I used Linux Libre kernel for a bit - honestly surprised at how well most things still worked? The biggest downside seems to be Wi-Fi drivers - except for that one Atheros card, none of the modern Wi-Fi cards will work without Linux firmware blobs

Inkscape is one of those programs that’d just there and works whenever you need SVG editing - actually standard SVG that renders in browse tagsr or exports cleanly (looking at you Illustrator)… Combine with Sozi to get interesting presentations - have even had friends get away with editing files for CNC on Inkscape. IMO easier than GIMP as well so for simole graphics, I just import PNGs into Inkscape, do the layers, effects and text, then export back…

Not even what it was once close to being unfortunately on the android side either.

Android users have also been losing features every year.

Flagships have seen the removal of:

-SD card expansion - what we could once count on to use phones like mirrorless cameras is now gone so they can rip you off for higher non expandable storage (128GB SD? $10. 128 -> 256 GB base? $200)

• 3.5mm - why buy cheap wired headphones when you can force people to spend 10x as much on wireless! Coming up with a solution to a problem they invented.

• IR blaster - yes I used it since it worked on TV, receiver, DVD player, air conditioner, etc. Also super convenient if you have used stuff you bought without the remote

• FM radio - yes I used it again since no data needed! Can also be fun to listen to campus radio or when travelling

• notification led - The RGB led was pretty good when you had binds foe each app to know who texted you and why. Always on OLED draws substantially more power than the LED did

• Always unlocked bootloaders - the custom ROM scene was pretty big at one point, but has shrunk as more manufacturs have begun locking bootloaders ‘for safety’

• removable battery - phone no longer holding a good charge? $15 fix. Was also super convenient since I bought a spare that I kept charged and in my bag, meaning I could go 0% to 100% in 2 mins… better than fast charge!

List could go on for longer. Maybe it’s just nostalgia but I do miss some of those days.

RedoxOS! There’s been solid progress too, beyond just having a functional microkernel, they have many of the userspace tools/their version of coreutils, even a desktop environment already mostly implemented!

My understanding is that it shouldn’t be too bad to port some other things over as well. The main issue I had was just the lack of drivers, especially since it’s still tricky even on Linux, and the microkernel architecture (though more secure) also means there’s no way to reuse any of those from Linux