll be surprised. The dude needs to seek help, and I mean that in the most legitimately concerned way possible.
I think that just comes down to what the typical custom ROM user expects. The aggressive sandboxing and other security measures can break things like notifications, banking apps, and whatnot, which the typical custom ROM user might have issues with. But like you said, fixing it is trivial, albeit with some compromises in the security model of Graphene OS itself.