GrapheneOS in 2027 available on high-end Motorola phones

There is a little bit of clumsiness in the way Google communicates with the public. What they really mean to say is: we need to be broken up.

Yeah, its the "well, legally, we have to provide the source code, but we make it as painful and slow for you as we can without it becoming a blatant violation of the GPL."

At this point, without Git commit history (assuming it is a bare code dump), is it still even possible to guarantee it is what Google says it is?

> Google, this small tech company (correct me if I'm wrong), is peddling source code via tarballs on google drive.

What is the context for this? It's not clear to me from the linked social media post.

The Android kernel source code is in git: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/common/

Plus there's a lot of other Android source hosted on Google's git servers: https://android.googlesource.com/

> ...after making a request through Google Forms This is even more ridiculous to me.

3 years, checks out. Probably buddy buddy with someone. Reminds me of that 3rd Google Pay they made that they had to sack because it was so dumb.

I knew it would be their higher end devices but I really wish they would have put it on their lower end as well.

I have a Moto G running LineageOS and it's my favorite phone ever. The ability to have my 800GB of music synced to a sdcard is something I'm loath to give up.

What I hope is that a compact and high-end device will have Graphene support.

The 2026 Signature doesn't appear to be for sale in the US. Does this mean we have to wait for the lower end devices if we don't want a fold/flip?

All the existing apps are on Android and iOS. Graphene lets you run them. You can't have a bank account on a Linux phone* because they won't let you, but you can on Android including on Graphene.

* before replying snarkily that Android is Linux, please take a long walk off a short pier, thanks

Like others have said, it comes down to apps mostly. But there is also the fact that Google and others have spent more than a decade optimizing the OS for appliances. Android was built from the ground up for mobile devices and handles things like background apps, notifications, and charging as expected on a phone. All of this could be ported or rebuilt, but the work has already been done for Android and billions of devices prove that it works.

Because it's a mobile platform and "GNU+Linux" is laughably terrible in this space.

It's almost like Android has put millions of expert dev hours into making it the most used OS in the world. Like GNU+linux on laptops only works the way it does because of android-upstreamed battery saver kernel features.

But a mobile is also people's most used devices with all of their data, bank accounts etc there - it has to be safe. And GNU+linux has not even a single thought about security, while android just has it worked out (every app runs as its own user, so it's even built on standard UNIX security).

A mobile OS also has to race to suspend and for that it needs cooperation from "apps" -- desktop apps just run, they don't care about anything besides SIGKILL. That's not a workable model on a mobile and android solves it.

And I say all that as someone who runs linux everywhere I can and I absolutely love it. It's imo the best kernel out there -- but the userspace is not where it should be and if anything, the correct question would be what can we take from Android and add to GNU+Linux. (And nix is fantastic, but it's a packaging solution, I don't really see how it comes into question here. I can run nix on my android phone just fine by the way)

Everyone else mentioned the app support which is true, but for graphene specifically, they do not like desktop Linux at all because they don't like its security. They would much rather build on AOSP than desktop linux.

GOS is broadly compatible with most phone use cases out of the box--chat, mail, browsing. A Google Play profile lets me use almost all apps (including my bank apps, but I understand that's not true for everyone).

In principle I agree about a Linux phone, but the gaps are much greater. I am also sympathetic to the GOS team's arguments that sandboxing on Android is better, and important on a device that allows control of essentially my whole life (2FA apps etc.)

Because you need app support. Not even Microsoft could pull that off.

once Huawei was forbidden from using Android - that's when people ie western markets & the world at large should've shifted. look at HarmonyOS.

in China - there's no google apps available on their 'android' versions.

their platforms are already performant and fluid - so people should build on that.

i recently put debian (mobian) on a pixel 3a and it's pretty solid, though i haven't tried it out as daily driver yet.

claude code makes stuff like that super accessible to do in your spare time. another example is installing debian on a synology 918+, there's no way i would've had the grit to do that without ai. it's open season for any gadget that's got a debug uart port.

Because without Android I can't run WhatsApp and my bank's app on my phone, which promptly reduces it to a paperweight. I wish it wasn't so, but reality refuses to cooperate, so let's just be happy that we've got GrapheneOS which is so good it has its own column in Cellebrite's support matrix.

Because Android is miles ahead in terms of security, permission management, app separation, power management, privacy...

Linux crowd can not even agree on compositor, and if systemd or sudo is a good idea.

Apps. We'd love a completely different OS and it is viable on desktop because web almost does everything but on mobile you're basically locked out of very essential functionality like banking, transit, messaging etc. The compatibility layers aren't good enough (yet) to offer a seamless experience.

Your point is valid for every flavor of Android except GrapheneOS.

GrapheneOS’ security model makes that of desktop Linux look like a joke.

This is an objective analysis based on x86 security, GrapheneOS hardening (including isolation and hardened mem allocator), Pixel hardware security.

Because the Android Runtime (ART) is very necessary to run APKs, and APKs are the only non-iOS standard for packaging mobile apps that is supported enough to be viable. Without it, you might get some open source apps to run on a linux phone, but you won't have banking apps, clash of clans, or a million other things people really would like to have on their phones.

AOSP has way better security and therefore privacy than desktop linux.

All we had to do was build PWAs instead of native apps and instead all we did was build PWAs into bad browser wrappers.

I don't either. Don't we have free market capitalism? Why don't I have a Linux phone? And why do I need to worry that my government and banking apps won't work if I get a Linux phone?

AOSP is Linux.

If by "mainstream" Linux you mean something like postmarketOS, I'd suggest you look up reviews or give it a try yourself. A few months ago, people were reporting a hard time placing a call, taking a photo, etc.

No current Motorola phones meet their hardware requirements. 2027 flagship models will be the first to be supported.

https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/2058730195041812839

https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/2064124713501163912

Not sure about other phones, but ThinkPhone 23 was supposed to get Android 16 anyway

https://www.androidauthority.com/lenovo-thinkphone-hands-on-...

They didn't "ban" them, but they did enable some attestation feature that effectively "bans" anything that isn't Google Android.

Which still makes you wonder why Volkswagen is so keen on alienating what little is left of their customer base with completely stupid security theater.

I have a GrapheneOS phone and I pay with Curve.

I don't doubt they will cost more than the Pixel line, but I'm somewhat skeptical that the hardware will be higher quality. Perhaps my idea of what Motorola is capable of is outdated.

Iirc they said they will be able to release Android updates like Android 17, for example, at the time it's released. This year it was a few weeks until it came to stable.

This somewhat indicates to me it will be available when the Motorolas release which should be on their regular release patterns. That's been May for the 2025 and 2026 Razrs.

All other phones will have a higher price tag due to memory hogging by datacenters. How much will that google pixel 10 be when the motorolla phone arrives?

Security-through-obscurity (i.e. using a custom ROM on a lesser-known device) does have some upsides, since you're less likely to be compatible with off-the-shelf exploits. But this is much less true now that LLMs exist, and anyone who can afford the tokens can port any exploit to any and all vulnerable devices.

Who maintains the kernel+driver trees used by the LineageOS port you're using? And what's the modem's security like?

Are you also one of those people who think AES is backdoored because the NSA recommends it?

There has been successful honeypots like EncroChat. What's the evidence that GrapheneOS is not yet another one?

Since we're speculating here, I hope whatever phone you have allows you to lock the bootloader (My oneplus doesn't after installing LineageOS). And certainly NSA has no way of infiltrating AOSP or less hardened chipsets.

so you think whole thing is a honeypot ? I mean you're not alone.