kernel (Pixel): restore Android 17 (CP2A) mmap read-ahead behavior to resolve stuttering due to memory pressure caused by an upstream Pixel kernel change in Android 17 QPR1
If you had the performance problem from the previous update, this should fix it.
https://grapheneos.org/releases#2026100200Open linkView original on lemmy.zip
Has anyone noticed the VPN disconnecting when charging the phone? Using IVPN, but I saw reports of Proton VPN too.
Happens every time. The VPN app has all permissions and unrestricted battery use.
I can't enable "Always On VPN" because Android Auto needs the split bypass, and breaks if that is enabled.
Devices: Pixel 9 Pro XL(main) & Pixel Tablet(testbed)
Goal: To "degoogle" as much as possible. So, no Google apps, no Google Play Store, etc.
Web Installer Shoutout
I have some experience with flashing custom ROMs on Android devices. I remember flashing Android on my HTC HD2 ~20 years ago, put LineageOS on a Samsung tablet a couple of years ago, and messed around with custom roms on Xiaomi, Huawei, LG, and Samsung phones.
So I just have to point out that the Web Installer for Graphene was the easiest rom flash I have ever experienced. I was fully expecting having to go old school and do it manually, but I am so impressed with the ease of use here. Installing android-tools on my Arch laptop, rebooting, and then plugging my phone in and my web browser just hooking into my phone...just pure bliss.
Out-of-Box Experience and Aesthetics
I gotta say I was rather put off with the aesthetic of the OS after first setup. The black and white color scheme for the icons and wallpaper just made me...depressed? Like all the life or energy left my phone after installing Graphene. I think allowing a color/theme picker during first time setup, and potentially a few wallpapers to pick from, would go a long way for first impressions. I know you can do this after with ease, just "first impressions" wise it was a negative for me personally.
After downloading a new wallpaper and doing some color on the icons just made the device "come alive" in my eyes and felt more inviting. Just a tiny nitpick.
Scrcpy
One thing I was dreading to do was having to setup everything on my phone again. I use a password manager, so some of my passwords are 20+ characters. One tool I was able to find before setting up was "scrcpy" on Github, which allows you to mirror your android device screen to your desktop PC, complete with keyboard input and mouse emulating touch, as well as clipboard/copy+paste functionality. Not a huge need, but helped me immensely with my sanity. Just being able to quickly copy and paste github URLs into Obtanium was a huge win.
Device Settings
Overall I am impressed with the feature set of Graphene. All of the basics are there and I love being able to fine tune permissions and more. I haven't done anything crazy(no multiple profiles), but I do love the options available. One of my biggest pet peeves is the lack of options we have in modern software and services today.
Contacts, SMS, Call History
Straight up I forgot to export my Contacts AND I never turned on Contact backups to my Google account, lol.
But I did export my SMS/MMS via the SMS Backup & Restore utility. This turned out to be more work/questions/troubleshooting than I realized.
What I should've done before wiping my phone was:
I ended up having to go through all of my texts, read through the texts and use context clues to determine who I was talking to, and then added those numbers in my contacts with the person's name. Took me 10-15 minutes. Small blunder, but not a huge loss.
App Choices
Prior to installing Graphene on my phone, I wrote down all the apps I was using and I researched which ones had public repos to pull apk releases from and tested it on my Pixel Tablet with Obtanium, then whatever was left over try to find alternatives, and anything else...well use the website for the service.
For most of the apps I was able to find public repos and/or decent alternatives. For example instead of Gmail I just installed Thundebird and set it up through that(trying to slowly migrate from Gmail in general..., but that's another battle). Proton Mail and Proton VPN have their apps on their Github. I was using Proton Authenticator but...no public repo I could find, so I switched to Aegis, which imported my Proton Auth export just fine. I was already using KeePassDX and Syncthing to sync my passwords.
Other apps like banking, finance(brokerage, 401k), ebay, Costco, etc. I've just resigned to using the website directly. Sucks and is a huge inconvenience on most aspects...but...oh well? I don't "need" them. My only hold up is Zelle right now for the occasional taco truck payment, but my wife has a iPhone and can do the payments that way...
Steam I thought was going to be a huge loss or force me to use Google Play but...Steam actually provides their apk on their website. I still need to try to figure out a way to add it to Obtanium, but having to manually update my Steam apk is fine by me. QR/camera is not popping up for me, either a permission issue or because of some Play integrity thing maybe? Haven't troubleshooted much yet.
