Reorder9543

Buy the phone second hand. Not a cent goes to Google. From my understanding, they only support the Pixel line because it's the most secure hardware or something. Someone more knowledgable will probably explain it better though.

I'm torn between both sides of this argument. If I lost access to Netflix I wouldn't be too bothered. But, I also understand that other people see the value in it and would be happy to subscribe if they lost access to an account that was shared with them.

It's boring, but like someone else mentioned it tells you exactly what it does. So, I don't really see a problem with it.

Just out of curiosity, what difference would PAE make in this argument? What is the memory limit on a PAE-enabled kernel? What other differences would it make?

LineageOS would probably also be a decent choice if they don't absolutely have to have no Google at all.

Try Osmand or Organic Maps. Both available from F-droid. Magic Earth is an option if you're using Aurora Store or downloading APKs.

They say Emacs is an amazing OS, with the best calendar, to-do list, email client, etc. Just missing a good text editor.

There's also Slide, which is a fork of the old Reddit app. But, that's not very active. There's quite a few actually. There was a thread with a bunch linked but I don't remember where it was posted.

Edit: Found it!

Honestly, what I like about it started with the mascot. Otherwise, I like the fact that the rolling release has automatic testing to make sure it's mostly reliable. Many people will also tell you how amazing YaST, their "control panel", is. There's definitely some stuff to get used to, like patterns and zypper. But, for a set and forget system, it's hard to beat IMO.

If you're looking for stable and up to date, give openSUSE Tumbleweed a shot.

Hell, I have a laptop that's over 10 years old. It isn't officially supported on Windows 11, but I'm sure I could get it on there in some unsupported way, using Rufus or another tool that removes the TPM requirements and have it be usable and secure. It runs Windows 10 without complaints. I can run an up to date Linux distro on it and be completely up to date and secure. So, like you said, why can't phones do the same?

Basically, it's only gotten worse now.