Noxy

I didn’t know Australia was a color!

Oh definitely not, I meant more just an occasional media PC

Desktop mode, Steam Deck Dock, and whichever streaming service through Firefox or flatpak app or whatever

Streaming video to a TV

That makes sense, and immutable OSes seem like a great idea from a security standpoint

Oh right, those. I honestly completely forgot that’s a thing. And is a fair point, even tho I just use physical cards I totally understand the convenience and security benefits of token based payment systems like that

Seems like you can’t re-lock the bootloader after installing an alternative OS, for one

I know exactly as much as you do about it. Just quoting the lead dev.

It’s unfortunately really not that simple. But for a short answer, I use Aurora Store for anything I can’t get from F-Droid., and even tho I have the Google Play Store installed (as some apps require it for stuff like notifications or location) I’m not ever signed into it and I don’t use it to install or update apps

Which payments don’t work?

I do, yes. First on a Pixel 5 and then (and currently) on a Pixel 8 Pro.

The purely emotional icky feeling of giving Google money is far less important than the tangible security, privacy, and usability upsides of GrapheneOS on a supported device. But if that’s important to you, just buy a Pixel secondhand, Google gets no money from that.

I wish more devices were supported too, but my understanding is that only Google makes devices that are both secure and open enough.

Article in German, but the relevant points from the GrapheneOS lead are all in english: https://www.kuketz-blog.de/weshalb-grapheneos-aktuell-nur-google-pixel-geraete-unterstuetzt/

One point about Samsung:

Samsung takes security almost as seriously as Google, but they deliberately cripple their devices when you unlock them to install another OS and don’t allow an alternate OS to use important security features

Two credit union apps work fine, venmo and paypal work fine. YMMV with other financial institutions but it’s not been a problem for me so far.

To answer your last question, there’s way too many differences for a lemmy comment, so I suggest reading their features page for a broad overview: https://grapheneos.org/features

One feature that’s closest yo your question, though:

Google Play receives absolutely no special access or privileges on GrapheneOS as opposed to bypassing the app sandbox and receiving a massive amount of highly privileged access.

extremely pedantic whining over the term “ROM”, but when has a custom android distribution ever dealt with “read-only memory”? is or was there some immutable component of Android that could be interpreted as read-only?

also I switched from iPhones to Google Pixels running GrapheneOS four years ago and I’ve never looked back, it’s really solid and gives me the amount of control I expect and demand over hardware I’ve purchased upfront. Pedantry aside, I strongly recommend GrapheneOS

Its good. Not perfect, but better than I expected.

Headphones definitely recommended, a halfway decent Atmos home theater system sounds great but I still picked up subtle sounds better with even just bluetooth headphones.

Ambience is very much on point. Dialogue is a good mix of well-acted, and a tad “off” like the original. Angela and Eddie seem faithfully redone, so far. James too honestly.

Apartments were a nice change-up from the original, not too different thematically but still essentially a whole new layout, not at all a copy and paste job. Showdown with big knife guy was a big departure, though. Not sure if better or worse, but different from the original

Some graphical glitches (something like ghosting of the fog around objects moving on the screen, also flashes of light in the distance) sometimes that are frankly unacceptable for a $70 game, especially a game of this sort of mood, but hopefully they get those patched soon.

Combat is not exactly great. Nor was it in the original, to be fair. The dodging mechanic is a bit much, and at least on the hardest combat difficulty, it feels like you gotta already be familiar with enemy attack patterns, since it doesn’t give you much chance to learn and survive. But it does all feel learnable, so we’ll see if I just need to get gooder.

Steam achievement notifications at least one broke immersion for me, I might try to mute those next time I play.

But overall I’m very eager to resume playing after work, I left off after the apartments (and stayed up far too late doing so!)

Gotcha. For sure the jump from 30fps to 60fps is a lot more significant than a jump from 60 to 120+

All that stuff about exclusive games just sounds like sunk cost fallacy. I don’t understand how a consumer benefits in any way from exclusive titles, or how a consumer is harmed from having access to multiplatform games.

If someone gets a PS5 for a PS5 exclusive game, why wouldn’t they want the option to play other games on there as well?

I do ultimately agree with you though, the PS5 Pro is dumb - and neither the regular PS5 nor any Xbox seems worthwhile compared to PC gaming

60 fps is good enough to justify the upgrade? Could build a PC capable of well beyond that for not much more…

I think everyone should ditch consoles too, but I don’t understand the “no games” comment, I’ve played through Elden Ring, Returnal, Final Fantasy 16, Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade, Ratchet & Clank, Gran Turismo 7…

There are clearly games for it, what gives?

I very much enjoy playing PC games with a controller on a big TV away from my desk. With an optical HDMI cable I’ve never had issues pushing 4k, 120hz, and HDR. Bluetooth mice and keyboards are incredibly common. And 8BitDo’s “Ultimate” controller has been really great over 2.4ghz.

I’m so done buying console games, and consoles.

Not just because of this shit either. Games just run better on my PC. Like, a LOT better. Only thing I really use PS5 for anymore is playing blu-ray movies.