they used to publish a buildable AOSP tree for the device which is no longer the case

If you conceive a device to be shipped with a specific OS that's a completely different relationship with the developer than just giving the keys to the kingdom and wishing good luck, so I hardly think this is subjective

pmOS runs well on a couple OnePlus phones (6, 6T). For whatever reason the Snapdragon 845 and 865 have decent mainline support. I expect the OnePlus 8T to join the prior list of phones in the near future. You can similarly look at which gaming handhelds are supported by ROCKNIX and what SoC they use to get an idea for which ARM SoCs have decent mainline support. I expect the vast majority of phones and other ARM devices to not be very well-supported. RockChip is usually the safest bet, but I've been pleasantly surprised with some Snapdragon stuff.

I think it would be on par with camera quality— really important to some, bot not a huge deal for most.

Good enough quality screen for solid video media performance, generally, would be an absolute must I imagine.

The "general phone audience" is some 5 billion people. If even 10% of them want to play games, on what is in the current year likely to be their primary if not only computer, that's already a market segment of 500 million. It wouldn't honestly surprise me if the number is closer to 15 or 20%, mobile gaming is extremely popular.

LineageOS also discourages and doesn't support replacing the core of the OS with a rootkit providing persistent app accessible root. GrapheneOS is no different from LineageOS in that regard. People do this with GrapheneOS regardless of our strong recommendation not do it. Our reasons for discouraging it aren't vague. It very directly harms the security model and is not a good approach to implementing any of the features hacked together through it. Those features should be properly implemented to fit within the overall approach taken by GrapheneOS. Giving root access to a huge portion of the OS harms security even if you never use the feature. It does not mean you can't do it, we only recommend you don't.

The "access your own files" thing is so insane! Hard to describe my feelings [negative] when I found out that all of my voice notes were in the voice recorder and the easiest way to get them out was to manually send each one to myself over discord. Google helpfully mentions that you can just "download them through google takeout" and doesn't leave any option for people who don't just give all their personal data to google.

It's pretty easy to make your own `userdebug` build of GrapheneOS using their official build instructions

That's what I do to get `adb root` and full file system access.

> [I want root,] The fact that I own my device is non-negotiable.

I read that a lot, and I agree that I want to own my device. But that does not mean that I should have root access on the OS I choose to install on it.

Owning my device means that I should be able to install whatever OS I want. It does not mean at all that OS developers must do whatever I tell you to do.

Hm, what do you mean? What app has to let you access your files? Is this Graphene-specific?

Those "random apps" are foss terminal emulators and other various foss apps I explicitly installed.

"While the spoof key isn't blacklisted" is the critical bit. Soon, all the keys will be, as these old devices age away from being too common to blacklist.

> the concept that you shouldn't own your device for safety is so fucked.

That's not it. The concept is "if you choose to install this particular OS on the device you own, then it comes with this particular security model". That's totally fine. If you own your device, you can run Linux on it and you'll have root access.

"Not owning your device" means "not being able to install the OS you want on it". I want to own my device, obviously. But it does not mean that I own the developers of every OS in the world and that they should do whatever I tell them to do, for free.

A non rooted device is NOT really my device, just seems like a leased device.

If we want to use banking app we have to use a non-rooted/leased device. That is what is really messed up. Personally I only use bank now that has website for banking. If they don't have a web site only app, then it is a red alert for the company.

I think is great, if there are no ramifications when skilled people unlock it.

There's just too much hacking going on, malicious behaviour, to allow uneducated masses to have root on a phone. I've seen so many people just not understanding the outcome of their actions. You'd get people rooting because some shady app lied about why, and just wanted control.

And we don't need more botnets. And it's why banks sometimes throw a fit.

So if a recompile does the trick, and no downside, then it'd be fine.