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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • I am a longtime fan of Debian Stable, for exactly that reason. I installed the XFCE version using the custom installer about 8 years ago and have had very few issues.

    Initially my GPU wasn’t well supported so I had to use the installer from Nvidia, forcing me to manually reinstall the driver after every kernel update. That issue has been fixed in recent years so now I can just use the driver from the Debian repos.

    I installed the unattended-updates package about 2 years ago and it has been smooth sailing since






  • Yes exactly. Before I got my current Pixel 7a I tried to flash a used Pixel 6a (Verizon variant) and ran into the problems above.

    Without an unlocked bootloader the install process will fail at step two, Enabling OEM unlocking, of the install guide at https://grapheneos.org/install/web.

    The OEM unlocking setting in developer options will be grayed out on all Verizon devices, even if you paid full price for an unlocked phone (not on a payment plan - some OEMs also lock phones while under contract so you can’t steal the phone and stop paying. Verizon just locks them all regardless).

    There are numerous websites with dodgy software that claim they can bypass the restriction, but in my experience 100% of them are scams. Sometimes well meaning redditors will tell you they got theirs working, but they’re conflating OEM unlocking and carrier unlocking (which, so I’ve read, Verizon employees are specifically trained to conflate)



  • The specific variant is usually listed by the seller. On Amazon if you’re buying it used I believe it would be listed near the condition information from the specific merchant.

    You may also be able to message them to ask. The model number is printed on the outside of the original box, and is also available in the About Phone settings page, so it should be easy for the seller to find it.

    The model number to avoid is G0DZQ.

    GWKK I think is the ideal version, especially if you’re traveling overseas. This is the global version so it should have the most radio bands available.

    GWKK3 (AT&T version) should work great in the US on a non-Verizon network.

    I have the G82U8 version, which apparently was originally for the Japanese market, but it works great for me in the US. I’m using Mint Mobile with GrapheneOS.

    (Source https://www.phonemore.com/models/google/pixel-7a/)









  • It’s also about making sure you can’t sue them, even if they did something wrong, even if they did it on purpose, even if they knew it was wrong when they did it.

    Instead you must agree to “binding arbitration”, so that if you lose they get to learn what strategy works against customers, and if you win they get to learn what strategy doesn’t work against customers (but in any case the details cannot be shared with other customers).

    Also, you can never participate in a class action suit, so even if they did do something wrong, on purpose, and you convinced a -judge- arbiter, you just get the $12 judgment, or whatever the value is of your actual damages. The corporation can keep the $12 they stole from each of their millions of other customers, who didn’t also start arbitration.

    It is shocking that it is even legal




  • I have had some luck asking it follow-up questions to explain what each line does. LLMs are decent at that and might even discover bugs.

    You could also copy the conversation and paste it to another instance. It is much easier to critique than to come up with something, and this holds true for AI as well, so the other instance can give feedback like “I would have suggested x” or “be careful with commands like y”