One of my biggest "hurdles" is/was music. I already planned on cancelling Spotify, but my plan was to move to Plex Amp(been running Plex for 10+ years at home) and wouldn't you know it...Plex doesn't have their apks available at all outside of Google Play Store. So I had to spin up a Jellyfin server, luckily I am already running Tailscale, and ended up finding and installing "Finamp" and everything seems to be working fine. I don't listen to a huge catalogue of music so this was an easier switch for me than probably others will experience.
RCS (My other biggest hurdle)
I have to do a mini-rant here. I was under the impression that RCS was supposed to be an open standard(or, "more open" standard) compared to something like iMessage or WhatsApp. I know this is my fault for not keeping up with the news, but I am beyond upset with how Google is handling this. Since I am doing "degoogle" I did not install Google Play, so no Google Messages. Little did I know that I was not receiving work related group chats because it was sending the messages to my Google Messages profile and not my phone number via MMS. I didn't know this until a coworker was asking why I wasn't responding to our boss on the group chat.
Luckily my boss knows what Graphene is and after a short explanation we both agreed that it is pretty ridiculous that Google is gatekeeping RCS. So I have unregistered my phone number with Google and now I have to wait...THIRTY DAYS? WHAT THE FUCK.
What's worse is that I can not sign into the website for Google Messages because it requires a phone number/phone auth...even Apple allows you to still communicate over iMessage with your Apple ID. Why the fuck can't I do the same with Google Messages with my Google Account until the thirty days is up at least?
I am sure I may not have to wait the full thirty days...but here we are a week later and I still cannot receive group chats via MMS. I can send texts and pictures to the group. I can text 1:1 to people via SMS and send photos over MMS to another singular person and they can send me pictures via MMS. But group chats are straight broken for me right now and I know it's Google's fault due to RCS.
Right now I was able to get my wife to install and use Signal, so that's a huge win. Hopefully I can convince others but again...another battle.
I am both excited and terrified for the next year or two in tech. There's a lot to look forward to and also a lot to be weary of. I have already gone full Linux for my desktop/laptop late last year(shout-out to Cachy!) and so far I have zero plans on leaving Graphene. Once my MMS issue goes away I will be mostly stable. I am currently looking into user profiles a bit more and seeing how things play out over the next month or two. My usual day-to-day on my phone is pretty standard(messaging the wife, listening to music on my commute, browsing the web), but my month-to-month used to involve going over my finances via my banking apps and making sure CC payments were posted correctly. I plan on doing this via the websites going forward, but it is a kick in the nuts for me convenience wise.
I am happy with GrapheneOS. I think whether you plan on deGoogle'ing entirely OR you just want more control over your device, Graphene gives you those options and Google does not. If you're on the fence I say go for it. Again my biggest pet peeve in life is not having OPTIONS. With Graphene I am given a dozen different ways to setup my phone for my specific use cases, but with Google it is "their way or the highway" mentality.
Hey there,
I got a screen protector with anti-spy. the unlock with fingerprint does not work quite well - I even registered it completely new.
I heard that Spigen works well with Pixel / Graphene. Unfortunately there is no privacy for the Pixel 9A. Is there any brand that works good with it besides spigen?
tried search but.. haven't been successful.
I mean absolutely no caching or device access whatsoever. I do not care what parts of the internet stop working. I want de facto native untrusted as the standard and universally so. Absolutely no shared libraries, and totally untrusted secession to session. When it is closed, hash is checked every time and again when opened. The silicon valley manifesto of projecting opinions and ideals is authoritarian techno fascism that requires this type of response, and further like locale, device specifics, and uuid spoofing. Heck, I want to kill alsa and v2l4 kernel modules unless I explicitly enable them. Possible, or time to ditch mobile devices entirely?
just wondering if anyone can help me fix this. I bought the pixel 10 a few days ago and installed graphene on it. but I have this issue where the ringer volume will turn itself down to like 10 percent for no reason constantly. very frustrating as I have a lot of important calls I can't keep missing due to the ringer being barely audible.
edit June 4 2026: it was a setting called notification cooldown. had to turn it off.
I noticed this notification when I last used Android Auto. I'm obviously not updating until Graphene pushes a sanctified version of AA in the Graphene App Store.
